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Post by axe99 on Dec 4, 2016 12:05:49 GMT -6
Also, late game might see technologies like primitive helicopters and the like. While they'd probably only be useful for ASW, or probably give a bonus to colony attack/defense (somehow), it would nevertheless be interesting to watch. The USN was definitely experimenting with helicopters and planned to use them primarily for medical evacuation and emergency supplies, both roles in which they had success a few years later in Korea. Since the game goes to 1950 I would expect helicopters to be allowed. There were quite a number of jets in use by 1950 so I would expect these to be included as well. This has implications for the design of carriers in much the same way that the transition to heavier aircraft in the 20's and 30's forced changes to carrier design. I can't wait to see how the RTW2 team handles these new (at the time) inventions. I was reading an article on the Hump the other day, and vaguely recall the use of a helicopter for SAR there late in WW2. According to wikipedia, the US used it for a civilian SAR in 1945, so helicopters definitely sneak into the end of the timeline. (more googling...) Here's a link to the Sikorsky R-4, which sounds like the first early chopper to get a decent amount of use - first flight in 1942, and used on board ships for ferrying parts and medical evacuations at least from 1944 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_R-4
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Post by archelaos on Dec 4, 2016 13:59:52 GMT -6
Well, a lot depends on the gameplay - in RTW mission generator discourages from building modern, fast BBs, and supports construction of BCs, that late in game are often amoured to the treaty BB levels. So the type of missions carriers would appear in RTW2 would decide if it would be practical to build CVs with armour and heavy guns.
Besides, we say only Japan and Sweden built hybrids, but for example, how would we classify carriers like Graf Zeppelin? With it's 16x6in and 12x4in DP guns you could argue it was a huge cruiser/carrier hybrid. Wasn't it also supposed to perform cruiser warfare? And Lexingtons carried 8x8in - a battery worthy of a heavy cruiser!
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Post by Airy W on Dec 4, 2016 16:57:16 GMT -6
The Germans had both auto gyros and real helicopters in ww2, with a number being used by the kriegsmarine. They didn't see widespread use cause the Luftwaffe were derps and "saw no possible combat use for such an aircraft" Or they didn't see real use because there is a difference between having a prototype that kinda works and having something that is actually fit for adoption. If the Germans in WWII were not willing to shove money at a wunderwaffen it had to be really, really obviously non functional. For a demonstration of this, look at the type XXI uboat. 118 were built, 3 were seaworthy. 0 of them actually had any impact on the war. For another example see the German jet program. They built way more then the British. Their engines were specified for higher thrust. And their engines also destroyed themselves almost immediately when flown and needed to be replaced after 10% of the service hours of a British jet engine. People really, really, really exaggerate German technological sophistication in WWII. They loved sending half finished prototypes into mass production. It makes their technology look really advanced on paper but those advanced designs didn't work.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Dec 4, 2016 18:35:44 GMT -6
The Germans had both auto gyros and real helicopters in ww2, with a number being used by the kriegsmarine. They didn't see widespread use cause the Luftwaffe were derps and "saw no possible combat use for such an aircraft" Or they didn't see real use because there is a difference between having a prototype that kinda works and having something that is actually fit for adoption. If the Germans in WWII were not willing to shove money at a wunderwaffen it had to be really, really obviously non functional. For a demonstration of this, look at the type XXI uboat. 118 were built, 3 were seaworthy. 0 of them actually had any impact on the war. For another example see the German jet program. They built way more then the British. Their engines were specified for higher thrust. And their engines also destroyed themselves almost immediately when flown and needed to be replaced after 10% of the service hours of a British jet engine. People really, really, really exaggerate German technological sophistication in WWII. They loved sending half finished prototypes into mass production. It makes their technology look really advanced on paper but those advanced designs didn't work. The way I read it in a book I have back in Ottawa (not where I'm living at the time.) The Navy used them quite a lot for reconissance, and the army wanted them for supply transport but the Luftwaffe cockblocked them. And the light choppers had been in development since the 20s and where quite reliable. I do acknowledge that a lot of the German wunderwaffe were crap, but I would debate your statement with the jets. Yes they broke down a lot but most were out of service due to fuel shortages. It is impossible to judge the true effectiveness of equipment when at any one time less than 100 can fly due to lack of fuel. Also the Metors were much less effective despite more being in the air at any one time. Heck it wasn't that much faster than some prop aircraft at the time.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 4, 2016 18:44:25 GMT -6
...... And Lexingtons carried 8x8in - a battery worthy of a heavy cruiser! The 8 in. guns on Lex, were replaced at Pearl in March 1942 by 5 in. guns. The Saratoga's were replaced in January, at Pearl after being torpedoed on January 11th. The guns were used to fortify Oahu's coastal seacoast gun emplacements. eugeneleeslover.com/ENGINEERING/8-inch-turret.pdf
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Post by Airy W on Dec 4, 2016 19:42:33 GMT -6
The way I read it in a book I have back in Ottawa (not where I'm living at the time.) The Navy used them quite a lot for reconissance, and the army wanted them for supply transport but the Luftwaffe cockblocked them. And the light choppers had been in development since the 20s and where quite reliable. I do acknowledge that a lot of the German wunderwaffe were crap, I certainly believe that they wanted them but the fact that light helicopter experiments are reliable does not mean that helicopter supply is technologically viable. The US had already achieved such tasks and it took another 15 years or so to produce large transport helicopters for general service in the role you are talking about. The vehicles that served in Korea were much more limited then that. but I would debate your statement with the jets. Yes they broke down a lot but most were out of service due to fuel shortages. It is impossible to judge the true effectiveness of equipment when at any one time less than 100 can fly due to lack of fuel. That is irrelevant. The fact that they spent more time waiting around before they had a chance to break down doesn't affect their service life. There is no reason they need to be flying at the same time to judge their service life. Furthermore there was plenty of time for evaluation postwar. It's telling that Meteors continued to be manufactured post-war but the Czeck plant producing Me262 was shut down as soon as alternatives were available. Despite having the ability to buy whatever materials and fuel they needed the engine just plain didn't work. Me262 weren't much faster then prop planes either. The Meteors weren't used offensively because the British didn't want the Germans reverse engineering their jet engines. That meant that Meteors had very few targets because German offensive air was so rare at the end of the war. Also I will caution you that many reports of how effective planes were in WWII use the extremely naive assumption of taking wartime claims at face value. This produces ridiculous exaggerations on all sides but is particularly bad with Germans late in the war and worse yet when it comes to pilots with propaganda value such as those assigned the Me262. Going by the numbers the Germans were claiming to have shot down you would think the allied air forces were on their last legs.