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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[Powder Miner]

We ought to focus on the jungle instead of the navy this turn.
While getting a Major Naval Advantage would in fact cripple them, if both sides make progress navally this turn and the naval advantage stalemates we’re in trouble - if they keep the jungle this turn, they keep the ore, and if they keep the ore, the chupa is cheap, and they also get a bunch of other shit. We can’t allow that to happen, because the chupa is still their main deadly weapon.

If we get to the point of being able to advance in the jungle, we can make tereshkova more secure and make this stop being a problem, and then we can push them off of forenia altogether... and this would allow us to FINALLY diversify our goddamned fronts so that we wouldn’t be stonewalled so hard at the end of the desert and mountains border areas — one problem we have is that they took the jungles as securely as they did because while we had to focus on multiple front types they could churn shit out for the jungle. If we push Forenia this turn then we can push them off and put the plains up for capture this turn, which would no longer allow them to specializedly defend 2 fronts with one design so easily. We’ve got an advantage on open terrain, too.

I suggest that we spend our research credit on an ambitious design for use in the jungle — though whether we’re in danger of getting surprise fucked in the desert should be analyzed too, as we’re fighting there again this turn. We have the opportunity to shake the battlefield up by starting a new dimension of warfare like they did with the copter, but it needs to be applicable to land and in particular the jungle if we intend to make any progress on land — especially because the urban environment past Titan will likely allow some Cannalan jungle tech.

Radar decomplexification may be a good choice for our revision, as it will shore our shit up even further in the air in general and help ensure they do not take the naval situation back to a tie, which would suck if we DO want to get to the plains, obviously. Fighting on coastal land maintaining our NA would be vital — I just don’t want to try to PUSH it.
What that is I don’t know, it’s late, but there are my thoughts on doctrine this turn.

[RAM]

Need predators. Make invisibility suits!

[Madman198237]

UFAF-AGS-44 'Endless Vigil'
Based on a Reckless Effect, the Endless Vigil is an airborne fire-support platform. It carries a VVF-sized Deadliest Ray, but our engineers have finally simplified the blueprints so all version of the Deadliest Ray can be rapidly produced (de-[Complex]), and improved the small version to detect both aircraft and ships with decent resolution. For killing power, the Vigil brings to the battlefield a Bjorn cannon mounted in the side. On the same side is a pair of 30mm autocannon (strapped together in a double mounting), and a 40mm long-barreled automatic cannon capable of firing at about 120 RPM, to exploit the biggest advantage of killing from above---range. The 40mm will be more accurate than the 30mm, and also capable of killing enemy light armor vehicles at longer ranges than 30mm, with less sheer overkill than the 100mm. The aircraft has full flare packages and lots of ammo, but no paratroopers or cargo space (except for the ammo, of course). The Vigil has one final trick: The aircraft is painted with a UV-reflecting paint (but can, of course, be built without said paint), completely screwing with Cannalan missile guidance. The aircraft is capable of loitering above a battlefield for longer than a helicopter, and carries more firepower (and is more survivable), while also being very stable and capable of engaging from a much longer range than said helicopter. Also, it can kill tanks with utmost ease, because tanks do not carry much roof armor, as a rule, and the 100mm Bjorn cannon is capable of killing tanks even from the front and sides. It's heavy and, until now, having more protection than you need to stop 20mm cannon fire is just extravagant (and heavy).

UFAF-AGS-44 'Endless Vigil' [with research credit]: (1) Madman

If the enemy is gaining an advantage by loitering, loiter better than they do (and with an easier design than they used to do it, too). Oh, and it'll de-[Complex] our airborne radar, and hopefully, MAYBE, provide us a [Cheap] radar platform. Oh, and because the Reckless is a transport plane and won't be carrying as much weight in this form (probably), it should have enough range to cross the seas, which will make it an excellent airborne radar platform.

[Kot]

I don't want to sound like I'm pushing for the Sewing Machine because I wanted it very hard and we rolled badly on it, and I REALLY, REALLY don't want you guys to dismiss this because "you want to focus on jungle instead of the navy", but...

We absolutely MUST create an anti-ASM system. Cannalan own version of ASM is PAINFULLY obvious response, and I will literally bet real money that it is what they will attempt to do this turn. If we managed to get naval superiority with them, imagine what Cannalans will be able to do with their "Magical Naval General" and apparently much higher experience in making guidance and other shit.

