Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nadaka]

On the agenda for this years production: Badger Tanks, Badger tank factory, 80mm guns, refit of mosin nagant sights to use the ring sights of the SVA-10

On the agenda for this years engineering: A wood hulled PT boat/troop carrier for coastal and riverine use, upgrade the feed mechanism of the 40mm cannon, and a timed fuse artillery shell for anti aircraft use.

Other agenda? see about buying aircraft and selling machine guns.


When approached about selling machine guns, the generals balk. "Comrade, every day the Morovians grow bolder. In a time like this, should we really be giving PATRIOTISM to outsiders?"

On the topic of buying aircraft, they were slightly more amenable. "Perhaps it is to much for you to design a glorious aircraft in time to be of any use. But we can see what we can do in the mean time." About 2 months later you hear word that a half dozen aircraft purchased from the Isle of White have arrived. They are two seaters recon biplanes with limited range, made more limited by the weight of a Patriotism machine gun and a few high explosive shells to toss over the side.

The upgrade if sights on the mosin nagant required minimal engineering and 10 workers are allocated to the task. They upgrade an average of 34 per day, with an average of 1 sight improperly aligned in each batch of 34. In the first 5 months, they upgrade approximately 5100 rifles.

Your 66 best workers are assigned to the manufacture of Badger tanks. In the first 5 months they produce 14 Badgers. An amazing 17 of these workers distinguish themselves with outstanding work, more than making up for the tiny number of production errors that occurred.

64 of your remaining workers start to manufacture 80mm Medium Cannons. In the first 5 months they produce 14.

The remaining 60 workers do not complete the tank factory in the first 5 months of the year.

**********************************************************
5 months into the year the Morovians open fire on your watchful soldiers patrolling near the border. The heroic and brave soldiers armed with their newly Mosin Nagants have an advantage in stopping power and thanks to the newly upgraded sights they also have an advantage in accuracy. But their enemies rifles have a superior rate of fire. The results of this skirmish are mixed and both sides take casualties before retreating.

Disposition of Forces:
39,980 Infantry
Standard issue equipment:
Armor: woolen winter long coat + open steel helmet.
Primary Weapon: Mosin Nagant (5100 with improved sights)
Secondary weapon: bayonet

37 40mm gun trailers
212 Patriot 8mm medium machine guns
14 Badger medium tanks
14 80mm Medium cannons

Naval forces:
2 Glorious Cruisers
3 Popular Devotion Destroyers

Air forces:
50 recon balloons
6 armed recon biplanes

Following this initial battle our full strength of Badger tanks towed 40mm gun trailers rapidly to the border. Once deployed the 24 cannons opened fire an the Morovian encampment at the border crossing taking them completely by surprise. Supported by several thousand soldiers and a hundred Patriotism machine guns they move forward to occupy the enemy camp just across the border with minimal losses.

The Badgers heavily sloped front armor proves itself against the enemies light cannons, and their infantry can not withstand the long range barrage of fire from the Patriotism and upgraded Mosin Nagants.

There was resistance in the form of aerial bombardment and artillery fire but our tanks proved quick enough to overtake their positions and rout them.

Two towns across the border were liberated and our citizens were allowed to return to their homes.

In the following months the the 80mm gun batteries were moved in by rail and put in fixed emplacements around the captured towns. Sporadic fighting in the countryside continued until winter set in.

Our air-forces fared more poorly, the enemy had fast nimble fighters that proved more than a match for our aged imported fighters.
**********************************************************

Over the course of the rest of the rest of the year, Mosin Nagants were unavailable due to deployment. So these 10 workers contributed to the Factory construction.

The tank factory could not be completed this year, but should be within the next 3 months. This factory should produce approximately 6 badgers per month. The generals have been impressed with the Badger and are going to allocate resources to finish the factory without your assistance, and to also expand production with a larger factory in another city dedicated to producing nothing but badgers.

