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Dirigible **guided** bombing

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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by Dilandu   » Sat Oct 05, 2019 2:54 am

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Loren Pechtel wrote:
Hey, that could actually be made to work reasonably well without killing the wyverns. Using a human guide is a big problem because they parachute onto the enemy fleet, but if you use a wyvern it's trained to fly up and away when a door opens (a propeller in the airflow, it unscrews something and the door springs open. You set how many turns until it pops based on the drop altitude.) The wyvern is going away from the blast rather than falling towards it, they can safely ride the bomb a lot lower than a human and thus will be a lot more accurate.


The question is, could wyvern be trained as a contrast seeker? I.e. to guide bomb toward any place that is different in color than surrounding, or it must be trained to the specific image? If latter, it would be impossible to use against not pre-determined immobile targets.
Loren Pechtel wrote:There's also no danger of a wyvern being captured and made to talk.


Well, if you use kamikaze method, there would be no danger of human pilot being captured too :twisted:

Anyway, even with pilot ditching the bomb, for such missions only a "disposable" volunteers could be useful - i.e. they would not know much anyway.
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Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by phillies   » Sun Oct 06, 2019 12:41 am

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This problem was solved in the 1930s by the United States navy, using real dirigibles.

You position the dirigible directly above the target, match speed as need be, and drop the bomb. If you are worried about AA, you hide the dirigible in a cloud, lower an observer a few feet so he can see the target, and drop the bomb.

The demo was to drop a roll of toilet paper. Good shooting was to specify which turret you would hit on the target warship.
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by Dilandu   » Sun Oct 06, 2019 2:10 am

Dilandu
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phillies wrote:This problem was solved in the 1930s by the United States navy, using real dirigibles.

You position the dirigible directly above the target, match speed as need be, and drop the bomb. If you are worried about AA, you hide the dirigible in a cloud, lower an observer a few feet so he can see the target, and drop the bomb.



Sorry, but this method was developed in World War I by German naval zeppelins.

And the problem is, that even with matched speed and with favorable cloud cover, the unguided bomb is simply not precise enough to have a good chance of hitting the warship. Especially evading warships.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Sun Oct 06, 2019 11:43 am

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Yeah ships move fast to evade harm.

At.low level it's far.harder to evade but easier to shoot the airship.
Though the ships in Safehold aren't going to be as fast as those of WW2...until turbines or some other engine type becomes s common
Still, they will.move and evade.

Probably the first few times aero-bombing is done it will work well, then enemy will adapt.
Unless they learn of such a threat and train against.it before an encounter.

Zeppelins against a fleet caught in harbour though...wow, that would be nasty!

As noted AA guns without high velocity (only Charis has smokeless powder) or good.optics won't be as effective
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Sun Oct 06, 2019 10:02 pm

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Another point to remember is the higher an airship goes the worse it is and more it risks catastrophic harm.

1500' is best, beyond that you get less and less lift...and more and more strains.

Part of why I advocated using them as gunships, since from 1500' to 3000' you'd have good lift, few.strains and enormous vision and range advantages.
However, various issues limit the size of weapons so more than a 75mm gun would probably be unsafe so you wouldn't want.to use a gun-air-ship against anything more than destroyers and they'd be much better vs invasion barges, transport craft and land based supply lines.

Glide bombs, perhaps using rocket assist, could be a good idea for Charis especially if enemies developed AA guns.
Sinking ships shouldn't be the only way "allowed" to base naval-air strategy around!
Enough hits on the superstructure will greatly reduce an enemy ship's combat ability and may put it out.of battle entirely...also side on hits are more likely to damage AA guns and secondary/tertiary weapons.
Combined Arms...crippling enemy warships to allow follow up attacks can be efficient.
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Mon Oct 07, 2019 2:23 pm

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I think in the end, unless someone knows better? Dilandu is probably right that for some targets you'd need a Human guided bomb. :shock:

High level ship bombing in WW2 was generally pretty useless, or indeed almost any kind of high altitude bombing sucked, it was torpedo and dive bombers which actually worked.
617 Squadron was the only unit who ever achieved accuracy from high altitude with unguided bombs, but that was against immobile very large targets using precision expensive weapons.
Slow speed of airships would help a lot but from high altitude...best vs ships in harbour or caught in a narrow strait me thinks.

Germany used a glide bomb with large wings, forget designation, that would allow stand off and pilotable capabilities for Charis even if unpowered.
But how the hell you could arrange for a pilot to get out without throwing the weapon's aim off?

I think similar weapon with remote cable guidance for first few hundred yards at most could hit slow targets, giving enough adjustment to have some reasonable chance of success, from all.that's been said.
Last edited by SilverbladeTE on Mon Oct 07, 2019 4:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by Dilandu   » Mon Oct 07, 2019 4:04 pm

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SilverbladeTE wrote:But how the hell you could arrange for a pilot to get out without throwing the weapon's aim off?


Well, what if we put pilot at the bomb very rear in open cabin? Yes, we would probably need to put the control surfaces forward, but it is purely technical problem. So when it's time to ditch, the pilot would pull the trigger, his seat would flip backward and he would just fell backward (probably dragged by a small parachute, before opening the main one).

Something like that:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... il.svg.png

With the pilot placed on very rear.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Mon Oct 07, 2019 4:46 pm

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Dilandu
That makes sense :)
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by Joat42   » Mon Oct 07, 2019 6:30 pm

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For some reason I'm thinking about the reaction of the crew on the enemy ship when bombs explode beside them while the "pilots" splats on the decking...

---
Jack of all trades and destructive tinkerer.


Anyone who have simple solutions for complex problems is a fool.
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Re: Dirigible **guided** bombing
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:52 am

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SilverbladeTE wrote:Germany used a glide bomb with large wings, forget designation, that would allow stand off and pilotable capabilities for Charis even if unpowered.
But how the hell you could arrange for a pilot to get out without throwing the weapon's aim off?


I think the answer to getting the pilot out is not to get them out--don't put them in in the first place. Rather, they ride on the outside.

Either put them behind a windscreen on top of the bomb and put another seat & windscreen on the bottom, put a "pilot" made of sandbags matched to the real pilot's weight. When the pilot jumps the sandbags fall away also. Alternately, the pilot rides behind the bomb at it's center of mass.
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