My thinking was to use the fighter as a scouting plane while the bombers focused on ground targets, at least until the Monarchy started bringing out their own planes. Focusing on one plane (I'm thinking the bomber) will provide better results. I'll make sure to include that as part if the write up for the facility.
I was thinking that our first plane will probably be a good-enough fighter for one, maybe two turns before being relegated to bomber/scout duty. But we'll see.
(It is possible that we'll face some planes ourselves next turn, though.)
As far as tanks go, we should build the most modern design we can. WWII tanks differed from WWI tanks mostly in that they built upon earlier work and ideas. We already know what works IRL, so we can skip the poorly performing intermediate steps as much as possible. Basically the only reason not to make a late WWII medium tank, is that we don't have the industrial capacity to produce as many of them as we need, and we don't have an engine powerful enough to drive it (we have a suitable tank gun in the form of the Ratio).
Well, there are a few issues: Our engine technology isn't as good as WW2 engine technology, meaning less reliable, heavier and worse engines. Our materials knowledge isn't as good as WW2's, meaning worse armour. Same with our mechanical knowledge (for suspensions etc).
But, on the other hand, tanks are always defined by their adversaries: You only need enough armour to avoid being killed by them, a large enough gun to kill them, and enough mobility for everything else. This can be seen throughout World War II tank development, for example with the upgunning and uparmouring of the Panzer III from a 37mm to a 75mm cannon.
Lastly, I don't think the Ratio serves as a good tank cannon - it's comparatively low-velocity and (probably) fairly heavy.
... at which point we can do something like a 25-20-5 split, for reasonable designs/revisions-production-special projects respectively. Any more engineers we acquire after that can be split among production and special projects as we see fit.
That seems reasonable...
Seems like a reasonable long-term plan; I'd add training up the Newbies. On the other hand, no plan survives contact with the
math enemy.
The guns don't need to be on ships at least initially we could make a coastal gun in let's say 406 mm and after some improvement mount it on a ship.
Something like these for instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16%22/50_caliber_M1919_gun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16%22/50_caliber_Mark_2_gun
Some even had gun data computers.
Personally, I'd rather build a medium-calibre naval gun first - something like 125 or 150mm guns. My reasoning would be expense (since they'd be cheaper), logistics (since we would mount the same ones on destroyers) and efficiency (since the enemy won't field the battleships these guns are meant to counter). Additionally, we can use these guns as heavy artillery on land.