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[piratejoe]

They Who Dare, The Empire of Schwarzes Holz
Looking for the core thread?

Today is the first of the new year of 1915 where war is fought in both Europe, and here on the grand archipelago of Arnot, where the Principality of Pren Gwyn and the Empire of Schwarzes Holz once again continue the war they have been fighting for years now, with war continuing after an assassination attempt on Pren Gwyn's Prince Dywel by a citizen of Schwarzes Holz and the Empire of Schwarzes Holz pushing their claim on the southern part of King Cadigan's land. Now they again fight on the beaches, fields, trenches sea, and now in the air as the information of aircraft's potential use in war spreads from Europe.

However, the new air force of both nations, which has only existed for three months now, has had a change in management for two very different reasons. The Bureaucrats who where supposed to actually manage our air force had apparently manipulated numbers, put in some bribes, and in other words where corrupt and undeserving of the position, and the second such was found out they where quickly and efficiently sacked with fingers crossed that the door hit them on the way out. Regardless, they aren't the air forces problem anymore.

Riding to the airfeild on horseback, you can spot one of the aircraft coming in for a landing, where it seems like its just about to land barely above the ground before the wheels touch the ground and the nose digs into the ground and flips over. The pilot crawls out of the wreck, seeming to be alive, but clearly with wounds both to their pride and their body, along with what is probably the dawning dread of all the paperwork they will have to fill out for such an accident.

Inside the main office building for designing and working out the new equipment and aircraft that will be sent flying out, the engineers meet at a large dining table while furniture, food, and even what appears to be jewelry, are taken by a few workers while a guard with a cap fitting for an officer who probably should be watching them instead fills out a check list. Now, what will you propose to your fellow engineers?

Spoiler: Starting Equipment (click to show/hide)

Planes:
-BzL 1 Motte- Biplane: A unarmed, single seater biplane bought from the start up Beham zivile Luft. The aircraft is stable in flight and the five-cylinder rotary engine powering the thing to a respectable speed doesn't cause any noticeable vibrations unless damaged making it easy to fly, with a wooden fuselage keeping it cheap. However, it is woefully inadequate for anything other than scouting or training. True to its name however, it is lightweight, and cheap. Cost 3/1
Pilots:
-Diligent: Quality beats Quantity! Schwarzes Holz ground crews work round the clock and hard to make sure aircraft are in tip top shape before entering combat, and the pilots know their aircrafts limits.
-Uniforms: Dark charcoal grey with accents of crimson red. Pilots of rank are issued a fancy hat, though its ill advised to wear it when flying.
Technology:
-Basic biplane design
-Basic monoplane design
-Wooden frame construction
-Basic control surfaces: wing warping, elevator and rudder
Resources:
-1 Basic Pilot Training School: Teaches new pilots what roll, yaw, and pitch is along with what the flight stick and rudder peddles are for. How to actually use this knowledge to take off is the final test.
-1 Prototype Airfield: The place where new aircraft and other air-related equipment are made and tested. Produces five dice worth of progress every turn.
-10 Production Points

Start of Early Summer 1915
Design Phase of Early Summer
Revision Phase of Early Summer
Start of Late Summer 1915
Design Phase of Late Summer
Revision Phase of Late Summer
Start of Early Autumn 1915
Design Phase of Early Autumn
Revision Phase of Early Autumn
Start of Late Autumn 1915
Design Revision Phase of Late Autumn
Other Revision Phase of Late Autumn
Start of Early Winter 1915
Design Phase of Early Winter
Revision Phase of Early Winter
Start of Late Winter 1915
Design Phase of Late Winter
Start of Early Spring 1915
Design Phase of Early Spring
Revision Phase of Early Spring
Start of Late Spring 1915
Design Phase of Late Spring
Revision Phase of Late Spring
Start of Early Summer 1916
Design Phase of Early Summer

[Rockeater]

PTW

[Madman198237]

So it seems like we might want to start out with a design improving our facilities. We might not be to improve both simultaneously, but we could certainly start with a design to upgrade our airfield or our training facilities.

