Glitchrr36
Slick's Short Company, CEO
- Location
- The Wastes
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan We had a Perfectly Fine Test System Already
Strategic Arms Quest 3/2: Armor Edition
- Thread starter 7734
- Start date
- Original
Contest 8: Testing Round One
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Arriving at Dimarchssen, you promptly got down to business. Setting the competitors up in vehicle barns, you started liasing with the Balloon Training Companies and the local Dimarchssen staff who would be operating your testing apparatuses. Soldiers to run the machines would be drawn from the Third Flak Regiment to operate the guns, while vehicle operations crews would be from Fifth Anglamated Cavalry and the Twelfth Light Armor Regiment, of the Palatine.
First up was mount testing, to be done on the most flat piece of Dimarchssen you could find. Considering the ranges were all in the very sandy soil between the beach dunes and the rolling coastal plains, it wasn't hard to get one that only needed a few passes with a scraper to be acceptable.
First up was the Skoda SkW-3fz. On turning the turret, it was found that in power traverse it made about twenty five degrees a second, or ten degrees a second on the hand-crank flywheel. There were no problems across the entire range of traverse for the gun, although the SkW-3 chassis had a distinct dislike of the sandy terrain.
The MwF1 was a good bit better, making forty degrees a second on it's power traverse system, and twenty five on the hand crank. The entire turret could turn the full 360 degrees around the hull without issue. Travelling out to the range, however, the tank frequently spun sand and had issues in the thin soil.
The F2, surprisingly, was a little bit faster even considering the weight of the two dummy rocket cells on the right of the turret. With power traverse it made forty two degrees per second, and twenty one on the hand crank. Oddly, the turret was more responsive when turning counterclockwise than clockwise, but was otherwise the same as the F1.
The F3 was the first model with problems, though. With power traverse, it only made thirty eight degrees per second, and eighteen per second on manual traverse. Also different from it's predecessors was the fact it had a distinct acceleration curve as it came up to rotational speed, due to the large masses of dummy rockets hanging off the side of the turret. Also like the F2, it was more responsive to counterclockwise movement than clockwise movement.
The F4 was the worst of the Thryssen entrants, with a painful twenty nine degrees per second of rotational speed, and barely twelve on the hand crank. According to the testing crews, the hand crank didn't have sufficient mechanical advantage, requiring them to really saw on it to get the arrangement moving. Also like the F3, it needed to accelerate it's large turret to get up to it's maximum speed, and for some reason it was easier to use the hand crank going clockwise, rather than counterclockwise.
The Kettenkrad Fenrus GmbH entrant, the TmvSp, was probably the fastest of all the entrants, capable of bringing it's pintle mount around at what was roughly clocked at sixty five degrees per second, and closer to seventy if the gunner was willing to dive and throw himself around his little gun roost to get it onto a new bearing.
The GBA entrants were amazingly bland in this contest. With the Mglkw 1 (armed with the double 2cm guns) clocking in at forty degrees of constant traverse and the Mglkw 2 (with the 4,6cm Baal) got thirty two degrees per second of traverse. Of interest, however, was the fact neither vehicle was inconvenienced getting to or leaving the range, and in fact did better than the observer's staff car at some points.
The Reindhart entry, currently with the working designation of Ft-1, was amazingly mediocre with a thirty two degree per second traverse on the power system, and the only really interesting thing was that it made the same traverse speed when working the hand crank as the power system.
The W-5J was, however, the worst competitor. With barely twenty degrees per second of hand crank only traverse, it was quickly found that the gun arrangement could not traverse over the full three hundred and sixty degrees of the hull, and instead was limited to a 270 degree arc of fire. This turned out to be a fault of the original turret ring, which had a casting flaw in that the turret had a second driving crank located behind the turret that would engage on a teether bar so that Wanderer didn't need to actually put a fully stamped fixed planetary gear for his turret to drive the traverse. You wrote Armor Branch a strongly worded telegram about the discovery and it's effects, and then carried out the next testing.
The HsKw from Gronsky, meanwhile, took some babying to get it out to the test ground, but once it was there did fairly well. Maintaining a steady thirty seven degrees of turn per second on power traverse, it did stumble some at twenty degrees per second when it went to manual traverse. On the way out, however, it did experience some trouble with it's gas turbine, before the crew operating it finally managed to get the rpm reducers to properly engage.
While you planned to do incline testing, the fact there wasn't really a good incline over about fifteen percent grade put a dent in that. None of the mounts seemed affected by the quick tests you did there, so you'd call that test checked off and completed.
