Print

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

[10ebbor10]

It's kinda hard though, as most of the ship is fabric, and it's weight is limited. Besides, foam doesn't last forever.

[RAM]

There should be scaffolding, and foam is just the first thing that came to mind, you could use tape, fabric strips and glue, and nothing is completely permanent. Actually locating leaks could be a problem, but you could likely use smoke for that.

[Brood]

.... Yeah or we could drop the airships entirely instead of building new death traps to get our men killed on.

[10ebbor10]

.... Yeah or we could drop the airships entirely instead of building new death traps to get our men killed on.

I would like to note that of all vehicles we have build, the airships have one of the lowest casualty rates. (Certainly less than 200 men). ((Well technically, the SPIA would qualify for that one. Only killed one of our expert engineers))

And besides, it helps if you provide facts rather than just mindlessly restating your opinion.

There should be scaffolding, and foam is just the first thing that came to mind, you could use tape, fabric strips and glue, and nothing is completely permanent. Actually locating leaks could be a problem, but you could likely use smoke for that.

There is no scaffolding(not on the current airship designs). Not of the extent that it could take a crewmember everywhere. For that you would need a completely rigid airship, which is  more expensive (both construction and maintenance), and more easily damaged(There are much more structural elements, and they are more important).

Besides, there's still the fact that not even the fabric used for airships is completely airtight.

[Brood]

Aircraft are advancing fast and can already take out the airships.

So it's one big floating target that is completely impossible to defend unless it stays within our borders at all times and it's still almost impossible to defend since a fighter with a good shot will put dozens of holes in the airship in about 3 seconds.

[10ebbor10]

Aircraft are advancing fast and can already take out the airships.

So it's one big floating target that is completely impossible to defend unless it stays within our borders at all times and it's still almost impossible to defend since a fighter with a good shot will put dozens of holes in the airship in about 3 seconds.

The aircraft have shown that they can take out a defenseless airship. An upgraded airship with actual point defenses would be significantly harder. Besides, as I said before, if we apply the Dynamic Helium system (while anachronistic, there's no technical reason for us not to do so) we can reach altitudes of almost 10.000 meters. Planes can't follow here. ((The highest altitude for a WO I airship was 7200 meters))

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

There hasn't been any major development in airship designs. Airships are, as said many times before, the most robust aircraft around. Nothing safe from losing the Gondola or critical loss of structural integrity will take them out.

All Morovia's current fighters can hope to do is aiming for said Gondola, which was easy when facing unarmed ships, but should be harder with armed ones.

[RAM]

It feels to me that aeroplanes have hit a bit of a wall. The engines are improving, but also getting heavier, the actual power to weight ratios have been fairly static and all that we are doing right now is filling different roles and swapping around armaments. The next likely revolution would be rocket-propelled aeroplanes and our enemies have shown no interest in rockets. The only really scary thing they could pull out quickly is armoured wings, which will hardly make for an effective fighter against other aeroplanes...

Meanwhile, the lack of advancement in airships is largely a matter of interest in the field. We could experiment with rigid frames, lighter gasses, spare gas tanks... My next idea for a repair system is a miniature airship, able to support a single person, with tethered clips to navigate around the outside of the major airship, a bit like space-walking... If you really want to invest in the future, go for rocket-powered aeroplanes, they can intercept effectively in a few minutes, fire devastating volleys, and sometime land afterwards!

[Funk]

Airships are too big to mount the armour,weapons or crew need to defend there self for long.
The volume to lift ratio is too high, i.e. the airship need to be big,

Planes can get to 10.000 meters, the  P-51 Mustang can reach 12,800 m.
but yes the odds are that an airship will not be rapidly destroyed, more it will be attacked and forced to return to base.
   

Lets start work on a massive Flying Fortress kind of bomber.

Spoiler: Plan code name:Gun Whale (click to show/hide)

2 14mm MGs in staggered waist positions
2X 14mm MGs nose and tail turrets
2x 14mm MGs in ,dorsal and ventral turrets
4 14mm MGs in wing(under and on top of wings) turrets
6 Improved V12 Aviation Engines

Crew: 11-14
Aim for a  Bomb load of 50k kg plus and space for 75+ men
Try to focus on range as well.

Too big and too slow to evade it should just smash its way through any fighters, with its guns killing any thing that enters 2000M.
if we get powered turrets then id bump some of the guns up to 25mm and issue Proximity Shells 

[10ebbor10]

An airship doesn't need armor (Armoring the gondulas maybe). And weapons/crew weight aren't really a problem either. They got very good cargo capacity (Better cost/cargo ratio than aircraft anyway). Besides, it's not like there's a size limit or something.

Also, the 10,000 meters was a good guess on what our current designs might accomplish when equipped with the technology. Specially designed ships could get higher, and well, shooting things down that are moving upward is fairly easy.

