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[Ukrainian Ranger]

Well I'm staying out of things other then land based this turn.

I ain't had time to look into it properly so I'm not voting one way or another.

I am quite speechless. So you don't even read proposals made by other players? Cool. OK, OK, I am the one who is ignorant and thinks about own own designs only

I don't really see the point of an 80mm mortar with a 120mm howitzer. I can't help but suspect that the 80mm mortar wouldn't have enough ammunition for sustained fire or would be too heavy for rough terrain, and that the 120mm howitzer wouldn't be heavy enough to deal with heavy armour or well-entrenched infantry.

a) 80mm mortar is included in every modern military for a reason. Infantry needs indirect light fire support, mortar that can be carried by one man is a very good choice even in modern times
b) Howitzers aren't designed to act against armor at all
c) Heavy entrenched infantry to be outmaneuvered and enveloped (not that 120mm can't destroy anything short of dedicated concrete bunkers)

[RAM]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Which is why I proposed a 40mm mortar, they have to carry the shells, and 20s logistics isn't today's logistics. In numbers the 40mm should prove sufficient. Infantry will want to take cover and an unarmoured position can be destroyed.
A tank could very well survive a 120mm shell where a larger calibre shell could deny them terrain. A 120mm shell is unlikely to collapse tunnels, destroy buildings, compromise trenches, or even defeat a foxhole without a direct hit... Not to mention that its limited range means that it will need to be repositioned frequently.
A 320mm shell can disable a tank with an indirect hit, is much more likely to collapse a tunnel, is perfectly capable of reducing pretty much any terrain to a pock-marked waste-land, will do serious structural damage to a trench, and can bury anything nearby. It would basically mean that almost nothing within range could be considered safe.

It just seems to me that 120mm and 80mm are too similar and overlap too much in their functions.

[3_14159]

As one of / the one posting that many proposals, I actually have to agree with a soft limit for proposals. I still think all or most of all of the projects I proposed to be important (things like the landing ships less so, things like the logistics more), at least more important than the myriad of currently proposed land techs. [Small statistic: We have nearly double the land proposals than navy and air together]
Except... why did nobody discuss this small little statement:

Yeah, I was wondering that too. Is attacking across the sea the only way to get to them, or can we pull a long flank?

You could if you invaded Unnamed Country #2 first.

Doesn't that solve our problems quite neatly? We have an advantage on land, and will possibly have one (due to the awesome motor we got) in the air next turn. Especially against a country that has "fewer soldiers, they have no recent combat experience, but are well trained.", and possibly without recent tanks. If we can make it, I'd actually propose our glorious leadership to go through them to get to Morovia.
Of course, I mean react to the recent border violations and unprovoked attacks they made.

[tryrar]

Of course, I mean react to the recent border violations and unprovoked attacks they made.

Oh, THOSE border incursions! Yes, it is time we crush those impudent capitalistic scum who dare encroach on the borders of our glorious worker's paradise

[Nadaka]

On the agenda for this years engineering:

*Design a 2 engine heavy fighter monoplane. Durable, fast, armored, at least 4 9mm machine guns.

*Develop double hulls for our ships or counter torpedo weapons if double hulls are ineffective.

*Design a biplane variant, better armored, equiped with airdroppable torpedo's/mines rather than machine guns.

*Develop sub detectors.

*Develop a better diesel tank engine with 3 engine specialists.

*Tinker on the new 8 cylender gas  engine with 1 engine specialist.

*Refine the armoured car, focusing on being remodelled for a variety of different vehicles.

*Design simple depth charges that can be dropped from biplanes, Righteous boats and popular devotion.

*Design a small capable airship equiped with the new engines to act as an anti-sub bomber.

*Design 14mm machineguns prioritizing magazine, over weight RPM and cost.

*Design a 40mm man portable mortar called the dogma.

*Continue development of the SPIA.

*Develop the MAIV, a battle bus.

*Develop personal body armor.


On the agenda for this years production:

Armored cars

Also on the agenda this year:

*engine specialists.

*Petition the govornment for a small arms factory.

