NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Crookfur]

Thanks. Trying to find stats for abandoned projects is an absolute pain. Took me a while to sort out the numbers for my not-ASALM for instance.

I does have a wee book on the p.1216 which I'll try and have a look at a bit later tonight.

IIRC the engine was to be a development of pegasus.


edit:

link to badly taken phone pic of the stats page from da book:

http://www.drmeatballs.com/crookfur/ima ... 214117.jpg

if you need anything clarified just ask

[-Celibrae-]

No networking the enemy to death then

What is the 'right' path to take, Galla

Show me the way of the (21st century) warrior

[Gallia-]

who_knows

It's an open question that no one has figured out yet.

I'm leaning towards the "no radio" side of things and turning the individual and up into mostly autonomous killing units through nomograms, standardized tactics, and school solutions, vice "stopping to take ask for directions from higher headquarters because you have no ability to think for yourself" solutions which are common in NATO armies.

[Austrasien]

the minefield itself is fairly thin and not particularly deep, for what it's worth

the battalion doing the breaching lacks the necessary equipment because its parent brigade was unable to raise all the equipment it should have on paper when it mobilized, which is a result of the military doing little more than glorified police operations for a decade while also being pretty neglected in terms of budget RIP
"shouldn't be fighting a war" is pretty much right tbqh

Improvise a mine roller or a mine flail.

[-Celibrae-]

That sounds pretty legit tbh

Though I suppose higher-ups would want to keep a tight leash on the lower-downs

[Radictistan]

I'm not really sure what goes into demilitarization, though.

For NFA firearms I think it's a blowtorch to the receiver.

[Gallia-]

the minefield itself is fairly thin and not particularly deep, for what it's worth

the battalion doing the breaching lacks the necessary equipment because its parent brigade was unable to raise all the equipment it should have on paper when it mobilized, which is a result of the military doing little more than glorified police operations for a decade while also being pretty neglected in terms of budget RIP
"shouldn't be fighting a war" is pretty much right tbqh

Improvise a mine roller or a mine flail.

What does an improvised mine roller look like?

A barrel?

[Crysuko]

Given PMT level technology, what do you guys think the largest projectile a ship mounted railgun could practically fire?

[Western Pacific Territories]

Improvise a mine roller or a mine flail.

What does an improvised mine roller look like?

A barrel?

Put the nearest pair of spare treads you can find onto the closest barrel fire and roll it through the minefield.

Also, if you have tracked vehicles, getting spare tracks should be as easy as finding the nearest tracked vehicle and forcing the crew to hand it over. Sure, they may be grumpy, but if they refuse and you're a asshole, tell them that there's no AT mines in the field.

[Western Pacific Territories]

Given PMT level technology, what do you guys think the largest projectile a ship mounted railgun could practically fire?

Only a sith deals in absolutes

I don't think anyone can answer that because it's well.. PMT tech we're talking about.

[Tekeristan]

Nothing like a pierced bottom, eh?

[Keskinen]

Well it would certainly cut down the number of dear John letters the forces post office would have to deal with.

IIRC most conscription systems have been pretty blind to marital status even when they have otherwise taken consideration of dependents.

Keskinen: missed that bit and went straight to the 35,000lb service number however the max bomb load (let alone your slightly expanded one) never going to be the most common load mainly because it limits the fuel load and hurts the range. With the max load victors might have been able to hit France and maybe mine some French Atlantic ports but with a circa 20,000lb load Moscow and further into Russia is doable. 35,000lb would probably be the limit for reaching eastern europe.

As for the training pipeline, yup that would be right.

Yeah, fortunately, a slight advantage I have in the RP region that I'm in is that there's a scattered group of us that allows each other to stage equipment via a NATO-esque agreement, if necessary, which cuts down on the range vs. bomb loading issue.

And as far as the training pipeline, how long for each? I've been using Nordic aircraft, though somehow I missed the Hawk, which is in service with Finland.

[Kassaran]

Given PMT level technology, what do you guys think the largest projectile a ship mounted railgun could practically fire?

Depends, what is the goal of this projectile? What are your intentions of using the projectile for? What sort of ship is this railgun on? What are the mechanisms behind accounting for railgun heating? What is your desired weight for said weapon? What is your desired distance/range for said weapon for said projectile goal?

All you've essentially asked is: 'Given [Generally vague] level technology, what do you guys think the largest [object] a [any sized sea vessel from yacht to supercarrier/dreadnaught] mounted [Non-specified weapon system beyond simple firing mechanism] could practically fire?' or to put it simply, you just asked what the largest round a gun can fire is.

I can guarantee you that you could probably launch some huge stuff off of a railgun on a ship... you just wouldn't get far at all.

[Crysuko]

Given PMT level technology, what do you guys think the largest projectile a ship mounted railgun could practically fire?

Depends, what is the goal of this projectile? What are your intentions of using the projectile for? What sort of ship is this railgun on? What are the mechanisms behind accounting for railgun heating? What is your desired weight for said weapon? What is your desired distance/range for said weapon for said projectile goal?

All you've essentially asked is: 'Given [Generally vague] level technology, what do you guys think the largest [object] a [any sized sea vessel from yacht to supercarrier/dreadnaught] mounted [Non-specified weapon system beyond simple firing mechanism] could practically fire?' or to put it simply, you just asked what the largest round a gun can fire is.

I can guarantee you that you could probably launch some huge stuff off of a railgun on a ship... you just wouldn't get far at all.

