Bay 12 Games Forum

Seaplanes are great so long as the sea is calm, in rough weather they cant land or take off or even fly well.
Still aircraft carrier have the same problems and a seaplane tender can be shorter and simply use crane to move the seaplanes off and on.
By using cranes we save space on deck and can mount guns there.

That is true. On the other hand, they can land on land (no pun intended), and other planes cannot at all land on water.

A seaplane tender is an idea, but may not be feasible - the planes I based this one on have length of twenty metres and more, which is hardly practical to store on ships. Plus, depending on the distances involved, the only thing changing is the duration of the flight, which were about twelve hours anyway.

Floatboat is an interesting concept, but if you ask me, I dislike the whole idea of 40mm gun on it, any modest ship will be able to destroy target as large and as slow as a floatboat, diving attacks are suicide

I'd prefer a long range transport, bomber if we can find unprotected targets (or night bombing)... One very useful thing would be if it could land in hostile waters, put several mines in the sea and GTFO

Then we can delete the 40mm gun and leave transport room. That would also probably allow it to use torpedoes, which I definitely like.

Well, no.
10,000 men traversing the paths requires ten thousand trained as such (the training necessary being less than climbing cliffs, though), each carrying his essentials - that is, probably food for a few days (water may be found), ammunition, his rifle, specialized equipment and so on. All that slows them down, especially in mountaineous terrain, and especially if they can only move across certain paths. Not all of them can move at once, as most ways will be narrow, and so on. In effect, you may have ten thousand men moving slowly as a ten times a thousand men column. That's no fast way to cross a mountain, especially if you need to fight afterwards.
Like evilcherry, I see those mountains similarly to the dolomites - see, for example, this this picture. This shows all of the terrains - the pass (street in the right half), the infantry-passable terrain (both the part without snow and the snow in the upper left corner), and the cliffs (which I probably won't have to show you ;-) ).
A cheap defensive option would be to build a pillbox on the shadowed peak to the left, with a cannon and machine guns towards the pass and a machine gun to the back. You cover the pass and even with infantry scaling the terrain, you can defend yourself pretty well. Using the view-point for another one, you can also cover yourself versus people scaling the cliff to get to your pass-sided defence. Basically, you block the passes as that's where the attack that can actually hurt you comes from.
Of course, that's just cheap - you can get more and more and more if you want more defensive capabilities. For example, you could build hundreds of bunkers in the cliffs, connected by tunnels. Somewhen, you'll be very, very cost-ineffective.

Let me explain, shortly, why I believe a mountain defence by fixed defences to be both effective and not necessary right now.

Basically, you can classify mountaineous terrain in three different types: Passes, human-traversable and steep faces, in reversed order of ease of defensibility.
Steep faces are difficult, but possible, to climb. They necessitate, however, taking only a few things with you. This is pretty impractical for sustained military operations and can therefore only be used to facilitate attacks on the other two types. Patrols are the easiest way to check them - it should be pretty easy to shoot someone who's climbing and doesn't shoot back.
Human-traversable terrain looks like a hill or so, that is a fairly steep incline and maybe a few parts where you've got to use your hands. They're easier to traverse, possibly with mules, but you can't take heavy gear with you. Here, a few heftier firefights might break out, but again, if they climb down they'll be crushed (due to no supplies), if they don't, they have no supplies.
Now, passes. They are the least common territory, and facilitate the transport of heavy gear. Railways go through there, just as roads. Such a road (and railroad) is usually a serpentine, with mountain to one side and an abyss on the other. Here, fixed defences will be necessary and practical. A single machine gun bunker should be able to suppress hundreds of enemies, as they probably lack cover (you need a second however to cover reloading and barrel changing). And, you need to secure the bunkers against nearby enemies infiltrated via one of the other ways.

There is one problem with this, though: The country across the mountains is neutral. I believe we have a more pressing concern to address.

On a side note, anyone knows a good diceroller that can roll large groups of dice at once. The wizard of the coast one seems broken. It has a tendency to give streaks. Ie, either lot's of flaws, or lot's of succeses.

If you want to, I can write you one. Give me a bit more details (like what types of dice, how detailed you want the results), and wait a bit.

I'm adding a vote on 13, and C.. No other project, as I've voted enough already.


Three votes: Build protectors/sharks and artillery guns, Train delta, Armadillo armoured vehicle, aircraft engine powerful (7.1), Patrol boat, Long-Range torpedo
Two votes: Electric propulsion (2), Fighter (4), SMG (10) or based on pistol (10.1),

I think we've got enough projects with enough votes.

9. Turtle MSV ( Large. ) : Basically this vehicle http://www.3vwargames.com/galleries/gall_ww2/sdfz2.jpg. Use duel project 2206 truck engine and add a rotating platform inside able to turn 360 degrees to mount a heavy weapon on. Give it 1.5cm thick slopped armor on the front 5mm the rest. ( AA gun, Indirect artillery and such. )  Include a tow bar on the rear.

