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Belated Battleships (KanColle) [REHOST]

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Rancher_357 said:
I have to admit, the leveling effect is sometimes confusing for me too, best to just let the author write it as they see fit, and not try to pick it apart too much.

As for the U2 and the Blackbird, I expect they would suddenly find themselves easier to catch and/or target with AA. Also their pictures would probably turn out to the highest standards of 1945 Allied aerial photography.
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One problem that you would have with U-2 or Blackbird flights is that you would have to stage them an awful long way from probably Okinawa. That means that you have to build an aviation fuel reserve there (which means you are not using that avgas for air defense of Japan or shipping in oil to run the Japanese economy in that spot) and possibly push tankers out (Guam is barely inside the Blackbird's range at 2279 km one way from Okinawa to Guam).

As for the leveling effect, it would probably default to the 1945 SOTA which is...what, a recce Mosquito (PR Mark XXXIV A)equivalent? It would be doable, but a bit risky (depending on whether the Abyssals have radar). Certainly I'd hate to give any FW-190-D9s advance warning in a Mosquito so they could climb to my altitude, to say nothing of a Ta-152 or Me-262. 1945 aerial photography would be good enough to pick up Abyssals in port/drydock certainly, although not to the modern 'read license plate numbers from space' levels of detail.

One further thing is that as I noted above reconnaissance assets (aircraft, subs) are finite and as such would be prioritized in terms of how important the target is to the war plans (which is the reason the USN only started looking at what was on Iwo Jima in late 1943-1944, for example). Guam is deep in abyssal territory and as such would require either many more ships and shipgirls to conduct a raid while fighting off their fleet(s) and aircover or would require outlying outposts to be reduced first to clear the path (similar to WWII in the Central Pacific 1942-44). As such, it is probably not yet being surveiled intensively.
 
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XWingExecuter said:
Ehh, I've spent the better part of a year writing 10-20 paragraphs where its not each idea that gets a sentence, but a over arching idea where sub ideas can be linked in it. Go engineering research essays. The kid thing is separate tho. I also barely ever interact on forums, so it's hard to break out of set in way writing styles. Man, does it not look like a lot though when I'm typing it up.
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...Wait, didn't you say you were used to APA? I know there's no universal citation system in science, but I'm really curious which field of engineering uses APA, given the general pissing contest between the various sciences. Unless it's social engineering, or something?
XWingExecuter said:
Also, whats the deal on SR-71s and U-2s? Are they usable against the Abbyssals or are they too new and suffer the same fate as satellites and other modern tech?
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In the case of the Blackbirds, the odds you'd be able to get them back in the air are slim-to-none, at this point. They needed a lot of special gear, some of which was top-secret enough that the plans for it were destroyed after the Blackbird was retired. And that gear often required specialized training. There aren't many people left who still know how to operate that gear, and those that do are likely a bit rusty.

And, of course, most of the still existing SR-71s haven't been maintained, and have been left in storage for years. Sure, some have been stored in decent moth-balled environemnts, but even those would likely need a tune-up, especially since the SR-71 apparently a bit of a maintenance hog, from what I've heard. Not unexpected, given it's top-speeds, and how it had to be designed in order to reach those speeds. And, of course, finding techs who know how to that, the tools to do it, and the replacement parts would all complicate things even further.

While these problems do have solutions, they'd cost a lot of money, time, and manpower, for uncertain gain. At least with the attempts to revive Jersey, and other such things, they had some reason to think it might work, since they already knew that shipgirls existed. In this case, they run the risk of it not being old enough to still work well on Abyssals. So, yeah, probably not happening.
 
I like how people were casually talking about pushing Blackbirds out, ignoring how the fleet was retired after Desert Storm and it'd take too much work to reactivate them.

Edit: and then somehow I get ninja'd an hour ago without realising it. Goddamn my eyes.

