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Aircraft Design Company- Matsura's Planes Are Always Fastest!

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Character Sheet
  • Informational


    • ​
    Stress
    0​
    Office Stress
    0​
    XP
    5​

    Matsura Asuka
    Head Designer for Ohara Airworks
    Age 24 (Legally 25)
    Year 12 AF (After Flight)

    Design Stats
    Aerodynamics Engineering - +2
    Structural Engineering - +2
    Chemical Engineering - +1
    Mechanical Engineering - +1
    Ballistics Engineering - +1
    Electrical Engineering - 0

    Personal/Political Stats
    Social Skills - 0
    Politics Skills - 0
    Importance - 2
    Income - 1
    Investments - Ohara

    Resources
    Power - 0
    Wealth - 2

    Designs
    Type 1 Series - Military Variation (Designated T1M1)
    Type 2 Racer (World Speed Record October 1910-April 1911, 180kph)
    Model 2 Scout (Designated T1M2)
    Navy Scout Prototype (Drowned Rat)
    Dive Bomber B1M1 "Duck"
    Machine Gun Carrier R1A "Dragonfly" (World Speed Record May-July 1911, 200kph)
    Naval Rescue Water-Landing Supply Plane NR1M0 "Dolphin" (World speed record 240kph)
    Rhino Demon Train Hunter
    The world's first airliner
    The world's first pulsejet airplane

    Assets
    Slide Rule
    Computator (1 Reroll per Routine)

    Languages
    Albian
    Gallian

    Familiar Vices
    Drinking
    Prostitutes
    Dancing

    Family Life
    - Engaged to Arita Yachi, formerly the leading Ace in the Imperial Army. Designated #1 Cutest Army Boy, he's having some serious problems with PTSD right now.
    - Taking a second try at dating Mikami Kiho, ex-dockerwork from the south.

    Upgrades
    - 3 XP to upgrade a stat.

    Ohara Airworks
    Start Up, Imperial Capital, Akitsukuni

    Owner
    - Mr. Ohara, Rich. Aircraft Enthusiast. Business guy.

    Engineers

    Kibe Koume, 26, Office Manager
    Tiny & angry, Kibe went to school in Albia, picking up the language, the religion, and a fuckload of swear words. Speaks Albian.
    Mechanical +2, Ballistics +1
    Office Manager: If Kibe is not assigned to a team, the Office Stress is reduced by 1.

    Sakane Jun, 26, Second Team Leader
    A soured patriot, Sakane is married and has a young child being raised gender-neutrally. His two brothers who fought in the war.
    Structural +2, Aerodynamics +1
    Team Leader: If there are any additional projects, Sakane will lead them.
    Joinery: Sakane has training in the traditional Akitsukuni carpentry art of joinery, creating complex self-supporting joints with no fasteners or glue. When working with non-monocoque wooden spars or ribs, +1 Structural.

    Tezuka Kenji, ???
    A stoner with occasional flashes of insight. Nobody really knows what he does, but he's probably useful?
    Aerodynamics +2, Chemical +1
    Flashes of Brilliance: Each natural 10 rolled by any team Tezuka is assigned to gives +1 forward to the next research roll.

    Hasegawa Morio, 26
    A hopeless nerd with a photography habit, mostly on account of developing his own film, Hasegawa seems to do nothing but work and stack card houses, but somehow has an incredible attractive boyfriend. Speaks Gallian.
    Chemical +2, Ballistic +1
    Silent Workhorse: Hasegawa can work on two different projects at once for no cost to Office Stress, providing they use different stats.

    Kawamura Yosai, 25.
    Serially successful womanizer and incredibly attractive, Kawamura doesn't seem to have much of a personality outside of seducing women. Well, except for that time he seduced Asuka, which nobody talks about. Speaks Dyske.
    Structural +2, Electrical +1, Social +1
    Easily Distracted: If Kawamura is working on the same team as a female or non-binary employee, the team is at -1d10.

