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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[evictedSaint]

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

yep

[QuakeIV]

It should be able to engage any of their naval assets just fine, they made an air to air missile that could track air targets somewhat effectively in one turn, so we can do something with boats which are much larger and slower I would think.

[Sensei]

Bump- it would be nice to see some more votes in the box before proceeding.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Wild Ride (w/ research credit) (3): QuakeIV, eS, Zanzetkuken
UFAF-A-42 TURBOHAAST (1): Powder Miner

Coinflipped it.

[Olith McHuman]

Wild Ride (w/ research credit) (4): QuakeIV, eS, Zanzetkuken, McHuman
UFAF-A-42 TURBOHAAST (1): Powder Miner

[Light forger]

Alrighty here is my rough write up of what going on,
Vehicle Combat: I would argue that our bjorn is slightly better the their bull which has the same price tier. Same goes for the salamander vs their APC, if we were using the naval grading scale I would say we are at a minor advantage or  possibly a narrow full advantage. We could work on the bjorn to cement our lead or make a new SPA since that is the main thing we are missing.

Infantry: Thanks to our flamethrowers and tiger armor we hold a minor advantage here as well. The main things we could make would be cheapening our scopes, better rifles or, maybe a grenade launcher or new RPG. However other then the grenade launcher all of the above is kinda a revision.

Sea: My guess-imate is that their commander move them up by roughly a full advantage level. We have more (fuax)Battleships, better cruiser, a roughly equal air craft carrier (which better planes and, better radar. Our main issue is our destroyer is more of a delayed execution sentence and, we have issues dealing with there mines. I think the wild ride would move us to a minor disadvantage since we are destroying their large ships it's their general and small boats that are causing issues. Someone talked about before a cutter/ small destroyer with sonar which could possibly move us to parity.

Air: Our fighters a firmly better here even including their missile which are mainly anti-bombers. However they are able to use their missiles in hit and run attacks on our bombers which we having a hard time countering. Their new bomber is sadly just flat out better a delivering payload by the looks of it compared to what we can do. On the side note they don't have any from of ground-attack craft like the haast.
So here is my reasoning for what I'm suggesting. First off their new bomber is coasting us the jungle(their naval bombardment may not happen next turn but, I'm really fuzzy on how that works) so dealing with that should be something of note. Next off the main issue with their missile is we are still using inter-war period aircraft and tactics to try and defeat early cold-war missiles. Finally judging by the amount of payload it can carry at high speed and altitude if they make a new fighter it could better ours by a fair margin(our commander would likely change that to parity). So my suggestion is a new fighter(after all we haven't broken the sound barrier yet and, mounting our radar in a reckless effect so we can safety engage them away from our bombers and transport craft. So for the first part of the idea,

UFAF-F-43 "Grey Owl'
A revolutionary new fighter design making use of our vast aeronautic knowledge the grey owl will break not only the sound barrier but, also the enemies entire air-force. The new fighter makes use of a never before used delta wing design combined with a so called area-ruled fuselage design, minimizing the stress on the air-frame during supersonic flight. The plane is powered by twin turbofan engines, which thanks to their smaller profile then a single larger engine not only lowers drag but, also lets the craft make use of a blended fuselage. Having run out of new turbine engine types to make the JT22 makes use of a dual spool design and includes an annular combustor design. Thanks to the massive thrust generated by it's engines the craft carries 4 20mm autocannons and, for once some ammo to spare. Armor is limited to a thick piece of bulletproof glass and a flak plate to protect the pilot from head on attack and, only head on attacks.

Wild Ride (w/ research credit) (4): QuakeIV, eS, Zanzetkuken, McHuman
UFAF-A-42 TURBOHAAST (1): Powder Miner
UFAF-F-43 "Grey Owl' (1): Lightforger

[Happerry]

So the Wild Ride looks good, but which of our craft can actually use it? Or will we need to spend a revision to get it on our ships/planes?