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 4, 2016 22:21:29 GMT -6
Just one comment on this issue. The only way we can perform an historical analysis of air combat in WWII or any war, is to use the data that we can find, perform an analysis of aircraft performance and cross check combat records. We can compute roll rates, climb rates, instantaneous turn performance, lift/drag ratios and power to weight ratios. We can then perform a comparison which is really a practical assessment of the information gained as a result of flight tests in specific circumstances. Flight tests, both factual comparisons and competitive comparisons, simply state that on any given day, one aircraft should have the advantage over the other. But the factor that we can't predict nor can we compute, is the performance of the individual pilot.
The Me-262 was designed as an interceptor, as was the P-38 Lightning. It was designed to take-off, climb quickly, attack enemy bombers and return to base. According to post war flight tests, the aircraft was responsive and docile which meant it would have been a good fighter and bomber. It's major fault was the unreliability of its engines. The Meteor was an interceptor also, used mostly to destroy V-1 Flying Bombs. A comparison of drag between both aircraft shows that the Meteor III had about 6 lbs. more drag than the Me-262 at 100 ft./sec. This greater drag shows up in the speed difference between the two aircraft. The Meteor had higher wing drag but lower wing loading allowing it to have a shorter take-off distance and increased maneuverability. There, now which plane would have won a fly off? The one with the best and smartest pilot.
Air combat is a dangerous business and very confusing. Sometimes you see your opponent for a fleeting moment, hit him, see him smoking and diving and then assume you shot him down. However, without someone else seeing it, its only a probable. Many times you just don't have the time to watch the opponent crash because you must keep maneuvering and use situational awareness to check what is near and threatening. So, yes much of the combat data that we have cannot be corroborated accurately especially seventy years later. Memories fade and so does the documentation. We do our best, that is all we can do.
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Post by Airy W on Dec 5, 2016 1:36:11 GMT -6
There, now which plane would have won a fly off? The one with the best and smartest pilot. This is all well and good but my argument was not nearly that broad. I was just holding out the engine as an example of the Germans rushing a prototype into service when it had a major flaw, the short service life. From this I conclude that the German military during WWII was overly optimistic about the ability to put high tech equipment into service. So when he says the Germans were confident about helicopters I say that doesn't count for a lot. The German military consistently overestimated the ability of German engineers during WWII.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Dec 5, 2016 6:13:10 GMT -6
There, now which plane would have won a fly off? The one with the best and smartest pilot. This is all well and good but my argument was not nearly that broad. I was just holding out the engine as an example of the Germans rushing a prototype into service when it had a major flaw, the short service life. From this I conclude that the German military during WWII was overly optimistic about the ability to put high tech equipment into service. So when he says the Germans were confident about helicopters I say that doesn't count for a lot. The German military consistently overestimated the ability of German engineers during WWII. I wasn't just talking out of my arse the book used sources from both sides to calculate combat losses and kills. I apologize if my response was confrontational, but I felt you were being overly dismissive of both my initial contribution(which was on topic) and my response which along with yours has gotten quite off topic. As to the German helis and autogyro's they had quite a lot in service considering the meager resources allocated to the kriegsmarine outside of uboots from 43 onwards. I can't quote the numbers right now as I will have to look them up from a more detailed source than wikiped when I get home from university. Also kudos to oldpop on his post, which if feel was probably aimed at getting back on topic and stopping the incipient fight over the jets of ww2 (all 2 of them:))
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Post by vonfriedman on Dec 5, 2016 7:03:31 GMT -6
The discussion is moving away from the topic. that is RtW or RtW2. Should RtW2 enable the construction of hybrid units, such as Hyuga or Gotland, it would necessary to know a few things. For example, if the fire of your own big guns could damage the aircraft and/or the aeronautical installations, such as catapults, etc.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 5, 2016 8:34:22 GMT -6
The discussion is moving away from the topic. that is RtW or RtW2. Should RtW2 enable the construction of hybrid units, such as Hyuga or Gotland, it would necessary to know a few things. For example, if the fire of your own big guns could damage the aircraft and/or the aeronautical installations, such as catapults, etc. I believe the decision to allow flight deck cruisers rests on the idea of our assessment of the past. Should history guide the game or should the game simply provide the implements of research and allow any and all design possibilities. I believe that the game should allow all forms of research and development to allow a wide variety of designs. The game should place you, the gamer, in the position of the US Navy General board or any other oversight bureau in any government to decide whether a design is viable and useful. That is how the naval design process worked and still does. The game should provide the tools, you provide the direction. Let's get off the discussion of jet fighters, unless we create a different thread. This one is about hybrids or flight deck carriers. I have my own theories on the usefulness of flight deck cruisers based on historical analysis of the design.
