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Article
SCRAP Returns To The Water
by
Brian Eliassen
November 10th, 2001 was like any other Fall day in Southern California...no threat of rain but an overcast sky with patchy sun all day. What makes this day special is that the captains of SCRAP assembled their ships and returned to the water after a six month hiatus. Over it's nearly four years of existence, one of the primary goals of SCRAP has been to find a location in which model warship combat would be accepted and allowed. Thanks to the efforts of Joe Dworniczak, this goal has been realized. I'd like to thank Joe for being proactive in this effort and finding us Irvine Lake. He could have sat around and waited for someone else to locate a battling site but he took charge and found it. Must be that retired Army Major inside of him.
On to the days events.
I awoke at 0630 after only a few hours of sleep that seemed to be a theme for the entire day. I agreed to carpool with anyone interested and Mike Aono and Ty Siouxpancic took me up on the offer. Mike showed up at 0700. We both loaded our equipment and I noticed that my normally huge full-size Bronco was not looking so huge after getting all of the equipment and two ships in the back. I knew Ty Siouxpancic was showing up and bringing his nephew and I started to worry if I was actually going to have room. Ty showed up at 0735 and explained that we'd be at the lake too long for his nephew to attend. Whew! Relief at knowing I'd have room but also regret that someone else who's thinking about building a ship was unable to attend. We quickly loaded Ty's ship and equipment. After doing so, it was obvious that the Bronco was capable of transporting only three captains, their ships and support equipment. That mental note was saved away forever. I may have been able to get another non-participant on-board but not another ship unless it was a Pedar Skram or something as small. Of course, I could have removed the 12" subwoofer but then again you just never know when someone will want to hear some tunes.
We were on the freeway by 0755 and heading down the maze of freeways to our destination. No kidding, we took the 210 to the 57 to the 91 to the 55 to Chapman. You've got to keep your mind on the driving or you'll make the "opps, missed the off-ramp" mistake. Remember that, it comes back later in the day to haunt me.
When we arrived at the lake we were nearly the last one's there. Mark De Antonio and girlfriend, Dana Graham and Joe Dworniczak were already there. Joe was a non-battler and was acting as Site Host for everyone. After unloading, David Asman showed up and being that he brought his little Z-boat German destroyer, he was ready to battle almost immediately. Mike was acting as CD for this event and the admirals, David Asman and Dana Graham decided that as the Axis were seriously outnumbered, that we would battle with mixed fleets. They decided to divide us up as such:
Team Battleships 'R Us
Captain Ship Units Speed
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Dana Graham Prince of Wales 6 24
Brian Eliassen South Dakota 6 26
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Team Not In The Face!
Captain Ship Units Speed
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Mike Aono Moltke 4 26
Ty Siouxpancic Inflexible 4 26
Mark De Antonio Brooklyn 3 22
David Asman Z-43 1.5 21
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That breakdown was almost perfect regarding units and it was the battleships versus all comers. However, all morning Ty had been very specific about wanting to be teamed up with the SoDak. When he found out he exclaimed, "Swell!". Then he told Mark he was up against the SoDak too. Mark's comment went something like, "Ugh. Great."
