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[Ukrainian Ranger]

and they can distract, you can't ignore enemy planes in a fight because yours is better.

You can safely ignore enemy aircraft if you have 7000m ceiling and "fight" against open cockpit biplanes that can't fly that high ever....

And as I said if they are willing to give us advantage in height, and place their twin engined fighters mixed with swarm of lighter fighters... Good, we will be the one who attack from above.

[Alexandria]

Except sooner or later you have to come down and fight and if your coming down into a huge group of enemies you can't ignore some because yours is better.
Beint higher at the start won't help you when your dog fighting lower down to defend your bombers and then the biwings become a problem.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Well, in that situation, why ignore? Just shoot them down easily.

Seriously, in one massfight between 524 biwing fighters and 24 Two enginers on one side and 87 Sparrows on our side, I would bet on Sparrows

If we count one Two-enginer worth 1,5 sparrows, that gives us 51 Sparrows vs 524 biwingers. Quite easy fight considering how much more advanced our fighters are.  Add Ravens for the mix and Ospreys that aren't defenseless once they unload torpedoes\bombs

[Alexandria]

But we can't use all of our sparrows, more then half and we leave our land vulnerable to enemy attack if other nations join in.

Keep in mind we have other neighbours who ain't fond of us.

[3_14159]

The main point, for me, is that the enemy has two ways of fighting once he has mixed groups of biwings and two-engines:
- Mix them: This forces the two-engines to operate at lower altitudes
- Separate them: This allows us to defeat the enemy in detail.
Both are pretty good odds for us.

And, the biwing is/should be pretty useless against high-flying bombers.

Another question: What to give our gun expert to do this turn? Improving the 30mm?

[Patrick Hunt]

Defeating them in detail comes with weaknesses, we can't deploy the numbers to match the enemy over his own territory, to do so leaves us open to assaults in all other quarters which in our current position is a very dangerous thing to do meaning odds are we're going to be facing equal or superior enemy numbers most of the time.

Against large targets high altitude works but for CAS you have to go low, low enough that your inside the biwings attack sphere, if they keep the monoplanes high once we hit the enemy biwings we expose our backs, if we stay high then our bombers have to try and survive the enemy biwing force alone against far superior numbers.
A better plane is no use when your outnumbered 5 to 1 and trying to hit a specific target.

We need something purpose built to provide protection and something built for high altitude rather then trying to split 1 force across 2 jobs. Our fighter is a refitted bomber which is why the enemy fighter is superior, so soon we need to get a new purpose built fighter into production to augment the Sparrow force, the sparrow is tough enough to run the gauntlet so it's perfect for providing close defense for CAS, so we should get something out thats a bit lighter and designed more for the hit and run style you mentioned previously.

Make it a bit lighter, make it smaller and make it high altitude, with being smaller and lighter you inherently get more speed and maneuverability because it has lower weight.
Which if nothing else will help it with gaining altitude again after and since it's not designed for dog fighting itself but rather to attack then disengage then attack again it shouldn't be as heavily armored as the sparrow because it's not meant to fight for long enough to need that much protection.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Either that or 100-120mm gun, or proper AT gun

What do you guys think about my attempt to get a high attitude bomber? Yes it's solution for
few turns, enemy will react with high attitude fighters, and yes bombing is not terribly accurate, but by bombing them we can even force peace, especially if we go bad boy route and bomb cities... At least we can bomb drydocks, naval bases and fighter construction... And night bombing is always an option

But to get it right we need three teams, one to improve engine (It's good move for our other aircrafts), bomber itself and radio navigation for precise high attitude and\or night bombing
If that will work, we may start bombing the enemy into the stone age

Ninja'd
Patric, Osprey is not a bomber, it was designed as fighter-bomber right from the start,so sparrow is almost pure fighter. Enemy fighter is better not because it's more advanced but because it's more expensive. No need to get another fighter. Especially when we never tried to modernize sparrow. It can get 30mm gun, it can get light machineguns in wings, it can get better alloys, it can get better engine and so on
Upgrading an engine takes only one medium team, leaving our large team open for another aircraft or rocketry related design

[3_14159]

@Patrick: That is true, but is only the case if you need CAS right now. If you have bombers to defend, for example, biwings don't enter the equation at all; if you are doing air superiority missions at first, it's the situation described.
So yes, if you are forced to do close air support, it will be problematic if the area is teeming with biwings (though you are not that vulnerable due to the inherently higher dive airspeed).
That's why I'd like a campaign of higher-altitude bombing against their production facilities and airfields - that devaluates their biwings and makes defending them their priority.

