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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[Mulisa]

To chime in on this, if they have absolute naval superiority in the archipelago they could interdict our resupply, starving out our land forces on the islands while shelling them down without reinforcements to replenish casualties, virtually guaranteeing they'll win eventually. Whether they can do so in one turn or ten is the issue here, and we can't tell until we get the first combat report.

So a destroyer should be a priority.

[Taricus]

Attrition warfare costs them time and gives that time to us so that we may get a navy.

Besides, their shelling can be stopped by a squadron of aircraft bombing their ships, so it's not as bad as it looks, especially with Tereshkova's training scheme for our pilots.

[Azzuro]

To chime in on this, if they have absolute naval superiority in the archipelago they could interdict our resupply, starving out our land forces on the islands while shelling them down without reinforcements to replenish casualties, virtually guaranteeing they'll win eventually. Whether they can do so in one turn or ten is the issue here, and we can't tell until we get the first combat report.

So a destroyer should be a priority.

Depends on the urgency of the need for one. Really there are a lot of factors here, like whether we'll have airstrips in the archipelago to project air power, whether our planes could fly in from another island to do missions, whether their naval superiority is sufficient to interdict supply convoys even under the coverage umbrella of land-based air (depends on their ship designs), etc. Really I would wait until the turn comes out to decide.

[NUKE9.13]

So, Kot, always full of interesting ideas, has suggested that we may want to direct considerable effort towards floatplanes. By using retractable floats, the aerodynamic profile can be improved.
And flying boats can be almost arbitrarily large- see, for example, the H-4 Hercules, which, in theory, was capable of carrying two 30-ton tanks/750 soldiers across the Atlantic ocean. If we could build a practical version of that, we could solve the whole 'naval advantage' nonsense, as we would no longer be so reliant on naval transports to supply our islands.

I suggest that (after designing a destroyer), we try for a floatplane, with retractable floats, to serve as a dedicated torpedo bomber. If it goes well, we can design more floatplanes, perhaps bypassing the need for carriers altogether.

[Taricus]

...The only problem there is that you took an idea from Kot. Which means that entire idea is effectively worthless. And more to the point it still lands on water and is thus vulnerable to being shot to all shit by their navy.

[Mulisa]

Plus, even with retractable floats, I cannot fathom a floatplane being all that agile. Especially as you market it's ability to be arbitarily large. I have a feeling their close-in AA defence would rip the thing to shreds sooner than our smaller land based torpedo bombers.

Besides, if we wanted something arbitarily large flying, why not just make a helium airship. The square-cube law would be our friend there.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

So, Kot, always full of interesting ideas, has suggested that we may want to direct considerable effort towards floatplanes. By using retractable floats, the aerodynamic profile can be improved.
And flying boats can be almost arbitrarily large- see, for example, the H-4 Hercules, which, in theory, was capable of carrying two 30-ton tanks/750 soldiers across the Atlantic ocean. If we could build a practical version of that, we could solve the whole 'naval advantage' nonsense, as we would no longer be so reliant on naval transports to supply our islands.

I suggest that (after designing a destroyer), we try for a floatplane, with retractable floats, to serve as a dedicated torpedo bomber. If it goes well, we can design more floatplanes, perhaps bypassing the need for carriers altogether.

By making a carrier, we can use already existing planes, rather than needing to make a ton of new designs.  From an economy of actions view, the carrier is by far more efficient.

[Mulisa]

So, Kot, always full of interesting ideas, has suggested that we may want to direct considerable effort towards floatplanes. By using retractable floats, the aerodynamic profile can be improved.
And flying boats can be almost arbitrarily large- see, for example, the H-4 Hercules, which, in theory, was capable of carrying two 30-ton tanks/750 soldiers across the Atlantic ocean. If we could build a practical version of that, we could solve the whole 'naval advantage' nonsense, as we would no longer be so reliant on naval transports to supply our islands.

I suggest that (after designing a destroyer), we try for a floatplane, with retractable floats, to serve as a dedicated torpedo bomber. If it goes well, we can design more floatplanes, perhaps bypassing the need for carriers altogether.

By making a carrier, we can use already existing planes, rather than needing to make a ton of new designs.  From an economy of actions view, the carrier is by far more efficient.

Carrier would be vulnerable to the enemy's complete naval supremacy. If we wanted a carrier, I think the sanest way to do it would be the utterly insane way of using a zeppelin for it.

Having that bastard at 6-10 kilometers up would make it pretty safe from the enemy.

