This is a bread to discuss military concepts, prototypes and final products apart from everyone's favorite 5th gen multirole fighter following questionable theories/doctrines with great investment put behind them only to end up as massive wastes of time, money and resources for everyone involved.
What was the RLM thinking when they not only wanted to make a strategic bomber, but make it an dive glidebomber so it needs to be twin engined because drag except we don't have any engines powerful enough so let's put two DB601s in each nacelle sharing a single propeller through an autistically complicated gearbox while negating any potential advantages regarding engine redundancy on top of creating considerable difficulties in engine cooling.
Similarly the XB-70 that even though it was a good design it was unfortunate to be made in the era when it was thought that ICBMs would soon fully replace strategic bombers.
Not nearly as silly and impractical as the T15E1 It at least never saw actual field use, but I cant imagine what they would have to bribe the driver with to get him to do such a stupid job.
Those weren't for clearing minefields, they were for finding the edge of the minefield so you could move the flail and plow tanks up to the front (and possibly also penetrating some distance into the minefield to cover the flail tanks while they worked).
Camden Cooper
Perhaps my favorite oddball, the YFM-1 Airacuda, an American interwar bomber hunter armed with a pair of 37mm autocannons. Features include: I still love them.
Aunt Jemima was goofy and nearly impossible to steer, but it could at least clear a safe path through a road or field as it had the fuckoff wide rollers to sweep with. This thing just has its standard width treads.
How is a vehicle with no weapons but possibly a hull gun that never saw service supposed to cover for flail or roller tanks that actually retained their armament? The only book I have that mentioned it said it was simply to clear mines by hitting them so I would like a source on this other tactic.
Aerodynamic and Rocketry studies aside I can't really think how plane related was ever supposed to be viable in its intended role outside a fantasy world where the concept of bomber escorts didn't exist. They should've put their effort into RATO instead, but alas.
The naval Battleship autism of the 1920s made sense considering that Aircraft only became a serious threat to big boats during the late 1930s, but who in their right mind thought building-sized tanks wouldn't be a massive bomber+artillery magnet?
Every source I could find describes the T15 as being simply a mine-resistant M4A2 rather than a dedicated mine-clearing vehicle, which to me suggests a role more along the lines of the British Matilda/Valentine AMRA. The bit about fighting in minefields was just speculation on my part. Most of the flail and roller tanks couldn't defend themselves effectively because the mine-clearing gear blocked fire across most of their frontal arc, and in the flail's case also blinded the crew while it was running.
The worst part about that whole design is that almost all of the problems you listed could be fixed by one simple modification (moving the guns from the nacelles to somewhere in the fuselage).
Aiden Flores
I get the feeling the people who thought landships were a good idea are the same people who think Mecha's would be a good idea today.
Jace Harris
You have to remember that the tank doctrine of the interwar period only knew infantry and cavalry tanks. Even the Germans used it, as the Panzer III was meant to be the cavalry tank, and the Panzer IV's job was to support the infantry. Then the soviets made the T-34, a cavalry tank that could spearhead an attack or support the infantry, and that started an arms race that led to the MBT. But in the interwar period all of it was completely unimaginable, and you didn't even have light, medium and heavy tanks. In that context it wasn't that insane of an idea to make a mobile bunker.
Daniel Ramirez
I'm going to need some recommended reading material on this. Also sponsons should never have gone away.
Jacob Torres
Apparently the gunners in the nacelles weren't even the ones firing them. They had the ability, but it was normally done by someone in the central fuselage, and the gunners just loaded the thing, which as far as I know is a role that usually isn't necessary. Meaning the entire concept of the crewed nacelles was useless in the first place, which in turns means you could make it tractor-driver and avoid the shitty flight characteristics and heating issues of a pusher, on top of saving two crew members' worth of weight, possibly making it fast enough to do its job. The APU was just irredeemably retarded. There's no reason for it to be that way.
