Your Nation's Air Force Mark II:

[The Teutonic Republic]

Here's a B-2 rip I piecing together in a few minutes in solidworks. It's intended to be a stealthy long range, medium-low altitude penetrator.



Model specs:

• Length: 40 meters
• Wingspan: 100 meters
• Height: 5 meters
• Wing Area: 1356 meters squared

Technical Specifications:

• Empty Weight: 160,000 kg
• Loaded Weight: 360,000 kg
• Maximum Takeoff Weight: 400,000 kg
• Max Speed: Mach 0.95
• Cruising Speed: Mach 0.85
• Service Ceiling: 22,500 meters
• Range: 17,500 kilometers
• Powerplant: 8x liH2 fueled non afterburning turbofans, 80 kN each
• Armament: 3 internal bays with a combined 80,000 kg of payload

Here's the bomb it's designed to carry which I've unoriginally called the MOFAB (Massive Ordinance Fuel-Air Bomb). Its 2 meters in diameter, 15.5 meters long, weighs 56,000 kg and caries a 48,000 kg thermobaric warhead. The bomber has three weapons bays, the main weapons bay located along the center-line which carries a single MOFAB and two lateral weapons bays which each have 4 hardpoints which can each carry a single cruise missile or 3,000kg worth of additional bombs.




The inspiration behind this whole thing was the MOAB support power from CnC generals where this massive B-2 bomber flies in off map and drops a huge bomb, usually on the enemy base.

It's also a great way to get around the whole "no nukes" rule in most RPs as with a warhead that has a yield in excess of 200 tons of TNT the MOFAB is basically a small nuclear warhead.

Edit: here's a size comparison with an F-35

[The Akasha Colony]

It's also a great way to get around the whole "no nukes" rule in most RPs as with a warhead that has a yield in excess of 200 tons of TNT the MOFAB is basically a small nuclear warhead.

Except it doesn't really get around the rule because it doesn't actually replicate the factors that make nukes so dangerous.

[Padnak]

Glory to the HOG

[The Teutonic Republic]

It's also a great way to get around the whole "no nukes" rule in most RPs as with a warhead that has a yield in excess of 200 tons of TNT the MOFAB is basically a small nuclear warhead.

Except it doesn't really get around the rule because it doesn't actually replicate the factors that make nukes so dangerous.

The blast pressure and temperature are comparable to nuclear weapons. It also doesn't come with the negative political stigma or nuclear retaliation that would potentially come as a result of deploying a nuclear warhead. The targets I had in mind were airports, airbases, shipyards, harbors, factories, bases, and troop concentrations for which the bomb is more than adequate for.

It's also advantageous in that friendly troops without NBC gear can immediately occupy the area hit by the bomb and not risk severe radiation poisoning.

[The Akasha Colony]

The blast pressure and temperature are comparable to nuclear weapons. It also doesn't come with the negative political stigma or nuclear retaliation that would potentially come as a result of deploying a nuclear warhead. The targets I had in mind were airports, airbases, shipyards, harbors, factories, bases, and troop concentrations for which the bomb is more than adequate for.

It's also advantageous in that friendly troops without NBC gear can immediately occupy the area hit by the bomb and not risk severe radiation poisoning.

None of these except the political issues are relevant.

The value of a nuclear weapon is not in its blast radius or temperature or radiation or what not. It's in the fact that it can do all of these things while also remaining compact and reasonably cheap. That same bomber carrying a single huge conventional bomb to strike a single target could instead carry 175 B61 nuclear bombs. Rather than lay waste to *a single* port, or maybe catching a battalion in the blast, it could lay waste to *half of Russia* or carpet an entire corps or field army in 300+ kiloton explosions.

On the high end, nothing rivals the destructiveness and sheer power-to-volume/mass ratio of a nuclear weapon. You can't exactly put a MOFAB in an ICBM, nevermind MIRV it.

On the low end, PGMs and cluster munitions can replicate the majority of the effects you're looking for without the need to invest in huge, inflexible weapons and platforms to carry them. A big unitary explosion is actually relatively ineffective against troop formations in the field, as they tend to be fairly distributed. Most of the power will simply be wasted, especially as increasing explosive yields results in diminishing returns in the expansion of lethal radius. The need for such large explosive radii (and the attendant size of the weapon system) decreased significantly as weapon accuracy increased, hence the change from multi-megaton warheads to yields in the hundreds of kilotons, and the change from tactical nuclear weapons to conventional PGMs.