[Azzuro]

So, Kot, always full of interesting ideas, has suggested that we may want to direct considerable effort towards floatplanes. By using retractable floats, the aerodynamic profile can be improved.
And flying boats can be almost arbitrarily large- see, for example, the H-4 Hercules, which, in theory, was capable of carrying two 30-ton tanks/750 soldiers across the Atlantic ocean. If we could build a practical version of that, we could solve the whole 'naval advantage' nonsense, as we would no longer be so reliant on naval transports to supply our islands.

I suggest that (after designing a destroyer), we try for a floatplane, with retractable floats, to serve as a dedicated torpedo bomber. If it goes well, we can design more floatplanes, perhaps bypassing the need for carriers altogether.

...what if the floats were the torpedoes to be dropped? It's ok guys, any nobel prize will do, I'm not picky.

More realistically, how would more floatplanes be refuelled and rearmed without a dedicated ship or floating base? The idea of flying boats for troop transport sounds cool though, I'm up for that or ekranoplans if others are.

And what's wrong with Kot?

[Taricus]

Well we're making screens for the carrier first. I mean we're not that stupid to make carriers without escorts

[Kot]

Since we are considering carriers a lot, which brings the unfortunate need for escort ships and other such vehicles, I alctually been thinking...
What about if we use seaplanes instead?
It's usually considered a bad idea, since the bulk of the float sticking out of the bottom is creating a lot of drag and so makes the plane perform worse, but the benefits are that now any relatively calm sea can be used as an airbase, there are no limits of how many planes we can actually carry on the carrier and it allows us to experiment with even bigger and heavier planes. It would be ideal for our situation, since we are mostly island hopping and we don't have the naval base to pull off an actual face-to-face combat with enemy ships.

Of course the problem of floats still exists, as we don't really want to limit the performance of the plane...

Spoiler: BUT FEAR NOT, FOR KOT'S KNOWLEDGE IN CRAZY MILITARY DESIGNS PREVAILS! (click to show/hide)

Retractable floats. The Blackburn B.44 was a proposed fighter plane (that never actually took off, due to engine shortages and general British troubles. The float, being mostly empty isin't very heavy and while it still isin't as good aerodynamically, it's way better than a plane with fixed floats, but most importantly, it gives us all the benefits of a floatplane.

The concept was actually tested on bigger plane, B.20, which sadly crashed during the tests but it was due to aileron flutter, and Brits thought the concept was pretty great and the crash was not caused by the float, but then war happened and they couldn't make more.

Using retractable floats allows us to have all the benefits of seaplanes and almost none of the drawbacks. We could have long range, we could have as many airbases as we want, we could even design a tanker submarine to resupply the planes to make us completly untraceable. We could make bigger and heavier planes, even transport planes. 750 people and 2 tanks on each? Yes please!
And we could strap wheels to the floats, so the planes could also land on the regular airstrips. This is perfect plan.

It also means we basically don't have to get a navy at all and we focus more on our air superiority which is good! And once jet engines roll around we get to do this! GLORY TO Arst-FORENIA!

...The only problem there is that you took an idea from Kot. Which means that entire idea is effectively worthless. And more to the point it still lands on water and is thus vulnerable to being shot to all shit by their navy.

A major part of a seaPLANE is that it can take off and fly away into the sunset leaving their navy trying to shoot it all to shit way behind.

Plus, even with retractable floats, I cannot fathom a floatplane being all that agile. Especially as you market it's ability to be arbitarily large. I have a feeling their close-in AA defence would rip the thing to shreds sooner than our smaller land based torpedo bombers.

Besides, if we wanted something arbitarily large flying, why not just make a helium airship. The square-cube law would be our friend there.

Not really. The aerodynamics are still maybe not as good, but as far as aerodynamics go, the "Jug" wasn't great either.

By making a carrier, we can use already existing planes, rather than needing to make a ton of new designs.  From an economy of actions view, the carrier is by far more efficient.

By making a carrier we also need to design whole navy. Carrier on it's own is not going to be very helpful, and I doubt you could design whole working navy with less designs and revisions than you could design a retractable floats and revise current planes to adopt them.

[Mulisa]

Since we are considering carriers a lot, which brings the unfortunate need for escort ships and other such vehicles, I alctually been thinking...
What about if we use seaplanes instead?
It's usually considered a bad idea, since the bulk of the float sticking out of the bottom is creating a lot of drag and so makes the plane perform worse, but the benefits are that now any relatively calm sea can be used as an airbase, there are no limits of how many planes we can actually carry on the carrier and it allows us to experiment with even bigger and heavier planes. It would be ideal for our situation, since we are mostly island hopping and we don't have the naval base to pull off an actual face-to-face combat with enemy ships.

Of course the problem of floats still exists, as we don't really want to limit the performance of the plane...