Of course this would be whatever, except we will lose Vlanlados. I never expected to say this but Vlanlados is very fucking important. A nuke seems to be an "I WIN" button, and it's something we CANNOT let Cannalans have. So we absolutely need to dedicate at least one thing to navy.
In my opinion, an acceptable way of doing this would be putting Sewing Machines on ships (since we didn't get that apparently) linked to a radar that's capable of detecting the enemy ASM. One lucky shot should be enough to at least destabilize the missile, and we will be putting a lot of shots out. Think CIWS, but we're in 1944. There are many ways to do this, but most of them involve a radar decomplexification. I am thinking about maybe making a design which involves decomplexification of radar and then a revision to update the Sewing Machines with it, get them better rotation system and apply that to existing ones AND PUT THEM ON THE GODDAMN SHIPS GODDAMIT.

I KNOW that there are very good arguments against doing someting like that, but I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF US NOT GETTING FUCKED BY CANNALAN NAVY.

[Parsely]

CIWS Block 1A fires 20x105mm rounds at 4500 rpm and has a built-in radar that tracks the target and it's own munitions in order to do theoretically (CIWS has never been used in combat) do it's job, so I would consider these to be the very barest minimum requirements for this kind of point defense. The Sewing Machine has nowhere near that rate of fire and 40s radar can't even contribute to a reliable shoot down of a prop aircraft at 1 kilometer let alone a missile and you're expecting anti-missile capability in a single roll? This doesn't sound realistic.

[Kot]

CIWS Block 1A fires 20x105mm rounds at 4500 rpm and has a built-in radar that tracks the target and it's own munitions in order to do theoretically (CIWS has never been used in combat) do it's job, so I would consider these to be the very barest minimum requirements for this kind of point defense. The Sewing Machine has nowhere near that rate of fire and 40s radar can't even contribute to a reliable shoot down of a prop aircraft at 1 kilometer let alone a missile and you're expecting anti-missile capability in a single roll? This doesn't sound realistic.

The theoretical fire rate of Sewing Machine was at least 3000 RPM (if we just take original fire rate times four, IT REALLY SHOULDN'T BE SLOWER THAN THAT). The built-in radar is a thing we, yes, have to deal with. 40s radar SHOULD actually be decent at shooting down a jet aircraft at close ranges, (Shilka still uses fucking vacuum tubes for fucks sake, it's capabilities are way less futuristic for us than say, guided AAM should be). The problem with Sewing Machine is lack of said radar and apparently sub-optimal turning and guidance, which I blame on rolling a fucking 1. All of this except getting a dedicated radar for it is fixable in single revision, which is why the design should include a small and non-complex radar we can just link to the thing.

Consider that enemy ASM won't be doing any crazy shit and in all likelyhood won't be supersonic, so shooting them down will be about as hard as shooting down a jet that does no evasive maneuvers. After all, consider that CIWS deals with much better ASM than anything Cannalans are probable to make. I am not saying that this would be a 100% effective thing, but there is no other good way of defending yourself against an ASM (air interception is sub-optimal - even with better missiles you need a plane that's ready all the time to get behind the ASM and intercept it, which on a battlefield would be really fucking hard).

[evictedSaint]

Oh look, we won the Research Credit! Neat!

I am considering writing up a Design for Radar

A design that decomplexifies it, improves precision, and allows for radar targetting.

This would benefit
The Longshot radar guidance
The VVF
The Sewing Machine
The Saltseeker

This is important enough we should do it in Design. I'd argue it's important enough to even spend the research credit on.

[Kot]

UF-GAM-44 "Noose" is a liquid-fueled (which should be easy, just use kerosene mixed with oxidizer, maybe this or in worst case liquid oxygen), solid-fuel boosted surface-based anti-air missile that is designed to clear the skies from any and all Cannalan aircraft, and also designed to work against any Cannalan tries to copy our "Saltseeker" design.

The missile needs an accurate, decomplexified and hopefully cheap (maybe also better than existing one, but we're not picky) radar system which it will use to guide onto enemy air targets, not-dissimilar to how the "Piracy Warning" and "Saltseeker" guide onto theirs. The missile either can be fired without specific target in mind, picking it's own based on what's closest or it can be locked onto a specific target with help of ground radar, which will help with friendly fire incidents. The missile detonates on proximity to only it's selected target, not unlike how Saltseeker detects proximity to it's, which should be somewhat more reliable and resilent to jamming than the original Cannalan proximity fuze. The missile should include a sizeable amount of explosive that is surrounded by metal rods welded together in alternating pattern. The missile is sent into air with solid fuel boosters to give it high initial speed, and then engage it's main engine. The main engine is a liquid-fueled rocket, instead of a jet engine, to ensure very high speeds. The whole thing is a lot larger than "Piracy Warning", being nearly twice the length of a "Saltseeker", but very slim. The missile is designed to be mounted on Artemis trucks (which will probably make it stick out a little), ships and on static emplacements.