It feels to me that aeroplanes have hit a bit of a wall. The engines are improving, but also getting heavier, the actual power to weight ratios have been fairly static and all that we are doing right now is filling different roles and swapping around armaments. The next likely revolution would be rocket-propelled aeroplanes and our enemies have shown no interest in rockets. The only really scary thing they could pull out quickly is armoured wings, which will hardly make for an effective fighter against other aeroplanes...

Or you know, jet engines. Besides, rocket propelled airplanes have several large flaws. Tendency to explode, very high speeds knocking people out, hard to manoever, high minimum speed, eats away at fuel,  impossible to land.

Meanwhile, the lack of advancement in airships is largely a matter of interest in the field. We could experiment with rigid frames, lighter gasses, spare gas tanks... My next idea for a repair system is a miniature airship, able to support a single person, with tethered clips to navigate around the outside of the major airship, a bit like space-walking... If you really want to invest in the future, go for rocket-powered aeroplanes, they can intercept effectively in a few minutes, fire devastating volleys, and sometime land afterwards!

Rigid frames don't really offer much benefits. Sure, they are more stable, and allow for larger craft sizes, but they're also more complicated.
Lighter gasses is impossible. Hydrogen is the lightest molecule available, with helium soon after. ((Sure, you could try heating it up, but that really isn't worth the cost)). We could try to go for vacuum as flotation gasses, but I'm certain you can see the drawbacks. Hybrid airships could work.
Also, the repair system is slightly unfeasible. Astronauts have severe trouble moving in their suits, image the problems on Earth, with a giant balloon keeping you up, constantly catching the weight. Besides, using single man repair teams is kinda unfeasible when you would be talking about hundreds of holes.

On a side note, a rigid airship might solve the repair problem. Because then you can go and deflate individual ballonets without risking structural integrity failure. Makes it much easier to repair/replace them.

Lets start work on a massive Flying Fortress kind of bomber.

Spoiler: Plan code name:Gun Whale (click to show/hide)

2 14mm MGs in staggered waist positions
2X 14mm MGs nose and tail turrets
2x 14mm MGs in ,dorsal and ventral turrets
4 14mm MGs in wing(under and on top of wings) turrets
6 Improved V12 Aviation Engines

Crew: 11-14
Aim for a  Bomb load of 50k kg plus and space for 75+ men
Try to focus on range as well.

Too big and too slow to evade it should just smash its way through any fighters, with its guns killing any thing that enters 2000M.
if we get powered turrets then id bump some of the guns up to 25mm and issue Proximity Shells 

That thing has a ludricous payload. In fact, you could load up 2 fully loaded B-17 flying fortress bombers in it's cargo bay.

Besides, it won't work. The B-17 success was due to it's high flight altitude. Your thing is practically AA fodder, as it can't evade not outrange even the most basic of AA systems.

Edit: Funny little calculation
1200kw(engine power)*6/s= 7,2*10⁶Joules  7200000
50000 kg*9.81N*h= 4,9*10⁵ 490500

Meaning that it would need to spend almost 10% of it's engine power just to keep it's payload aloft. Include the plane's weight, it's ammunition and it's fuel that'll probably be more than 20%.

[Funk]

The payload is not ludricous, the Blohm & Voss BV 222 caryed 45,990 kg or 92 men with engines less powerful than our.

ok to low so lets drop the payload down to 25k and aim to 7 thousand meters.

Spoiler: Plan code name:Gun Whale mk2 (click to show/hide)

2 14mm MGs in staggered waist positions
2X 14mm MGs nose and tail turrets
2x 14mm MGs in ,dorsal and ventral turrets
4 14mm MGs in wing(under and on top of wings) turrets
6 Improved V12 Aviation Engines

Crew: 11-14
Aim for a  Bomb load of 20k kg plus and space for 25+ men
Try to focus on range as well.

Too big and too slow to evade it should just smash its way through any fighters, with its guns killing any thing that enters 2000M.
if we get powered turrets then id bump some of the guns up to 25mm and issue Proximity Shells 

[10ebbor10]

It did?

Empty weight: 30,650 kg (67,572 lb)
Gross weight: 45,990 kg (101,391 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 49,000 kg (108,027 lb)

Clear proof that it didn't.

Did a little wikiwalk. Couldn't find any WoII aircraft capable of carrying more than 10 metric tonnes in bombs.

[Funk]

your right, i was wrong.
i will keep working on my plane.
 

[10ebbor10]

The idea is quite good. (We do need some way to return fire to the Moldavians). Just some little calculation errors, I suppose.

[Brood]

We'll we are speed based for now, so why not just design a new ground attack fighter? Speed and numbers has been more our style then brute force so we should stick with it, it's working for us so far.

[10ebbor10]

We'll we are speed based for now, so why not just design a new ground attack fighter? Speed and numbers has been more our style then brute force so we should stick with it, it's working for us so far.

Tactical reconnaissance and bombing is quite important, especially as we're about to cross the Moldavian border. We'll be facing an upgraded and modernized layer of border fortifications, which might halt our assault.