Robert Cox
I'm fairly sure it was J. F. C. Fuller (interesting guy actually, big Hitler fan and occultist) who had the idea but I'm not 100% sure, I've read about it in a book years back but it comes up in this video at some point as well.
Jackson Gomez
It didn't cost a whole lot of money, time or resources to make but I think it still counts. Was there anything better in terms of ghetto tank design New Zealand could've devised from locally available resouces that would've been capable of destroying/annoying invading Japanese tankettes?
"Gee, wouldn't it be cool if we had a long-rang, high payload strategic bomber with divebombing accuracy?". Same reason the early E series Do 217s had a tail mounted air break for dive bombing which was discontinued because it had a nasty habit of ripping the whole tail from the aircraft. The biggest issue the Greif had was not immidiately ditching the dive bombing and redeveloping it into a four engine design (something that was explicit forbidden yet done by Heinkel on their own dime).
Except bomber escorts were powerless against the rocket and jet aircraft, the real problem the 163 had was the small engagement window with the heavily arcing Mk108s, the nasty propellant and the short burn time. Two of these could be rectified by giving it different guns and the more advanced version was supposed to be fitted with a seperate cruise engine with 8mins of fuel.
Josiah Scott
They weren't so powerless once the Me 163 had to glide back to base after expelling all of its fuel in a mere 7 minutes. Don't forget actual landing gear.
Kayden Edwards
They may have been useless but i still love the concept, imagine on of those giant trucks they use for mining but with armor and turrets, slowly moving towards the enemy, have an enemy behemoth also approach to duel the first, would've been cool as fuck. Also airships, but those are even less realistic.
Joseph Brooks
I'm still sad things like pics related weren't around during the great war. If the Akron and Macon hadn't crashed with no survivors and lived to see Pearl Harbor, would they have had any viable use at that point in time?
I'm willing to give a very hesitant maybe. They had damn long range and were considerably faster than any surface ship, so I suppose using them as a dedicated scout carrier isn't actually that bad of an idea. Problems I see is that with aircraft maintenance I don't see you being able to maintain their ability to do so unless you want to scout with the airship itself, which to me seems like inviting disaster. And of course, their materials were in high demand and I don't see two of them being enough.
Nathan Carter
That reminds me: modern weapon stations should be armoured, so that they look like small turrets.
Camden Cruz
Another questionable endavour would be Ferdinand Porsche and his attempts to build a tank with a gasoline-electric drive system. While idea (simplify the drive system by omitting the gearbox transmission) was sound, all his attempts were hindered by high gasoline consumption, resource shortages and overheating problems.
Still these would be alleviated by installing the new rocket motor with the cruise engine and pretty much all the redesigns (Me163 C/D and the 263) replaced the skid with proper landing gear. The skid was a holdover from the aircraft being the result of glider research.
Would they be any more resource intensive or vulnerable to attack than a surface ship of similar capability? The Macon carried five planes and had a length of 785 feet. I do wonder, for the planes carried, what would their minimum runway distance be on a traditional aircraft carrier?
We know from the Zeppelin bombing campaigns of WWI that a rigid airship, even a hydrogen one, can sustain a lot of small arms fire before going down. It wouldn't stand a chance against modern missile technology, but would it fare any worse than smaller navy vessels? How effective would CAWS systems be mounted on an airship? Are we in the wrong direction, and an airships true martial calling is as a floating artillery platform?
Justin Ross
Burger airships were filled with Helium so they wouldn't have Hindenburg'd themselves even when hit by incendiary rounds, though I doubt they'd last long against 1940s autocannons.
Would the Macon have made for decent transport and supply ship/FoB for seaplane patrol bombers with most of its parasite aircraft removed?
David Diaz
EVERY. SINGLE. THING. MADE BY MUTTMERICANS.
Lucas Wood
Why not just modify existing bombers into gunships for this role?