    Koide Hatsu, 24.
    One of the few female graduates of an Akitsukuni engineering school, Koide is brilliant and incredibly driven, but her first job at Akibara was both humiliating and exposed her to an abusive coworker. Her father is a rich businessman with factories in Joseon, and she's engaged to Ken from Castles of Steel. Speaks Joseon.
    Mechanical +2, Structural +1
    No Sleep: If you let her, Koide will work herself to death. She can work a second project for no Office Stress, but all her stats will be reduced to 1 for the routine.

    Kobayashi Ayao, ???
    Disowned heiress of the Kobayashi family, all Kobayashi wanted was a career and to be a modern woman. For her trouble, a cousin threw acid on her, scarring her face, neck, much of her torso, and her left arm. Despite appearing serene and above it all, she's actually an avowed communist activist and baseball player.
    Aerodynamics +2, Social +2

    Adachi Ren, 24
    Adachi learned chemistry from her father, one of the most famous chemical engineers in the country, rather than through formal schooling. She's married, has a kid, and takes spirituality very seriously. Yes, you did the math right, she had Yuki when she was 17. It's 1912, folks.
    Chemical +2, Electrical +1
    Young Mother: Adachi will cause double Office Stress if she has to work multiple tasks.

    Uyeno Sei, Ballistics Engineer, 31.
    The oldest member of the crew, this is Uyeno's second career. Her first was as an officer in the Imperial Navy with specialized technical training: her very promising career was cut short by her transition. Her work in a naval arsenal on machine-guns landed her the job here. Briefly dated Satomi (the age range is a bit creepy but again, 1912), she's missing a piece of her ear and is deaf on that side, from an exploding cannon. Recently returned from Varnmark from experimental surgery, she's known for her skill navigating gendered bureaucracy.
    Ballistic +3

    Mi Kyung-Jae, 23
    A recent graduate of the Imperial College of Heijo, Mi is from the recently annexed territory of Joseon. For those keeping track at home, that means he's a Korean national living in Imperial Japan in 1912. We haven't seen much of his personality because he's rightfully terrified of everything around him. He has a specialty in endurance engine design and modification. Speaks Joseon.
    Mechanical +1, Chemical +1
    Endurance Engines: Mi has an excellent understanding of metallurgy and tolerances. Any engine he works on gains +1 Reliability if a 16+ is rolled.
    Pulsejet Wizard: Mi is now one of the world's leading experts on the pulsejet engine. He can be given his own project to custom-craft pulsejet engines, and he gives +1 to any pulsejet-related project.
    Joseon National: Mi does not have security clearance to work on any top-secret projects.

    Miyoshi Shigeri, 23.
    A non-binary person and admirer of Asuka's work, they were in an support role in the Army before joining the company.
    Structural +1, Mechanical +1, Aerodynamic +1
    Mechanic: Miyoshi has some experience repairing and refurbishing aircraft. They get +1 if assigned on the clean-up phase.


    Other Employees
    - Ohara Satomi, 22, Mr. Ohara's niece and the company test pilot, Ohara is a general lesbian disaster. She's good at flying planes, driving cars, and kissing girls. She's bad at being patient, being respectable, and sticking to literally anyones conceptions of gender roles. Deeply in lesbians with Coralie D'Amboise.
    - Fujkikawa Sotatsu, old, modelmaker. He's an old man and toymaker and we don't see much of him because he locks himself in his workshop a lot. He's friends with Kawamura?

    Assets
    - Engine Test Rig (Allows engine tweaking and optimization.
    - Wind Tunnel (+1 Aerodynamics)
    - Rapid Prototype Lab (+1 Clean Up)
    Expanded Cast

    Akitsukuni Industry
    - Homura Mohoko: Head Engine Designer for Kobayashi. First female engineer in the country. A lot of sex appeal.
    - Okumura: Head of Akibara aircraft design.
    - Yamanaka Hajime: Kobayashi engineer. Young and eager.
    - Igarashi Masazumi: Kobayashi engineer. Reserved and experienced.
    - Admiral Akibara Toru: Imperial Navy Admiral. Maximum nepotism. Maximum douchebag.
    - Lt.Cmnd Akibara Shinzo: The above's son. A hottie but very forward.