@XWingExecuter regardless of whatever format you prefer/are familiar with, the root is that on the internet and a computer screen, a wall of text is harder to read than if it was printed on paper. It's all fine and well to stick to your guns and all, but perhaps a certain level of consideration towards your audience may go a long way, particularly when the instinctive reaction of most people seeing a single longass paragraph is to go "welp, too long didn't read."

You can't convince people of anything if you can't effectively communicate your ideas to them.
 
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owlmessenger said:
*blinks* Da Fuq?
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That be a referense to 'Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS' a rather notorius Nazisplotation/sexploitation film from the mid-70's. Hard to believe it was made in Canada.
owlmessenger said:
I especially like that there is now an *official* method by which to cite wikipedia
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Every on the internet can be edited, wikipedia's just the most prominent example. That, and universities are getting more serious about 'list where did you get the source/citation'.
owlmessenger said:
... And all I got from that was that someone bullied the Sky, just not in the usual way ... you people have finally corrupted me fully.
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Unfortunately true: Sky-bulling can involve actual bullying.:(
 
SisterJeanne said:
One problem that you would have with U-2 or Blackbird flights is that you would have to stage them an awful long way from probably Okinawa. That means that you have to build an aviation fuel reserve there (which means you are not using that avgas for air defense of Japan or shipping in oil to run the Japanese economy in that spot) and possibly push tankers out (Guam is barely inside the Blackbird's range at 2279 km one way from Okinawa to Guam).
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You'd need tanker operations to support an SR-71 anyway, even if you could get the airframes back in service- they take off dry and fuel up in the air.

As for the leveling effect, it would probably default to the 1945 SOTA which is...what, a recce Mosquito (PR Mark XXXIV A)equivalent? It would be doable, but a bit risky (depending on whether the Abyssals have radar). Certainly I'd hate to give any FW-190-D9s advance warning in a Mosquito so they could climb to my altitude, to say nothing of a Ta-152 or Me-262. 1945 aerial photography would be good enough to pick up Abyssals in port/drydock certainly, although not to the modern 'read license plate numbers from space' levels of detail.
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The highest-performing WWII reconaissance aircraft could operate above the 262's ceiling, or right at the ragged edge of it where its performance was vastly diminished. Aircraft performance at very high altitudes becomes counterintuitive; big wings can count for more than what would be blisteringly superior speed at low altitude. The B-36 was known to win 'dogfights' with first-generation jet fighters, simply because it was better suited to high altitude operations between forty and fifty thousand feet than the jets were.

On which note, what I wouldn't give for a B-36 that could play on high-end terms under the levelling effect... alas. :(

owlmessenger said:
I especially like that there is now an *official* method by which to cite wikipedia
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It's a website, there's always been an official way to cite it- as a website.

[That is to say, there was a time when there was no APA citation format for websites, but it predates the foundation of Wikipedia]

These days, Wikipedia is on most subjects as reliable as or better than the average encyclopedia, I've found, and the hypertext links are a huge plus. The main thing you have to watch out for is subjects on which there are specific people with a strong interest in distorting the facts- say, a website documenting the history of a small organization whose own members have disproportionate incentive to rewrite or update the wiki.

But we're taught to revile it, which is sad. It's not perfect, but compared to almost any reference source available online, it's a much better way of avoiding the outright propaganda-bubble problems many people otherwise face and cutting through to facts.

The trick is that, yes, since there's no real chain of accountability, it shouldn't be sourced directly unless you're explicitly making a statement about Wikipedia. Like, say, "there are XYZ pages in Wikipedia on automotive engineering..."
 
Simon_Jester said:
The highest-performing WWII reconaissance aircraft could operate above the 262's ceiling, or right at the ragged edge of it where its performance was vastly diminished. Aircraft performance at very high altitudes becomes counterintuitive; big wings can count for more than what would be blisteringly superior speed at low altitude. The B-36 was known to win 'dogfights' with first-generation jet fighters, simply because it was better suited to high altitude operations between forty and fifty thousand feet than the jets were.
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Yeah, still you would want to avoid giving the locals advance warning of your arrival if at all possible. As noted, it is reasonably academic right now since the SR-71 got retired and there are a lot of other places for reconnaissance assets to be used. Sooner or later Iku, Albie, or Archie will get a good look at Guam and see that it is an Abyssal naval base that needs to be taken out.
 