Over the course of the rest of the year an additional 20 badgers are produced.

Over the course of the rest of the year 20 additional 80mm cannons are produced.

As a lower priority task, only 4 engineers were placed on the timed fuse shell. By the end of the year you demonstrate the shell. No particular difficulties were encountered, but no particular inspirations occurred. The shell performance could best be characterized as average.

As a somewhat higher priority task, 6 engineers were put on the task of improving the feed mechanism for your 40mm cannon. The engineers perform admirably and have managed to adapt a spring loaded magazine that keeps the shells from becoming misaligned or bouncing out of the hopper at odd angles when elevated. This does come with a drawback, the magazines are not as quick to replace compared to filling the hopper, reducing the overall rate of fire somewhat.

With some more engineering a small 4 round magazine could be adapted for use on future versions of the badger. This would allow you to provide a better volley of rapid fire. But the overall rate of fire would remain the same.

As your largest engineering task, your best 20 engineers work on developing a PT boat. Unfortunately your engineers suffer a number of setbacks and ended up using a fairly low density power plant. They were also unable to keep the disembarking mechanism from randomly opening while underway and flooding the boat, so it has been wielded shut.


The resulting boat is
Length: 20m
Displacement: 28 metric tons
Propulsion: 200kw
Speed: 36km/h
Crew: 10
Armament:
1 40x300mm auto-cannon
4 Patriotism 8mm machine guns.
2 torpedo tubes
2 mines
Special: can carry up to 10 tons of cargo or 20 fully armed soldiers and their supplies (max speed 33km/h when fully loaded).

Tonnage Allocations:
10 tons diesel (1 ton = 20kw)
5 tons boat parts (not intended for long term deployment)
2 tons 40mm cannon (less ammo than a traditional 5 ton allocation)
2 tons torpedo system (not reload-able)
4 tons torpedo's
4 tons mines (manually deployed)
1 ton machine guns and ammo


Disposition of Forces:
39,043 Infantry
Standard issue equipment:
Armor: woolen winter long coat + open steel helmet.
Primary Weapon: Mosin Nagant (5100 with improved sights)
Secondary weapon: bayonet

33 40mm gun trailers
212 Patriot 8mm medium machine guns
30 Badger medium tanks
33 80mm Medium cannons

Naval forces:
2 Glorious Cruisers
3 Popular Devotion Destroyers
1 prototype PT boat

Air forces:
39 recon balloons
2 armed recon biplanes


At your disposal
1 experienced engineers
12 engineers
17 novice engineers
6 experienced workers
53 workers
141 novice workers

A new brick office
A large flat field, suitable for use as a runway.
An old partially bombed out wharf with:
1 operational dockyard up to a displacement of 1600 tons (large enough for frigates)
2 warehouses converted to a small factory/machine shop.
1 not quite finished tank Factory
Several cleared lots
Various damaged or destroyed structures that are of no use at this time.



Notes:
None of your cannons are high velocity armor piercers. They will still hurt armored targets, but I wouldn't call them ideal for the task.

The 40mm will damage or possibly destroy lightly armored vehicles with a properly angled hit, but against angled armor it has a chance to bounce off as little as 20mm. With luck and persistence it will still matter against heavier armor. The larger cannons are similar, and are more likely to punch a hole in armor due to the considerably higher weight of their shells.

I was under the impression the badger was to be a tank, not an infantry fighting vehicle. as I have it, it would probably be considered a medium tank. Comparable to the BT-2 and BT-7 soviet tanks from the early 30's. Slower, heavier, smaller gun, but with better armor.

As many posts as there were, I didn't see any other proposals with the required 2 additional votes. But let me know if I missed one, we can squeeze it in for next time.

