Chris Au's USS Salt Lake City is a "new" ship, and has just made its combat debut in September of 2000. The ship was originally built in 1988 by Will Montgomery, and has changed hands a few times since then. Chris Au picked it up sometime last year, and has spent the past year intermittently rebuilding it and giving it the "zombie" treatment. The Salt Lake City is Chris's attempt at a "super cruiser", a cruiser built with what is essentially "modern battleship" technology. It remains to be seen whether or not the application of modern technology can make the 24 second heavy cruiser truly successful, but it will make for an interesting experiment.

USS Salt Lake City - Bow

This picture shows the bow of Chris's Salt Lake City. Since this cruiser has no bow guns, but instead has double stern guns, about the only interesting thing in this picture is the CO2 bottle and lightweight regulator. Chris chose the 3.5 oz refillable bottle because he finds the thought of disposable capsules wasteful. That, and because he likes to have a lot of CO2 handy for gunnery. The internal armor is the famous "2-liter bottle" armor, and the hose is 5/32" 250psi hose, with Parker fittings. Some of us still prefer to use the higher pressure hose and fittings for our CO2 supply, because it has proven its reliability in years of competition, and doesn't occasionally go "pop-hiss..." like other types of hose often do.

USS Salt Lake City - Midships

This picture shows the radio box in Chris's ship, as well as the batteries. The radio box is rather small, because Chris found that the ship was getting rather crowded, and because it contains micro servos. One servo turns the pump on with a 15A roller switch, while another servo activates the stern guns with a 5A roller switch. The throttle servo has two 15A roller switches, and all the main power switches are wired with 14 gauge racing car wire. This is so that the pump and drive motors can receive the maximum possible amount of power during hard acceleration and pumping. The radio box also contains a pack of dessicant to help prevent condensation due to humidity. The batteries, on the other hand, are one of the truly special features of this ship. In the past, cruisers were typically powered by inefficient gel-cells, or by hordes of ni-cads. Now, new technology is available in the form of Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries. These particular cells are Panasonic 6.5 AH cells, and will provide plenty of power to the current sucking devices in the next picture.

USS Salt Lake City - Pump/Drive

Here we see the drive system in the Salt Lake City, as well as the pump, solenoids, and expansion tank. (!) The drive system is the typical "Traxxas" gear drive which we've all become familiar with in our battleships, but is rarely seen in cruisers (yet). It uses the "75 cent" motors we all know and love for power. The pump, on the other hand is rather unusual for a cruiser in that it's a normal "battleship" pump, with the obligatory current sucking race car motor. Like I said, this is Chris's attempt to put battleship technology into a cruiser hull, and he went all the way. Likewise, the solenoids and expansion tank are just like what you might see in the stern of any battleship with twin stern guns, as well as the test switches. One major difference between this cruiser and the typical battleship, however, is the lack of water channeling. In a large battleship, water channeling is a vital part of damage control, but in a smaller cruiser like the Salt Lake City, it's not really that necessary because the ship is too narrow for water to slosh around from side to side, and overall too small for a great deal of water to collect and pool in various bad places inside.

USS Salt Lake City - Rudder

Chris's Salt Lake City uses the old fashioned pushrod type rudder mechanism that has been around since the beginning of the hobby. He could have used gears, but elected to use the pushrod because it was simpler and easier. Since it is only a single rudder ship, it's not necessary to synchronize the movements of two rudders, which is the primary reason for using gears. With the pushrod mechanism, it still has plenty of rudder throw in the turns. Also visible in this picture are the twin stern guns, which are of the now typical "bypass" design. The guns themselves poke up into the stern superstructure, with the breech "nuts" and barrel mount hidden inside of "Y" turret.

USS Salt Lake City - Props and rudder

This picture shows an external view of the props and rudder. The props are the Dumas 1.5" cast 3 blade variety, with 1/8" bore. They have been spun down to something more like 1.25", to fit the hull better. Some of us are really turning more and more to the Dumas props because of their durability. The rudder is pretty much the standard airfoil trapezoid type, which isn't exactly scale for this ship, but seems to perform very well. I'll have to consider it for my next cruiser. I'll just ink a line on it to "simulate" the rudder skeg that most cruisers had in the front top corner...

USS Salt Lake City - Sailing Around

And finally, here we see a picture of the Salt Lake City, patrolling the seas just prior to battle. Only time will tell if the "battleship inside a cruiser" theory is a success, or if the 24 second heavy cruiser really is doomed to eventual extinction in our hobby.

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