Joe: Can we upgrade our "Prototype Airfield", and what benefits might that give us?

[piratejoe]

No, if they are improved, which they might be later down the line, it will not be done by you, and even then, It's probably going to just be training facilities. If your airfield is upgraded though, you would have a increase to the amount of dice you get per turn.

[Madman198237]

So we can't mess with either one?

[TheFantasticMsFox]

So, my fellow avionics engineers, vat shall ve do?

[The Ensorceler]

Belt Fed Machinegun
Army Requisition

As aircraft pilots are usually busy piloting, and aircraft are fairly hard to take down with pistols, a strong weapon that does not need to be frequently reloaded would make a good way to harass enemy fortifications and shoot down scouts. It's too big to aim out the cockpit, but surely the engineers can solve that problem.

[Madman198237]

Step One: Ban all fake German "accents" from this building.

Step Two:
IAF-BAE-16 Basic Aircraft Equipment
In order to be properly equipped for reconnaissance and, inevitably, combat, our pilots will need a few basic items to keep them safe and effective in the air. First on the list are a few types of goggles to prevent such terrible things as frozen eyeballs and insect-versus-eye incidents, as well as a uniform jacket and warm hat (With chin strap) to keep the wind off the pilot, and a heavy coat for winter flights. Second, are medium-power binoculars. We've opted to design them ourselves rather than waste time requisitioning them from the Army or Navy. Third is a parachute, a device supposedly seeing some use in the present war over in Europe. Effectively a large kind-of-hemisphere-shaped piece of fabric in a backpack worn by all pilots from now on, it is attached to his seat by a ripcord. When the pilot bails out, after he clears the plane the cord goes taught and deploys his parachute, no calmness or control over your sense of panic required. Fourth, we equip all pilots with basic compasses and maps of their missions' operational areas, plus the best routes to escape along if they should be shot down over enemy territory. Finally, we have designed a camera, which can be used by pilots to take images of enemy installations, onto (film or plates, sorry I can't recall what was in use at this time) which can be developed back at base to give the generals and admirals an excellent picture of what's going on at the front...or even behind the enemy's lines.

[dgr11897]

How about we make airships?
V1 skyseer,
A small hydrogen blimp, first of its kind in our air-forces. Designed to carry 2 people, a bottom mounted rocket turret, and the equipment needed to talk to the people on the ground.
Rocket artillery requisition
Sure sure, we can drop grenades on enemies while flying over, and machine guns could probably down enemy aircraft, but both of those need us to get in relatively close, why do that when we can simply requisition some old artillery rockets and design a launcher to use. Then we can hit them from afar with great strength.

[Thanik]

IAF-BAE-16

What does this stand for?

Furthermore, I feel like noting that without good engines, we won't be going anywhere substantial, and thus I feel we should get a relatively early start on some better engines. In addition to that, I feel like contributing a bit. Thus I propose the following to be reviewed in the future, as I'll be away in Italy for the near future (for a week, lol).

Proposed name for the Airforce: The Kaiserliche Komitee der Luftfahrt / Luftfahrtkomitee, meaning the Imperial Committee of Aeronautics / Aeronautical Committee. It fits the Imperial Bureaucracy we're under and stresses our role. Plus it sounds pretty damn cool.

AvD Motors Dehnert SMT 915 (Sternmotor-Triebwerk (Radial Engine Powerplant))
Andreas Wilhelm von Dehnert, the son of a renown physicist, was an engineer and an industrial designer, but before all else, he was a simple man with the goal of providing small, high-speed and high-power engines for various locomotive contraptions. He spent his early days under the tutelage of his father, whom first introduced him to the works of various mechanical engineers. While they had dabbled in single-cylinder engines before the turn of the century, their most significant accomplishment had been a single cylinder engine used to create motor-powered bicycles. This all changed following the Wright brothers' first flight in 1901, as he then set it as his task to produce a reliable, powerful engine so as to further this new, promising technology. Following the onset of the war, this enthusiasm was directed by his partner, Stefan Utrecht - an industrialist, into attempting a contract with various aircraft manufacturers in the hopes of attaining government support and, in Utrecht's case, funds to open other lines of business using the same engines, using the prestige warranted by their service so as to boost profits and make a name for themselves.

