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[evictedSaint]

Are you sure the germans lost? I seem to remember them owning most of europe at one point.

Either way, if ICAR has taught me anything, it's that you wanna side with the winners.

[Jerick]

Yes very sure. The Germans owning most of Europe happened during world war 2. During world war 1 the central powers did occupy a large section of Europe but a considerable portion of that was the Austria-Hungarian empire with whom Germany was allied. The war front stalemated in France early on and didn't noticeably change for much of the rest of the war. What lost Germany the war was the intervention of America due to them supplying vast amounts of munitions and fresh manpower reserves to allied nations. America intervened due to German's unrestricted u-boat campaign against all Atlantic shipping heading to France and Britain which Germany refused to stop. After America got involved the allies were able to launch the "hundred days offensive" which pushed opened wide gaps in the German line and eventually forced the whole army to fall back. Demoralized and with allied forces pushing in the German high command realized they wouldn't be able to win the war and called a cease fire and began negotiating peace. France in particular pushed for very punishing clauses in the peace treaty and would not relent unless Germany agreed to them.

[piratejoe]

I wouldn't say that Germany lost that badly, they did beat the Russians and force them to give up a good chunk of land. However a major reason why they lost was poor harvests and growing unrest in the homeland because of it.

[Cnidaros]

Also, since we saved a dice last turn, don't we have six dice right now to do stuff with, so we can do two designs, or am I confusing myself?

Yes, you currently have 6 dice.

Here's an idea; we might want a way to reliable up skill our pilots before we send them out.

As the war in the air expands so too does the need for skilled pilots. As things stand our pilots are learning the basics of how to fly mid combat and are only barely being passable as rookies after several battles, only the survivors really know how to fly their planes. The only reason this hasn't enabled the enemy to trounce us in the air is they suffer from the same problem. The constant losses of unskilled pilots prevents our squadrons from increasing in skill at the rate they might possibly be able to. Thus I propose we set aside an air field and facilities to train new pilots in the art of flight and air combat. The new pilots will be drilled on the controls of their aircraft and will hold mock battles in the sky with the other trainees. Not only will this assist in granting them experience but it will also allow us to test and develop new aerial tactics away from the eyes of the enemy. Training will take time and the school will need funding to operate but I feel the experience gained will be well worth it.

evictedSaint is right, "training" designs aren't allowed, as are "tactics" or "production improvements" designs. It's an Arms Race, not a Training Facilities Race.

I think the consensus seems to be spending 2 dice on progressing the Emu, but I would like some votes to be sure.

[evictedSaint]

Sorry - discussion tends to go a lot slower without a discord

(1) 2 Dice to Emu : eS
(0) Side With Germans:
(0) Don't Go With Germans:

[Sensei]

Do we need to spend a die on the camera? Maybe we can just requisition the camera and spend the extra die on the Emu.

[Shadowclaw777]

Shouldn’t you also do a requisition for this turn?, and yes the most valuable thing to do for this game are Designs, and skipping out on a design for two turns is on the more than usual case a bad idea, you could do a project for Synchronization Gear or a Fast Single-Seat Biplane to act as the Interceptor role, to even a Strategical Bomber. Zeppelin have many weaknesses and reasons that they were quickly obsoleted, especially in cost, that I don’t know if we want to spend a dice in there. As it’s around a 40% chance that a 2d6 to get a 8 and finish the project:

so you could do 1 Dice in the VRAC, a Synchronization Gear Project or even a Fast Biplane that has innate Synchronization Gear, 1 Dice in Emu Cheapening, and 1 Dice on improving our Cameras to like 150mm. As well, like requisitioning Artillery shells for bombing

[piratejoe]

Question to the gm, is this revision a thing we can do or does it fall under tactics

In combat where multiple squadrons of aircraft are flying, pilots can possibly be detached from their squadrons and fly home with the wrong squadron of aircraft. Along with this squadron leaders are quite hard to identify once flying in formation ceases. As such we have devised a way to solve both issues. In order to know who's who, easier aircraft are to be given paint jobs to look not only a bit more distinct from other squadrons but to strike fear into our enemies for squadrons which are more skilled. Squadrons will also be given emblems and said emblems will be painted on either the body next to the cockpit and or on the tail depending on the aircraft. Flight leaders will be given streamers to be attached to the wing to identify who is leading the flight and said streamers come in a few different colors and checkered versions of white and the other colors available as well. Finally, pilots who have become aces can paint their plane any way they like, though it's advised to paint something that wont get them confused with another squadron.