Alright, let's clarify thing
1. goal is as a direct fire anti-ship weapon. essentially a cannon.
2. a supercarrier, essentially the size of two normal carriers stapled together
3. the mechanism of heating is the magnetic induction as well as the friction of the rails
4. desired weight for said weapon... as a pure ball park estimate, about 10K long tons
5. range, would Ideally be upwards of a kilometre.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Are you really sure about a range of a mere kilometre? I mean... HMS Warrior from the 1850's did better than that... literally.

[Western Pacific Territories]

Are you really sure about a range of a mere kilometre? I mean... HMS Warrior from the 1850's did better than that... literally.

Iowa had a maximum firing range of 24 miles.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

I mean Tsushima 1905 was decided between 2000-4000 yards.

[Crysuko]

Are you really sure about a range of a mere kilometre? I mean... HMS Warrior from the 1850's did better than that... literally.

Iowa had a maximum firing range of 24 miles.

Look, I really don't know how powerful magnetic induction is, and if it's actually possible for a railgun to fling a projectile that far without monstrous heat and power costs.

[The Akasha Colony]

Iowa had a maximum firing range of 24 miles.

Look, I really don't know how powerful magnetic induction is, and if it's actually possible for a railgun to fling a projectile that far without monstrous heat and power costs.

If a railgun could not be expected to match the range of an old smoothbore cannon from the 1850s, what use would it be?

Especially if this railgun would literally be the heaviest naval armament ever put afloat, much heavier than all three of Yamato's turrets combined.

I'm not sure what use you envision for a weapon system that is itself heavier than an entire guided missile destroyer but has the range of a marksman's rifle and is intended for ship-to-ship combat, a type of combat that has since been dominated by engagements at many kilometers if not tens of kilometers for over a century. It does not seem to offer any advantages over any existing modern anti-ship weapon, all of which are far lighter, more compact, and possess exponentially greater range.

Railguns are of interest because they theoretically offer significantly increased range over existing weapons, provided they can be supplied with enough power. Which is not really a significant obstacle. None of the extant concepts envision anything like a 10,000 ton weapon mount. In fact, the current testing prototypes are small enough to be mounted on very light ships indeed. But anti-ship use is not very high on their list of offerings because of the nature of searching for and finding ships to engage.

[Crysuko]

Look, I really don't know how powerful magnetic induction is, and if it's actually possible for a railgun to fling a projectile that far without monstrous heat and power costs.

If a railgun could not be expected to match the range of an old smoothbore cannon from the 1850s, what use would it be?

Especially if this railgun would literally be the heaviest naval armament ever put afloat, much heavier than all three of Yamato's turrets combined.

I'm not sure what use you envision for a weapon system that is itself heavier than an entire guided missile destroyer but has the range of a marksman's rifle and is intended for ship-to-ship combat, a type of combat that has since been dominated by engagements at many kilometers if not tens of kilometers for over a century. It does not seem to offer any advantages over any existing modern anti-ship weapon, all of which are far lighter, more compact, and possess exponentially greater range.

alright, let's just handwave heat dispersal and energy cost and stretch it to 25 kilometres.Perhaps land bombardment could be a factor as well, against stationary targets. I'm trying to refine this idea because I plan on actually using it at some point and I don't want the realists getting all snotty at me. For the sake of conveniece, I will assume an aircraft carrier's nuclear reactor could power this thing.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

The USN railgun project has a planned range of 100 km's+.

[Gallia-]

the usn has a lot of bad/zany ideas

railguns are most useful for ciws atm

it remains to be seen whether they will be very good for shore bombardment

a hypersonic missile would be better

[Crysuko]

The USN railgun project has a planned range of 100 km's+.

Once more, heat and power. Plus, this is intended first and foremost to be an anti-ship weapon. And unless the target is sitting dead still, that won't work.

[Gallia-]

which is exactly why ships are the best first railgun deployment!

they arent bringing back retarded ass big gun battleships though

surface actions are dead

subsurface weapons are the supreme ruler of the high seas

[The Akasha Colony]

The USN railgun project has a planned range of 100 km's+.

Once more, heat and power. Plus, this is intended first and foremost to be an anti-ship weapon. And unless the target is sitting dead still, that won't work.

Heat and power are not really the long term problems for naval railguns. The latter is not even a short-term problem; modern power sources already in use could easily supply enough energy when combined with a few capacitor banks or something. Warships are already full of power-hungry systems like beefy radars and electromagnetic catapults and of course, their own propellers. A railgun is hardly an undue burden for a ship the size of a missile destroyer or larger.

But if you're worried about the "realists," you might want to abandon the idea altogether, or at least look a bit more deeply into existing railgun development and proposals. And naval warfare in general, because I think what you're proposing is fundamentally flawed. There is no reason a carrier needs to devote 10,000 tons to an anti-ship weapon with a range of 25 kilometers. It doesn't need to devote very much weight or space to anti-ship armaments in general because it is already carrying its best anti-ship armaments on its flight deck: its air wing.

Beyond that, a railgun would not make a particularly attractive anti-ship weapon, no more so than existing naval gun technology which is more mature and far more readily available. The target doesn't have to be "sitting dead still," as leading a moving target traveling a known course is an extremely simple exercise, but a maneuvering target causes significant problems unless the shell has a guidance system to correct for the target's changing vector. But in this case, you might as well use a missile, which has a greater ability to chase a moving target than an unpowered railgun shell, which can only glide and thus has an inherently very limited energy budget.

A carrier that finds itself in a direct-fire surface action against a hostile surface combatant is a carrier that will probably find itself dead soon. It is a very disadvantageous position for the carrier to be in no matter what you arm it with. If you want a "realistic" armament for a carrier, add a few 76 mm super-rapids to the sponsons or something and maybe a VLS with some ESSMs and maybe some SM-2s if you're really ambitious and call it a day.