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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[Devastator]

Not to mention the decrease in effectiveness the higher bombs are dropped from.  Super high-altitude bombers shouldn't actually hit anything important, without expensive and complicated radars and bomb guidance systems.

[10ebbor10]

Not to mention the decrease in effectiveness the higher bombs are dropped from.  Super high-altitude bombers shouldn't actually hit anything important, without expensive and complicated radars and bomb guidance systems.

True.

With clear skies, a ww2 era bomber group could expect to get around 30% of their bombs within 1000 feet of the target. And those bombers were not trying to escape jet aircraft.

[Radio Controlled]

Without making any judgement on the effectiveness of the aircraft, the way I've once heard it explained (a bit facetiously, perhaps, but the gist remains the same) is that if you wanna bomb a factory, it's less that you target the factory and more that you level the city block it was in and hope you hit the target somewhere in the carnage.

[Taricus]

Or you hit the infrastructure that transports the material to the factories.

[Devastator]

With clear skies, a ww2 era bomber group could expect to get around 30% of their bombs within 1000 feet of the target. And those bombers were not trying to escape jet aircraft.

They also dropped a whole lot lower.  Basically, you had to be no higher than about ten thousand feet to be reasonable effective.  For tactical targets, the lower the better.

[evictedSaint]

I like the Wild Ride, but I'm wary about packing nine sensors in the nose.  Could we do one sensor that sweeps, the way land radar does?  Our RADAR technology already lets us paint elevation, angle, and distance with a single cavity magnetron.  Maybe we can hand-wave the specifics, since finding actual information on how the seekerhead was set up is shockingly difficult.

Additionally, could we have it be a sea-skimmer missile?  Use a second cavity magnetron to measure altitude and keep it 10 m or so above ocean level.  This would increase accuracy and make over/under-shoots less likely.  If I remember right, it also limits missile confusion about multiple ships or chaff.  We should also mention what ships it should be mounted on - the cataphract, archer, etc.

The Wild Ride mentions a jet engine - that's probably a little unnecessary, since a solid propellant would work just as well for less cost.  The tunable frequencies was a great idea, though!  I never thought of that, but perhaps we could  alsoadd an activation timer to allow our ships to more precisely pick targets?  Hitting the CV behind the Destroyer line, for example.

[andrea]

TURBOHAAST (somebody add a designation)

The Haast was a success, but ultimately it arose from chance and mistake This is an attempt to replicate and surpass it on purpose.
The airframe is sturdy, implementing all the survivability and reliability measures we developed so far(self sealing tanks, mangalloy bathtub, general reliability, redundancy, flares, jammer etc.). The wings are fairly large and straight, allowing it to have great lift and to stay airborne even at low speed. Like its predecessor, the wings of the TURBOHAAST are foldable in order to fit on carriers.
For propulsions, it uses 2 large turbofan engines based on the one used on the lightning streak, mounted on the back of the fuselage, slightly raised to be less exposed to ground fire and covered by a mangalloy jacket.
As for weapons, it still carries the 6 wing autocannons of the Haast, but on the nose, now empty, it hosts 2 upsized 25 mm versions of the Velociraptor.
But this modest improvement in cannons is not what justifies this design: rather, the much increased engine power allows it to carry an enormous payload. we speculate it could carry up to 4 tonnes, in hardpoints on the wings. Between the great resilience, the unparallel firepower and an explosive payload worthy of a bomber, it should be a terrifying sight for any enemy unfortunate enough to be close to it.

[Madman198237]

UFN-BB-43 'Victorious'
Based on the Vodka but larger and better in every way, the new, all-Forenian Victorious-class battleships dispense with the notion of being a "battlecruiser", as well as the notion of being better than the enemy only in large numbers, and all the other notions about "low costs" and "strength in numbers".

First among the improvements is in firepower. The hull is wider than the Vodka to accommodate three-gun turrets, two fore and one aft, armed with new but not radically different 16in guns, based on the Overcompensators and officially titled the "Victory Gun". Effort is, however, invested in improving the loading system for more rapid firing. There is, of course, a central director-firing system, and long-base rangefinders on the conning tower and on top of every turret. A dedicated gunnery radar set, optimized for ship detection and ranging, also feeds information direct to the control room.

The bank of three guns in each turret are elevated as a single unit, allowing a single elevation system to be used instead of three, saving plenty of weight and space. In order to prevent lucky hits that might disable elevation for all three guns, the turrets' face armor is inclined and 350mm of mangalloy. The rest of the turret parts above the armored deck are 300mm mangalloy, below the armored deck is 100mm RHA.