Whiskey Golf said:
Edit: and then somehow I get ninja'd an hour ago without realising it. Goddamn my eyes.
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I guess all that training in the ancient arts of the Serpent Ninja paid off.
Simon_Jester said:
You'd need tanker operations to support an SR-71 anyway, even if you could get the airframes back in service- they take off dry and fuel up in the air.
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That...seems odd to me, given that their fuel serves as hydraulic fluid and coolant, as well as powering the engines. That, and I recall mention of special equipment to refuel them on the ground, from my research on the topic. Equipment which needed special training to operate, apparently.
Simon_Jester said:
These days, Wikipedia is on most subjects as reliable as or better than the average encyclopedia, I've found, and the hypertext links are a huge plus. The main thing you have to watch out for is subjects on which there are specific people with a strong interest in distorting the facts- say, a website documenting the history of a small organization whose own members have disproportionate incentive to rewrite or update the wiki.

But we're taught to revile it, which is sad. It's not perfect, but compared to almost any reference source available online, it's a much better way of avoiding the outright propaganda-bubble problems many people otherwise face and cutting through to facts.

The trick is that, yes, since there's no real chain of accountability, it shouldn't be sourced directly unless you're explicitly making a statement about Wikipedia. Like, say, "there are XYZ pages in Wikipedia on automotive engineering..."
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I do tend to use it for when I need a quick background on a subject for discussions, though obviously, not for anything official. It's also pretty good as a source of sources, if the page is well-cited.
 
Nixeu said:
That...seems odd to me, given that their fuel serves as hydraulic fluid and coolant, as well as powering the engines. That, and I recall mention of special equipment to refuel them on the ground, from my research on the topic. Equipment which needed special training to operate, apparently.
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They took off with low fuel to lower takeoff speeds, then filled their tanks all the way up once in the air.
 
Nixeu said:
That...seems odd to me, given that their fuel serves as hydraulic fluid and coolant, as well as powering the engines. That, and I recall mention of special equipment to refuel them on the ground, from my research on the topic. Equipment which needed special training to operate, apparently.
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I mean, they don't take off with literally zero fuel :p

I was using the term 'dry' in relative terms; the issue being (as I recall) that the SR-71 was not well optimized for flying at low-speed, low-altitude flight. Which was part of the price it paid for being the greatest aircraft in the history of history itself at doing the opposite of those things. Thus, the plane did not take off with a full fuel load, and since typical reconnaissance missions involved flying deep into enemy airspace over long distances, tankers were pretty much a requirement for an SR-71 flight.
 
PAGDTenno said:
They took off with low fuel to lower takeoff speeds, then filled their tanks all the way up once in the air.
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Interesting. That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
Wardog Noir said:
It didn't help that their fuel tanks leaked like crazy when on the ground, either. The tanks didn't seal up until the Blackbirds hit cruise altitude and speed, due to thermal expansion.
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It's actually a little ridiculous just how utterly optimized for speed the SR-71's design is. The more I learn, the more impressed I am with the designers...and the more I suspect they may have been a tad nuts.

I think the one that I find most impressive is the fact that the fuel doubled as coolant and hydraulic fluid. Probably because I'm going for a degree in chemistry, and that an impressive set of requirements to try to fulfill with a single chemical. Coolant and fuel are usually mutually exclusive, and for good reason.
Simon_Jester said:
I mean, they don't take off with literally zero fuel :p

I was using the term 'dry' in relative terms; the issue being (as I recall) that the SR-71 was not well optimized for flying at low-speed, low-altitude flight. Which was part of the price it paid for being the greatest aircraft in the history of history itself at doing the opposite of those things. Thus, the plane did not take off with a full fuel load, and since typical reconnaissance missions involved flying deep into enemy airspace over long distances, tankers were pretty much a requirement for an SR-71 flight.
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I would still think that would apply mostly to the fuel in the tanks, rather than in the coolant lines and hydraulics. What's in the tanks is only one of the three places it would have had fuel, after all.
 