Spoiler: BUT FEAR NOT, FOR KOT'S KNOWLEDGE IN CRAZY MILITARY DESIGNS PREVAILS! (click to show/hide)

Retractable floats. The Blackburn B.44 was a proposed fighter plane (that never actually took off, due to engine shortages and general British troubles. The float, being mostly empty isin't very heavy and while it still isin't as good aerodynamically, it's way better than a plane with fixed floats, but most importantly, it gives us all the benefits of a floatplane.

The concept was actually tested on bigger plane, B.20, which sadly crashed during the tests but it was due to aileron flutter, and Brits thought the concept was pretty great and the crash was not caused by the float, but then war happened and they couldn't make more.

Using retractable floats allows us to have all the benefits of seaplanes and almost none of the drawbacks. We could have long range, we could have as many airbases as we want, we could even design a tanker submarine to resupply the planes to make us completly untraceable. We could make bigger and heavier planes, even transport planes. 750 people and 2 tanks on each? Yes please!
And we could strap wheels to the floats, so the planes could also land on the regular airstrips. This is perfect plan.

It also means we basically don't have to get a navy at all and we focus more on our air superiority which is good! And once jet engines roll around we get to do this! GLORY TO Arst-FORENIA!

...The only problem there is that you took an idea from Kot. Which means that entire idea is effectively worthless. And more to the point it still lands on water and is thus vulnerable to being shot to all shit by their navy.

A major part of a seaPLANE is that it can take off and fly away into the sunset leaving their navy trying to shoot it all to shit way behind.

Plus, even with retractable floats, I cannot fathom a floatplane being all that agile. Especially as you market it's ability to be arbitarily large. I have a feeling their close-in AA defence would rip the thing to shreds sooner than our smaller land based torpedo bombers.

Besides, if we wanted something arbitarily large flying, why not just make a helium airship. The square-cube law would be our friend there.

Not really. The aerodynamics are still maybe not as good, but as far as aerodynamics go, the "Jug" wasn't great either.

By making a carrier, we can use already existing planes, rather than needing to make a ton of new designs.  From an economy of actions view, the carrier is by far more efficient.

By making a carrier we also need to design whole navy. Carrier on it's own is not going to be very helpful, and I doubt you could design whole working navy with less designs and revisions than you could design a retractable floats and revise current planes to adopt them.

Still, though. We could just make the airstrip itself fly and not sacrifice the plane's performance.

Here's a real-life concept of a flying aircraft carrier. Admittedly the docking hook was a pain in the ass to connect to for the pilots.


Here's one more akin to a traditional aircraft carrier. And I can't see this being too hard to put onto an airship either.


Filling the thing with helium would necessitate larger volume than a hydrogen airship, but on the other hand, larger airship = larger landing strip. Being an airship it could chill at altitudes no airplane can reach, only lowering down to launch or collect it's aircraft.


...


Holy shit, am I seriously considering a flying aircraft carrier right now. 

[evictedSaint]

> Suffering because we don't have a navy
> Desperately need to design ships to compete with Turbados

"Hey guys, what if we built another plane instead?"


The goal is to skip the age of heavy-weight battleship slugfests and jump straight to a more modern concept of carriers and destroyer escorts.

[3_14159]

I suggest that (after designing a destroyer), we try for a floatplane, with retractable floats, to serve as a dedicated torpedo bomber. If it goes well, we can design more floatplanes, perhaps bypassing the need for carriers altogether.

While a floatplane (or, more accurately for what we are trying to design, a flying boat), is nice, I don't think it's very suitable as our main torpedo bomber. That's mostly because a both flying boats and float planes are by design slower and less manoeuvrable (and also bigger, ergo more vulnerable) than conventional planes.

However, where they do shine is their size - we can put quite a bit of stuff in there. For example fuel. Fuel which allows them an extremely great range. I'd therefore argue that such a flying boat would work far better as a long-range patrol bomber. Mount our radios, fuel, some defensive armament plus some armament (which will probably include mounts for torpedoes) to hunt lone merchants and ships.

Holy shit, am I seriously considering a flying aircraft carrier right now. 

Do note the large disadvantages of airships: Needs large resources compared to what they're able to carry, and is hugely vulnerable to weather. Compare the Acron and Macon, the poster boy for military airship carriers. Both were lost to crashes.

[Azzuro]

Also note that old-timey article: "ten planes". Even the crappiest of carriers in this period carried 20-25, Japanese fleet carriers had 50+ planes, and the attack on Pearl Harbor involved 400+. I dunno how we're going to build 40 of those things, or five of them for one carrier.