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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... l8dCs&NR=1


build 50 of them (100 tons a piece?) CHEAP

put 4 B4Y Jeans in each of them

launch from 12 hexes away

18,000 km range.. make a 1 way trip to pearl harbor


anyone want to make a "crimson skies" mod for AE? [:D]

83 mph

thats a fast carrier

strictly volunteer crews however

just be sure to fly in clear or partly cloudy weather only

Star wars of the past!

only trouble i see is the parasite craft needs a very low stalling speed ..

need to limit wing loading to somewhere around 80kg/m2

so only biplanes, or some type of super lightweight version of A6M (minimal fuel and no landing gear)

There have been a few other attempts at a flying aircraft carier. The Convair B-36 Peacemaker/F-84 Fighter Conveyor (FICON) was used operationaly for a year or so. The Goblin fighter for the B36 didn't work well (only a few secessful hookups and lots of problems.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcLCjnK_cik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S03ByYb-LU

There were also some ideas about towing fighters sort of like gliders. Towing them behind the mother ship worked, but attaching them to the wing tips didn't. Towing would have been possible during WWII. The possibilities included attached fuel lines. In flight refueling sort of ended expermentation but the idea might very well come back.

The Caspian Sea Monster probably could have carried fighters. They did carry an anti ship load out equivelent to a something like a cold war Russian CA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Nu94khHoo

what's amazing, is technically they are not meant to deliver ordnance

not like the B-36,


they are basically aircraft carriers

very fast and cheap ones

20 of them weigh only as much as a DD (destroyer) and carry 80 planes

(albeit they are made of aviation materials, so they cut into that pool of available materials)


obviously vulnerable, but the potential is there for an awkward weapon system

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf


what's amazing, is technically they are not meant to deliver ordnance

not like the B-36,


they are basically aircraft carriers

very fast and cheap ones

20 of them weigh only as much as a DD (destroyer) and carry 80 planes

(albeit they are made of aviation materials, so they cut into that pool of available materials)


obviously vulnerable, but the potential is there for an awkward weapon system

The weight may have been less than a DD , but the price was much higher. They were designed as Fleet scouts , but development of PBY type aircraft which could cover greater areas, faster , and having more survivability (not to mention a heck of a lot cheaper) pretty much insured their demise. Plus the K-class blimps could also do many of its tasks for a heck of a lot cheaper, with a LOT less people. It's too bad though. I really think they had great potential.

the japanese version [;)]

yes, that is actually a TF move radius

87 knots carrier task force [X(]

The Russians had some fun with parasitic fighters as well. These I16 fighters are mated to the TB3 bomber

price is a subjective term,

in wartime, the only cost is materials


you are correct that duralumin is a lot more precious than steel

(in the case of japan, about 70 times more precious - 120kilotons duralumin per year, 8 megatons steel per year)


so they sadly detract from the aviation materials pool, still would be a handy part of an arsenal


.. and they have a classic, pirate type quality

the one thing i noticed, that escaped my vast expanse of knowledge

was the range of these creatures

18,000km , about 2.5 times that of an emily

so it could reach about 200 hexes in AE terms

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf


price is a subjective term,

in wartime, the only cost is materials

No, you still have to pay people to work those materials, and pay for the capital equipment to work them.

you are correct that duralumin is a lot more precious than steel

(in the case of japan, about 70 times more precious - 120kilotons duralumin per year, 8 megatons steel per year)


so they sadly detract from the aviation materials pool, still would be a handy part of an arsenal

Not to mention the helium and/or hydrogen. Note that the US, leading producer of helium in that time period, couldn't fill all of its own tiny fleet of airships with it and had to use hydrogen for some. Japan will have to use hydrogen all but exclusively. Even if they've learned from the prewar crashes and can afford the materials to fire-retardant skin coatings they're still flying incinerators if they EVER come in range of Allied aircraft with incendiary ammo (available for the .50BMG at least during the war, can't speak for other aviation ordnance off the top of my head).

So how much hydrogen was Japan producing and how much would they need? Skin doping? Rubber to seal leaks?

An airship's metal is a tiny part of her materials cost.