Gabriel Cruz
They would have been lost to storms in the pacific if they were deployed there. Much like how all other rigid airships were lost to storms anywhere else during peacetime. The navy used non-rigid blimps to spot submarines and sweep for mines in all theaters with a VERY strict do not engage policy on surfaced ships and for good reason. The only blimp dumb enough to attempt attacking a surfaced U-boat was shot down by its 20mm AA-gun. Though as I stated before, that particular craft was a modern blimp and not rigid. They were mainly used to supplement the PBY fleet by taking tasks the float plane couldn't do such as hunting during the night with its radar and mine sweeping.
A bipedal gun carrier wouldn't be all that crazy in an urban warfare environment, if it had a compact enough and powerful enough engine.
Still, it'd be a small niche outside of which it would make no sense at all to field.
Cooper Davis
The idea at the time was that fighters would be useless at intercepting bombers unless they had a 40-50% speed advantage. This was in the infancy of radar, so it was assumed fighters would be launched in response to sightings and would mostly be doing tail chases.
Parker Cox
Resource intensiveness I have no idea. Since they were twice as fast as any surface ship, as long as they kept their scouts in the air and don't get surprised by a wing of Zeros they'd probably be pretty difficult to pin down. The Independence-class light carriers were 623 feet long and carried about 30 planes. Keep in mind though, is that the Macon and Akron were limited to small biplanes rather than the modern fighters and bombers the carriers were. Don't like it. Carriers took over for battleships because people realized that the value of not exposing yourself to enemy fire outweighed simple volume of fire. Using an attack airship in the period accomplishes neither.
Maybe. My vision was to have them patrolling a few hundred miles ahead of the carrier fleet while keeping their scout aircraft patrolling in an arc in front of them. Best case scenario would have one of the scouts spot the Japanese fleet, then scamper off using it's speed to avoid retaliation. At that point, the carrier fleet can launch a strike while safe from attack.
Yeah, that's probably the worst part.
Perhaps you would be a fan of the YB-40. Just cram as many .50 cals (or up to 40mm) in a B17 airframe as possible and turn the entire bomb bay into an ammunition magazine. Toss some extra armor plating on then put them in your bomber groups to protect them. Then realize they're too slow for the most part.
There's actually no technical reason why an Akron-sized zeppelin couldn't be fitted to instead recover 3-4 F2As or F4Fs. The Macon's planned replacement would have even carried SBDs, exploiting the airship's own speed and altitude to launch planes with fuel and weapons loads that would be impossible for surface ships without the use of a catapult (which was a huge deal in 1935).
Asher Allen
A cruel Vicker's thesis
Aaron Nelson
They were cool but they were always novelties. Only thing they could have been used for is to drop tanks on the decks of Jap ships
Ryder Nelson
This is the future we could have had.
Eli James
Why is everything you post so cute
Oliver Johnson
~uguu
Brandon Campbell
blish lock thompsons are a million times nicer than m1a1s and later versions.
Levi Green
You make it sound like you think dropping tanks on the decks of Japanese ships isn't an important tactic.
Grayson James
I like soviet aproach to getting thru minefield. Dont use specialised equipment. Just drive forward with battle tanks. Yes, you propably lose some percentage of vehicles, but you dont stall assault, doing so you negate main purpose of minefield.
Yes, I know that soviets had mineclearing tanks in WW2
Joseph Nelson
Pretty good, but could be better. Instead of your own tanks, just force prisoners that you were probably going to execute anyway to form columns and march across the minefield. You get to clear the field, save money that could be spent on repairs or new vehicles, and get rid of undesirables all at once. Three benefits in one! What a deal!
Human weight is not enough to trigger AT mine. El Goblino could, but it's not high tech like some 10 trillion DARPA project.
Caleb Reed
Just force feed el goblino or other prisoners enough lard so they'd be heavy enough to trigger the AT mines. Hm. Is there a way to weaponize fat as hell goblins? Like stuff them with explosives and disease before launching at your enemies via catapult? Might as well try to get all use you can out of them, yeah?