********************************

The govornment has offered to assist your future development efforts by providing you with 20 green engineers right out of primary school. You are not so certain that this is a good idea.

On the task of refining the armored car: It can already be easilly modified. The cargo compartment in back has no roof or back wall, removing the side armor is also an option. That room for 6 soldiers could easilly be sacrificed to mount a light cannon. A medium cannon? that would be pushing it, but it could easilly tow a medium cannon into place and provide room for its crew.

Petitioning the govornment for a small arms factory goes reasonably well, one of the Patriotism Mk2 factories will be immediately retooled, It should be able to produce aproximately a thousand small arms per year. Production will focus on the SVA-10 being half of production.

Tinkering on the 260kw engine is very informative and improves the skill of the novice. However, this is a good engine, Better power to weight could be achieved with a rotary or radial engine (like the Morovian biplane wrecks have), but they produce more drag and tend to have higher mantainance requirements. V style engines may provide another alternative, but its hard to say they have a specific advantage aside from being more compact (which could reduce drag). 1 engine engineer and 1 novice engineer where assigned.

On sub detection, your engineers propose a pair of widely seperated periscopes that when adjusted so that a sub on the surface is targeted by both sides, it provides an angle that can produce an accurate range reading with a little math and a sliderule. Near surface detection is done best by low slow flying aircraft and a Mk 1 eyeball. Deeper than that and you need the assistance of electronics and accoustics scientists to make real progress. No engineers where assigned.


Double hull options will be considered for all future warship designs, One experience engineer, 5 engineers and 5 green engineers  work up a quick redesign of the Alexi class cruiser. It appears your novices learn quickly and thanks to the great knowledge of their more experienced engineers the mistakes they made are caught and accounted for. This design adds 203 tons of additional armor/hull, resulting in a safer but wider and less hydrodynamic hull.

The Alexi 1337 (yes, I know):
As Alexi
Weight: 1337tons
Special: Contains an extra spaced hull making it wider, but provides improved defense against torpedo's
Speed: 36km/h (mostly from increased drag).

The development of depth charges requires a relatively simple pressure based detonator combined with a simple high explosive charge. 1 experienced engineer, 3 engineers and 3 green engineers are put on the task. The task is complete, but there is a flaw. When dropped from elevation(such as an aircraft), there is a 25% chance they detonate on impact with the surface. And the depth trigger is accurate to only 15 meters.

The charges come in 3 sizes, 500kg, 250kg and 125kg. The smallest of which can be theoretically be dropped from your biplanes. The smallest must be within 3m of a sub to cause significant damage, the larger ones are effective to 6m and 9m respectively. These depth charges can be launched from any ship currently fitted with mines.

The proposed biplane variant is assigned 1 one aviation engineer, 5 engineers, 2 novice engineers and 5 green engineers. They bump up engine power to 260kw, the loss of guns and ammo balances the slightly higher engine weight. 200lbs of steel can provide a 4mm thick hemicylinder big enough to cover the lower side of the engine and pilots seat, sufficient to protect them from shrapnel and occasionally gun fire from the ground that has lost some of its speed on the way up. This bomber has one bomb mount under the fuselage and one under the base of either lower wing. Unfortunately the bomb release is flawed, and does not release the bomb rought 25% of the time.

Biplane Bomber
Wingspan: 11m
Weight: 1400kg
Armament: none
Engine: 260kw gas
Crew: 1
Speed:
unburdened: 300 km/h
125kg of ordinance 255km/h
250kg of ordinance 222km/h
375kg of ordinance 196km/h

The task of designing a 40mm man portable mortar falls on 1 engineer and 5 novice engineers. They do a fantastic job. It has an innovative gyro stabilized angle and compass display that allows it to fire accurately even without ranging shots.

On the task of continueing development of the SPIA self propelled artillery 1 experienced engineer, 3 engineers, 3 novice and 3 gren engineers are assigned. The design is finished.