9.1 Counter proposal: Mount the new 120mm gun onto it, and strip all armor, and turret traverse, leaving only the feed mechanism and elevation intact. It should be firing backwards and if needed cut the barrel short. Keep a limited traverse like other guns of the era. In other words, a self-propelled gun.

It's, partially, a question of what you want your basis to be on. Historically, the self-propelled anti-air guns grew from modified personnel carriers, like half-tracks or trucks. See, for example, the Sdkfz 251/17 or the M45 quadmount. Contrary to that, most self-propelled artillery was mounted on outdated tank chassis, like the Wespe or the Priest. The reason for that, as far as I can say, is the different weight and strain on the systems. For example, a 40mm AA gun in our game weighs two tons - the 80mm artillery piece seven point five!
This means that the same system would either be underpowered for the artillery or overpowered for the AA gun. Additionally, firing the 80mm artillery gun will produce much more recoil than the 40mm AA gun, possibly enough to topple the vehicle if not fired in front or to the back. (This assumes fixed weights. Plus turrets, it's 5t vs 25t)
On the advantages of mobile vs fixed AA:
Mostly, cost. Basically, we can assume the cost of a mobile AA vehicle to be bigger than 9 construction points (truck + 40mm gun). This is a pretty conservative estimate (no armour, only one engine and so on), and I'd expect more like 15 or so cost. While the fixed one requires fortifications, it still has at least an advantage of 2 - two fixed AA guns vs one mobile.
Additionally, it can be better fortificated. Concrete is cheap, it doesn't need to move, and so on. So, for defense, use the fixed one.
Mobile AA guns can, and are, more effective when the others cannot be brought to bear, for example in a land offensive. Which is pretty much what we can count on not to happen for now.

Edit: Clarification: What I mean by fortification is to dig a hole and put the gun in there. You restrict your firing arc, but only direct hits will not affect the gun. It's a similar principle as foxholes. Something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pillbox_Type_23,_St_Martin%27s_Battery,_Westen_Heights,_Dover_%28rear%29.JPG

Mud, too. Basically, the problem is that you need to minimize the weight per area of your tracks. That, however, grows the bigger a tank gets - doubling each of its dimensions results in eight times the weight and only four times the area. (See cube/square law).

10kg of what? We have almost no idea how to do rocket, how about we o rockets next year with trained monkeys and some idea how to engine.

Oh, that's actually mostly my plan. We need some kind of test rocket before that, however, which is what I wanted to do this turn. Basically, do a 100kg test rocket with a few kilometres of range now, and then develop the real deal.

Well... three small and two large projects. Let's see for my priorities. Oh, and added: Proposal 11: Build a test rocket. 100kg, with about half of that warhead.
Instead of the build proposal ;-)
Voting for: 4, 5, 11, Beta, Delta.
Waiting for other designs for the rest ;-)

The bass might need three or four truck engines, after that... it's a very interesting project, that's for sure.
For me, we now need:
- A way to resupply islands even under attack
- A fighter plane
- More anti-naval firepower
- A tank (less priority).

@Aseaheru: Could you number your proposals and structure them a bit better? Also, what should Delta train for? I'd like aviation, myself. Also, I think the rocket engine would be abstracted in a design proposal like "Build a test bed rocket with a small warhead".

For the first one, the Bass is possible. I'd much prefer a transport plane (seaplane), but we haven't got the engine for it.
Fighter plane:
4) I propose the Raven class fighter plane (large): Contrary to the crow, use more metal (as much as possible) and the heavier engine (Project 2206). Armament should be one or two project 2202 15mm machine guns, the plane itself being a biplane design.
Oh, and chose the weaker engine for the Crow. It doesn't need speed, especially if falling down otherwise.


5) The shark class patrol boat: A ca. fifty ton design:
- Mounts three project 2206 truck engines (one ton, 600kW)
- Mounts a single 40mm gun for anti-aircraft and anti-ship duties (5t)
- Mounts two torpedo tubes with two reloads each (6t + 12t)
That's 24 ton assigned. Unarmoured, fast and hopefully pretty deadly against unsuspecting or unarmed foes. Slap some 15mm MGs on it if there's room.

6) The Armadillo armoured fighting vehicle: Take the Project 2206 truck engine (one should be far, far enough), and build an armoured vehicle from it. Driver's compartment armoured 1.5cm, passenger 0.5. Mount a Project 2202 15mm machine gun on it, with the gunner standing in the driver's compartment. Six-wheeled.
Basically, make it quick and armoured enough to survive small arms fire, and armed enough to provide fire power to infantry they wouldn't otherwise have.

Oh, and lastly:
Beta (?): Produce protectors and if designed sharks.


@10ebbor: What are the costs for the protector?