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Post by scottwashburn on Aug 19, 2016 20:27:18 GMT
As many of you probably remember from the old forum, I was always a strong voice against the utility of aircraft on the tactical battlefield. I insisted that the aircraft of the era were too slow, too lightly armed, and too vulnerable to have much hope of accomplishing anything against the Martian forces at a tactical level. Recon & high altitude bombing were the only logical role for aircraft. I may have to rethink that  Some things happen in book 2 of my Great Martian War series, and while not giving anything much away, the humans discover just how dangerous small groups of raiding Martians can be. Trying to hold a front line a thousand miles long, it is inevitable that small groups of tripods could slip through. And once behind the lines, they could run rampant, destroying rail lines and bridges, supply dumps and small towns. The long-term effects of these disruptions could be catastrophic to the forces on the front lines. Countering such raids will be very difficult. The Martians have no supply lines and their machines can move quickly without needing to stop for refueling. Steam tanks can't stray far from the rail lines and the Martians could easily avoid engaging them and just destroy the rail lines somewhere out of their range. Armored trains would have similar problems. Horse cavalry could catch the raiders, but lack the strength to engage them. Motor vehicles will find it difficult on the almost totally unpaved roads of America in that time period. Rough Riders might have some possibilities, but acting alone without the support of heavier forces, their usefulness is still questionable. But aircraft... They would be invaluable for tracking down these raiding parties, but I'm also thinking that large groups of them might actually be able to overwhelm a small group of tripods. They'd take heavy losses, but it would be worth it. Large, fortified aerodromes located at strategic points along the main rail lines might be the key in defeating these raids. Might be an interesting scenario, too: three tripods against forty or fifty aircraft. |
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Post by boxholder on Aug 19, 2016 21:10:29 GMT
Do the tripods not need to recharge their energy cells every few "cycles" per your first book?
Not knowing what is the length of a "cycle," it is hard to know how far they can stray before needed to head home for a recharge.
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Post by scottwashburn on Aug 19, 2016 21:56:26 GMT
That's a good question, and we have no 'official' source to go from. The H.G. Wells story gives us no clues and talking with Ernie he hinted at a nuclear power source right in the tripods. I veered away from that and decided on enormously efficient power storage devices which I'm saying can keep a tripod in action for several months of normal action and for lesser time periods of high usage. So they can't run around in the human rear indefinitely, but certainly long enough to do a heck of a lot of damage.
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Post by Conjack on Aug 20, 2016 9:28:23 GMT
Certainly a viable option for the use of planes but I find myself worrying about the long term validity. The losses (Both in trained pilots and actual aircraft) suffered from countering a single wave of Martians with only air support would make such techniques limited in the amount of times they could be used. You would run out of planes quickly. Would make for an interesting element of commanders having to decide whether a Martian incursion is dire enough to risk the losses. Or am I underestimating the air force capacity back then?
On the flip side however, if the air-force were able to make joint operations with Rough Riders then that would not only produce a joint ground and air attack but would offer some good attack options. The riders tie the Tripods up and keep them buys on the ground allowing the planes to focus fire. Hmmm..
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Post by scottwashburn on Aug 20, 2016 11:40:19 GMT
Yes, a coordinated attack would be the most effective. Not easy to do, of course. Even today close air-ground coordination is tricky and back then with few if any radios it would be a small miracle. Still, it might happen from time to time, and it would be a more interesting game scenario, surely. We'd probably have to use markers for most of the aircraft, I'd imagine.
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Post by boxholder on Aug 20, 2016 12:14:34 GMT
Pilots are the real long-leadtime item. It takes time and experience to train a pilot up to competent levels.
Planes are comparatively cheap and quick to produce compared with a good pilots. Even today, the pilot is the most expensive component on board the aircraft.
Re: Power systems - I think it is good that you went away from the AD "radium engine" construct for Martian power. Energy storage avoids the issue of radioactive contamination from an explosion, as happened in the AQMF backstory.
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Post by scottwashburn on Aug 20, 2016 12:40:26 GMT
Well, most WWI pilots only got a few weeks of training before being sent into combat. The planes were a lot simpler then, too. Navigation instruments meant a compass. There was no radio. Controls were a stick and the pedals. Machine gun trigger and bomb release and that was the extent of it. Since there is no air-to-air combat, tactics are restricted to strafing and bomb runs. And since casualties will be so high, there's really no reason to train the pilots too extensively since 90% of them will die on their first two or three missions. Ruthless, yes, but the war against the Martians MUST be ruthless. And yes, no nukes! I tried to convince Ernie to get away from the nuclear powered tripods since if the humans could accidentally make one blow up in Liverpool it would not take long for them to figure out how to blow one up on purpose and did he really want the humans to have nukes? |
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Post by boxholder on Aug 20, 2016 13:05:42 GMT
Worse yet, did he want the Martians to have nukes? They would make short work of any human defensive positions or equipment. Combine that with the combat power of the tripods and unlimited mission duration and it is "Adios humans!"