The first sortie began and it was clear that the battleships were not going to be catching the Brooklyn or Z-boat. David Asman had his mind set on putting his spurt gun ammo directly into the SoDak. He lined up, I turned, and he fired and put them down the length of my ship but about three inches away from the hull. He exclaimed "Oh crap!" and then called his 2 minutes. I noticed that Ty was standing right next to Dana and myself so I told Dana in a voice that was loud enough to carry over to Ty, "Hey Dana, let's go after Ty's Invincible". That's all it took. Ty headed for the other side of the pond. I smiled and turned my attention to Mike's Moltke. Mike was doing a great job until he started circling. The problem is, he never came out of that circle and it was obvious he was out-of-control so I got next to him and emptied what I had left in my magazines into his ship. He survived his 5 minutes and then he asked for help getting back to shore. Dana and I answered the call. Dana had speed on me and was in the necessary place before I arrived so he started pushing the Moltke back to shore. About 45 seconds after he started doing this, the Moltke slipped beneath the waves. Shepherding a ship is very hazardous and Mike's Moltke had been pushed under. Mike took off his shoes and his shirt then headed into the water. About six feet from shore he remembered he had his wallet and cell phone in the pockets of his shorts. He threw those to shore and continued to head out to where his ship went down. His phone was full of water so we placed it in the sun. This was exciting, as Mike was the first SCRAP captain in this lake so we were all interested in the condition of the bottom. It took 15 minutes and Ty was just getting ready to go out and help him when Mike came back up with his ship. Seems it went down in about 3' of water. Mike could hear the motors running but couldn't locate it until he was completely submerged. After Mike returned, the sortie was basically over as his was the last ship on/under the water.
I noted about 10 bb's in the SoDak during the reloading. I told Mike that his phone had water in it and asked him not to turn it on until we could clean it out. Mike also had water in both his radio and rudder box so he was out of the second sortie. As such, the teams had to switch somewhat and this is what was decided for the second sortie of battle #1:
Team Almost All Battleships 'R Us
Captain Ship Units Speed
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Brian Eliassen South Dakota 6 26
Ty Siouxpancic Inflexible 4 26
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Team Not In Dana!
Captain Ship Units Speed
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Dana Graham Prince of Wales 6 24
Mark De Antonio Brooklyn 3 22
David Asman Z-43 1.5 21
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Yes, Ty was finally on my team and he was a happy captain. The second sortie started and the only captain I could possibly catch was the Prince of Wales so I made that ship my primary target. David attempted to get another spurt gun on the SoDak but didn't manage to do any damage. Dana made some critical errors in this sortie and ended up directly behind my triple stern cannons. It wasn't pretty as I heard him inhale sharply as the triple sterns unloaded. I even heard him say, "I can't believe how quickly that SoDak stops!" Mark was doing a very good job of "running and gunning" for both sorties and was an annoyance to my team throughout. You just can't sit there and take it so when he starts firing, you have to move to avoid the damage and that takes you off your primary focus which is exactly what a cruiser captain should do. No one sank or was even close to sinking as the battle concluded.
Damage was counted and these were the totals:
Team Almost All Battleships 'R Us
Captain Ship A O B Pen Sink Total
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Brian Eliassen South Dakota 14 1 2 0 0 265
Ty Siouxpancic Inflexible 22 1 2 0 0 345*
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Total 610
Team Not In Dana!
Captain Ship A O B Pen Sink Total
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Dana Graham Prince of Wales 56 15 7 0 0 1285*
Mike Aono Moltke 48 8 13 0 0 1330#
Mark De Antonio Brooklyn 9 0 0 0 0 90
David Asman Z-43 0 0 0 0 0 0
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Total 2705
* These captains switched teams between sorties.
# It was decided not to charge Mike with a sink as he was pushed under.
He also fought in only one sortie.
During the patching, Dana was heard to say, "You got me good Brian, there's no balsa to patch in this area!" Of course, I apologized.
The teams remained the same for the second battle as Mike was unable to get the Moltke put back together in time. During this battle, David decided to switch targets and went for Ty's Inflexible. Damage was inconclusive but Ty allowed David to get two good line-up's on him. Dana was battling a lot smarter. They had a speed advantage. That's a tough thing to deal with when the enemy can decide when to engage. When that happens, you have to get a lot more aggressive and take more chances. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. However, it is frustrating when you have to constantly maneuver for a shot that never comes. I ended the sortie with a lot of bb's left in my magazines. That means I owned the water at the end but I couldn't get a shot. Those SCRAP captains are getting good!