    Character Families
    - Matsura(?) Mizuko: Asuka's sister. Was paralyzed in an accident in Asuka's first flight. Lives Elsewhere and is married now. Can't forgive Asuka, even though she's tried.
    - Adachi Motoki: Adachi's husband, an accountant. Legally blind.
    - Adachi Yuki: Adachi's 7 year old daughter and wannabe pilot. Very adorable.
    - Yachi's Brother: Exists.
    - Sakane's Wife: Exists. Drives him a bit crazy, but he loves her.
    - Yachi's Brother's Wife: Exists. Is statistically likely to be pregnant.
    - Lt. Coralie D'Amboise: Gallian pilot in exile. Satomi's girlfriend. 25. Accomplished bisexual duelist. She flew in the war for a single day, and for her troubles got a hole blown in her cheek and had her left arm paralyzed.

    Akisukuni Army & Ex-Army
    - Lt. Torio Tanaka: Yachi's former observer as an enlisted man. Was jumped up to fly Ducks and lost a leg on his first mission. A trained painter, married to Torio Saya.
    - Captain Amari Shiro: A Dragonfly pilot who ended up flying as Yachi's partner. Kind of delightfully twinky. They sorta slept together at one point, which wasn't great. He lost his previous boyfriend in the April Offensive and turned his plane into a shrine. He was shot in the gut and is still recovering.
    - Major Izuhara: Logistics officer, Imperial Army, this bespectled officer stood up to the Caspian Crown Prince and accidentally kicked off the Akitsikuni-Caspian War. The guilt was so much that, after almost a year of running Army procurement, he shot himself in a phone both.
    - Captain Nakai Sekien: Army scout pilot. First person to drop a bomb from an airplane, later head of the Duck Squadrons.
    - Captain Teshima: A Desk pilot that fought with Yachi. Lost an arm in the process, took over for Major Izuhara after his death. Seems cheery despite it all.
    - Captain Nashio: A real piece of shit dude and probably a rapist, he's also a war hero as the second-highest scoring ace on the Akitsukuni side. He was a young shitty kid in way over his head but it's no excuse.
    - Lt. Kinjo: Kind of a dumb lump and Nashio's friend, one of the desk pilots. Dead at 19.
    - Lt. Okazaki: Yachi's friend from before the war and pilot, he died in a spin in his dragonfly. His death probably hit Yachi the hardest.

    Westerners
    - Rose & Antoinette Sears: Pioneers of flight. Sisters. Black in 1910s not!America. Yikes.
    - Timina Guasti: Famous aircraft designer from Otrusia. Likes big planes and green.
    - Prince Protasov Vasilyevich: Crown Prince of Great Caspia. Real dick. You gotta hand it to him though, a decent flier.
    - Count von Zeppelin: Invented rigid airships. Runs a successful airline business. Damned impressive.
    - Bennhold: Aircraft Engineer. Experimenting with metal aircraft.
    - Aileen Middlemiss: Albian reporter for the Artimis Times. Well meaning and oblivious.
    Available Tech
    • Materials: Wood, Duralumin, Molded Wood, Wood & Silk Composite, etc
    • All engine mounts
    • All wing types
    • Basic reinforcement
    • Wing warping and ailerons
    • Basic water radiators
    • Flying Wings
    • Semi-Monocoque design (requires at least half the slots have frame pieces)
    • Valved pulsejets
    • Basic weapon mounts and turrets
    Tech not Yet Developed
    • Custom engines
    • Monocoque construction
    • Cantilever Wings and associated tech
    • V and T tails
    • Tailless designs
    • Aluminum and titanium
    • Cellulose surfacing
    • Any kind of radar
    • Weapon accessability mods
    • Interruptor gear
    • Geared propellers
    • And Maybe Other Stuff
    Akitsukuni
    Island Nation

    Government
    Constitutional Monarchy
    - The democratic portions of the government are dubiously legitimate.
    - The head of state is the Empress of Akitsukuni. She gives her blessing to newly formed governments.
    - The Navy and a small number of families have undue influence on politics.

    Economy
    Developing Mixed Market
    - Most industry is controlled by a small number of wealthy, family-owned companies.
    - The state provides most contracts to industry. Consumer good market is anemic.
    - Exports are few, mostly cultural.
    - Imports are raw minerals, food, oil, and expertise.
    - Currently suffering an economic crash after the last war.