Always Late said:
That be a referense to 'Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS' a rather notorius Nazisplotation/sexploitation film from the mid-70's. Hard to believe it was made in Canada.
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Except for the exterior shots of the camp. Those were shot in California, on the set of Hogan's Heroes. Why? Because the studio that made the TV show couldn't leave the exterior sets standing for liability reasons, and when the Ilsa production crew asked about renting them, the studio offered to let them use them for free... so long as they were completely destroyed during filming. (This is why the camp burns down in Ilsa...)
 
theJMPer said:
That applies even to the missiles. Procedure when firing was to drop the missile then turn like crazy, otherwise the first thing the missile sees when it goes enable is your own tailpipe.
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I can't help but imagine that episode of The Simpsons where the fighters shoot themselves down with sidewinders.
 
Nixeu said:
IIt's actually a little ridiculous just how utterly optimized for speed the SR-71's design is. The more I learn, the more impressed I am with the designers...and the more I suspect they may have been a tad nuts.
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That's probably an apt term for Kelly Johnson and the Skunkworks crew, yes.

It bears remembering that the SR-71 project design work was done only about fifteen years after the first time the sound barrier was successfully breached (1947-1962), so they were very, very much pushing the bleeding edge of technology in a way few aerospace design projects since have done. The SR-71 was the first military aircraft whose performance requirements exceeded ANY necessary requirement and never became obsolete due to lack of performance. The plane was phased out not because a better plane was needed, but because an entirely different solution to the problem was found.

I think the one that I find most impressive is the fact that the fuel doubled as coolant and hydraulic fluid. Probably because I'm going for a degree in chemistry, and that an impressive set of requirements to try to fulfill with a single chemical. Coolant and fuel are usually mutually exclusive, and for good reason.
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Rocket engine nozzles do the 'fuel as coolant' thing all the time. When dealing with these kind of temperatures (several hundred degrees, or thousands for a rocket), all the coolant needs is to absorb heat from the engine nozzle once, then go "foomp" and be gone. Thus, it is somewhat less important that the fuel have optimal properties for a coolant fluid.

Now, using the fuel for the hydraulics is a lot more impressive.

theJMPer said:
That applies even to the missiles. Procedure when firing was to drop the missile then turn like crazy, otherwise the first thing the missile sees when it goes enable is your own tailpipe.
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Uh... the AIM-47 (ancestral to the Phoenix missiles carried by the Tomcat) was capable of Mach 4 and was in fact faster than the... call it the F-108 Rapiers and F-12 "war Blackbirds" intended to carry them.

If there was a problem along those lines, it was probably because the missile engine didn't start immediately on dropping away from the plane, at which point the missile was experiencing supersonic drag and slowing down rapidly until the rocket motor lit up.

Old Iron said:
I can't help but imagine that episode of The Simpsons where the fighters shoot themselves down with sidewinders.
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What, you thought that wasn't a documentary? :p
 
Simon_Jester said:
Uh... the AIM-47 (ancestral to the Phoenix missiles carried by the Tomcat) was capable of Mach 4 and was in fact faster than the... call it the F-108 Rapiers and F-12 "war Blackbirds" intended to carry them.

If there was a problem along those lines, it was probably because the missile engine didn't start immediately on dropping away from the plane, at which point the missile was experiencing supersonic drag and slowing down rapidly until the rocket motor lit up.
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Yeah, that was the problem. The missile would slow down behind you on release, lock on to your own ass, and then accelerate into said ass.
 
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