Wild Ride (w/ research credit) (5): QuakeIV, eS, Zanzetkuken, McHuman, Happerry
UFAF-A-42 TURBOHAAST (1): Powder Miner
UFAF-F-43 "Grey Owl' (1): Lightforger

[andrea]

If it weighs one tonne, tge haast can carry it.
Otherwise, maybe revise a ship?

[QuakeIV]

I mean, I think ships can just put it on their turrets, my understanding is thats something we can do for free and have done that in the past.  The archer had a large turret mount specifically left empty.

[andrea]

Ideally, a deploying mechanism would be included in the design, yes. But maybe it could be better to mention it?

[QuakeIV]

It does though, it says they are mounted on rails elevated 30 degrees above horizon that can be fitted onto the turrets of warships.

[RAM]

Design: UFN-AShM-43 "Wild Ride"

The wild ride is a radar guided anti-ship missile.  It contains 9 directional radar sensors configured as specified here: https://i.imgur.com/73racHI.png.  The numbers in the red trapezoids specify the angle the system will sweep the missiles fins to in order to fine tune the missiles heading.  The central sensor resets the fins to a straight heading.  The sensors are tuned to receive from a directional target painting radar which can be fit to ships turret mountings, ideally the archers large turret for instance.  The missiles have a dial to tune the frequency they are most receptive to, as do the target painters, allowing for the possibility of firing salvos without the missiles being confused.  The missiles will be mounted on rails elevated 30 degrees above horizon that can be fitted onto the turrets of warships.   Two solid rocket motors on the sides of the missile activate at launch in addition to its jet engine, with the solid rocket motors intended to get it up to speed.  The missiles have winglets to give them the lift to avoid falling into the sea on approach to the target.  It contains a 500kg high explosive warhead and is intended for relatively long ranged engagements.

-L "Wild Ride (level)"

Simplifies the guidance by focusing on horizontal location and adds an altimeter and a system to maintain an altitude that can be adjusted prior to launch, along with a system(on a toggle) to seek an altitude at the water-line when close enough that impact is imminent.

Not really a complete idea. The proximity sensor is unspecified, possibly magnetic if the radar isn't enough justification. Also the low altitude would limit its range unless it was fired blind and expected to gain a target automatically when it gains sight of them, which is potentially dubious...
-H "Wild Ride (High)"

Replaces all engines with a single solid-fuel rocket. The head is armoured and designed to pierce armour while the detonator is placed on a very brief delay, intended to penetrate a ship's deck and detonate within the vessel. The mounting system is revised to a pair of rails that can be loaded and tilted out and in of a bomb-bay while in flight. While this process is time-consuming, with sufficient manipulation it can be lowered to fully downward, and two missiles per pass are deemed to be sufficient. There is a system to use a cable to communicate with the guidance system and manually select a radar target prior to launch. There is, of course, a delay on the rocket engines to prevent destruction of the launch vessel, and, indeed, it doesn't fire unless it is at low enough latitude to have enough fuel to reach sea-level.

This would be for dropping from normally-ineffective altitudes by long-range high-altitude bombers. The radar guidance would turn a one-in-a-million shot on a carrier from 10 kilometres up or something into decent odds with anything less than an absurd volume of chaff. The intention would be to destroy the innards and scuttle the vessel rather than hit the hull for a sinking, though munition stores and hulls bursting from the internal pressure, or just having a giant bullet pierce through the ship from top to bottom are things that could happen...

[Kot]

-L "Wild Ride (level)"

Simplifies the guidance by focusing on horizontal location and adds an altimeter and a system to maintain an altitude that can be adjusted prior to launch, along with a system(on a toggle) to seek an altitude at the water-line when close enough that impact is imminent.

Not really a complete idea. The proximity sensor is unspecified, possibly magnetic if the radar isn't enough justification. Also the low altitude would limit its range unless it was fired blind and expected to gain a target automatically when it gains sight of them, which is potentially dubious...

That's literally what nearly all ASM do anyway, even to the point that some go under the water. While you carry enough explosives to probably destroy the ship from the top, a hit next or near the water level is still the best.

