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[RAM]

I would assume that either there were not enough engineers left over, or that they were missed. Do you have a list of the designs that were missed?

An enemy fighter could ignore Lightnings and go straight for a radar airship, this ignores the mental factors and a pilot would need to be pretty disciplined and have a clear idea of that as their actual goal to do so. The Lightning cover becomes rapidly less appetising as the range from the airbase increases. The carrier would launch fighter that were fully fuelled and freshly piloted likely within 20 minutes of any engagement, while the Lightning has probably been lulling about for an hour and can only afford to spend 20 minutes fighting before it needs to run away or ditch... These could fight naval battles without fear from most surface or submersible vessels and escort Radar Airships no matter how far forward they went to follow an advance or how badly damaged our forward airbases are damaged...

We barely have the capacity to build a surface aircraft-carrier yet, and even if we did it would be lucky to last a week...
Not to mention that it would require specialised aircraft also.

Does anyone actually have any advice to improve any of my proposals?

[Nadaka]

Just a question, but I have a feeling that several voted designs were not constructed.

Was the voting limit increased or something?

Unless I was mistaken there were only 2 designs with 3 votes that didn't get finished, and 1 from last year makes the 3 designs carried over. All designs with 3 or more votes had engineers put towards them this year.

[10ebbor10]

Design number 8 got 3 votes, and wasn't mentioned. Ie, the vengeance class submarine.

Edit: If the community count was correct, these were the voted projects.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A2 tank modernization
A3 120mm cannon
A4.1 T-2
A5 Radar Airship
A8 25mm cannon
A9 Sonar
1.1 Lightning: Improve handling, fix most common flaws, improve aerodynamics, add 8 8mm machineguns to the wings, bringing total armament to 2 14mm and 8 8mm guns
2 Submarine nets
3 High yield directional charge Argument RPG designed to penetrate heavy tank armor.
8 Vengeance Submarine
15 Naval Patrol Aircraft
18 Upgrade the assault rifle again [acc, vel, ROF]

And these were the production proposals

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Proposal A, Suggest 2 more 8000 ton naval yards both outfitted for production not repair, and modify the newest 8000 ton yard for production as well.
B: Build an additional Lightning factory.
C: build a complex to produce 1 type B Cod and 1 type C Cod each month.
D: Retool zephyr factories to producing transports and helicopters. It's machine gun factories to go to new lightnings.
E: Construct 78mm AT gun for TD or mobile.
F: More Sub construction facilities
G: 78mm AT gun (wheeled)
H: Rebuild
K: Proximity fuze construction
    L.1: POW camp
M: Propaganda

Spoiler: Missed projects (click to show/hide)

2 Submarine nets
8 Vengeance Submarine

Spoiler: Missed Production (click to show/hide)

E: Construct 78mm AT gun for TD or mobile.
F: More Sub construction facilities
K: Proximity fuze construction

[10ebbor10]

BTW, why in the world are we assuming we have gunpowder rockets? I never saw any note that that's what they were....

Well, our only other options are Zinc-sulphur (low thrust), sugar based rockets (low-medium thrust) or double base propellants* (medium-High thrust).

We might be using Zinc-sulphur, probably not using sugar based rockets (hard and dangerous to produce, as well as volatile), and we haven't researched double bases yet. (Do note, double base is quite explosive)

*For example, Nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose

And they'd make lovely big targets and why go through them?

All you have to do is have 1 fighter ignore the defensive fighters for 2 seconds to fire a couple of rounds into the airship and then it's done.

The airship idea is out dated compared to the level of tech were using, we're already ahead of ww2 level.

I think we recently established that we're not using hydrogen zeppelins.

Meaning that our zeppelins are one of the most resilient ships in the air. The enemy fighter can shoot it's entire ammunition magazine empty on the ship, and it will easily make it back to base for minor patchwork. After all, the majority of the ship is empty air. Missiles and the like simply pass through without detonating. So as long as the capsule isn't to badly damaged, the ship stays in the air.