[tryrar]

Ok, in that light, we probably would want to combine the new feed mechanism with an improved, higher velocity 40mm for an excellent AT weapon, that can also be a nice AA weapon (higher velocity means shells travel higher and faster) if we mount it that way (and combined with the VT explosive fuse we created, actual Flak batteries is a good idea)

As an interim measure, increasing the powder charge of the current shells we have should up velocity a little(though we need to test if the breech mechanism and the cannon itself can take the resulting higher pressures) Given how we designed the badger, we don't need to make any real changes to it (besides maybe upgrading it's weapon to a higher velocity cannon), though seeing about getting a stronger engine might also be a good idea.

As for actual proposals, we need to redesign that PT boat. That's just unacceptable. If needed, we can go larger for the boat itself(up to 120 tons)

Also, we need to get started on an actual fighter, since it seems we're only able to buy outdated ones from anyone else. My idea is the Feather from the previous thread, an agile wooden biplane fighter with a VERY good engine and twin machine guns on an interrupter gear(so it can fire through the props) . The excellent engine would allow it to carry a belly-attached small bomb in case a ground attack is needed, with minimal performance loss by the extra weight(though you'd want to still drop it if you need to dogfight)

[a1s]

Also, we need to get started on an actual fighter, since it seems we're only able to buy outdated ones from anyone else.

Outdated or not, I think we should take 1 apart to see if there are any interesting solutions.

[Crabnumber]

Hold on. Is the PT boat important at the moment? Is the current county we're fighting with within reach of the sea or even a river network at all? If its not, perhaps the time and personnel would be better spent on more relevant things. Theres been no indication of sea-based warfare so far, which is what i'm basing this off.

If we're fighting a more land based fight, perhaps it would be more beneficial to look into designing some form of troop transport to allow our troops to keep pace with our new badgers.

[tryrar]

You mean something along the lines of the Universal Carrier?

I'd get behind building something like that

[Nadaka]

Hold on. Is the PT boat important at the moment? Is the current county we're fighting with within reach of the sea or even a river network at all? If its not, perhaps the time and personnel would be better spent on more relevant things. Theres been no indication of sea-based warfare so far, which is what i'm basing this off.

If we're fighting a more land based fight, perhaps it would be more beneficial to look into designing some form of troop transport to allow our troops to keep pace with our new badgers.

We share a coast with each of our neighbors, including the country we are at war with (Morovia). Our nation is situated on a peninsula, 2 adjacent sides surrounded by water with Morovia and the as of yet unnamed country sharing our other borders. Rivers are not uncommon, but the current border with Morovia is not located at a river.

[RAM]

I propose 1 experienced engineer and 7 novice engineers work on a high-performance engine for aircraft. Study one of our planes to get an idea of the required specifications.

Try to requisition one of the planes and get the pilot too. Have two of our engineers work with the pilot to study flight. Hopefully we will get an aircraft design specialist and a crash-test-dummy test-pilot out of it.

I propose that 8 engineers produce a 40mm high-velocity gun capable of 4-round bursts and operating at extreme angles and acceleration, ideally an automated system would be produced for loading the magazine...

I propose that 1 engineer and 5 novice engineers work on automating our manufacturing facilities.

I propose that one engineer and 5 novice engineers work on improving the PT-boat(Dub it the Righteous for now)'s disembarking mechanism and power-plant.


I am happy to let the badger factory sort itself out.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

My proposals:

1) Design new powerful petrol engine for our biplanes\PTs, future planes and vehicles. 
2) Design sabot APDS rounds for  our 40mm and 80mm guns, just in case. We should assume that we'll fight against something similar to badger and prepare for it. It's easier than making new high velocity gun and will provide some AT ability to any unit that has guns already produced
3) Even if that is unpopular, I still propose 14mm sniper rifle, especially if we will be on offensive. If not, start designing a round at least, for the future uses
4) If the petrol engine will be designed fast - start refitting engines of biplanes to boost their performance
5) If new petrol engine is ready make prototype of slightly altered Badger with it, maybe it will show better performance even if more flammable.  (BT tanks used aviation engines, as many other early tanks) . Consider improving suspension for BadgerMk2 using combat experience Also test the petrol engine on the PT boat prototype.
6) Make up to dozen of boats to create our own marine infantry, should war go badly we may fall back to some river and defend it. Spare some engineers to improve it solving existing problems
7) build way more 8mm machineguns. I light machine-gun per 200 infantrymen is not nearly enough