The danger of nuclear weapons is that even a moderately developed country can develop and field a large number of them and could plausibly have enough to threaten even a much larger country. That's not really a threat from a conventional solution, which is why IRL no one really cared much about MOAB or FOAB. They're too expensive and specialized to be deployed in the kind of numbers that make nukes dangerous, so they don't affect the strategic calculus. This is why nukes tend to be banned in threads; even a n00b nation can theoretically field enough to threaten a much larger power. Most particularly, this allows a player to basically kill the RP on a whim by throwing a bunch of nukes around willy-nilly. Thus, fielding such a solution doesn't really circumvent the rule, because it does not replicate the larger strategic implications of a nuclear exchange.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Except it doesn't really get around the rule because it doesn't actually replicate the factors that make nukes so dangerous.

The blast pressure and temperature are comparable to nuclear weapons. It also doesn't come with the negative political stigma or nuclear retaliation that would potentially come as a result of deploying a nuclear warhead. The targets I had in mind were airports, airbases, shipyards, harbors, factories, bases, and troop concentrations for which the bomb is more than adequate for.

It's also advantageous in that friendly troops without NBC gear can immediately occupy the area hit by the bomb and not risk severe radiation poisoning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_%28missile%29

This is the R-36. At 32.2 meters long and 3.05 meters in diameter, and with a mass of 209,600 kilograms, it is the heaviest ICBM in service with any country (as far as I know anyway). It has a maximum throw weight of about 8,800 kilograms, or 8.8 tonnes.

Your claimed warhead, by contrast, weighs at least 200,000 kilograms. Assuming the entire mass is TNT (that is, excluding any weight for outer casing, MIRV buses, guidance systems, etc), your warhead is 22.7 times heavier. In fact, your warhead weighs almost as much as the entire R-36 rocket. That's almost ten times the weight-to-Lower-Earth-Orbit capacity of the most powerful HLLVs currently in service, and a tad stronger than the largest ones being planned. That's an awful lot of delivery equipment to trade for a piddly 0.2 kiloton yield.

[The Kievan People]

Blast basically obeys the inverse square law. A 200 tonne TNT equivalent bomb will cover about 20x the area of a bomb with .5 tonnes of TNT (a 2000lb bomb) at an equal or greater level of overpressure.

As this device weighs marginally more than twenty 2000lb bombs, well...

[The Teutonic Republic]

None of these except the political issues are relevant.

The value of a nuclear weapon is not in its blast radius or temperature or radiation or what not. It's in the fact that it can do all of these things while also remaining compact and reasonably cheap. That same bomber carrying a single huge conventional bomb to strike a single target could instead carry 175 B61 nuclear bombs. Rather than lay waste to *a single* port, or maybe catching a battalion in the blast, it could lay waste to *half of Russia* or carpet an entire corps or field army in 300+ kiloton explosions.

On the high end, nothing rivals the destructiveness and sheer power-to-volume/mass ratio of a nuclear weapon. You can't exactly put a MOFAB in an ICBM, nevermind MIRV it.

On the low end, PGMs and cluster munitions can replicate the majority of the effects you're looking for without the need to invest in huge, inflexible weapons and platforms to carry them. A big unitary explosion is actually relatively ineffective against troop formations in the field, as they tend to be fairly distributed. Most of the power will simply be wasted, especially as increasing explosive yields results in diminishing returns in the expansion of lethal radius. The need for such large explosive radii (and the attendant size of the weapon system) decreased significantly as weapon accuracy increased, hence the change from multi-megaton warheads to yields in the hundreds of kilotons, and the change from tactical nuclear weapons to conventional PGMs.

The danger of nuclear weapons is that even a moderately developed country can develop and field a large number of them and could plausibly have enough to threaten even a much larger country. That's not really a threat from a conventional solution, which is why IRL no one really cared much about MOAB or FOAB. They're too expensive and specialized to be deployed in the kind of numbers that make nukes dangerous, so they don't affect the strategic calculus. This is why nukes tend to be banned in threads; even a n00b nation can theoretically field enough to threaten a much larger power. Most particularly, this allows a player to basically kill the RP on a whim by throwing a bunch of nukes around willy-nilly. Thus, fielding such a solution doesn't really circumvent the rule, because it does not replicate the larger strategic implications of a nuclear exchange.