A series of structural vulnerability tests were done by the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency DERA on a Skyship 600, an earlier airship built by the Munk team to a similar pressure-stabilized design. Several hundred high-velocity bullets were fired through the hull, and even two hours later the vehicle would have been able to return to base. The airship is virtually impervious to automatic rifle and mortar fire: ordnance passes through the envelope without causing critical helium loss. In all instances of light armament fire evaluated under both test and live conditions, the vehicle was able to complete its mission and return to base. The internal hull pressure is maintained at only 1–2% above surrounding air pressure, the vehicle is highly tolerant to physical damage or to attack by small-arms fire or missiles

The problem with airships is that they're fairly immobile, and that they're not good against AA artillery fire (Fragmentation shots rip through the enveloppe). Hence why our bombers got slaughtered.

However, now that we got machine turrets to keep enemy fighters from sniping the gondolas, and we shouldn't be coming in range of AA artillery, I'm pretty sure our radar ships will be able to survive.


((The real reason that airships went out of style is that they have a tendency to crash in bad weather. Something which isn't simulated here, so ...))


On another note, the spitfire had a stall speed at rought 100km/h. Meaning that it should be perfectly feasible to design a monoplane fighter with a stall speed of lower than 70 km/h, which would then be capable of docking with the Radar aircraft. Provided it isn't to heavy, of course.

[Funk]

The into interceptor was layed out so as not to need to shoot fire through the propellers,
as the engines are off to the side in separate fuselages  with the guns in a shorter centre fuselage.
Speed wise it should get 400mph/650km/h+ so it should be able to keep up with lightnings.

maybe if we ditch the Turret and add some 14mm HMGs.
i think we need some faster firing guns for air use.

[Nadaka]

Design number 8 got 3 votes, and wasn't mentioned. Ie, the vengeance class submarine.

Edit: If the community count was correct, these were the voted projects.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A2 tank modernization
A3 120mm cannon
A4.1 T-2
A5 Radar Airship
A8 25mm cannon
A9 Sonar
1.1 Lightning: Improve handling, fix most common flaws, improve aerodynamics, add 8 8mm machineguns to the wings, bringing total armament to 2 14mm and 8 8mm guns
2 Submarine nets
3 High yield directional charge Argument RPG designed to penetrate heavy tank armor.
8 Vengeance Submarine
15 Naval Patrol Aircraft
18 Upgrade the assault rifle again [acc, vel, ROF]

And these were the production proposals

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Proposal A, Suggest 2 more 8000 ton naval yards both outfitted for production not repair, and modify the newest 8000 ton yard for production as well.
B: Build an additional Lightning factory.
C: build a complex to produce 1 type B Cod and 1 type C Cod each month.
D: Retool zephyr factories to producing transports and helicopters. It's machine gun factories to go to new lightnings.
E: Construct 78mm AT gun for TD or mobile.
F: More Sub construction facilities
G: 78mm AT gun (wheeled)
H: Rebuild
K: Proximity fuze construction
    L.1: POW camp
M: Propaganda

Spoiler: Missed projects (click to show/hide)

2 Submarine nets
8 Vengeance Submarine

Spoiler: Missed Production (click to show/hide)

E: Construct 78mm AT gun for TD or mobile.
F: More Sub construction facilities
K: Proximity fuze construction

well, looks like I did miss the sub.

Submarine nets didnt get enough votes, only 1 from what i see

I am not keeping track of ammunition production, so proximity fuses are already being produced by the nebulous abstract ammo factories.

And I did produce gun trailers for all 32 78.3mm AT guns rolling off the factory line this year.

[10ebbor10]

I liked that sub. Tried to get a new one in forever. Could settle our entire disadvantage at sea.

[Nadaka]

I'll be adding the submarine proposal as a not yet completed proposal before the end of the day using some of the capian engineers, as a partial way to make up for getting rid of the specialist engineers.

