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engineer -> Conjectual Aircraft (9/11/2006 6:59:23 PM)
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Airships! The USA had the Shenandoah for a period in the early 20's. The Los Angeles was delivered later in 1923 and was available throughout the balance of the 1920s. If you posit an environment where the budget gates are open for naval expenditure, it's also plausible that the Akron - class carrier dirigibles would be available for the late scenarios (design started in 1924 so deliveries in 1927 or 1928 aren't unreasonable).
Mechanics: Since the dirigibles are multi-million dollar ships instead of tens of thousands of dollar sort of aircraft, I've been establishing a pool of 1 and a build rate of zero. Then there is exactly one of each type of zeppelin provided that is attached to a group by the same name. If the airship is underconstruction, then the one pool unit will become available once the delay is satisfied. If the airship is shot down the air group parent of the ship becomes hollow and useless so the player would order it to stand down. In addition I've put together a notional ground component of about 1000 men, mostly support types, to provide servicing for the ZR's.
I would tend to give them high durability due to use of non-flammable helium as a lifting gas and the large size (mg's would puncture them and damage it via slowly reduced lift, but you'd practically have to hit them with a bomb or ignite the fuel in order to shoot it down).
ZR1: Shenandoah (modified LZ-41 Zeppelin design)
Max Speed: 60
Cruising Speed: 50
Armament: 6 x 0.30 cal MG, 8 x 500 lb bombs
Range: (??) ~5000 nautical miles
ZR3: Los Angeles (Post-Great War Zeppelin design)
Max Speed: 70
Cruising Speed: 50
Armament: ? (6-8 0.30 cal MG)
Range: 7000 nautical miles (she crossed the Atlantic non-stop on her delivery flight)
ZRS4: Akron Class
Max Speed: 72
Cruising Speed: 50
Armament: 7 x 0.30 cal MG, 4-5 Aircraft
Range: 6800 nautical miles
Notion: For the late scenario, begin the game with two Los Angeles Airships and two ZR base forces in the US OOB. The second would be a replacement for the R38, a British airship that crashed during trials before acquisition by the navy as the ZR2. I've named mine the USS Maxfield after the senior USN officer killed in the crash of the R38. Four Akron's and two more base forces (representing 1924 and 1925 appropriations for two Akron's each) are in the reinforcement pipeline and arrive at roughly 6 month intervals starting in Q2/27.
So far, I've scripted the units and they read into the game files and operate as aircraft. I haven't done much play testing to verify how they fight and search, however. I don't know how to write up a real carrier airship with an airwing within the constraints of the aircraft system. I've defaulted to boosting the AA armament of the Akrons to reflect the machineguns on the aircraft that would be interfering with any attack on their "mothership".
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