Josiah Reyes
I imagine the idea was something along the lines of
Jeremiah Bell
The US Airforce has already perfected dropping tanks onto the enemy via airplanes.
What does better fit and finish have to do with the core concept of the system not physically working?
Nathaniel Wood
Just because the Blish principle is complete fiction doesn't mean the guns didn't work, it just means they were actually interrupted-thread-delayed blowback.
Lucas Davis
bullshit myth, it worked most of the time with very few friendly fire incidents. they just ran out of dog, and it takes longer to breed and train a dog than a single grenadier that can attack multiple tanks
Nicholas Perez
...
Daniel Stewart
google translate of army.armor.kiev.ua/engenear/sobaka-mina.shtml - selected passage starts with "Первая группа собак-минеров…" "… 1. Most dogs refuse to work immediately and strive to jump into the trench, endangering infantry (six accidents). 2. Nine dogs after a short run in the right direction began to rush from side to side, were afraid of breaks artillery shells and mortars. , tried to hide in craters, pits, climbed under shelters. Three of them exploded, two were not revealed, the rest, because they began to go back, had to be destroyed with rifle-and-machine-gun fire 3. The fascists destroyed three dogs with guns fire and zab Ali himself. Trying to fight off and get killed by the dogs do not. 4. Presumably four dogs exploded near the German-fascist tanks, but confirm that they have disabled the tanks do not have … "
Nicholas Martinez
How retarded would it have been if the Germans tried to convert Mk108's to be used on the ground against infantry? It seems it would be a little to heavy to transport for infantry, but on vehicles it would be extremely effective I would think. Would there be any political issues of obtaining an air weapon for ground use?
Angel Torres
...
Caleb Green
If they had used it it would definitely have been vehicle mounted. The army would have had trouble getting them, however. Göring didn't want anything getting in the way of Luftwaffe procurement and would not have agreed to give up the guns very easily. The Wehrmacht generally took precedence when it came to manufacturing time, however and may have overruled him. The interservice rivalry for materials support was intense and it no doubt would have worsened with this request. It may have panned out differently toward the end of the war when the planes were grounded for lack of fuel anyways, but I'm not so familiar with that period. I did find a reference saying that Luftwaffe MG81s were transferred to ground use toward the end of the war, however how this occurred and the politics of such is unknown to me.
Cameron Foster
They already had 20mm and 37mm autocannons mounted on half-tracks and tanks, and they were used against ground targets. Oftentimes those AA units were attached to the main group of an attack, so they were certainly effective. But the problem is that you'd introduce an aircraft weapon that can't be used as an AA weapon from the ground. Best I can imagine is mounting it on a Sd.Kfz. 250 or 251.
It's like you forgot the most glorious ground troops known to man: the Luftwaffe Field Divisions. I'm sure if Göring got serious about ground troops you'd see all manners of aircraft weapons used by the boys-in-blue. I can even see them using grounded aircraft as assault vehicles. Yes, it would be a horrible idea that is incredibly wasteful and ineffective, but so were those divisions.
Elijah Wood
I think it would arc too much for use as an ai gun. I was thinking more in the role of the ags 30 or an autocannon mounted on a troop transport vehicle
Carson Martinez
Ayyyy
Lucas Perez
To be fair, the F-111 did a few things well and some not so well. I mean how can you expect a plane to do everything from A to Z? The lancer is still in use to this day, so it couldn't have been that bad.
William Rogers
Had said that could also become the case for F-35 if they turned it into a devoted ground attack aircraft but the .pdfs do not leave much ground for hope given its overheating and weapon bays shaking issues.