[RAM]

Speaking of esoteric research, what are the odds of our science institute coming up with anything?

[tryrar]

ummm, yeah good question. It's been HOW many turns since we built that thing?

[RAM]

You wouldn't expect it to turn up much, they are theoretically looking into some pretty esoteric sort of things, but a progress report or hearing about something that they might have given up on, or maybe if they let us look at that weird desk-toy that they made, or, well, anything really would be nice.

Some of these proposals cause me concern.
-3 seems to be adding a lot of weight, which will likely cause performance to take a proverbial nose-dive. Later proposals suggest that this will be our fighter but I doubt that it will have the performance to compete with its former incarnation...
5 seems to be strentching things a bit to have a turret that will fit on both the badger and K-1, it would likely be very large for one and very small for the other.
6 if it is what I think it is, then it is turning the badger into a tank destroyer. I don't really see the need to put any armour at all on it if that armour is not going to function against tanks. The badger is armoured against infantry, let it work against infantry, possibly in a rear guard, support unit, or urban role.
9 I can't help but feel that it should have at least two smaller guns, one on each side. Having a single large gun and ons smaller gun, presumably in a line, just seems awkward. Also, it is designed as a river-boat, ideally it would land troops, or evacuate them, some distance inland. They have only been doing so much coastal defence because they are cheap... As a dedicated coastal defender I would want to double-check that the main gun can penetrate submarine armour. Also I can't help but suspect that it's low capacity makes it a poor mine-layer...
I suspect that 11 will get shot down by infantry with rifles.

A.1 I suspect that the assault rifle is not universally superior to the SVA-10, likely possessing less effective range. I would want to build up a stockpile, but 1 factory will likely keep our production afloat I suppose...
C, while having potential, also represents a risk if things go badly...
E mining our own ports, while not as bad as it sounds, does involve certain risks and difficulties...
M worries me, it seems inevitable that building them will cost us workers and that operating them will cost us planes. Even if the front lines remained relatively stable, and they were equipped with rocket pods for a quick ascent, it is still doubtful that aircraft fielded from them would be at a decent speed and altitude for an engagement. Although it could work well in conjunction with permanent air cover, so long as you don't expect anything to be launched from the airstrips directly into a battle...
Q to the best of my knowledge, we do not have a five kilotonne design yet, twenty? Well, I guess it could be fun trying to fill it.


Also, probably time to be voting.

[tryrar]

RAM, the Doorknocker is a 120mm SPG just like the hammer, but using the Badger intead of the K-1 to extend the chassis life

Also, guys, we need cruisers, Nadaka said himself the lack of cruisers is hurting us at sea

[Brood]

We have cruisers going into production now don't we?

[RAM]

Sorry about the mistake there, It can be hard to tell with high-velocity rounds.

I have heard some folk doubting the value of super-weapons, like the Tiger, V-2, and V-3. These technologies, as far as I can tell, were actually quit capable at their tasks, it is just that those tasks wer either of limited value or failed to be exploited. The Tiger could defeat just about any other vehicle in a head-on battle, and could defeat more common foes in large numbers, it failed when it was permitted to be flanked. It may be that it was ill-suited to highly mobile operations and that it would have been better to have built something more mobile or dedicated tank destroyers with less mobility and rear protection, but it arguably won the race to the toughest, most heavily armed tank of W,W.II, As for the V-2, It delivered large explosives to distant targets with relatively few losses. It is just that bombing London wasn't all that effective. V-3 was more of the same, but can reasonably be expected to have done an admirable job of destroying whatever it was aimed at had it been finished. The resources involved in its construction were obviously significant, and led to its destruction, but it was basically going to do what it set out to do...
 Just wheeling out established doctrine is not necessarily the only way to succeed here, unorthodox ideas have their place...

[tryrar]

Brood, we have a cruiser only half-designed, not in production