The proposal, thus, comes from the so-called 'AvD Automotive Company', presenting the plans for a 9-cylinder water-cooled radial engine with a goal power rating of between 160 and 200 hp at 1400 RPM, promising a lightweight engine which would be relatively cheap, highly reliable and immensely responsive, allowing pilots to focus more on their flying and on the enemy than the state of the engine.

- With this, we could focus on more fine things, like maneuverability (flaps, a better grasp of aerodynamics etc.) and be pretty safe in the early game.

The thing's inspired by this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmson_water-cooled_aero-engines#Performance

And really, radials were widely used for a reason.

[Madman198237]

The acronym I devised is based on the pretty-much-standard naming convention that goes around every AR that I or a few other United Forenia players join

It stands for Imperial Air Force (though obviously if we're going to name ourselves something else the first part will change) - What-Is-It Designator (in this case it stands for Basic Aircraft Equipment) - Year 1916

Personally I like Kaiserliche Luftfahrtkomitee, but maybe we could translate Aerospace instead of Aeronautical? I can't get Google translate to do so, it just spits the English word back out when asked to translate from English to German.

[piratejoe]

Design Phase, Early Summer 1915

There is no real internal affairs report outside what was stated in the battle report. Begin designing...erm, voting, since you engineers where quite eager to start.

Spoiler: Squadrons (click to show/hide)

Squadron 1 | BzL 1 Motte- Biplane | No Equipment | Aerial Reconnaissance | Neophyte | No Aces | Maintenance Cost 1
Currently assigned to observe enemy shore defenses and troop movements near Dinas tywod

Squadron 2 | BzL 1 Motte Biplane | No Equipment | Aerial Reconnaissance | Neophyte | No Aces | Maintenance Cost 1
Currently assigned to observe enemy frontline along the Nachtburg-Bont Gwyn Road

Squadron 3 | BzL 1 Motte Biplane | No Equipment | Aerial Reconnaissance | Neophyte | No Aces | Maintenance Cost 1
Currently assigned to observe enemy frontline along the Sprungburg-Gwag du Road

Spoiler: Statistics (click to show/hide)

Prestige: Extremely Little “Knights of the sky? What book did you read? Do they ride Pegasi or something?”
Status: Auxiliary Service
Army Relations: Neutral “Those planes might be able to help...Might.”
Navy Relations: Neutral “Remind me, what use do aircraft have in war again? They just replace horses right?”

Production Points: 10
Total Maintenance: 3

[Madman198237]

So why are our "Diligent" pilots [superior in quality] more apt to shoot each other than the other guys? We should probably be about equal in the "doing dumb things because you can't tell plane types apart at pistol range" field.

OK, so I figure we can get away with requisitioning a radio from the Army if it's accompanied by the promise of using it ASAP to provide artillery support calls. If we also do the BAE suggestion we should have a solid basis of "useful things for aircraft pilots".

Speaking of which, I'm editing the BAE to include a few more simple things like maps, compasses, etc. We might also want to requisition a handgun from the Navy this turn. I figure we could do one requisition per service without upsetting anyone too much.

[piratejoe]

I tried out some basic combat rolls for individual pilots. That is the only reason why, well that and that's what happened while the people you replaced where in charge.

[Madman198237]

So, is the KKL/KLK the only proposed name for the air force? I mentioned this in Discord but not in here, and then B12 died, but I'm thinking that it would be really cool if we did something nonstandard...like having a distinctly "not-really-all-that-good"/"kinda evil" theme for our nation/our nation's air force. A mildly evil name, a creepy/evil emblem, and we'd be well on our way to being unique, at least amongst the factions from humans-versus-humans ARs.