Mason Martinez
The F-111 was actually great as far as actual performance went, it was just a huge pain in the ass to maintain. Even the fighter variants probably would have been fine, it just had the misfortune of being developed while USN leadership was still freaking out about our early-Vietnam WVR losses and wanted dogfighting capabilities on a fleet-defense interceptor that should never be allowing hostiles into visual range in the first place.
Adrian Young
Interceptor*. It would suck as a fighter. Plus the Navy's demands created the F-14, an air superiority fighter that if modernized would outperform all existing fighters even today (and unlike the F-35 and F-111 could be a true multi-role).
Christian Cruz
Would parasite fighters have been a viable addition to Battleships or was the whole concept a meme?
They still are. Most fuel is used raising to altitude, and then traveling to the enemy and back. Having something larger carry you there means you can remove two thirds of the fuel stores. And not having to land on the ground or deal with the stresses of landing means removing half the structural struts and the very heavy DEAD WEIGHT of the landing gear. In other words it makes the aircraft more than TWICE lighter, so if it's using the same engines as the land variant, it's going to have OVER TWICE the thrust-to-weight ratio! Meaning being faster and being able to travel at higher altitude, it can feed more power into a turn meaning tighter turns as well, and it can tell missiles to fuck off. At the same cost. There's a reason industry > crafts, there's a reason rocket staging > SSTO, splitting a task or operation into smaller bite sizes rocket staging is efficient, the same reason airplane staging would be more efficient.
Owen Jackson
Russian inferiority complex never fails to deliver.
A shame instead of some crappy and barely useful mechas we get the F-35
Jayden Cooper
...
Cooper Bailey
Some more manifestations of this pathology. The Buran was meant to work as an orbital bomber, because they speculated the STS was too stupid to work as anything else but a military project.
They do work, but some of the kinetic energy is lost if I recall. Decent enough for closer ranges.
Jason Flores
They worked until they barrel wore away. 300 or so rounds as the Germans found out.
Charles Cook
God damn that PPSH made me laugh. Fucking pure autism just get rid of the barrel jacket.
Chase Campbell
...
Jose Perez
I think the FW 190/ Ju 88 Mistel is one of the most questionable last ditch efforts by the luftwaffe to stall the allies. After seeing quitea bit of footage of it being used in Il-2 against a bridge and trying to use it myself, I wonder why they couldn't have just used a large bomb against a bridge. I heard it was also used against shipping, I could see reasonable use here given a good angle of attack because it would be much faster than a torpedo and thus it could be launched at somewhat of a greater range I assume.
They would work if pansies would suck up their pride and go back to the tried and true round balls
Dominic James
Wouldn't a musket ball work fairly well considering the range? I guess it would have shitty terminal effects though.
Aiden Campbell
And would it work with a shotgun? The breakup of the wad as it goes around the bend seems like it would be an issue there.
Sebastian Martin
Toss bombing always seemed to be rather questionable.
Those things…I remember as a kid trying to knock out a bridge in the mission you use them and getting utterly screwed every single time. My worst experience, one that has stuck with me forever, went like so:
I wish I had the childlike persistence, I tried about 3 or 4 times, I was pretty good about lining up with the road, but most of my shots were low and as a result I blew myself up before I could peel away.
Carter Sanders
Because bridges are small targets easier to hit with guided bomb
Charles Jenkins
One might wonder why nobody picked up the ground-effect vehicle after the Soviets.
I know I've seen that webm posted before, but please tell me its some celeb they have on there for a stupid show or something.
Samuel Ross
Ground effect is a very specific thing that will only work in calm waters in specific parts of the globe. Such as the seas around Russia. They don't do bad weather and they have a terrible tendency to suddenly nose down if you hit a bad pocket of air meaning you are flying on pins and needles the entire time. Though we also adopted a fast moving anti-ship missile platform in the Pegasus class hydrofoil as it had much better seakeeping in open ocean than ground effect craft. Granted its role was to fire harpoons at small missile corvettes like an extra fast frigate whereas the erkranoplans were to be used as extra fast missile corvettes.