    Politics
    The Diet is currently ruled by a Constitutional Nationalist government. It has a system of nonlocal proportional representation, with representatives appointed by the party in accordance to their share of the vote.
    - Constitutional Nationalists: 50%
    - Purity Club: 9%
    - New Independents: 26%
    - Fairness Association: 11%
    - United Communist League: 2%
    - Monarchists: 1%
    - Assorted Fringe Parties: 5%

    Demographics
    Akitsukuni is mostly very ethnically homogeneous. Around 5% of the population are various minorities, most from nearby countries. Roughly .1% are westerners here for business or in advisory positions.
    - Population: 55 Million
    - Religion: Mostly Kodo. Roughly 2% of the population follows western religions.
    - Wealth: Most wealth is concentrated in the top 5% of the country. Nearly 20% of the population lives in conditions indistinguishable from peasantry.
    - Urbanization: Heavily urbanized for a small economy: 35% and rapidly growing.

    Military
    At Peace
    - Imperial Akitsukuni Navy (IAN): The 6th largest in the world, and the most experienced.
    - Imperial Akitsukuni Army (IAA): 150,000 highly experienced soldiers, and a considerable reserve.

    Aspects
    - Poor Resources: Aluminum costs +1.
    - Damn Akitsukuni Engines!: Engines have -1 Reliability.



    The Main Character Of This Quest Is Nonbinary And Uses They/Them Pronouns.

    I Am Putting This Here Because The Next Person To Misgender Them Is Getting Yeeted Into The Trash

    Also here's the Gayaverse TV Tropes page, because why not.​
     
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  • Informational
    • KhazintheDark said:
    *crosses fingers* Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force Air Force
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    Fuck That!

    If we've learned anything from the past 60+ years, making the Air Force independent was a mistake. An Air Force must remain shackled to the Army to maintain accountability and remain fiscally responsible.
     
    chriswriter90 said:
    An Air Force must remain shackled to the Army to maintain accountability and remain fiscally responsible.
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    This is the MBT-70 style fiscal responsibility rather than the F-4E Phantom fiscal irresponsibility, is it?

    The reason that independent air forces are bad is because they convince themselves that their job is to win wars on their own rather than supporting the Army in winning the war on the ground. Also because they do their absolute damnedest to ruin everything for the Navy.
     
    Axslashel said:
    What happens in planes design quest stays in plane design quest. I am fully comfortable to hold mutably contradictory opinions in different quests.
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    We have zero evidence of that! What little evidence we have points to everything in the Gaya-Verse sharing a universe and influencing each other.

    Get the GMs' ruling before you act like you're assumptions are fact.
     
    Shipping is where the money will be. Had to ship something the other day, lots of companies in modern day offer shipping services. That many companies operating shows me that the market is huge enough for multiple international companies to exist and profit. A big industrial machine had a critical part break? Overnight it on a plane, every second the machines is down is lost productivity! A gigantic binder of blueprints for the next best tech? Can't telegraph that, on the plane it goes! Want large amounts of books? It'll take forever to telegraph that, even if the cables exist. You could ship it and wait weeks to months.


    A shake up in the navy could be beneficial for Haruna. Chaos shakes up the existing structures, and the existing structures in that navy are relatively anti-Haruna.
     
    chriswriter90 said:
    We have zero evidence of that! What little evidence we have points to everything in the Gaya-Verse sharing a universe and influencing each other.

    Get the GMs' ruling before you act like you're assumptions are fact.
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    As in, a lot of us like to compartmentalize between quests. Our reactions for this quest are relevant to this quest, and compartmentalized.
    This compartmentalization allows us to hold opinions that would normally be at odds with each other, even though the quests share a universe.

    I, for instance, follow Haruna's career and vote not!japan!gay!boat!princess quest at the same time as I shit on her branch of service in this quest.
     
    AntiSanity said:
    I'm not familiar with the failings of the US Air Force. Could you enlighten me? I'm quite curious and not American here.
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    Is the A-10 obsolete?
    That reason being the USAF hates air-to-mud with a passion, and would happily ditch the A-10 in favor of another wing or three of F-35s... but every time they try to kill off the A-10, the Army and Marine Corps nearly leap to volunteer to take them off the Air Force's hands and fund them until the end of time. Then the AF suddenly rediscovers that they don't want to let the nasty Apes or Jarheads have any fixed wing A2G planes of their own, and quietly stop talking about ditching the Warthog for a while.