I never intended it to compete with nuclear weapons. It's designed to be a bomb that can deliver a blast the size of a small nuke without actually being a nuke. I'm aware that a fission or fission-fusion warhead has an RE factor orders of magnitude higher than any conventional warhead. It's just that using nukes in RPs is heavily frowned upon and will probably get you kicked out or ignored.

basically the same idea of the MOAB or FOAB except bigger. I though something that can destroy a factory or shipyard in a single hit that ISNT a nuke might be useful.

This is the R-36. At 32.2 meters long and 3.05 meters in diameter, and with a mass of 209,600 kilograms, it is the heaviest ICBM in service with any country (as far as I know anyway). It has a maximum throw weight of about 8,800 kilograms, or 8.8 tonnes.

Your claimed warhead, by contrast, weighs at least 200,000 kilograms. Assuming the entire mass is TNT (that is, excluding any weight for outer casing, MIRV buses, guidance systems, etc), your warhead is 22.7 times heavier. In fact, your warhead weighs almost as much as the entire R-36 rocket. That's almost ten times the weight-to-Lower-Earth-Orbit capacity of the most powerful HLLVs currently in service, and a tad stronger than the largest ones being planned. That's an awful lot of delivery equipment to trade for a piddly 0.2 kiloton yield.

I said the warhead was a Fuel-air explosive. The FAE warhead of the FOAB has a claimed RE of around 4.3 which I extrapolated to my design. 48,000 kg x 4.3 is 206,400kg. So with a 56,000 kg bomb weight it's slightly more than 1/4th an R-36.


Edit: here's something that might be slightly more useful.



It's a bunker buster that has the same dimensions and weight (2 meter diameter, 15.5 meter length, 56,000 kg weight). The filling would be 28,000 kg of either FOX-7 or Heptanitrocubane which would give it a TNT equivalent of 44,800-56,000kg. In addition to acting as a super heavy bunker buster it could also act as an earthquake bomb similar to the T-12 cloudmaker or grand-slam for collapsing structures and destroying large bridges or viaducts.

[The Kievan People]

It would have to be a very small shipyard or factory.

[The Akasha Colony]

basically the same idea of the MOAB or FOAB except bigger. I though something that can destroy a factory or shipyard in a single hit that ISNT a nuke might be useful.

Under what circumstances? Why would you prefer a single large explosion when a plethora of targeted ones could be used to specifically hit vulnerable areas and cause crippling bottlenecks in the supply chain, rather than wasting the vast majority of the unitary blast on things that aren't important?

Modern factories, shipyards, and distribution centers are very spread out, and most of the important components and machines are actually quite resistant to damage.

[The Teutonic Republic]

basically the same idea of the MOAB or FOAB except bigger. I though something that can destroy a factory or shipyard in a single hit that ISNT a nuke might be useful.

Under what circumstances? Why would you prefer a single large explosion when a plethora of targeted ones could be used to specifically hit vulnerable areas and cause crippling bottlenecks in the supply chain, rather than wasting the vast majority of the unitary blast on things that aren't important?

Modern factories, shipyards, and distribution centers are very spread out, and most of the important components and machines are actually quite resistant to damage.

Would a Cluster-bomb be more useful? Say 400-450 100-kg fuel-air explosives each with a wind-correction and inertial navigation system?

[The Akasha Colony]

Under what circumstances? Why would you prefer a single large explosion when a plethora of targeted ones could be used to specifically hit vulnerable areas and cause crippling bottlenecks in the supply chain, rather than wasting the vast majority of the unitary blast on things that aren't important?

Modern factories, shipyards, and distribution centers are very spread out, and most of the important components and machines are actually quite resistant to damage.

Would a Cluster-bomb be more useful? Say 400-450 100-kg fuel-air explosives each with a wind-correction and inertial navigation system?

TBH, I wouldn't use a fuel-air explosive for the job in the first place. Most industrial factory equipment (except maybe for really sensitive things like microelectronics) would probably be considered a hard target, since they're basically just big hunks of steel. They tend to survive blasts pretty well, especially when the building around them takes the brunt of the damage first.