Built on the heavy tank chassis with 2 170kw gas engines this large spg has an unusual design that has added considerable weight and problematic components. It as 30mm all around armor sloped at 15 degrees, made from 40 tons of steel. Plus an 8 ton 160mm cannon.

The complex transmission that syncs both engines is prone to wear, resulting in frequent breakdowns, made much more frequent by the shear mass of armor it is now carrying.

The barrel of the Gun is covered by large heavy armored doors that take a great deal of effort to open, resulting in dramatically increased time to deploy and prepare to shoot.

These doors require at least 10 additional crew to operate who do not have seats in the vehicle.

During demonstrations project lead experienced engineer was killed when one of the prototype armor panels slipped and crushed him to death under its multi-ton weight.

Width: 4m
Length: 9m
Height 4m
Weight: 60 tons
Max Speed: 15km/h
Crew: 6 (+10)
Armor: 30mm all around 15 degree slope, +20mm on the side when the roof doors are opened in a 15 minute process before the gun can be used.


3 of the newly recruited engine engineers begin work on a deisel tank power plant. They get about 75% through a design that looks like it will have at least 1 beneficial quality. It appears as though it might be rought 500kg and 400 horsepower. 14

On the airship project your experienced aviation engineer, 2 engineers, 1 novice and 2 green engineers are assigned. They get about 1/3 of the way through with a design that should have a beneficial feature. The design will likely carry a gondola of aproximately 20 tons, a crew of 4 and 10 tons of bombs with a gas volume of ~1000 cubic meters (that seems a bit low, but I have not double checked the math). 46

On to the MAIW project... 1 experienced engineer, 2 engineers, 1 novice engineer and 2 green engineer are assigned to this task. Your assigned engineers complete about a third of this design. But it appears to be at least 15 meters long half track where the other half is also track. 4 tracks, 4 engines with transmission problems... essentially built on a frame of two of your heavy tank chassis prototypes weilded together, there where not many other options to fit a driver, mechanic and 16 other people inside an APC. Miraculously this design may have one as of yet undetermined benefit (but also 1 flaw, the tank transmission was never fixed, and is being compounded by having 3 such transmissions). 81

On the personal armor project 1 experienced engineer, 2 engineers, 1 novice and 1 green engineer are assigned. You reinvent breastplate with modern steel. It will never stop a rifle bullet, and not reliably stop pistol bullets in common usage, but it can protect against shrapnell.

On the 14mm machine gun project 1 experienced engineer, 2 engineers, 1 novice and 1 green engineer are assigned. You get about 2/5th of the way through a design with no notable events arrising. 31

On the 2 engine monowing fighter  your remaining 2 experienced, 4 engineers 1 novice and 2 green engineers are assigned. They get about 1/3 of the way done, encountering 2 unidentified flaws so far. 71

You produce 293 armored cars in your initial run.

At your disposal:
1 experienced aviation engineer (1d10*)
1 experienced engine engineer (1d10*)
3 engine engineers (1d8*)

11 experienced engineers (1d10)
28 engineers (1d8)
17 novice engineers (1d6)
12 green engineers (1d4)

5 veteran worker
62 experienced workers
127 workers
105 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 2300 tons (large enough for frigates)
3 warehouses converted to a small factory/machine shop.
1 College of Engineering (produces 4 engineer specialists/year)

Your nations military manufacturing:
1 factory producing Mosin Nagants with upgraded ring sights (lots/year)
1 factories recently retooled for the Badger Mk2 (~100/year)
1 factory producing 40mm hopper fed guns for towable guns (~200/year)
1 factory producing 40mm improved feed guns (mostly supplying the Badger Mk2 factories)
1 factory producing 170kw gas engines (mostly supplying the Badger Mk2 factories)
1 factory producing 80mm low velocity guns (~60/year)
1 factories producing Patriotism Mk1 water cooled machine guns (~400/year)
1 factory producing biplanes (~100/year)
1 factory producing air cooled Patriotism Mk2 air cooled machine guns (~300/year)
1 factory producing 320mm coastal defense guns (12/year)

Recently completed
800 ton boat yard to the production of Popular Devotion support ships(34/year)
1200 ton boat yard to the production of Alexi class frigates. (1/year)
1 small factory producing misc small arms (500 SVA-10 + 500 other / year)

Under construction
Retooling of badger factory to produce Hydra's
Expansion of Alexi boat yard to 1400 tons displacement.