Then let's talk about infrastructure. Airship hangers. Mooring masts. Tank farms for not just fuel but for lifting gas and ballast (OK, you can use water for that, or dispense with it if you're willing to valve lifting gas every flight). Yet another family of military specialties who need to be trained.

And of course another battle between the IJA and IJN for who owns airships, or yet more resources wasted as they run parallel but independent programs.

.. and they have a classic, pirate type quality

Which I'm sure is a huge selling point for the 1930's IJN.

Airships were used during WWI, and a tiny bit in WWII. Non-rigid blimps saw more use but mostly as ASW patrol. Lighter-than-air craft had no significant impact on the war nor were they going to.

Look up the USN's airship history and you'll see why.

No, you still have to pay people to work those materials, and pay for the capital equipment to work them.

no you don't.


the bankers took everyone's money away, in 1929, then they gave it slowly back to you guys to protect them from hitler

economics are a method to control the actions of the servile classes, forcing them to perform undesirable tasks to satisfy their basic needs

money is just paper, a worthless entity - soviets made people work with a combination of force and coercion, and they did just fine



but anyway..

materials and MAN-HOURS (labour) are the limiting reagants in manufacturing

for some, with an abundance of materials, man-hours was important

for many, (soviet lack of duralumin, japanese lack of steel, etc) materials were more important,
hence why it was no big deal to spend 25,000 man hours
per zero fighter, because it only consumed about 1.7 tons of materials

whereas it was no big deal to spend 5 tons per P-47, but it had to be easy to produce

--------------

just making 2 points about airship carriers

1) they are cool [8D]

2) japanese could have potentially built them to use in a limited role to strike pearl, and other targets
- they could stand off a few hundred miles and launch a large raid, also could carry fighters to maintain CAP

best not think of them as AC, but as large airworthy ships [:)]



as you pointed out:

1) japanese airships would probably use hydrogen ( VERY VULNERABLE)

2) unless they bought enough helium from the allies pre-war, then used it against them
(just like soviets selling manganese to germany, before barbarossa)

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf

No, you still have to pay people to work those materials, and pay for the capital equipment to work them.

no you don't.


the bankers took everyone's money away, in 1929, then they gave it slowly back to you guys to protect them from hitler

economics are a method to control the actions of the servile classes, forcing them to perform undesirable tasks to satisfy their basic needs

money is just paper, a worthless entity - soviets made people work with a combination of force and coercion, and they did just fine

Please look up the Ruble (Soviet version). Even the Soviets gave workers money. Force and coercion are great, but machinists need to eat.

The US government took away precious metals, not money. What do you think people bought war bonds with?

Paper is far from worthless, even in this 'digital' age today. Money has value because people agree it has value, but that's fine and it still has value as long as people keep agreeing. Pre-Nazi Germany got to the point where the paper money was effectively worthless. The US did not.

And you sidestepped the issue of capital equipment. For that matter, there's the equipment to build the equipment, and often enough one more layer on top of that.

You are, in fact, backwards - just about any project can have its material cost eliminated by accounting for paying additional people (the miners who haul out the iron ore, and the machinists who made their equipment, and the machinists who made their machine tools, and the miners who mined THAT ore...).

2) unless they bought enough helium from the allies pre-war, then used it against them
(just like soviets selling manganese to germany, before barbarossa)

Pretty neat trick to buy enough helium for a large airship force when the world's largest producer didn't have enough for a small airship force.

I guess if you can conjure resources out of thin air maybe you DON'T need to pay people.

If you want a WWII-era airship fantasy, I suggest http://www.baenebooks.com/p-1327-hard-m ... icles.aspx

If you are actually interested in learning about the technical merits and limitations of lighter-than-air craft, I'm here.

here are the materials that the japanese had available

probably had a lot of paper too, but they used it to build houses, not tanks or ships

http://ww2total.com/WW2/History/Product ... erials.htm

global resources, and why japanese occupied the areas they did

soviet materials

as you can see, soviets had less aluminum than japan even, that's why their fighters were made of wood/steel
and had somewhat worse overall performance for the same engine power than luftwaffe did

US materials

as you can see, about 10 times more steel, 7 times more aluminum

but only about 1.5 x the population

so US could afford to waste materials on heavy AC like P-47, as long as they could be mass-produced with as few man hours as possible

interesting point made by the author:

germanymaterials