This should hopefully not only make squadrons more organized but also help pilots know who's who in areas with a high concentration of allies and in combat, along with possibly instilling a sense of unity and belonging in a squadron

Anyway

(2) 2 Dice to Emu : eS, Piratejoe
(1) Side With Germans: Piratejoe
(0) Don't Go With Germans:
(1) Requisition a artillery shell: Piratejoe

[Jerick]

(3) 2 Dice to Emu : eS, Piratejoe, Jerick
(1) Side With Germans: Piratejoe
(1) Don't Go With Germans: Jerick
(2) Requisition a artillery shell: Piratejoe, Jerick

[evictedSaint]

I want to wait a turn to get the 50% mark on the Emu, so our next design benefits from it.  It's also why I wanted to hold a dice to get 6 next turn, for a double design.

(3) 2 Dice to Emu : eS, Piratejoe, Jerick
(1) Side With Germans: Piratejoe
(1) Don't Go With Germans: Jerick
(3) Requisition artillery shells /b]: Piratejoe, eS, Jerick

[NAV]

(4) 2 Dice to Emu : eS, Piratejoe, Jerick, NAV
(2) Side With Germans: Piratejoe, NAV
(1) Don't Go With Germans: Jerick
(4) Requisition artillery shells : Piratejoe, Jerick, eS, NAV

[piratejoe]

Did some research and found that while hydrogen lifting gas had issues with flammability, getting shot at won't result in a Hindenburg. Now, lets say someone fires a tracer round, it travels through the air at high velocity, and burns in the oxygen available around it. Let's say it strikes and penetrates a gas cell in an airship, and it is then completely immersed in hydrogen, without oxygen, it goes out, then re-ignites after it exits the gas cell on the opposite side. An aircraft attempting to shoot down an airship with tracer rounds will have to either create a line of fire at the same target point for several seconds all the while under intense return fire, or to make multiple passes while still under return fire in the hope of hitting a spot with leaking hydrogen from a previous pass. You can see how this would be a bit difficult to deal with.

Another thing, even if we don't use them as bombers, they could still have use serving in reconnaissance, and transport rolls. It also should be noted that the US used a sizable fleet of blimps for convoy protection duty, with the highly impressive claim that not a single convoy vessel was ever sunk while airships were on patrol overhead.

Why am I posting this? Because I want a bit of discussion and move the thread along a bit.

[evictedSaint]

The Brits switched to incendiary ammo and dropped bombs on Zeppelins.

Basically everything I've read on zeppelins is along the lines of

"April 9th, 1914.  12 Zeppelins left Germany to go bomb London.  Half were forced to turn around due to poor weather.  Due to a light breeze and it being night, one zeppelin accidentally bombed the English channel thinking they were over London.  Another bombed a village in the middle of nowhere, having mistaken the River Stour for the Thames River.  The third was struck by lightning and crashed into a farm.  The last three bombed the outskirts of London, killing 5 , injuring 12, and doing £245 in damages.  Of those three, one was damaged by anti-aircraft fire and crashed into the English channel on the way back, then drowned when a nearby fishing boat refused to save them.  Another was brought down by a biplane dropping a bomb on it, and the last returned successfully."

[Sensei]

I know... but I want it so bad.

[piratejoe]

Word war 1 incendiary ammo is...not really that good. It only has a range of 350 yards,or 320 meters. In other words less than a quarter of the range of our machine gun. Both sides at the moment don't have bombs so bombing a zeppelins wouldn't be something to worry about yet. Besides we would probably use them for recon and transportation of personal and supplies instead of bombing, two things that they actually aren't bad at.

I also heard about one case during WWI where a zeppelin was hit by a 105mm artillery round while bombing London and the shell entered at an angle, puncturing several gas cells but it wasn't until the craft reached the channel did the crew even notice. Their fix was to simply pump in a bit more gas from an auxiliary tank, and they made it home with repairs finished in a few minutes.