History
Radio controlled combat of warships owes its popularity to a small group of men living in Texas (USA) in the late 1970s. The founding fathers of the hobby are Stan Watkins, D.W. Fluegel, and Jeff Poindexter. Back in the day, these men "toyed" with the idea of using radio controlled ships and equipping them with some kind of cannon so that they could then engage in combat.
After much efforts, Stan created the "Mark I" cannon using an odd variety of plumbing parts and pieces. In those days, freon was used as a propelling agent and often their engagements resulted in little if any damage. After some time, and more engineering, they were able to "sink" an opponent in combat by shooting steel balls through balsa hulls. Organized groups formed very quickly after this achievement, with the formation of the IRCWCC, and Big Gun groups starting up in 1982 with the formation of NASWCA.
From this inauspicious beginning and after years of technological advances, the hobby has improved dramatically in both reliability and playability. Many different groups having formed, fighting scale model warships ranging from the reasonably rare 1:48 scale to the most common 1:144 scale, with different and largely regional variations on the rules used.
Read more about this topic: Model Warship Combat
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)