[tryrar]

A combination of the 2 above proposals sounds like a good idea +1

Edit: So what I mean by combining the two proposals is:

1)Requisition one of the planes and the pilot, and try to get an aviation engineer out of it as well as a test pilot. See if we can get a much better engine for our planes/boats/Badgers while we're at it.
2)As an interim measure, design AP Discarded Sabot rounds(might be a bit difficult this early, since they were only really invented in the latter half of WW II, but hey, we might get a good roll!) to increase armor pen, while at the same time begin work on a better, higher velocity 40mm gun with the new feed mechanism
3)Design a 14mm round for future uses such as heavy machine guns and sniper rifles
4)Refit the bipane and a badger requisitioned for testing purposes with the better engine if it gets developed quickly enough(maybe also improving the Badger suspension)
5)Work on providing some automation to our production facilities
6)Assign some of our better engineers to work out the problems with the PT-boat's disembarking mechanism, and to test the engine worked out for the Biplane on it.

[kahn1234]

Further to UR's point of more MG's, i'd suggest making enough LMG's to have at least 1 in a 10-man infantry section, and maybe we can design a heavy MG (maybe even going up to a .50 cal or a 14.5mm MG) for at least 1 HMG per 3 10-man infantry sections.

I also second a far more powerful boat/plane engine.

Thirdly, i'd like to second the notion of high velocity anti tank rounds idea for our 40mm and 80mm weapons.

Lastly, i would like to suggest we use the Badger as a base for a tank destroyer armed with one of our 80mm cannons. Armour wont need to be upped, although the chassis might have to be lengthened and/or widened to take the larger weapon. This could also be used as a type of self-propelled field gun. 80-100mm guns, although usually designed for another role or roles, were used as light/medium field guns.

[tryrar]

As an addendum, an 80mm cannon would probably have the oomph to take out most of the bunkers we might encounter, meaning a self-propelled 80mm gun would also double as a Bunker-buster in addition to an anti-tank gun. We'd need to probably design a higher-velocity 80mm though, since I gather all our mid-size guns are on the lower-velocity end(and the 160mm might be as well, though a low velocity 160mm is pretty bad for naval warfare!)

For a comparison to what I'm talking about, the StuG III. It wasn't even really designed to be an anti-tank vehicle, it was a self-propelled assault gun for attacking fortifications and and for an infantry support role...they just discovered that good gun+low profile meant it was frighteningly effective and ambushing and killing tanks when necessary, and was eventually modified to be more anti-tank than anti-bunker(though it could still do both, since there were variations that had a 10.5cm howitzer)

[Ukrainian Ranger]

As for sabots, I quite forgot that APDS are that advanced. Somehow was sure that they appeared earlier......

But yet, we may direct our engenieers into designing generic sabot rounds, any sabot rounds are made for increased muzzle velocity and was  known in 19th cenury, and maybe even earlier.
And yep we may get a good roll
 

[RAM]

My proposals:

1) Design new powerful petrol engine for our biplanes\PTs, future planes and vehicles. 
2) Design sabot APDS rounds for  our 40mm and 80mm guns, just in case. We should assume that we'll fight against something similar to badger and prepare for it. It's easier than making new high velocity gun and will provide some AT ability to any unit that has guns already produced
3) Even if that is unpopular, I still propose 14mm sniper rifle, especially if we will be on offensive. If not, start designing a round at least, for the future uses
4) If the petrol engine will be designed fast - start refitting engines of biplanes to boost their performance
5) If new petrol engine is ready make prototype of slightly altered Badger with it, maybe it will show better performance even if more flammable.  (BT tanks used aviation engines, as many other early tanks) . Consider improving suspension for BadgerMk2 using combat experience Also test the petrol engine on the PT boat prototype.
6) Make up to dozen of boats to create our own marine infantry, should war go badly we may fall back to some river and defend it. Spare some engineers to improve it solving existing problems
7) build way more 8mm machineguns. I light machine-gun per 200 infantrymen is not nearly enough