The multitude of secondary armaments are redone, to include six dual-purpose turrets basically identical to those on the Cataphract and a large number of antiaircraft autocannon. There are definitely, absolutely, NEVER AGAIN any torpedo launchers, just in case that was in doubt. In order to preserve mobility with the increases in size, the hull is lengthened (also presumably necessary to accommodate the 16in turrets). This will allow for increased speed, especially when the inefficient diesels are swapped for many, many steam turbines as many overall improvements as possible to bring them up to par with the outside world's equivalents. Overall, while not intended to be fast, the Victorious should at least match the Vodka in speed, due to the lengthened hull and obscene horsepower of her much-improved (and just plentiful) turbines.

The actual bridge has a dedicated antiaircraft radar system, optimized for detecting aircraft at maximum range, and another general-detection radar to supplement the two (i.e., in case one goes down). The main bridge and lower conning tower are fully armored with 300mm of armor, though the flag bridge has only 50mm for fragmentation protection.

Protection is the area that the Victoria was most lacking, and is the area where the Victorious will shine, comparatively. Above the citadel, there is a 125mm main armored deck, below which is a 25mm "splinter deck", to stop fragments from exploded or shattered shells from entering the protected zone. On the sections of the ship away from the citadel, that protection is reduced to 100mm armored deck and 15mm splinter deck, to save weight and cost.

The citadel itself extends from 'A' turret to the opposite end of the after turret. It is armored with 12in, or 300mm, of RHA. It slopes down to the keel at about 20 degrees from vertical, providing additional protection against shell hits (effectively sloped armor), while the actual outer hull is a basically a torpedo bulge that slopes back in to meet the armor belt at the keel, while also being shaped in such a way to improve stability more than the thinner armor belt would provide.

For reference, see Iowa-class, and think "Iowa but shorter, slower, and generally weaker".


I'll...do what Andrea asked and rewrite Turbohaast soonish.

[andrea]

edit: Mandemon decided to make me look silly.

[Powder Miner]

Wild Ride (w/ reserach credit) (1): QuakeIV
UFAF-A-42 TURBOHAAST (1): Powder Miner

Have that designation, Andrea

[QuakeIV]

The haast is still doing fine, why are we going for marginally improved ground attack performance...

[Powder Miner]

It isn't about the ground attack performance, though that's nice, it's about the naval attack performance that has been the greatest thorn in our side this last turn, as the Turbohaast should not only fare far better against proxyfused AAA but do even better against ships. The ASM is also a possibility in this respect but I think the Turbohaast has better synergy with our strategy as a whole.

[evictedSaint]

The turbohaast does nothing our haast can't do.  It's a nice meme, but not the meme we need right now.

Wild Ride (w/ research credit) (2): QuakeIV, eS
UFAF-A-42 TURBOHAAST (1): Powder Miner

Have that designation, Andrea

[Powder Miner]

Is the Wild Ride actually what we need right now, though, looking at our problems this turn on the naval front?

[Madman198237]

But I wanted opinions and not doubleposting was an excuse for that and DARNIT ANDREA FINE I'LL START WORKING ON AN ALTERNATE TURBOHAAST HAPPY NOW?

Edit...ish....thing: Ninja'd anyway, Andrea's anti-double-posting was useless.

UFN-HA-43 'Frightening'
The Haast is a venerable old aircraft, despite being only a couple of years old. Technology marches ever on, though, and they've started to get shot down in combat. To fix that, a new aircraft was needed. A truly Forenian aircraft. An aircraft that goes fast, really fast, and carries rockets, lots of rockets. And bombs too.

The Frightening has two innovations. The first and simplest is a set of three 25mm autocannon in the nose. Simple upsized Velociraptors, meant for anti-Raider and anti-infantry work. They carry hundreds of rounds between them, as many as can be fit in the nose without affecting aerodynamics too much. Gun pods with a single cannon and plenty of ammo can be carried on the pylons instead, if additional firepower is needed.

The second innovation are the twin aT-J100 turbofans mounted on the back of the plane. al-Tawrbinat has spent months perfecting the design of the J100's, ramping up the power to the point where two of them are capable of lifting 4000 kilograms of high explosives as well as the rest of the plane, and flying it as fast as the Thunderbird, if not more. They are also rebuilt to be rugged and durable, using high-temperature metals wherever necessary to allow the engine to achieve its goals.

The other details are more boring, but the Frightening has straight wings to minimize takeoff and stall speeds and allow more effective strafing runs and numerous hardpoints along the wings and centerline to carry all the ordinance it can. Twin (vertical) tail planes, the doubled-up engines, a mangalloy bathtub for the pilot, a multitude of tough flaps and ailerons, self-sealing fuel tanks, and all the other toughening tricks we've learned from the Haast and Reckless are all combined to make an insanely durable aircraft capable of strafing run after strafing run. It also, of course, includes a Fair Fight module for missile defense.