In fact, the biggest danger to industrial machinery in WWII was not that they'd actually be hit and destroyed by bombing raids, but that the raid would destroy the building around them and expose them to the elements (letting things like humidity and/or freezing temperatures get to them). This is why industrial bombing required such investment for such (comparatively) little gain: the bombers would destroy the factory building but the work crews would just pull the machinery out of the rubble and cart them off to another warehouse somewhere and start work again.

Nowadays you have some things that might be more vulnerable to disruption, like semiconductor foundries and the like, but the effects of targeting such facilities would take a while to be felt.

[The Teutonic Republic]

Would a Cluster-bomb be more useful? Say 400-450 100-kg fuel-air explosives each with a wind-correction and inertial navigation system?

TBH, I wouldn't use a fuel-air explosive for the job in the first place. Most industrial factory equipment (except maybe for really sensitive things like microelectronics) would probably be considered a hard target, since they're basically just big hunks of steel. They tend to survive blasts pretty well, especially when the building around them takes the brunt of the damage first.

In fact, the biggest danger to industrial machinery in WWII was not that they'd actually be hit and destroyed by bombing raids, but that the raid would destroy the building around them and expose them to the elements (letting things like humidity and/or freezing temperatures get to them). This is why industrial bombing required such investment for such (comparatively) little gain: the bombers would destroy the factory building but the work crews would just pull the machinery out of the rubble and cart them off to another warehouse somewhere and start work again.

Nowadays you have some things that might be more vulnerable to disruption, like semiconductor foundries and the like, but the effects of targeting such facilities would take a while to be felt.

What about tactical targets on the battlefield? Say airbases, troop clusters, FOBs, SAM batteries, artillery positions etc? Knowing that FAE/thermobaric explosives generate a powerful blast wave that is especially lethal towards personnel and light structures a 50+ ton FAE cluster bomb that could blanket a few square kilometers might be useful simply as a "grid removal" tool.

For single "hard" targets, the original target I had in mind, the bunker buster I posted above would be better.

[The Kievan People]

Or you could just drop a lot of small bombs. Or a lot of small cluster bombs, which is even better.

FAE is only useful against certain targets anyways (structures, infantry in structures, light vehicles), it is not a great general purpose munition.

[The Teutonic Republic]

So here's a take on the Northrup Switchblade that I just threw together which is intended to be a hypersonic air-superiority fighter. The wings are swept fully back for subsonic flight, swept 30 degrees forward for supersonic flight, and swept fully forward and tucked in to the forward canards for hypersonic flight.





Model Stats:

• Length: 19.5 meters
• Wingspan (swept forward): 11.5 meters
• Wingspan (swept fully back): 22.5 meters
• Height: 2.5 meters
• Wing Area: 62 meters ²

Theoretical Aircraft Specifications:

• Crew: 1
• Empty Weight: 19,500 kg
• Loaded Weight: 28,500 kg
• Max Takeoff Weight: 33,500 kg
• Powerplant: 2 liH2 fueled adaptive cycle precooled turbofans, 190 kN dry thrust each
• Max Speed: Mach 5.2
• Service Ceiling: 28,500 meters
• Range: 3,000-4,000 km

Engine Summary (taken from descriptions of the air-breathing component of the SABRE engine):

Air is first passed into a precooler consisting of a gaseous helium cooled heat exchanger placed immediately aft of the inlet cone which cools the airflow down to -150 degrees centigrade. The cooled air is then compressed with a turbofan and combusted with liquid hydrogen from the crafts onboard fuel tanks. The cooler airflow significantly reduces internal engine heat which allows the engine to be constructed out of lighter and less heat resistant materials, saving both weight and cost. The helium heated in the precooler is then recycled by cooling it with the liquid hydrogen fuel, forming the Brayton cycle. A de-icicng system consisting of methinal injected through a 3D printer prevents the precooler from freezing during operation. The cooler air leads to the engine having a much higher pressure ratio then contemporary jet engines. A gaseous helium Brayton cycle cooling system is used for the heat exchanger instead of using the liquid hydrogen fuel due to the problems associated with hydrogen embrittlement that would incur in the metal precooler. After passing through the precooler the air is compressed in a modified turbo-compressor powered by waste heat from the Brayton cycle helium loop. Starting at supersonic speeds the air is slowed to subsonic speeds through an axisymmetric shock cone inlet before it passes into the precooler with the excess air being passed into a ring of spill duct ramjet burners placed aft of the precooler.