*************************************
The Morovian submarine threat intensifies. in 47 seperate incidents Morovian subs make attacks on military and civilian shipping with growing frequency. This has resulting in the loss of 15 civilian ships and 4 righteous PT boats. 1 more of our Popular Devotion support ships was hit, but not destroyed, it should be operational again next year. Our Cruisers and pt boats have deployed mines around our major harbors, we have counted 3 mine detonations, and reduce sub activity in those locations. On 3 seperate incidents feather fighters have spotted the subs on the surface near shore, in one case, the plane was able to hit the ship in a strafing run that may have damaged the sub. In 2 instances our cruisers have opened fire on subs and destroyed them with high explosive rounds. Our PT boats are faster and have run down and destroyed at least 3 additional subs. The first of her class, the Alexi destroyed 1 sub while narrowly avoiding a torpedo barrage. The enemy subs almost always attack while surfaced, either using a 60mm deck gun or no more than 2 torpedo's. All of these attacks are on our coast facing morovia, indicating their subs may not have the range to strike as far as your facility.
*************************************



Infantry:
~25000 veteran infantry
~10000 infantry (minimal combat experience)
~20000 novice infantry (no  combat experience)
Standard Issue Equipment
Armor: woolen winter long coat + open steel helmet
Primary Weapon: Mosin Nagant with improved ring sights
Secondary Weapon: bayonet

~3800 Patriotism mk1 water cooled machine guns
~3200 Patriotism mk2 air cooled machine guns

~300 special forces
Armor: woolen winter long coat + open steel helmet
Primary weapon: varies
Secondary weapon: varies
10 14mm sniper rifles
30 9mm pistols
30 shotguns
30 SVA-10
~2000 captured 6mm carbines


Armor & Artillery:
733 40mm towable cannons
160 Badger Tanks (diesel)
532 Badger Mk2 Tanks (gas)
283 80mm medium cannons
48 Hydra AA badger variant
13 320mm coastal defense cannon
293 Armored Cars

Air Force:
20 recon balloons
730 Feather biplanes

Naval:
2 Glorious Cruisers
1 Popular Devotion Support ships
1 damaged Popular Devotion Support ships
2 Alexi class frigate
83 Righteous PT boats

[tryrar]

Ok, we might wanna scrap that shoddy SPG that got one of our better engineers killed in favor of something badger-based. Regardless, it appears to be nothing more than a piece of junk(and so is that "APC". Good god, that thing is literally the size of a bus!!!)

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Spoiler: to RAM (click to show/hide)

 

It just seems to me that 120mm and 80mm are too similar and overlap too much in their functions.

That's a huge misconception,  120mm shell is 3.3 times more powerful than equal 80mm shell

A 320mm shell can disable a tank with an indirect hit, is much more likely to collapse a tunnel, is perfectly capable of reducing pretty much any terrain to a pock-marked waste-land, will do serious structural damage to a trench, and can bury anything nearby. It would basically mean that almost nothing within range could be considered safe.

Battery of 20 120mm howitzers can bring more explosives to enemy in one minute than 320mm due to higher rate of fire. That what matters matters most, not a damage of the single shell

The battery is way harder to destroy, way more mobile, more easy to hide,  and cheaper to build and maintain

Either our GM is kind or we got lucky as hell, because enemy subs failed badly

Monoplane fighter failure makes me sad, but that what you get for spreading too thin
Having a bunch of half ready designs is another result.
Our fighters are getting dated, fast.... I want to switch our facttory to bombers, but now it's a bad idea

Yay mortars! While I'd prefer 60mm, 40mm has it's own advantages and should be produced in case of land war

Battle bus. Lol. I like that name.

Proposals later.

