- Inside of the INJ Nagato (Tyler) -

INJ Nagato – Tyler (launched 2010)

6.0 units, 24 seconds, Japanese Battleship

IJN Nagato was built in 2010. It’s a wood hull. Originally it had a more traditional setup with dual stern guns, haymaker, and two bow sidemounts. It was battled for 3 years in that configuration. For 2013 it was re-worked to include a 2 pump setup with 2 stern haymakers, a bow sidemount, and a bow gun with down angle (funny gun). It was battled in that configuration until the end of 2015 when Tyler switched to the HMS Barham as his primary ship. At the time of this article it about to be re-commissioned for the 2019 battling season. The hull skin in this picture is very old and very used.

The business end. When originally built the super firing stern turret (haymaker) was fixed to the hull. This made accessing the motor mounts very difficult so it was cut out and the stern deck was re-worked. It’s still a pain to get to the motors but is better than it used to be.

Bow of the ship. The bow sidemount has a short barrel, it was getting caught on other ships a little too much in combat so the sacrifice of smaller barrel (less velocity) was thought to be worth not having to worry about getting hung up and bending a barrel. The “funny gun” is 15 degrees off center and just clears the deck rim to hit in the water right off the bow. When ranged correctly this will hit below the water line shots whereas direct stern guns generally do not. This is one of the advantages of setting the Nagato up this way – it allows for 4 guns rather than 3 to potentially score belows.

The lowest level of superstructure is made of wood solely for the aesthetics of the wood colored deck. The superstructure is ABS plastic which generally does and in this case has held up remarkably well.

The deck comes apart in 3 sections. During normal battle conditions (assuming stuff isn’t breaking) the middle section is the only one needed to be routinely accessed. It has slides that lock the deck down when pushing from the stern towards the bow..

The empty belly. The pump housings are to the right, they are inline. The motors are to the far right. There are red plastic blocks glued down which hold the batteries in place. The mess of wire is borderline overwhelming but about as organized as it can be – 12 gauge wire, each functional pair is twisted together (pump, pump, motors) and the small one on top is the rudder. The whole bundle is held to the upper deck rim with spiraled plastic. On the bottom part of the picture (port) is the gas tubing and smaller gauge wire for the guns. In the center of the ship on the bottom of the hull you can see the a 2 inch wide section that is ¼ inch lower than the rest of the bottom which runs from “B” turret to “C” turret, this is water channeling, designed to let water flow freely under the internal components and get to the pumps.

Here’s the middle section fully loaded. There are six NiMH 6 volt battery packs that wedge in along the outer edges of the center part of the ship. Along the center part is the CO2 bottle which also has a plastic holder to keep it in place. Overall this part was designed to hold itself snug with pressure from the adjacent components. When it is jammed in like this it really doesn’t shift until you turn the boat upside down. The pump outlets are on either side of the ship in the darker section of the deck.

The ship is 61.5 inches long. You can see that the bulk of the weight of the ship (batteries, CO2, pumps, motors) are all compressed as much as possible to the center of the ship. Having a tight center of mass allows for faster turning (centripetal force).

It’s snug in there.

This is an attempt to show that the sides of the hull (bulges) are packed with water channeling roughly 1 inch wide. The gray material is shower pan liner and serves as internal armor so the damage you take stays limited to the hull and the internal components stay intact. You want the water to settle centrally in the ship and not be allowed to slosh to one side or the other too much when driving around. This helps the ship take more damage consistently as it tends to not roll over.

The bow deck section has slides that lock it in place. When the middle section is on it won’t move.

The bow guns have magazines that coil back to their respective turrets to be loaded from the top side. You can see the radio box is right under the guns. The radio box is built to be water tight sealed with silicone on top, you can see through the clear plastic lid. Inside the radio box is a servo with two switches for the drive, a servo with two switches for the pumps, and 4 electronic firing boards. You can see the cross brace as built was later cut in half and an afterthought one was put in, using dowel pegs to keep it in place. The section of the ship forward of the turrets is completely empty except for the water channeling which steps up right in front of the radio box to be level with the bottom of the penetrable window.

Here is the stern end again, you can see how the turrets flip up on hinges to access the guns for loading and adjusting the tweak. The gun barrels are mounted using plastic (red) and aluminum (silver) blocks that are screwed to the deck. There are also zip ties that hold the piston chamber steady.

The stern end. The solenoids were originally fastened to the bottom of the hull but at one point had to be pulled out so now they just sort of sit back there. It would be better to affix them to the hull. The rudder servo is inside a water tight box. At the time it was built it required a very high torque servo. A lot of Tyler’s boats have moved to water proof servos, which would probably at this point be available in a water proof version. There are balloons with silicone keeping integrity through the movable portion. There is a central gear that spins two smaller gears that the rudders are connected to. The stern end is built up on the inside with water channeling as well so water doesn’t collect there.

Here you can see the motor mounts, they are very difficult to access and it is a bit of a design flaw. Also you can see how the solenoids are not attacked to the bottom of the hull, it would be better to have them attach.

The rudder posts are right at 6 inches from the stern, the props at about 7, the drag discs closer to 11.

The props are 2 inch prop shop blades that are cut down to 1.75 inches. The rudders are just under 2 inches tall and 2 inches long with a wedge cut out of the back end.

Rudders.

Props.

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