    The AF is trying to unload the A-10 for doctrinal reasons, not because it's ineffective. It is old, yes, but that's for the same reason: The AF has been aggressively uninterested in developing a newer A2G platform when they can spend the money on Raptors, Lightning IIs, and such, and leave CAS to drones if they must. A modern CAS bird is overdue for development, but the Fighter Mafia DGAF.
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    You may be thinking of some other Marine Corps, not the one that is so chronically short of cash it's still flying Vietnam-era Cobras and has next-to-zero power to demand it's own platforms. The F-35B exsists only because the F-35 was already in the works and it was a way to get the USMC something to replace it's aged-out Harriers. You'll note the USMC is not exactly able to buy too many of them, and today has just a couple squadrons of them in service, nowhere near combat zones.

    The AF has been trying to kill off the A-10 for years, with the same 'It can't survive!' arguments for literally a generation. That one's from 2003! It was designed to operate and win in full-on WWIII, The-Russians-Are-Going-Wild conditions. 1991 hardly showed anyone it was obsolete.
    2014? 2015?
    Fulda Gap, against a the crushing force of a westward advancing Soviet military. Basically, the A-10 was designed to fight World War Three and survive long enough to have an impact on what would be the world's most deadly battlefield.

    They were ready to end the A-10 to save 1% on the AF budget. Basically, every argument about it is just a mask for the Air Force just not wanting to spent money on a 40 year old CAS bird when it can spend the money on 'multirole' aircraft they like better.

    And having been there multiple times (and going back again next spring), while no one will turn down an offer of having a drone overhead, there's not a single guy in Iraq, Afghanista, or elsewhere who'd pick one over an A-10 if there's any option.
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    I'm a 13R which is in the MOS area of if, I'm shooting someone fuck up, and I prefer A10s over drones cause they can straight up carry more shit for longer then any plane in service short of a B series.

    Trust me when I went to Iraq in '15 I ended up calling basically every plane and drone between the Air Force and Navy in service at the time. The A-10s always needed one pass to waste the target.

    15? Took three.

    16? Two tries.

    18? Same as 16.

    22 not a bomber.

    35, hasn't yet been deployed yet.

    Drones? Oh those fucking... "Not a high enough prioty target..." FUCKING CHAIR FARCE BITCH ME AND 120 OTHER SERVICE MEMBERS ARE GETTING MORTAR DAILY FROM THAT SPOT! HOWS THAT NOT A PRIOTY?

    An A10 took a gun run to stop that.

    Serouisly how the fuck did they miss? I was giving them good enough coordinates to feed a Excaliber round and have fly down the ------------ mortar tube muzzle...
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    Apparently. The missed with even the simpler GPS ones when I give them the exact fucking grid with a TLE smaller then a 500 pounder kill radius.

    Seriously how the fuck do you fuck that up?

    Mortars at XXXXYYYY grid. So put fucking XXXXYYYY GRID IN!

    Not XXXXYYYA, or YYYF or ARMYSUCK for some damn reasons! The gun been dropping shells from the same damn spot for the past two damn weeks!

    I give you the exact fucking location within a small enough amount of meters that a 500 pounder will leave nothing but pieces. And its in the middle of nowhere in the desert! We even actually use a Raven drone to LASER IT IN A CLEAR DAMN DAY! YOU CAN FUCKING EYEBALL YOU BLIND FUCKS AOJHIUTRGFHDIPHPSHNDPJKHASDFAHDPSJDFPSDOAPJS!
    ...
    …
    …
    I have lost a lot of respect for the fighter pilots cause of that. We given them everything they need to get the job done and they still fuck it up so hard you wonder what the fuck they are training on.

    I swear the real reason why the Army want precision munitions is so we can do it our own damn selfs instead of the Cross Eye pilots...

    I do wonder sometimes what will cause the Army to burn the Johnson-McConnell agreement? Even the Air Force hates it so what it cause them to do so instead... Probably something big...
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    Considering said coordinates were double check by a US army Raven Drone.