The second sortie went along the same lines. Dana was playing it careful and David shot at Ty. Around the middle of the sortie, Dana rammed Ty and knocked Ty's rear superstructure off his Inflexible. Being that I couldn't catch anyone, I started to prop wash it to shore. Then I realized something and exclaimed, "Hey, finally a target that can't outrun me!" and I proceed to fire about five stern cannon salvos at it. There were howls on the shore. Everyone except Ty was howling with laughter. I think someone even wet himself. Ty, however, was not howling with laughter. He was panicked! I told him I was pushing it to shore with bb's. He was not amused. We prop washed his superstructure to shore and the sortie was over again. I had a lot of bb's in my magazines again and emptied them into the lake.
After getting the ship to the pit area, Ty walked over and said, "Look at this." There were several bb's embedded in his foam and one INCREDIBLE looking support structure for a searchlight platform. The searchlight and platform were long gone but the support structure was bent out from the center. It looked like a shell had exploded on the searchlight platform itself. I thought it looked cool and others thought so too but it took some convincing to get Ty to come around to that opinion. He's decided to leave it that way "for all to see the cruelty of Brian's SoDak". Hmm, I just knew I'd regret that when I did it but that searchlight tower did look cool.
Damage was quickly counted as almost everyone was starving, myself included. Mike announced that we (Ty and myself) had lost that last battle. That happens. Here were the totals arrived at later (see below).
Team Almost All Battleships 'R Us
Captain Ship A O B Pen Sink Total
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Brian Eliassen South Dakota 28 4 1 0 0 430
Ty Siouxpancic Inflexible 16 3 0 0 0 235
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Total 665
Team Not In Dana!
Captain Ship A O B Pen Sink Total
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Dana Graham Prince of Wales 15 2 8 50 0 650
Mark De Antonio Brooklyn 6 1 1 0 0 135
David Asman Z-43 0 0 0 0 0 0
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Total 785
We headed back towards the freeway and stopped at a Carrow's. It was funny. They have "super stack" sandwiches and no less than four of them were ordered around the table. Oh, and "I want your largest burger with mustard and onions only" for Dana.
After eating, we all headed for home. There was construction on the northbound lanes of the 55 so I decided to get fancy and take the 57 north. Not too bad and we got to see old downtown Orange. Once we started to head north we came to the 60. Not paying attention, I took the 60 Westbound, which does not take you to the 57 North. Ugh...about 4 minutes later, we hit stop-and-go traffic. Double ugh. Ty took the time to look at the score sheet and noticed something rather amazing, the addition was incorrect. It seems we had won after all but by a very slim margin. Then Mike popped up and said that he used to live around where we were stopped a couple of years earlier so we asked about a quicker route. He recommended getting off the freeway and taking Azusa north to the 10. We did this and it was an adventure. On the 10, we hit more traffic as we headed towards the 605. I noticed Ty and Mike were both asleep by this point. When queried later, Ty stated that he had only one hour of sleep the night before. Mike said he had about four. Seems everyone was tired. Once we hit the 605, it was clear sailing. As we approached Pasadena, Mike asked the standard question, "Brian, what are you doing the rest of the day?" This is a code phrase for "Hey, if you want to hold an impromptu build session, I'd like to stick around." Ty caught onto this right away and said, "Yeah, that would be great as I could install that switch in the deck." So we had an impromptu build session at my house that night. I spent most of it working on Mike's cell phone. He had turned it on after the battles at the lake and it squealed an alarm. At the time he said, "Wow, it's never done that before." When I took it apart, I noticed water was still in it so I blew that out and cleaned it up. After re-assembly, it worked but the LCD display was non-functional. Seems that part got fried. Mike was working on cleaning up all the damage from the sink and Ty installed a new deck switch under a turret for quick access. For dinner we headed down to Robin's and enjoyed Ribs and other assorted items. Everyone also had dessert and ate WAY too much.
Overall, it was a great day. We had a great time both on the water and off. The people in SCRAP are a mixed group of nuts but they're all good guys and I'm looking forward to another day like this one next month!
Copyright © 2001 Brian Eliassen
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