[tryrar]

Decided this needed it's own post

1)Fix the bomb release of our new bomber, as well as fixing that surface detonation problem for the depth charges so they can be airdropped. Start producing both as fast as we can
2)See if we can get a crash recruiting/training of electronics and/or acoustic engineers/scientists so we can develop hydrophones
3)Develop reliable cameras usable by planes so we can scout out the enemy submarine pens for destruction.
4)Much as I'd like to simply scrap it, we've put too much effort into the K-1 to do that so I propose to fix the transmission issues and make them more reliable, as well as finish the tank engine. On the other hand I DO propose we scrap the SPIA as a boondoggle that doesn't need anymore funding
5)Finally, finish the 14mm heavy MG.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

1.1. Start switching our Feather producing  to bomber production, let factory staff to look for ways to fix the bomb release, even if it will not get fixed, 25% failure is not that huge problem. ( if generals disagree do some ourself) 

Vote for 5

6. Scrap the flawed monoplane, design new single engined Biplane fighter and armed with one 14mm machineguns and 2 8mm machineguns, or 4 8mm machineguns should we fail to design 14mm machinegun. Assign many engineers  to it we must have it ready soon.

7. Remove 80mm gun from future popular devotion ships (it's a low velocity crap, remember), replace it with minelaying\depth charge releasing equipment. Also add whatever sub detecting equipment we have access too. Also, consider switching their  engine to the new diesel (see . Insist to get this version produced on new factory. Also consider adding few 14mm machine-guns as those can pierce thin sub hulls.

8. Finish the diesel engine, consider using it for new popular devotion ships

9. Develop ship recovery equipment and try to raise sunken Morovian subs for analyzing should it be possible to raise them

10. Hire 4 jet engine engineers and make them work on experimental jet engine

11. Produce more armored cars, 40 mm mortars, and enough depth charges of all sizes

Have more ideas but will show self discipline and offer the ones I see most important

[tryrar]

1.2)Name new bomber Wolverine
5.1)Name the heavy MG the GVS-14
8.1)see if we can apply any lessons learned from developing this engine to current diesel designs
12)I hate to propose one more thing but this is important: FINALLY finish the high-velocity 40mm cannon. We can use this as a basis to produce high-velocity variants of all our other starting cannons!(I'm assuming the higher caliber guns we've created are high velocity, correct me if I'm wrong)
I vote for 8, if it wasn't clear
Also 9 sounds like a good idea

[3_14159]

I'll add a few proposals and modifications to what I see.
Modification 6.1: Instead of a Biplane fighter construct a monoplane fighter with similar armament. Assign at least the aviation engineer and as many as possible to get it finished. Try adding a small mount for bombs or drop tanks on the wings.
Modification because even if it doesn't get to be a monoplane (From which I'm hoping higher speed and maneuverability), we definitely need something to fly by the end of the turn. The mount may provide them with small anti-ground capability if needed, or may even mount rockets later for a ground-attack role.

Proposal 13: Design a small rocket of about 50kg with a small warhead.
Same as last turn.

I definitely vote for 1.1 (plus the name) and 2, though. Even if we can't depend on our workers to fix it, modifying it later should be comparatively easy. And two is possibly the most important one - we need electronic engineers for sonar, radar, radio, target computers (mechanic at the start of WWII)... need I continue?

Proposal 14: Hedgehog: Design a mortar-launched round with contact detonation to be used against dived submarines.

Also, vote for 8 and 5.1.

And, lastly, another addendum: Proposal 15: Always take any engineer recruits the government is offering us Even if they stay unoccupied or work on more comfortable chairs, we won't lose anything.