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Post by Airy W on Dec 5, 2016 8:39:03 GMT -6
As to the German helis and autogyro's they had quite a lot in service Name a few of the battles they played a role in to help us see what a lot of service means.
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Post by bcoopactual on Dec 5, 2016 9:39:47 GMT -6
The discussion is moving away from the topic. that is RtW or RtW2. Should RtW2 enable the construction of hybrid units, such as Hyuga or Gotland, it would necessary to know a few things. For example, if the fire of your own big guns could damage the aircraft and/or the aeronautical installations, such as catapults, etc. I believe the decision to allow flight deck cruisers rests on the idea of our assessment of the past. Should history guide the game or should the game simply provide the implements of research and allow any and all design possibilities. I believe that the game should allow all forms of research and development to allow a wide variety of designs. The game should place you, the gamer, in the position of the US Navy General board or any other oversight bureau in any government to decide whether a design is viable and useful. That is how the naval design process worked and still does. The game should provide the tools, you provide the direction. Let's get off the discussion of jet fighters, unless we create a different thread. This one is about hybrids or flight deck carriers. I have my own theories on the usefulness of flight deck cruisers based on historical analysis of the design. I certainly don't have a problem with them being in the game. I would simply prefer that they do not get an artificial buff to make them more capable or useful than they proved to be in real life. Then if the player wants to experiment and try to make them effective despite their historical handicaps I would wish them good fortune and I'd be interested to see how it went. Edit - Kind of like ccip's badnoughts AAR but instead of badnoughts it's badtops...
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 5, 2016 10:15:53 GMT -6
One of the problems with the flight deck cruiser is that when it is being used as a cruiser, the flight deck is useless, and the reverse is true. So, why not use its air wing of approximately 20-24 fighter and scout aircraft as a flag ship for a submarine force in trade warfare. You could provide an air wing of dive bombers carrying 500 lbs. bombs with fighters and use this ship in a fleet of destroyers and submarines to scout areas like the North and South Atlantic, Indian Ocean and the Pacific for transports and convoys. The carrier could provide the long range scouts, using the dive bombers which could attack single ships or convoys to create confusion, then the submarines would not have to surface during the day to search short ranged. They could move in at night during the confusion of the day attack by the flight deck carrier and attack the convoy. The use of this type of force, in the Med is questionable because it is an enclosed sea, but it is possible. It could be useful in the North Sea, Norway and possibly the Baltic with reservations. Anyway, just some thoughts Note: I agree that the game cannot or should not give this design any more capability than it actually has based on its design. It has a short runway so no deck park, the turn around time for the aircraft will be long since you probably can't launch and retrieve aircraft at the same time. With such a small hanger, non-operational aircraft may have to be pushed over the side and this will attrit the air wing. Non-operational losses might still attrit this airwing, rendering the ship useless in a very short time. This all has to be planned for by providing sufficient spares like engines, wings and control surfaces along with extra radios etc. It might need a supply destroyer to sail with it to carry such spares. This all has to be included in the usefulness of the ship. Naval design bureau's have to balance cost versus usefulness or cost per performance and this should be a part of the calculations. Update: Gotland - Notice that this uses floatplanes, so it is actually a seaplane tender, more or less. I just thought you would be interested.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Dec 5, 2016 11:33:02 GMT -6
As to the German helis and autogyro's they had quite a lot in service Name a few of the battles they played a role in to help us see what a lot of service means. I'm going to have too look it up (post will be in a new thread to avoid being off topic) when I get home from university, so in a couple days. However as far as I recall the autogyros (note not the true helis) provided a reconissance aid for the larger uboots late war, and the actual helis were used in their intended role of rear area transport, as the kriegsmarine didn't exactly launch any big ship sorties late war. Note: neither the Wehrmacht nor Luftwaffe used them.
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