Then came the glider testing. Due to realities of road and range placement, the car wouldn't be driving a straight line during the eight hundred meter approach run, and would begin the "attack run" about twenty degrees off the bow of the attack at a kilometer as the bullet flew, driving through the slightly curved coastal access road as fast as they could, terminating about two hundred meters away from the gun as the car made a turn that would bring it into an area where the glider couldn't be allowed to crash. If the glider was still flying, the Dimarchssen floatplanes would go check it out, take photos to assess damage, and then the glier would be released before another turn so that the tow car was clear of the crash. If the glider crashed mid-firing, then that was a success. The provided gliders were all Lufwaffe tug target gliders, retrofitted to work with a downward pull source by having some of the weight moved tailward and the tow and control points moved off the upper nose to the lower nose.
The first test run, which was a simple feasibility test, worked beautifully. The glider took off, flew the course admirably well with the ocean wind and the car's guidance, and then preformed their simulated attack run easily.
Next up was the Skoda, the first to serve in a live shooting role. When the signal was given, both guns opened up, quickly training on the target and landing enough shells close enough to cause the glider to shake ferociously. While it was still nominally flying, on the recovery turn the glider lost control and crashed into the sand. Being mostly intact, analysis revealed that several shells had passed through and exploded on the far side, while one of them had passed through close enough to the control relay where the "cockpit" was to damage the cable harness and cause a crash that way.
The MwF1 was next, and quite promptly earned itself the nickname of "bumblebee" for the amount of buzzing and rattling it did as it started pumping lead. The car was about seventy meters down the attack run when the glider broke free from getting the tow point shot off, and then proceeded to pitch up, stall, and then crash into the ground. Crash analysis performed while shovelling it off the road revealed about a quarter of the hits on the glider detonated, and that the wing roots and structural fuselage were barely holding on. Considering there were only about forty strikes on the glider for nearly five hundred rounds fired, however, you weren't entirely happy.
The MwF2, meanwhile, had proceeded to do their research ahead of time on the speed of the target, and were ready when they went into position. As soon as the glider began it's attack run, the entire swarm of rockets greated it, with at least two scoring direct hits. Missing one wing, most of the aft fuselage, and the control relay, the craft promptly crashed. Post-crash analysis revealed it was dead, and that those rockets killed things very dead.
Things did not go as well for the MwF3, however, since the car crew had decided they wanted at least one glider to get through intact and by now were very fluent with the glider controls. After the first rocket dump, the ground crew dived the glider to where it was most likely scraping the dunegras, and then popped right back up to jink around the gunfire. Even though they dumped another two cells of rockets at it, the release was late on the cells, and the double Slk.69 had to hold the line. Fortunately, it was enough, eventually causing the glider to do a hard starboard dive into the dirt. Crash analysis revealed cause of death to be a destroyed main wing spar that failed, and that none of the rockets even got shrapnel damage off. Requesting the range to do a quick test on, the answer was found in that the fuse ranging charts were off- what was supposed to be the five hundred meter setting actually detonated the rocket at something like a twelve to thirteen hundred meters, as well as being more finicky at longer fuze times. The F2 crew then deigned to inform the F3 crew (who were apparently a bunch of brown-noses to get this comfy job) that no, the fuzes weren't that great, so they just fired their barrage in full contact mode.
After seperating the resulting fistfight, the F4 went up to fire. As the glider came into the attack run, the commander ordered the gun up, and then proceded to ripple-fire every rocket battery on the craft. The glider, having been well padlocked by the gun, proceeded to then disintegrate, with the largest recovered piece being a tail assembly portion measuring nine and one half square centimeters. Analysis went to get a drink at this point, and you joined them.
When lunch was over, you got back to work with the Embiggened Kettenkrad. Once the exercise was spun up, things went about as normal- the glider did it's attack run, the guns opened fire, the glider continued it's attack run. Surprisingly, the glider was not destroyed, and continued it's overflight back to the launch field after being photographed. On a controlled set-down, the craft lost it's landing gear and went into a belly skid, but Analysis was still ready to go. Digging through it, the result was pretty quickly found, in that the projectile hits didn't have any real degree of concentration. The glider had been structurally abused, badly, but with twenty hits on it, mostly on the furthest out wing portions, it didn't receive enough damage to actually go down. If the glider attempted any strenuous maneuvers or less practiced handling forcing it into anything past a gentle bank, however, it probably would have broken up immediately.
After what was being quietly referred to as the "Großer Kettenkrad" cleared the range, the Reinhardt design came up. After cleaning the sights while the tow car came around to the position, the gun tracked cleanly and started firing just after they cleared the attack turn, and about twenty second later the tail of the glider fell clean off, forcing the aircraft down into the sand. Analysis, on disecting the remains, determined that the first few shells had hit the glider in the center of mass, with a few detonating in the wings. Once the gun started hitting the fuselage again, the strain promptly shredded the plane and it disolved into the crash.