Armament:



The main armament is 4 HLRAAMs(hypersonic long range anti-air missile) or "Hell-rams" (A scaled air-to-air variant of a hypersonic AShM concept I modeled earlier) stored in an internal weapons bay aft of the cockpit . Each missile weighs 450 kg and is first powered by a discardable rocket booster up to mach 4 at which point the missile's liH2 fueled dual-mode ramjet takes over and boosts it up to mach 6 in ramjet mode and then up to mach 12-15 in scramjet mode. Maximum range is on the order of 300-600 km (depending on altitude) and and each missile carries a 50kg blast-fragmentation warhead. Guidance is a mix of LIDAR and active radar homing.

Additional armament is a 100kW laser mounted in a retractable turret aft of the missile bay. The laser is cooled with liquid helium from the engines precooler and is powered by a set of carbon nanotube-graphene capacitors which are charged by MHD generators using high temperature superconducting magnets placed aft of the engines.

Edit: Not a final design by an means, just some ideas I threw together. I already use a YF-23 rip as my main air superiority/ strike fighter, this would be more of a complement.

[Iltica]

It's also a great way to get around the whole "no nukes" rule in most RPs as with a warhead that has a yield in excess of 200 tons of TNT the MOFAB is basically a small nuclear warhead.

Edit: here's a size comparison with an F-35

(Image)

God I hate it when people make these things, If you want to destroy entire towns or cities with one bomb go find a region that allows nukes. If they don't, they obviously are trying to keep people from doing exactly that.

[EsToVnIa]

http://iiwiki.com/images/0/0a/Super_draken.png

Kind of, sort of, not really redid my 35 MOD upgrade for my notDraken.

[Nachmere]

http://iiwiki.com/images/0/0a/Super_draken.png

Kind of, sort of, not really redid my 35 MOD upgrade for my notDraken.

god that remains one of the meanest looking fighters ever. it looks like it should be launched from Galactica

[Mizrad]

Is using the Hind as means of dropping off troops considered stupid nowadays?

[Atlantica]

Is using the Hind as means of dropping off troops considered stupid nowadays?

What do you mean by this - using the Hind as a primary means of dropping off troops (like how one may use a Black Hawk for the same role) or using it as a secondary means of the role (like a gunship)?

[Mizrad]

Is using the Hind as means of dropping off troops considered stupid nowadays?

What do you mean by this - using the Hind as a primary means of dropping off troops (like how one may use a Black Hawk for the same role) or using it as a secondary means of the role (like a gunship)?

More like a gunship but with some being dedicated to dropping off troops. So having having it act a transport wouldn't be too uncommon but it's still probably the 2nd most used for troop transport (For RP'ing as my small budgeted puppet that doesn't have much to work with).

[The Kievan People]

So here's a take on the Northrup Switchblade that I just threw together which is intended to be a hypersonic air-superiority fighter. The wings are swept fully back for subsonic flight, swept 30 degrees forward for supersonic flight, and swept fully forward and tucked in to the forward canards for hypersonic flight.

1. The switchblade was not a feasible aircraft, just a patent. And it is definitely not hypersonic.
2. Why does a missile launched from an aircraft that can reach Mach 5.2 need a rocket booster to reach... Mach 4?
Edit: 3. Lasers would be seriously degraded on a hypersonic aircraft by the severe temperature gradient immediately around the aircraft, which will refract the beam.

[Crookfur]

Is using the Hind as means of dropping off troops considered stupid nowadays?

Not at all in fact some operators prefer to use them as assault transports primarily and some of those even prefer to use hips as gunships to prove over watch for Hind landings.

[Orlovsky Republic]

Made my post in the armor thread, noticed this existed and gleefully jumped up and down.

I don't think you can handle the OAAF.



http://www.aviaworld.com/photo/Finnish%20Air%20Force/slides/Mikoyan-Gurevich%20MiG-21%20Fishbed%20-%20MiG-21bis.JPG

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Russian_Air_Force_MiG-25.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Serbian_mig-29_missiles.jpg

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/aircraft/images/e/ef/Mig17WithAfterburner11oClock.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120403190138

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/MiG-23-red12.jpg

Mi-24s striking an insurgent position
http://cdn4.tapcdn.com/images/source/e5/a0/19/56/f671482b56915a096585623.jpg

[Gallia-]

mi-4 boss af