Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ConscriptFive]

Oh... well that's more enticing.

[evictedSaint]

Plan: Faster and Cheaper
3 Dice/6 PP to L.E. Swallow
2 Rush to L.E. Swallow

2 Dice held in reserve to fix bugs

We will have 7 PP left over (plus +1 from the event), but we will be poised to start building next turn. L.E. Swallow takes an average of ~5 Dice to complete.

Edit: 2 rushed dice, since that puts us at the average for completion. If it's still not done, we can complete it next turn.  And if it is completed this turn, we can build one this turn!!!

[Sensei]

That works for me. I was initially going to say that there's really no point in rushing if it means we still can't actually deploy any this turn, but that's apparently not the case.

[piratejoe]

So, I'm just going to say I honestly hope you don't abandon the central front this time and we focus there instead. Also I'm surprised how effective the new rhinos are, I wasn't expecting them to do as well as they did. Anyway I'm a bit worried about rushing it as buggy bugs everywhere, but there's not much else we can do.

[evictedSaint]

If we get it done this turn, we can start pumping out the superior fighters this turn and with gusto next turn - plus we have 2 dice left, so if there's one bug introduced we can still fix it and address the maneuverability this turn.

And, since the Emu is already a light bomber, we can start the new bomber next turn and be more careful with it since we're not jammed for time.

[Happerry]

Honestly the base version of the Emu seems to be doing ok as a turret fighter as-is. If we don't finish our actual fighter we should see about using more Emus as AA planes until we do get it finished. (And honestly we might want to keep an Emu or two on anti-plane duties anyway, because that turret seems really useful.)

[piratejoe]

If we make a new bomber aircraft, I would like it to be a VRAC A.2 "Lion" which should be a light bomber armed with 4 guns, 2 in a back turret observer and 2 in the front fired through the propeller. Engine should be a modified Barnet to get as much power as possible so we get better performance and bombload. I'll work on a proper submission for that later, but before any of your light bomber nay sayers come in saying its better to just get a heavy bomber, light bombers are much more versatile and also obviously less expensive. And the Emu has shown us we can make something that's an effective bomber and fighter.

For this turns revisions, if the swallow comes out, we should make a revision on it to try and fix its maneuverability issues, otherwise we should use a revision to get the Barnett back to 200HP, as that would not only improve our new fighter but also the Great Emu, which we should try to fix up its maneuverability issues sometime soon.

Also, whatever you do in the strategy phase, don't abandon the center and all we have gained in the war. The kols would have to be insane not to push hard there once again.

[Sensei]

We should consider assigning our emus to shoot down their balloons and such, since apparently it's a problem that we haven't been targeting them. They should do a good job with not having to make long passes, thanks to the swivel guns. Also, I'm strongly in favor of a heavy bomber if only so we can use our torpedoes for sure- there's a risk we couldn't fit even one on a light bomber. Plus, heavy bombers are cool. In regards to the Lion specifically, I think trying to give it four guns is mixing roles too much- all that weight and ammo could be bombs instead.

Plan 'Faster and Cheaper': (2) evictedSaint, Sensei

[piratejoe]

I mean, it's not really. There where light bombers made not too far from this time with the same armament. Besides our machine guns can't weigh that much...and this design will be done presumably after we get the Barnett to 200hp so we can tweak it for some more power. Still, I do agree we should get a heavy bomber at some point.

[Sensei]

Oh, we need to try requisitioning something. Can I recommend we go for the radio I've wanted for a while? There was a bit in this battle report that reminded me...

The squadrons switched over – one of Emus, one of Rhinos – aren’t quite as effective as the dedicated Rhino-P squadron, mostly because they aren’t equipped with cameras. However, they do make more use of the Firefly flareguns issued in this role. By firing specific combinations of flare colours, they can quickly and reliably signal to Verusan troops on the ground, warning them of enemy movements and concentrations. Such signalling is much faster than the old, mostly abandoned method of “fly in specific patterns until someone down there figures out that you’re trying to signal them"

Even if the radio turns out too big or complicated for a pilot to use, we can re-purpose some of our emus with the gunner being a radio operator instead of/in addition to his his usual duty of manning guns. Worst case scenario, it's sure to fit in a bomber.

[piratejoe]

Plan 'Faster and Cheaper': (3) evictedSaint, Sensei, Piratejoe

Feel like saying this but worst case scenario isn't that only a heavy bomber can carry it, worst case scenario is that the thing has far to short of a range to be of much use. Doesn't mean we shouldn't go for it if we request anything however.

[Sensei]

We should probably make sure the vote box reflects what we want, rather than just asking Cnid to pick it up from discussion.