The next unit, the W-5J, made the Großer Kettenkrad look absolutely flawless however. After the attack run, photography and observation revealed next to no damage on the glider, and as a point of order the tow car took the glider through another attack run to no effect. Once testing was done, the gun operator explained that the slow traverse made it hard to track the plane, and the system stopped firing when the turret accidentally pulled the connector line from the foot trigger to the gun out.
Following the lackluster display Großer Kettenkrad, the GBA flak trucks went up. The first one, with the 4,6cm Baal, was a predictable success story, which managed to take the attacking glider down halfway through it's run. The resulting post-crash autopsy revealed cause of death was the nose, and therefore control lines and tow bar, getting mostly blown off. The second one, with the quad 2cm autocannons, did slightly worse while still downing the glider. Analysis proved that the cause of death was structural failure on the firing range exit turn, which made sense since it had basically spiraled out of control into it's crash.
The Reinhardt entrant proved a much better show, with the gun captain smartly laying his turret onto the target, and then ordering the fire opened up. The shooting was straight and true, and the glider had it's right wing shot entirely off in short order, causing it to roll and dive into the sandy ditch next to the road.
The HsKw was up after that after a twenty-minute engine starting procedure you watched with something halfway between amazement and shock. You didn't know if this gas turbine thing normally needed a turkey baster full of gasoline to get sprayed down the intakes to start it with the APU running full tilt, but the result was a wall of flame out the exhausts before it got into position. Once the glider began it's simulated attack run, it was shot down quickly and brutally, with the entire center of the unit basically collapsing in on itself as the plane spiraled into a crash. Analysis determined the main cause was the junction of the centerline spar getting the shit shot out of it, followed by a lot of secondary damage by the 13.2s.
With the fun stuff concluded, you all went to bed to do road marches tomorrow.
Starting bright and early at ten o'clock, you got to work on the road march plans. Since there'd been unpleasant surprises with long range travel and fuel economy, you got to work planning a road march that would eat a portion of your budget that eclipsed all the other parts entirely- a hundred kilometer road march. After some talking to from General Baumgartner, the Dimarchssen base commandant, however, you amended this up to a hundred and ten kilometers so your vehicles could go to Lunesburg, circle the city in an impromptu parade, and come home. For the trip, each tank would have two dedicated kettenkrads with it, and twelve trucks would be assigned as a supply train, along with one tanker hauling twelve hundred liters of fuel per tank and six tankers for the supply train.
After everyone got all fueled up and rolling, you took your spot in the head of the column and promptly got to watching. Since you weren't allowed to take your vehicles on the macadamized highway, you were taking the county roads out to your destination, which reduced practical speed by a lot.
Your first breakdown was the HsKw, and the second one too. Between the factory supplied repairmen and the crew, the issues identified were thermal dispersal issues and bad throttle response for the first one that had ended up overheating the engine, and the second one was one of the RPM reducers falling entirely and needing replacement. Both were fairly heavy-duty operations, taking twenty minutes to cool the engine off and forty minutes to change the RPM reducer respectively. Distance at this point from Dimarchssen, thirty-five kilometers.
The next major breakdown was on the MwF4, with a double track failure because two of the roller wheels were misaligned. Took about twenty minutes to fix, and another five minutes to get out of the ditch it landed in. Distance from Dimarchssen, forty three kilometers.
After that, it was smooth sailing until something fritzed on the Großer Kettenkrad, which turned out to be one of the transmission breakers getting thrown after a power spike. You hadn't actually realized it used a electrodynamic transmission, but one quick peek under the hood (so to speak) cleared up the misconception- it was, mechanically, basically a kettenkrad and a half with two Opel engines tied to two generators, tied to a bus bar and the electric drive motors. You didn't think Fenrus had it in him to be this creative, but since all the "transmission" needed was a good cooling off, it seemed like his idea worked. At that point, the distance from Dimarchssen was fifty six kilometers.
About ten minutes later the HsKw threw a fit, made a loud screaming sound, and violently ejected through it's rear armor plate a hot mess of flying engine parts, which traveled about four meters, impacted one of the GBA flak carrying trucks, and destroyed it's front end and radiator. After bodily clearing yourself and your aide-de-camp from the ditch you'd dived into from the staff car, Analysis showed up to look at it. Apparently, the turbine engine had overclocked it's run time, overheated, and had a traumatic bearing or shaft failure and the engine basically exploded straight through the rear blowout system. You declared it dead, resisted the urge to shoot one of the Gronsky engineers, and marked the distance down as seventy kilometers and change before moving on.
Once that was done, things continued until the aforementioned damaged GBA gun carrier died an inglorious death to radiator failure and oil loss. The distance was marked as seventy two kilometers, and the crew duitifully got in one of the trucks to finish out the ride.