Probably would want to use a research credit with this too, but it'd give us non-complex radar (hopefully, SENSEI FOR ONCE, PLEASE), absolutely delete enemy air force, counter any ASM they might have, free up a revision to do something else than the Sewing Machine (although I'd still want that, but less so), and generally be a fun thing. It should be really simple, considering SAMs were in existence before any effective AAMs and ASMs, so we kind of have already done the hard part of the work with those. I am open to changing the design if I forgot anything.

Also, it's named "Noose" because all pirates ultimately get the noose. Because, you know, hanging.

UFAF-AGS-44 'Endless Vigil' [with research credit]: (1) Madman
UF-GAM-44 "Noose" [with research credit]: (1) Kot

[Cnidaros]

If we're going with Jungle warfare focus (which I think we should), how about making a helicopter design with a turboshaft engine? I would like to make a utility helicopter design, able to insert a squad of soldiers into clearings in the jungle. Or if that's not available, having them rappel down from the helicopter, possibly including underslung cargo. Would allow us to further capitalise on our paratrooper advantage, and I think mobility should be pretty important in jungle warfare. I don't think an attack helicopter is going to go well, since the Cannalans have pretty good heatseeking missiles by now.

Alternatively, possibly revising more effective incendiaries, in cluster munition form.

Alternatively alternatively, turbohaast.

I understand Kot's worries about the Vlanlados issues, and I agree that they will most likely roll out a better ASM next turn with their missile and guidance experience, but I don't think it's that urgent. The Cannalans need a minimum of three turn's stockpile of uranium to make a bomb, two for research (whether in design/revision) and one for the actual bomb. They only have one at the moment, and didn't spend last turn on nuclear research. So I think we're safe for a bit more, and let's not forget that they're only two turns from our capital.

But if we're really worried about retaining Naval Advantage in the face of Cannalan ASM, how about making a submarine? We have diesel engines from the Vodka/Victoria, rudimentary passive sonar from the Whalesong and submarine experience from the Archer destroyers. Plus a research credit is a good time to open up a new field of design. We'll definitely be able to retain naval advantage for at least a turn, and might be able to interdict their uranium supply depending on whether Sensei rules submarines to affect sea TC.

[andrea]

I think decomplexing radar is needed. It has been waiting far too long, and the problems from our lack of airborne radar have been noted often.

Also, I think we shouldn't insist much on jungle design: if they attack, we will fight in the desert.
and if we fight in the desert loaded for jungle, while they prepared accordingly, we may well lose.

[Kot]

Stop thinking about singular fronts. Getting free reign of air thanks to the SAM will help everywhere, even if it'd be relatively short because Cannalans will just make their own SAM (which will bring us back to relative parity, but we have countermeasures, they don't, and we will be one territory forward), and so will cheaper radar.

[NAV]

I'll vote for Endless Vigil if you add 1 ton of bombs

[Madman198237]

You joke, but I did honestly consider putting missile hardpoints on the wings, in case the radar, guns, and ammo somehow don't quite reach the lifting capacity of the Reckless.

I decided that it'd be pretty stupid to have that thing A. close enough to enemy aircraft to use missiles or B. pointed at the enemy, since its guns point sideways.

[Powder Miner]

I’ll say that the enemy ASM absolutely should less be a priority than winning up north, because they DO focus navally, if we do too and we keep our naval advantage, then if they’re smart enough to realize that it’s in their interests to just stay in the jungle and let us fruitlessly attack with no improvements to the jungle, then they keep their ore, which will not only cheapen their navy and flip the situation back anyway, but cheapen their tanks AND their helicopters, which would well enough let them win anyway.

I’m not averse to us doing a design that helps both navally and on land, but keeping them from getting that ore is a MUST. Even if they do an ASM, this fits exactly into the argument I laid out earlier.

[Kot]

Which is why I put out a SAM design. Getting rid of like, all enemy planes will be really useful everywhere, and it should be decent at shooting down the ASM (I'd still push for the Sewing Machine, but more due to cool factor rather than neccesity) and give us that goddamn non-complex radar hopefully. Then we can make the revision be something else, like, I dunno, a death ray.