As you all know, it is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the liberation of Europe, next June. At our pond, a while ago, I was sailing my landing craft on the Sunday morning and the suggestion was made that perhaps we could ALL build a landing craft and re-enact the landings in miniature.

This suggestion was recieved very favourably and so it is our intention next year to build a fleet of assorted landing craft and have a LANDING!

We should have a fair few landing craft by next year, the only stipulation is they are approximately 1:32 or 1:35 scale, so they will all match. This is a convenient size for motorisation and also for kit tanks and soldiers to man them.

This event is ideal for our model-boating hobby, being a boating sort of event, and will be a good way to raise the model-boating profile. Events could be advertised and perhaps done in conjunction with other groups/British Legion and so on. I should think that it would warrant a few column inches in any local newspaper.

It would be nice to think that perhaps other clubs and organisations could organise their own "D-Day landings", and to this end I have created this post.. The event does not have to by anything fancy, it just needs quantities of landing craft! the more the merrier, as two landers on the pond does not an invasion make! Obviously there will be a need to make landing craft, and to this end, I have reworked my landing craft to simplify it for ease of production, and Paul T has drawn this up with his CAD tool. This is not meant to be a super scale model, but simply a starting point for anyone willing to have a go. It can be accessorised, made from thinner stuff and detailed, or simply painted Grey as per my photo. It is offered as something that will work without having to mess about. From this basic plan, any number of variants could be made, and shrunk down a bit with a different rear supertstructure, would make an LCVP or whatever.

I have used 4mm ply throughout, and the proptotype used an MFA 385 motor, coupling and cheap 2mm propshaft/40mm prop assembly ( £3.05 currently) and goes all right on a 7.2V Nimh pack. Very cheap to make and if you dont want to keep it afterwards, give it to a deserving child or indeed save them up to use at club events as boats for kids to play with on the portable pool.

In order to distribute the PDF plans– 9 sheets plus build instructions.. Paul has set up a "Just Giving" website in order to raise money for that very worthy cause ( and considering the event we are remembering) the British Legion. You simply visit this site, donate (minimum sugegsted £5) and obtain the receipt. You mail this reciept to Paul from the e-mail address you want the PDf to be sent to, and Paul will send the plans along. Easy.

**LINK** url for just giving

model-boat-fundraising@live.co.uk the mail you use to send the reciept to PAul.

This is what the plan builds, the only "extras" (besides the Tank and soldiers) are the lifting plates on the side and the bollards at the rear.

Ashley

Edited By ashley needham on 12/10/2013 17:14:01

Still no propshaft. My LST looks a bit plain but I am at a loss as to how to "busy it up"..as there was really nothing on these craft.. I could put a few railings on the rear and a bit of rope or cable on the side…but what else?? rust?? would they be that rusty?

An interesting detail I noticed were the black boards on the front to the superstructure, These were to do with sailing allocations…it denoted what group you were with and so on, and the letters and numbers could be changed depending on what sailing orders you had. I cant rememebr now but there was a better name for them. Perhaps on our D-day event we could agree to come up with a common numbering scheme!! (Jetty landing, first wave, tanks and vehicles…or something)

Ashley

Took the LCT1 out to test on the pond this afternoon, complete with TOG2 tank as the load and can report that, with a 9,6V battery on board, it goes really well. At least , it did until a prop fell off..or was it pushed?? I was actually in the side stream and may have caught some twigs up..I did a bit of reversing and so on so…

Problem here is I have used one of those cheap 2mm shaft jobs and so do not have any spare props!! I feel a small spending spree coming on.

Other than that it was nippier than expected and also reasonably stable, and needs more ballast so should be even better when this has been added. I need to get some fenders and grab ropes on the side next . Pictures were to have been taken but then it went propless so I sulked back to the car. What woth Proj no4, a bit of a disastrous outing .

Ashley

Amendment to the small LCM3 propulsive train.

I had to pinch the 40mm prop off the "easy build" prototype and replace it with a 30mm example (still as per the cheap 2mm shaft/prop package) and can report that on 7.2v the 385 motor pushes this along even better than the 40mm prop, although there is a deterioration in the already poor reversing performance. Can`t have it all. I am going to run the LST1 with TOG2 tank on 9.6 or 8.4V and so the larger props will be better for this, and the boat needs a bit more oomph being probably three times heavier than the lcm3.

A small boy tried this out today and had to hand the control back in after 3 mins, it was all just too much for him, the awesomeness of the boat. Be warned!

I have a home for the bare shell lander put together according to the printed instructions. I suggested a speed 400 or 480 will make this indecently fast, but only if you like that sort of thing..

Ashley

Trevor came round the other night and we cut up a fair few strips of ply as the planking for his 2m Corvette.

Surprised by the flexibility of the planks…worried at the amount of planks we had to cut up!!!

By contrast the ply for my 5 foot LST3 or whatever has been cut already and there only seems to be about a dozen bits!!!

Bob .Bangers in the park…a no-no!! get arrested or even worse banned!! would be tooo risky. BUT we are thinking of what to do. I will endeavour to get someone to take pictures and video clips of the extravaganza, assuming we get a good number of vessels together.

Ashley

Trevor. You are the man !! MONSTER.

Bit of a way to go yet though !!! Personally I would fibreglass up the interior before sanding the exterior to final shape so as to stop the hull flexing (the planks) as you are filling and sanding ?? when the planking has been finished of course.

Ashley