    Three different times...

    All came back to well within the killzone of the bombs they dropped. The chair farce screwed the pooch on that one several times...

    And the fact that the A10 can do wants needed while the other "better" planes can't is... is fucking stupid.

    Edit: Fuck even the A10 said it was spot on after his run.
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    Hell, as a 96B/35F, I was happy!

    I really do wonder if it's the AF. I watched a F-16 pilot take 7 tries to still fail to hit a ferry on the Tigris, counting it as a partial victory when one of the strikes at least hit close enough to cut the steel cable the ferry was using to slide back and forth across the river (anchored to two concrete pylons) and the thing started drifitng away.

    OTOH, I've watched an F-18 pilot drop a GBU-12 right down the 20m open courtyard of a 4 story building in urban Mosul, completely nail the center and collapsed the whole building, and not even chip the paint of a mosque across the street. I guess when you need precision airstrikes, call the Navy instead?
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    It's designation starts with an 'F', not an 'A'?

    From the sound of the stories, it's not so much an A-10 quality to deliver the ordnance where's it's supposed to go, but a pilot quality, with the A-10 pilots better trained/invested in CAS. I mean, GPS-bomb fails to hit target sounds more like operator or bomb hardware error than some arcane quality of the A-10 to input the right coordinates into the bomb.
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    Cause that was the same thing said of the Strike Eagle and look how THAT went...

    F4/F111 pilots went from being a good Air to Ground force to focusing on the cooler and sexier air to air shit.

    Mark my words, when the last A10 pilot leaves the F35 is going to be just as shitty at air to ground work as the fucking Eagle that's routinely misses the fucking stationary mortar team in the open.

    The reason why is because they are going to be focus on dogfighting and not mudslinging, only way to change that is some hefty regulations that do not exist.
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    AntiSanity said:
    Shipping is where the money will be. Had to ship something the other day, lots of companies in modern day offer shipping services. That many companies operating shows me that the market is huge enough for multiple international companies to exist and profit. A big industrial machine had a critical part break? Overnight it on a plane, every second the machines is down is lost productivity! A gigantic binder of blueprints for the next best tech? Can't telegraph that, on the plane it goes! Want large amounts of books? It'll take forever to telegraph that, even if the cables exist. You could ship it and wait weeks to months.
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    Overnight shipping? In the 1910s? That's relying on a bunch of technological and support innovations that aren't exiting yet. That said, the old US Air Mail trials are basically how that sort of thing got started. So once the kinks get worked out, that is a market advantage we can leverage.

    Hell, we can use the dirt-cheap fuel for the pulsejet to make a fast moving cargo place that isn't too much of a pain on the wallet for the cargo it hauls. Just make sure we get bigass headphones for the crew.
    AntiSanity said:
    I'm not familiar with the failings of the US Air Force. Could you enlighten me? I'm quite curious and not American here.
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    There's a list as long as the airforce has existed, and I'll PM you a bit of stuff later because the list is fuckinglongOMG, so here's the one most relevant to what the other guys are talking about:
    1. The Pentagon has a well-earned reputation for their failed designs going massively over-budget. The Air Force is one of the major players in this constant push for more advanced equipment at the cost of the taxpayers' wallet. See the F-35 controversy, and the laundry list of past things I'll be sending you.

    2. One of the main doctrines for the USAF was that 'the bomber will always get through', and that strategic bombing had been what brought Germany to its knees, rather than any prexisting economic factors or battlefield events. Thus, with the advent of nuclear bomb and missile proliferation, the Air Force was at the forefront of military planning and deployment. Unfortunately, they failed to properly evaluate historical evidence and not get high off their own ego. The U-2 incident in the 50s was not enough to convince the Air Force about the threat of SAMs until... after Vietnam. Similarly, the belief in strategic bombing was what led to Rolling Thunder and subsequent bombing campaigns. The belief that if a certain mathematical amount of bombs are dropped on North Vietnam's industrial centers, they will lose not only the ability to wage war but the people of North Vietnam will beg their leaders to stop. Then Vietnam War unfolded. And things did not go according to plan.
     
