|
Post by hardlec on Aug 23, 2016 19:53:44 GMT
With the acceptance of the Burgess-Dunne Flying Wing as the long awaited Aircraft for AQMF, I am inclined to point out the following:
There were human airships during the time of the first invasion.
In "Real" history, there was commercial Zepplin service, passengers and mail, when the Wright Flyer first flew.
In the American Civil War, both sides used Hot Air Balloons as artillery observation posts.
Balloons are wicked easy to model. Find a foam egg of the appropriate size at the craft store. The small end of the egg is down. A little paint, a wire for the "stand" and some string and there you have it. Models of hot air balloons and Dirigibles abound.
Balloons as aerial observation posts might fit in the game and give it a little flavor.
Bigger Airships belong in a bigger game.
The fact that the Martians unwittingly control almost all the earth's helium (which is in the Texas Panhandle and in Oklahoma, the humans still have Amarillo) just makes things more interesting.
I'm no Scott Washburn, but I may try my hand at an Aerial Aircraft Carrier. It will be a long time coming. (My lack of talent accounts for a lot.
Suffice it to say that a living, dynamic AQMF is a very good thing.
|
|
|
Post by scottwashburn on Aug 23, 2016 20:54:37 GMT
I agree there are some cool things that can be done with airships. Of course the Germans were the real pioneers. The Americans didn't have any rigid airships until after WWI (when they were given a captured German one) and didn't have much luck with them even when they started building their own. Hydrogen is more dangerous than helium, but it also has marginally greater lift. And I'd have to think that if a dirigible strays within range of a heat ray, it probably won't matter all that much what's inside it
|
|
|
Post by boxholder on Aug 23, 2016 23:54:34 GMT
hardlec:
Good insights. Just one minor correction--the balloons used in the Civil War were hydrogen filled. Propane burners for hot air balloons come much later in the 20th century. Easy confusion because the Montgolfier Bros. used hot air balloons heated over big bonfires. Not really feasible for wartime use. From Wikipedia entry:
"The first major-scale use of balloons in the military occurred during the American Civil War with the Union Army Balloon Corps established and organized by Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe in the summer of 1861. Originally, the balloons were inflated with coal gas from municipal services and then walked out to the battlefield, an arduous and inefficient operation as the balloons had to be returned to the city every four days for re-inflation. Eventually hydrogen gas generators, a compact system of tanks and copper plumbing, were constructed which converted the combining of iron filings and sulfuric acid to hydrogen. The generators were easily transported with the uninflated balloons to the field on a standard buckboard.
For your dirigible carriers, you can get FREE card model dirigibles from:
currell.net/models/mod_free.htm
British, German, and Russian - are all available (print and assembly required).
About all that remains is to remove the top half of the hull and replace with a flight deck. Will save you bunches of time. Put some half diameter bulkheads inside before final assembly. You may need to enlarge or shrink to suit your needs, but that is pretty simple.
Currell's Graf Zeppelin comes in two sizes one about 13 inches long and one about 24 inches long. The others are about a foot each.
The Russian "GIANT" has a nice cylindrical center section that looks like a good candidate for surgery.
|
|
|
Post by hardlec on Aug 24, 2016 1:18:20 GMT
There were hot air balloons in the ACW. They filled them with hot air from a wood fire, with a bellows. There were hydrogen balloons as well.
Hydrogen is not as volatile as it's made out to be. But when you take a flammable metal frame, cover it in a flammable cloth cover, and fill it with a flammable gas, your chances of creating the marquee disaster of the century are pretty good. I am one of many who believe the Hindenburg disaster was sabotage. The Zeppelins that crashed in WWI suffered enough hits to lose lift, the crews destroyed them afterwards. The key is how much oxygen can mix the the hydrogen. Pure hydrogen won't burn.
Duralumin is an alloy of aluminum and magnesium. It doesn't ignite, but it chars instead of melting. I suppose it will ignite if the fire is hot enough. Remember the aluminum hulled Royal Navy ships caught fire in the Falklands War.