[RAM]

It is what they all aim to do, but this is our first, in fact, The First... I expect high-altitude strikes against carriers would be extremely effective. It is difficult to gain altitude after take-off, and more difficult from a short runway. The catapults help, but they only make up for the short run, and even then... I would expect that they would need early warning to intercept a high-altitude attack, and early-warning can be difficult at sea, what with no land to build facilities and ships liking to hang around in fleets. And if they do get spotted, then they can probably see whatever spotted them as well, so they can call it off if they think it won't work... So I think dropping the missiles from above is a sound strategy, and a penetrating hit into the deck is not bad. I am not familiar with the comparison, but I doubt that it is worse than a water-line hit if it penetrates the deck. We are talking big bombs and there is only so much weight allowance for internal armour. More to stop water-pressure than explosions in cramped quarters... Certainly bombs had less success than torpedoes, but a lot of those bombs wouldn't have penetrated, hitting hard-points and such and generally failing to be a tonne of armour-piercing rocket-propelled explosive bullet...

Or we could try for HEAT and go for knocking a hole through the bottom of the hull.

The only problem is if they get missiles that can quickly engage high-altitude bombers from the surface. But at that point we kind of have to give up on bombers... And even then, launching at the bombers from the fleet mean the bombers will likely get well into their own range first. A Bomber is worth much less than a carrier is...

But this is just to imply that high-alr\titude seems plausible to me, a cruise-missile styled thing would also work, and the current design seems plenty good. I just figured I would throw up a couple of alternative interpretations to see if they struck anyone's fancy or inspired any other designs. I figure that without a clearly delineated prox fuse we can't guarantee a nice "drops into the water to explode" option without starting to take risks.

[Madman198237]

Spoiler: Just an analysis of what we can do (click to show/hide)

We know how to make large ships at this point, a battleship would give us naval superiority or at LEAST naval "parity" (General bonus is in their favor, so if our navy is one step better, it's considered "equal", i.e., "no Naval Advantage to either side").

Level bombing is far, far, far, FAR too inaccurate for use against surface ships. The use of what amounts to a guided bomb/level-bomber missile launcher is interesting and possibly useful, though we don't really have anything with high-altitude and high-capacity capabilities to carry a large missile. HEAT isn't used on ASMs, I don't think, because a ship is just too big of a target. We'll need high explosive and armor piercing. High explosive with a delayed fuse will be enough for us at start, because Canners don't use deck armor on their so-called "battlecruisers" and carrier runways do not function well with craters, even if making said craters means we aren't always sinking the ship with missile hits. If they do smarten up, we'll need to be able to put missiles through said armor and into the ship itself.

That said, I want to use this turn's revision to REVERSE-ENGINEER their missile. We can do that, they lost ground on Forenia this turn. It effectively steals a lot of their technology development time. Then, next turn, we design a radar-self-guiding (i.e., includes its own radar) missile to break their ships. Oh, and we could revise the Canners' missile into an AGM (anti-ground missile) that seeks their tanks. Their tanks are really, REALLY hot, because they use literal jet engines. We can use that little mistake to turn their weapon against them with almost no effort on our part (just point them at the ground instead of the sky, and make them a little less sensitive, so they don't get confused by the warm jungle around the HOT tank).

So presently I'm, personally, on the fence about Turbohaast versus the battleship. Battleship gets us a turn without Cannalan naval dominance, which was apparently a deciding factor in this year's ground combat. Turbohaast gets us the ability to deliver more ordinance to a single target, with a single, faster run (compared to a regular Haast) against naval targets, and allows for superior strafing runs against ground targets because of its enhanced gun complement (3 25mms plus as many 25mm pods as can be fit on the bottoms of the wings)

TL;DR:
I'm not sure about battleship or Turbohaast, but think the missile should wait until, THIS REVISION, we steal the Cannalan's latest missile, instead of trying to play catch-up and wasting all that time doing exactly what they've already done FOR US.