    Overnighting probably isn't possible... yet. But yeah, working out those kinks could be profitable.

    I look forward to the PM, this is a field I lack knowledge but am interested in.
     
    Okay, the A-10 is actually horrible and anecdotes from one or two dumbass grunts don't actually make it either a) a cost-efficient CAS platform for use in Operation Bomb Useless Dirt or b) even vaguely survivable in a modern air defence environment. It was obsolescent when it entered service, it was obsolete by the mid 1980s and it got chewed to bits in the Gulf War when nothing else did simply because it's a really bad plane. If you want to deliver cheap guided bombs from a really bad plane, buy a Cessna Caravan and do it way cheaper. Also the F-35 is good in every variant and anyone who says otherwise can take it outside with me.

    HOWEVER.

    The issue with independent air forces is the strategic bombing problem. Not only in terms of the big showy city-crushing raids that were pretty economically inefficient, but in terms of Iraq 1920 and I have no doubt Iraq 2020 where dropping bombs on people is expected to win a war by sheer force of everyone you dislike being too bombed to resist. It has been shown time and again that this doesn't really work properly but if air forces don't at least try to do it then there's no reason for them not to just be an arm of the army, so they do it at every opportunity to demonstrate their relevance. If you don't split them off from the army then you have a chance of making them do their actual job, which is to ensure air superiority, interdict enemy ground forces movement and provide close air support in that order.
     
    FrangibleCover said:
    Okay, the A-10 is actually horrible and anecdotes from one or two dumbass grunts don't actually make it either a) a cost-efficient CAS platform for use in Operation Bomb Useless Dirt or b) even vaguely survivable in a modern air defence environment. It was obsolescent when it entered service, it was obsolete by the mid 1980s and it got chewed to bits in the Gulf War when nothing else did simply because it's a really bad plane. If you want to deliver cheap guided bombs from a really bad plane, buy a Cessna Caravan and do it way cheaper. Also the F-35 is good in every variant and anyone who says otherwise can take it outside with me.

    HOWEVER.

    The issue with independent air forces is the strategic bombing problem. Not only in terms of the big showy city-crushing raids that were pretty economically inefficient, but in terms of Iraq 1920 and I have no doubt Iraq 2020 where dropping bombs on people is expected to win a war by sheer force of everyone you dislike being too bombed to resist. It has been shown time and again that this doesn't really work properly but if air forces don't at least try to do it then there's no reason for them not to just be an arm of the army, so they do it at every opportunity to demonstrate their relevance. If you don't split them off from the army then you have a chance of making them do their actual job, which is to ensure air superiority, interdict enemy ground forces movement and provide close air support in that order.
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    Their are independent air forces though who don't have any strategic bombers. Most air forces in the world have a few mult-irole fighters and maybe some recon and transport planes. And because most countries don't have aircraft carriers they do not compete with their navies. Sadly though, Akitsikuni is large enought that we will propably have all these problems.
     
    AntiSanity said:
    Shipping is where the money will be. Had to ship something the other day, lots of companies in modern day offer shipping services. That many companies operating shows me that the market is huge enough for multiple international companies to exist and profit. A big industrial machine had a critical part break? Overnight it on a plane, every second the machines is down is lost productivity! A gigantic binder of blueprints for the next best tech? Can't telegraph that, on the plane it goes! Want large amounts of books? It'll take forever to telegraph that, even if the cables exist. You could ship it and wait weeks to months.
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    Ehm... That's not how that works.

    I mean, it works now, in real life, but that's because there's a massive infrastructure to support it and plains are a lot faster these days. Shipping, even by air, will be so significantly slower than the modern world is used to that everyone keeps stockpiles of spare parts on hand. Those binders of blueprints? Send a copy by rail, even cross country it won't be more than a couple of days later at most. Large amounts of books? Definitely by rail, car, stage coach or boat because a crate of books is too heavy to move by currently available planes. Unless you want to pay silly amounts of money for it, and I do mean silly.

    There's a reason I said air based transportation is basically for the rich, people being paid for by the rich and luxury goods only for the next while.