Martian Heat Rays will turn Zeppelins into torches even if they're full of Halon.
|
|
|
Post by boxholder on Aug 24, 2016 12:03:33 GMT
Be aware that scale differences between the airship models and Scott's airplane are dramatic. For example, his Burgess-Dunn is probably near AQMF's 1/100 to 1/110 scale. If the Russian GIANT (1 foot long in 1/350) is rescaled to 1/100, it will be about 3 feet long. The Graf Zeppelin (Hindenburg) would come in about 7.75feet long in 1/100.
What this leads to is the fact that scale modeling of planes and zeps in AQMF may not be truly feasible. There will probably need to be some compromises and abstractions made to integrate air units into the game context.
|
|
|
Post by hardlec on Aug 24, 2016 13:05:05 GMT
A scale Akron or Macon, the actual Dirigible Aircraft Ca rriers would also be too big to fit on a game table, which adds to the list of reasons to look at another scale. Suppose there was an "expansion" with a different scale. Right now the scale is "approximately" 1:1 figure, at least for tanks and such. Make the figures smaller but have them represent bigger units. 1:300 or 5mm figures where a vehicle is a company of vehicles, etc. Well, a tank company has more than tanks, an infantry company may have a vehicle or two. Now we can include Dirigibles.
This step will probably be several years in the making, but it is much more a possibility now than a decade ago.
3D printing can create masters for molds or it may be economical to print the figures directly.
|
|
|
Post by David N.Tanner 07011959 on Aug 24, 2016 14:38:56 GMT
|
|
|
Post by scottwashburn on Aug 24, 2016 15:07:10 GMT
Since a dirigible would probably be flying at high altitude, it would be appropriate to have it in a smaller scale since it's way up there!
|
|
|
Post by hardlec on Aug 24, 2016 15:49:12 GMT
Indeed. It would probably be about 12 feet above the table (in scale.)
|
|
|
Post by boxholder on Aug 24, 2016 23:46:37 GMT
Uh, 12 feet in 1/100th is only 1200 feet. A zep pilot would probably feel like he is in the trees. 120 feet would be 12,000 feet up. That's more like zep country.
|
|
|
Post by scottwashburn on Aug 25, 2016 0:12:29 GMT
Of course ground scale doesn't equal figure scale. Based on weapons ranges I would guess 1" equals about 25 yards. At that scale 12 feet works out to 9000 feet. Way beyond heat ray range but not so high the crew needs oxygen. So yeah, 12-15 feet. Wow, gotta raise my ceiling...
|
|
|
Post by boxholder on Aug 25, 2016 12:23:51 GMT
Here you touch on the need to balance "true scale" with "game scale." What is rigorously "in scale" will not often fit on a game table. So, modeling the effect of the weapon system must drive the design.
As much as I dislike the GamesWorkshop business model, I must admit that their rules caused players to use the units appropriately. Heavy weapons outranged lighter stuff which outranged small arms. but the heavies would still fit on a reasonable playing surface. This made for a fairly congested playing space, but that was consistent with their vision of close combat even in a far future storyline.
|
|
|
Post by hardlec on Aug 25, 2016 12:42:26 GMT
Indeed.
|
|
|
Post by madmorgan on Aug 25, 2016 12:45:18 GMT
Okay, I have to say that for some time I've been advocating using mixed scale figures in AQ. Both my aircraft and ship ideas hinge on using figures ranging from 1:144 down to as small as 1:2400. Please see my 'Ship' and 'Aircraft' listings for all this. There are many figure producers who make a wide range of models we can use by adjusting the scale. From Spartan's 1:1200 Dystopian flying zeppelins with aircraft decks to GHQ historical 1:2400 WW1 ship line, there are enough various figures to represent dang near anything you want in AQ. My briefcase demo game for AQ is in 2mm and 3mm! These are actually 1:1 for demo on a 3' square Cigarbox table map (Tundra) using the Brigade Miniatures line (see thread on that). Point is, we've got all the models, and hopefully, and rules to use them. Game on!
|
|
|
Post by madmorgan on Aug 25, 2016 12:48:06 GMT
Sorry, the above was a bit of a rant - I'm just feeling ignored for all my work on converting figure scales for gaming in AQ. My bad.
|
|