@UR: I like the high-engine bomber. It is a stop-gap measure for now, though, as once the enemy gets that high we need to armour and arm it.
Agree on the fighter analysis, especially the more expensive part.

[Patrick Hunt]

So? Ours was more expensive and look how that worked out? We just increased production. Theres no reason our enemy won't do the same shortly we can't rely on having superior or even equal numbers to our enemy to win at the very least we need to find a way to modify the Sparrow to close the gap to allow us to fight on equal terms.
I have no problem with not designing a whole new one but we need to at least fully customize the Sparrow as a fighter, so 10mm in the wings to add extra punch at least and a stronger engine to allow it to better match the enemies plane.

Once we can fight them 1 to 1 and win I'll be happy until then we're reliant on our enemy throwing inferior numbers at us while we are unable to use our full numbers.

[3_14159]

Well, it was more expensive and much better; a case of a better cost-performance-ratio. For example, the Sparrow costs 16 to produce, while the Raven costs 12 points. Are 12 Sparrows better than 16 Ravens? Oh yes, very much so.
The Sparrow compared to their two-engine design probably costs a bit more than half. So, for example, are 20 Sparrows better than let's say 12 Lightnings? Probably yes [1].
But I agree with you that we should upgrade them. A better engine, heavier armament will both probably be necessary.
I'd advise, as a side note, against mounting 10mm machine guns. They are half as heavy as a 15mm one and half as expensive, too, but their weight of fire is much reduced. Two 10mm have a combined firing range of 500rpm, while the 15mm one alone has 400. Combined with the heavier bullet that should prove much more lethal than the two 10mms.

Once we can fight them 1 to 1 and win I'll be happy until then we're reliant on our enemy throwing inferior numbers at us while we are unable to use our full numbers.

And once we can fight them 1 on 1 I want to continue upgrading them or introducing a new platform. The only odds I like to see have about three orders of magnitudes.

And, I just remembered:
@10ebbor10: Do we need to do anything to use the rocket or is it abstracted as normal munitions expenditure?


[1] "Additionally, both Osprey's and Sparrow's are having slight trouble defeating the thing on even odds, though no problems taking it down with sufficient back-up."

[evilcherry]

I guess it is beneficial here to reiterate these questions for ebbor.

1. What stopped the sparrow from going to 300km/h +? Is it a lack of engine power, a badly designed airframe, or anything else? can they dive into 400km/h?
2. How does the Sparrow far, one on one, with Lightnings? do Sparrows lose out because of insufficient firepower, they are better at Zoom and Boom, their better armor, or any reason? Can one describe a typical dogfight for a Sparrow vs a Lightning?

I feel the Sparrow produces more questions than answers.

[Patrick Hunt]

We need to upgrade the 10mm, we need a lighter gun for the wing the 15mm is to heavy to mount more then 2.

If we can up the ROF it should be fine.

[10ebbor10]

1. What stopped the sparrow from going to 300km/h +? Is it a lack of engine power, a badly designed airframe, or anything else? can they dive into 400km/h?

A combination of factors. First of all, the 900 kw engine is a radial engine. This means it's reliable, resilient and powerfull for it's weight, but also aircooled. It's quite broad and catches quite a lot of air. Additionally, the engine was designed to be big and powerful, not fast. It doesn't have the RPM for that. Though well, I probably dropped it's speed a little bit to low. Will still be slowish though.

They can possibly dive at higher speeds though.

2. How does the Sparrow far, one on one, with Lightnings? do Sparrows lose out because of insufficient firepower, they are better at Zoom and Boom, their better armor, or any reason? Can one describe a typical dogfight for a Sparrow vs a Lightning?

I assume you mean the enemy plane. While there have been no real combat between pure groups of the new generation, it's clear that the enemy is faster, has a better climb rate and is slightly better armored. Their weaponry is slightly weaker, but capable of damaging and destroying a Sparrow.

Rocket is ammunition, and doesn't need separate production. It requires explosives and special fuels, though only in minimal amounts.

[evilcherry]

1. I thought most aircraft engines of the era was Radial ones? and I guess they got the torque curve really poor as couldn't just use some kind of reduction gear connected in reverse.

And yes you dropped it a bit TOO low. It should hit at least 350-ish with poor engineering. It sounded like that our plane is actually a parasol.

2. Yeah, thanks for clarifying. It seems that they are on the Heavy Fighter Route.

[10ebbor10]

1. Most were. Yours is one of the larger ones though, and not very aerodynamic. But yeah, I missed the ball there. Even the Peashooter could reach higher speeds.