    FrangibleCover said:
    The issue with independent air forces is the strategic bombing problem. Not only in terms of the big showy city-crushing raids that were pretty economically inefficient, but in terms of Iraq 1920 and I have no doubt Iraq 2020 where dropping bombs on people is expected to win a war by sheer force of everyone you dislike being too bombed to resist. It has been shown time and again that this doesn't really work properly but if air forces don't at least try to do it then there's no reason for them not to just be an arm of the army, so they do it at every opportunity to demonstrate their relevance. If you don't split them off from the army then you have a chance of making them do their actual job, which is to ensure air superiority, interdict enemy ground forces movement and provide close air support in that order.
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    To be fair, a properly planned and executed air campaign can cause tremendous havoc in a nation's combat potential. The loss of transportation capability, or electrical power, or key factories and supply stashes can put considerable stress on a military.

    It's just, unless there's somebody standing in front of you ready to shoot you people tend to adapt to bombardments like it's the weather. And not just airplane bombardment too, a properly entrenched target during WW1 needed to be bombarded incessantly by artillery, for days if not weeks on end to break the defenders, and in that case it was rarely physical injuries that broke the defenders. Aircraft can help out a lot by striking from an unexpected angle or by dropping bombs on an enemy position before the ground forces engage to establish shock, cause panic and casualties and forcing the enemy to duck for cover, making it easier for their allies to get into good positions to fight from with less risk of getting shot.
     
    FrangibleCover said:
    Okay, the A-10 is actually horrible and anecdotes from one or two dumbass grunts don't actually make it either a) a cost-efficient CAS platform for use in Operation Bomb Useless Dirt or b) even vaguely survivable in a modern air defence environment. It was obsolescent when it entered service, it was obsolete by the mid 1980s and it got chewed to bits in the Gulf War when nothing else did simply because it's a really bad plane. If you want to deliver cheap guided bombs from a really bad plane, buy a Cessna Caravan and do it way cheaper. Also the F-35 is good in every variant and anyone who says otherwise can take it outside with me.

    HOWEVER.

    The issue with independent air forces is the strategic bombing problem. Not only in terms of the big showy city-crushing raids that were pretty economically inefficient, but in terms of Iraq 1920 and I have no doubt Iraq 2020 where dropping bombs on people is expected to win a war by sheer force of everyone you dislike being too bombed to resist. It has been shown time and again that this doesn't really work properly but if air forces don't at least try to do it then there's no reason for them not to just be an arm of the army, so they do it at every opportunity to demonstrate their relevance. If you don't split them off from the army then you have a chance of making them do their actual job, which is to ensure air superiority, interdict enemy ground forces movement and provide close air support in that order.
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    I hesitate to call Strypgia a dumbass grunt, considering he's one of the guys identifying important targets (96b = Intelligence Analyst) and watching fighter jocks fail, fail, and fail again to drop bombs on a target only to watch some navy boys get it on the first try. Firefinder is a 13F (Joint Fire Support Specialist) and is actually vectoring the damn things in.

    Okay, sure, not going to argue about the A-10 needing replacing.

    I'm arguing that an independent air force that taking the USAF as an example, an independent air force will excel at killing fighters, and suck at keeping our boys alive. Not to say that the fighter pilots themselves don't try their best though, it's just that their best is exactly as garbage as their training. Because NOT A POUND FOR AIR TO GROUND!! is not just some kind of cheeky remark.
     
    My (completely amateur) understanding of the issues with the A-10 is that due to it being designed as CAS for WW3 40 years ago it sits in an awkward position of either being expensive overkill against people without top of the line military equipment or no longer capable of doing the job it was designed for against people with top of the line military equipment. As an example as far as I understand the gun can no longer take out a current gen tank because of armour improvements but everything else can be taken out with a smaller gun. It's still the best CAS option available, especially because live pilots are way better at not hitting their own troops. I think that if a replacement was being designed today it could either be significantly cheaper by reducing some of the expensive overkill (like in the light attack proposal) and stay in the role the A-10 is currently performing except with more planes available or significantly more expensive and perform the role that the A-10 was originally designed for. Either option would be an improvement considering the A-10 fleet has got to be hitting their lifetime flight hours and fatigue and cracking are going to be a big issue soon if they aren't already.
     
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