Plan 'Faster and Cheaper': evictedSaint
Plan 'Faster and Cheaper' and requisition a radio: (2) Sensei, Piratejoe

[piratejoe]

VRAC A.2 "Lion"
The second and newest aircraft in the VRAC line of light bomber aircraft, the new A.2, or lion. It is mostly made of canvas and wood, with thin metal sheets protecting the engine. The aircraft has two bays supporting its light canvas and wood frame wings, which unlike the Emu, are staggered much greater and in a positive position instead of a minor negative stagger. It also unlike the emu, has four guns, two for the pilot, which are similar to the ones on the Lesser Swallow, and two the observer has on a moveable ring refereed to a Tudur Ring, named after the designer who came up with the idea. The ring is made so the observer can swivel and elevate the guns quickly and easily fire in any direction, offering a much easier time aiming at things flying beside the aircraft and allowing better fire downward, and has a bungee cord suspension in elevation to compensate for the weight of the guns to make this easier on the observer. The aircraft has inbuilt hardpoints for bombs on its wings, and includes one major bit of tech that makes the pilots life easier, a "Royal Adviser" bomb sight, which is a simple yet effective bomb sight with inputs for airspeed, wind speed, and altitude. Inputting the airspeed and altitude will move a metal bar on the left side of the bomb sight out from the fuselage where the observer can look past the rod to watch the motion of objects on the ground and adjust the wind speed setting until the motion was directly along the rod. The only other two things of major note of the aircraft is the addition of flaps and the aircraft's lower wing going below the fuselage, allowing it to get some lift and be positioned further away from the top wing. Naturally, it uses the most powerful version of the Barnett available at the time to improve its flight characteristics.

Spoiler: VRAC A.2 "Lion" (click to show/hide)

First draft of the Lion at the moment. Believe its not too ambitious but still makes a good amount of advances. Might add that it tries to improve the Barnett's power if you think its not ambitious enough for us, but only if you really think that's wise.

[ConscriptFive]

Plan 'Faster and Cheaper': evictedSaint
Plan 'Faster and Cheaper' and requisition a radio: (3) Sensei, Piratejoe, ConscriptFive

...I've actually been thinking about how to implement radios for a few weeks now:

Navy Requisition: Crystal Radio Receiver with Headphones, and Morse Spark Gap Transmitter
As hilarious as it is to watch three squadrons trying to land on the same runway simultaneously, our air operations would greatly benefit from better command and control.  Ship-to-shore wireless sets are common and essential to even commercial naval vessel now.  While our aircraft currently lack the electrical systems to broadcast reliably, a crystal receiver set with good headphones should be able to operate off a battery.  Our aviators can continue to answer received orders from ground stations by firing appropriately colored flares.  Thus the Verusan Sky Crusader kindly request crystal radio receivers with good quality headphones from the Verusan Navy.  The receivers must be able to be tuned to a wide-range of frequencies, to support current and future channels used by both the Army and Navy.  Include a Morse spark gap transmitter if possible.

Because of our focus on the South, the Navy owes us decently and they certainly have more & better wireless commo tech than the Army.  Radios were super common even in commercial naval ops by now, albeit quite alot of it was still Morse.  ( https://earlyradiohistory.us/sec005.htm )  As anybody who's seen even a Walkman knows, receiving you can do with a battery and short antenna if you have a powerful ground station with a huge antenna.  Flares are good enough for now as a stop-gap for transmitting back.  Flares are free and don't cost us the performance loss of having to carry and power a full electrical system while dragging a 30 yard antenna like a damn marriage proposal banner.  So yeah, that's the plan.  Give our aviators radio receivers with headphones, so they can receive alerts, interception dispatches, air traffic control, or other orders from ground stations.  Swap in a fresh battery pre-flight and they should be good to go.  (Per request, I edited in a Morse spark gap transmitter.)

[Sensei]

I'd probably tweak that to say it runs off of engine power (the 12v alternator which fires the spark plugs) rather than a battery, or at least mention that the battery charges off of that circuit and it's a small battery. I suppose that's something that could be a revision if it needs to be though. I'd also ask for broadcast capability, because why not shoot for it? I'd be surprised if our engines can't handle a couple hundred watts load, enough to broadcast at short to medium range.

I was going to say I'd bet the Army is more likely to have portable radios, but in light of this...

...the quartermasters seem to be getting annoyed at the VSC’s constant requests for equipment designs. They suggest that perhaps the VSC should procure its own equipment or come under the command of the army to receive army equipment.

(Lazy bastards should stop requesting air support and build their own planes instead, or come under command of the Air Force.) It's probably for the best to ask the Navy. If we're lucky maybe they have a small lifeboat morse radio, or a portable radio used by marines.