In regard to training of pilots:
Your own example shows that it takes longer to train a pilot than to lose one in a combat environment. In your example a few weeks to train a pilot who then has survival measured in days. The WW-2 German experience was that it took a few months to train a pilot who then had a life expectancy of a few weeks. Not a dissimilar ratio.
Pilots for even the simplest aircraft have to understand a few things and they must be trained to recognize them to avoid or recover:
-Don’t overstress the plane and break it while trying to maneuver too violently. You die.
-Beware of the aerodynamic stall. It lies in wait at low speeds (like landing) but also at higher speeds (like pulling out of a dive or a strafing run). It is the beginning of a classic sequence: Stall - Spin - Crash - Die
-Do not become fixated on the target and fly into the ground. You die.
Effective air-to-ground strafing is not as easy as it looks. Both effective aiming and avoiding fixation must be trained.
Effective bombing (that can hit something smaller than a city block) must be trained and practiced.
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Post by hardlec on Aug 20, 2016 14:14:43 GMT
I (we?) May need to rethink how aircraft attack.
Fixed forward firing machine guns are great for engaging enemy fighters. There are no enemy fighters. There are probably no fighters at all.
Strafing would be suicide. A battery of side mounted machine guns or auto cannons might work. Rockets might work even if they were newly made Hale Rockets from the Civil War. Recoilless guns were invented for Aircraft but repurposed as anti-tank guns.
I like the idea of planes circling a tripod at altitude (to increase the range) shooting with side-mounted guns like Puff the Magic Dragon.
If not, well, BANZAI.
NO NUKES!!!
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Post by boxholder on Aug 21, 2016 12:29:06 GMT
You are probably on the right track for ground attack procedure against tripods.
I think that there should probably be a penalty for heat rays trying to target aircraft. Against a ground target, the heat ray can use smoke and fire to guide the beam onto the target, exactly as tracers do a machinegun. No such thing happens when firing into the sky. You either hit the target or nothing happens. Which way did you miss? High or low? Left or Right?? And it is harder and harder to hit a target further away and at an elevation.
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Post by scottwashburn on Aug 21, 2016 13:31:50 GMT
I'm of the opinion that hitting a flying target with a continuous energy beam would be absurdly easy. When we have idiots today who can hit the COCKPIT of a fast moving jet airliner from miles away with a laser, the Martians would have a field day against slow moving aircraft. For All Quiet, I'd give the aircraft a defense of 2 (hit on anything but a 1) and an armor of 1 (since a 1 is always a failure, they would survive the hit on a 1). Basically, it is a suicide mission. As it ought to be.
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Post by Conjack on Aug 21, 2016 14:50:03 GMT
This is all assuming that the Martians do not quickly counter with their own air-craft. Even in the short time that the first incursion in England was around they began work on a Flying Machine (Though never quite got it working before dying). If that was just a small group working in such a limited time then I doubt it will take the Martians long to update their Flying Machine plans as soon as they see the Prey Creatures trying to weaponize the skies instead of just the scouting forces they are using in the air now.
Then the human planes are in serious trouble and will need those forward facing guns.
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Post by scottwashburn on Aug 21, 2016 15:39:47 GMT
That is an excellent point. In my Great Martian War novels, my approach is that while the Martians are extremely intelligent, they are also extremely conservative in their thinking. Totally new ideas are difficult for them to accept. They never developed flying machines on Mars and it may take them a while to seriously consider the idea here on Earth. But that's just my take. Others may have different opinions.
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Post by boxholder on Aug 21, 2016 15:47:38 GMT
Just for what it is worth:
The laser beams are visible through the air because of particulate scattering. Hence, the aimpoint can be corrected. The heat rays are stated to be invisible.
Also, the cockpit videos show the lasers bouncing around, not dwelling continuously.
The laser encounters have been on jets during the approach for landing. For this, they are flying straight, below a couple of thousand feet up and are slowing for landing, so are below a couple of hundred mph -- Not moving at 15-20,000 feet and 400-600 mph. And attacking aircraft will be jinking about to throw off the aim, too.
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Post by Conjack on Aug 21, 2016 16:12:54 GMT
That is an excellent point. In my Great Martian War novels, my approach is that while the Martians are extremely intelligent, they are also extremely conservative in their thinking. Totally new ideas are difficult for them to accept. They never developed flying machines on Mars and it may take them a while to seriously consider the idea here on Earth. But that's just my take. Others may have different opinions. This makes sense and certainly fits. The first incursion were already portrayed as some what unpredictable due to leaving ahead of the others. But what you say does leave me with one question. In your first book the Martians are shown to be rather quick to realize the need to update their machines to better match their situations. In their first time harvesting they realize that they need a better way to transport the humans they capture and they also quickly recognize the need for faster machines when they struggle to catch horse riding groups. Would the sight of weaponized aircraft and the records from the first group's Flying Machine (Which is hinted at having destroyed the Channel Fleet with Black Smoke bombings), not prompt them to also recognize the need for such upgrades again? They would see that the sky offers human forces a vision capability that outmatched their own and would see them as something that needed countering after losing a couple of machines to them. Or are you going for them simply thinking their ground based units will be enough to counter with Heat-Rays and dismissing the idea as irrelevant? |
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