1)I want to focus on making an aircraft engine. We can get by without a new ground engine and I don't want to be held back. Things like air-cooling wouldn't really be as practical for one or the other so I would like to leave the option to specialise.
2) The new gun should be similar enough to the old gun for most of the work to carry over, and I am not convinced that any of our current weapons would be suitable for aircraft. 40mm is huge for what will probably be an open-topped biplane, but it will give it some ground-attack capacity and should be effective against aircraft. Ammunition weight would obviously be a problem, but it should tide us over until we can work up a nice 16mm heavy machine gun. I would really like to keep working on the 40mm until it is unanimously awesome...
3)Well, I basically agree with this, but I am in team 16mm, so I have to vote against...
4)we only have 2 planes, I am not sure it is worth it to keep them flying as more than a deterrent.
5)Badgers are doing pretty well for now, we should work to keep improving them of course, but I can't help but feel that this can wait. Although I would love to get some field reports from badger operators.
6) the PT boats are still pretty rough, I would rather build a destroyer...
7)seconded

[Ukrainian Ranger]

1) I mean design aircraft engine but - try to use it for other projects. Why not?
2) 8mm machineguns is a practical thing to be put on any biplane. 14mm-16mm machineguns will come next. 40mm gun is an overkill, and we need to design a proper monoplane full metal CAS first. Not gonna happen soon
3) 14 mm or 16mm, I see no much difference. First is somewhat lighter, second offers a bigger punch, both work
4) It's more for testing than actual combat use
5) IMO, It's a waste to design a powerful engine for aircrafts and then not try to use it to make a  tank with better HP to weight ratio.
6) They aren't torpedo boats, they are multipurpose, cheap to make boats that any navy needs. I imagine some spec ops operations using it. And while not ideal for ship to ship warfare , 2 or 3 of  such boats sunk a destroyer equal to our Popular Devotion while being much cheaper. Main problem is that they are too slow for their class and that needs to be fixed. And as we design petrol engine anyway....

[Funk]

My proposals:

1) Design new powerful petrol engine for our biplanes\PTs, future planes and vehicles. 
2) Design sabot APDS rounds for  our 40mm and 80mm guns, just in case. We should assume that we'll fight against something similar to badger and prepare for it. It's easier than making new high velocity gun and will provide some AT ability to any unit that has guns already produced
3) Even if that is unpopular, I still propose 14mm sniper rifle, especially if we will be on offensive. If not, start designing a round at least, for the future uses
4) If the petrol engine will be designed fast - start refitting engines of biplanes to boost their performance
5) If new petrol engine is ready make prototype of slightly altered Badger with it, maybe it will show better performance even if more flammable.  (BT tanks used aviation engines, as many other early tanks) . Consider improving suspension for BadgerMk2 using combat experience Also test the petrol engine on the PT boat prototype.
6) Make up to dozen of boats to create our own marine infantry, should war go badly we may fall back to some river and defend it. Spare some engineers to improve it solving existing problems
7) build way more 8mm machineguns. I light machine-gun per 200 infantrymen is not nearly enough

+1 but i want 1 light machine-gun per 10 and 1 Badger medium tanks per 100 men .
Work on building a gun trailers for the 80mm, we need to be able to move our heavy guns faster.
try to build a 14mm version of the Patriot machinegun.
and quickly weld handles to the out side of the badgers, so they can have ride on infantry, yes it is a safe as it sounds.

as the machineguns are taking for ever to build we should we work on design as SMG? or should we first build the  Patriot machine gun mark 2 first ?