Spoiler: List of Projects (click to show/hide)

1. Fix Bomb Release and Depth Charge Detonation problems
   1.1 Let the factory fix the bomb release
   1.2 Bomber name: Wolverine
2. Electronics Engineer
3. Recon plane camera
4. Fix the K-1, drop SPIA and MIAW
5. Finish the 14mm MG
   5.1 Name: GVS-14
6. Scrap the monoplane, single engined biplane fighter
    6.1 No, new monoplane
7. Upgrade popular devotion
8. Finish the diesel
9. Ship recovery equipment for the subs
10. Jet engines
11. Production of armored cars, 40mm mortars and depth charges
12. High-velocity 40mm
13. Small Rocket
14. Hedgehog
15. Take all and every engineer offered

Edit: Corrected my vote from 9 to 8.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Modification because even if it doesn't get to be a monoplane (From which I'm hoping higher speed and maneuverability),

Biplanes are more maneuverable than monoplanes but slower. Also bomb mounts are trivial to add don't think that it should be noted...

[tryrar]

I Vote for 6.1. Also, vote for 14 due to hedgehogs and other spigot mortar ASW systems historically having a better kill ratio against subs than depth charges(and the added bonus of not messing up sonar unless it actually hit something). Also, just so it's clear, I support getting the bomb release fixed in some fashion and getting the Wolverines up in the sky, so 1.1 has my vote.

1.3)Fix Depth Charge premature detonation from surface contact so they can be airdropped(might as well separate this out)
12.1)*SIGH* wish I had your restraint UR. Anyways, as an addendum to finishing the cannon, how bout any project more than 75% complete we assign a couple engineers to work out the kinks? that way we can eliminate the huge backlog of stuff we've got

OK, so projects accepted so far(by my count at least!):

1, 1.1, 1.2(Fixing the bomb release of the new Wolverine bomber in some manner and retooling production to get them built ASAP)
5, 5.1(I'm assuming approving of the name means you also approve of the gun 3_; correct me if this isn't the case)
9(Ship salvaging equipment)

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Tryrar, 6.1 would be designing a new monoplane. If you want pursue  the original design, than make 6.2. But note that original is large, heavy twinengined monoplane and should carry way more machineguns for it's role

Vote for 12.1

7.1 Using a good mortar idea
Remove 80mm gun from future popular devotion ships (it's a low velocity crap, remember). Also remove half of 40mm guns. Replace it with minelaying\depth charge releasing equipment. Also add whatever sub detecting equipment we have access too. Also, consider switching their  engine to the new diesel. Also add several 14mm machine-guns as those can pierce thin sub hulls (and help against aircraft). Finally add 4 40mm mortars with both light antisub and smoke (quite important for covering retreat) shells.
Finally replace remaining 40mm guns with high velocity one should it be ready (those will be useful for fighting with subs, too)
Do not put anti-torpedo armor as we need speed for those ships


We need a dedicated antisub\minelaying ship, torpedoes will keep them useful against surface ships, and 80mm gun is quite week for any serious opposition anyway.  As for Anti-arcraft ability, it's a secondary for the ship of that role ( and it still will have some 40mm and 14mms)  like that and we have Alexis to combat enemy aviation

[3_14159]

Modification because even if it doesn't get to be a monoplane (From which I'm hoping higher speed and maneuverability),

Biplanes are more maneuverable than monoplanes but slower. Also bomb mounts are trivial to add don't think that it should be noted...

That's what happens when I write without informing myself... still, the speed is more important in my opinion. I sure hope we can mount the 14mm MG on there. That'd make the whole thing a pretty nice ground attack plane, too, with something like 40 or so mm against the upper, less armored side.

I Vote for 6.1. Let's see if we can fix those flaws.

Actually, the proposal scraps the current design, too. Two flaws are too much for my taste, and we'll not lose that much time for scrapping it.

OK, so projects accepted so far(by my count at least!):

1, 1.1, 1.2(Fixing the bomb release of the new Wolverine bomber in some manner and retooling production to get them built ASAP)
5, 5.1(I'm assuming approving of the name means you also approve of the gun 3_; correct me if this isn't the case)
9(Ship salvaging equipment)

Small correction: I misremembered and voted for 9 instead of 8. So, 8 approved (better diesel engine), 9 not yet.
Oh, and yes, I approve of the gun. It could, mounted on our fighters, provide a really, really nice ground attack weapon. Hell, it could probably even shred our current badger tanks from the sides.
Also, vote for 12.1, at least unless it's got things like scores of flaws.