It wasn't until a half hour later that the Skoda accidentally steered into a ditch during a shift change for the driver, and you got to ask the tank commander about the fact you could switch drivers on it while it was still in motion. Apparently the old engineer's driving station came back as a feature on the SkW-3 since there was space for it (and the new V16 and Opel APU combo could cause issues with power balancing to the subsystems of the tank) so naturally the crew used that capability to swap drivers every hour and a half or so. And then the engineer had slipped, and well tank meet ditch. Six kettenkrads pulling and thrity minutes of swearing later to fix a track, and things were back to normal at about seventy eight kilometers.
The next accident- and you were honestly quite surprised by this- was the MwF3 getting rammed by a traction engine in an intersection about twenty kilometers from Dimarchssen. Apparently the farmer had come out to see the parade and maybe stop in at the mechanics, but in the end the damage was mostly to the traction engine and the tracks of the MwF3 and the turret wing rocket rack. Ten minutes later, you were on the road again.
When you finally got back to the base, you groaned. That road march (and the cash it would take to tow the HsKw back) had cleaned out your budgeting for this period. You'd need to wait until next week to start up the destructive and maintenance testing. In the meantime, though, you could call up Anne-Marie and the kids, though!
VOTES
[] Write-in testing procedures
-[] Write-in recomendations to manufacturers
-[] Write-in any vehicles to drop
(Note: that road march was expensive. You'll need to drop vehicles or next round of testing is your last)
First up was mount testing, to be done on the most flat piece of Dimarchssen you could find. Considering the ranges were all in the very sandy soil between the beach dunes and the rolling coastal plains, it wasn't hard to get one that only needed a few passes with a scraper to be acceptable.
First up was the Skoda SkW-3fz. On turning the turret, it was found that in power traverse it made about twenty five degrees a second, or ten degrees a second on the hand-crank flywheel. There were no problems across the entire range of traverse for the gun, although the SkW-3 chassis had a distinct dislike of the sandy terrain.
The MwF1 was a good bit better, making forty degrees a second on it's power traverse system, and twenty five on the hand crank. The entire turret could turn the full 360 degrees around the hull without issue. Travelling out to the range, however, the tank frequently spun sand and had issues in the thin soil.
The F2, surprisingly, was a little bit faster even considering the weight of the two dummy rocket cells on the right of the turret. With power traverse it made forty two degrees per second, and twenty one on the hand crank. Oddly, the turret was more responsive when turning counterclockwise than clockwise, but was otherwise the same as the F1.
The F3 was the first model with problems, though. With power traverse, it only made thirty eight degrees per second, and eighteen per second on manual traverse. Also different from it's predecessors was the fact it had a distinct acceleration curve as it came up to rotational speed, due to the large masses of dummy rockets hanging off the side of the turret. Also like the F2, it was more responsive to counterclockwise movement than clockwise movement.
The F4 was the worst of the Thryssen entrants, with a painful twenty nine degrees per second of rotational speed, and barely twelve on the hand crank. According to the testing crews, the hand crank didn't have sufficient mechanical advantage, requiring them to really saw on it to get the arrangement moving. Also like the F3, it needed to accelerate it's large turret to get up to it's maximum speed, and for some reason it was easier to use the hand crank going clockwise, rather than counterclockwise.
The Kettenkrad Fenrus GmbH entrant, the TmvSp, was probably the fastest of all the entrants, capable of bringing it's pintle mount around at what was roughly clocked at sixty five degrees per second, and closer to seventy if the gunner was willing to dive and throw himself around his little gun roost to get it onto a new bearing.
The GBA entrants were amazingly bland in this contest. With the Mglkw 1 (armed with the double 2cm guns) clocking in at forty degrees of constant traverse and the Mglkw 2 (with the 4,6cm Baal) got thirty two degrees per second of traverse. Of interest, however, was the fact neither vehicle was inconvenienced getting to or leaving the range, and in fact did better than the observer's staff car at some points.
The Reindhart entry, currently with the working designation of Ft-1, was amazingly mediocre with a thirty two degree per second traverse on the power system, and the only really interesting thing was that it made the same traverse speed when working the hand crank as the power system.
The W-5J was, however, the worst competitor. With barely twenty degrees per second of hand crank only traverse, it was quickly found that the gun arrangement could not traverse over the full three hundred and sixty degrees of the hull, and instead was limited to a 270 degree arc of fire. This turned out to be a fault of the original turret ring, which had a casting flaw in that the turret had a second driving crank located behind the turret that would engage on a teether bar so that Wanderer didn't need to actually put a fully stamped fixed planetary gear for his turret to drive the traverse. You wrote Armor Branch a strongly worded telegram about the discovery and it's effects, and then carried out the next testing.
The HsKw from Gronsky, meanwhile, took some babying to get it out to the test ground, but once it was there did fairly well. Maintaining a steady thirty seven degrees of turn per second on power traverse, it did stumble some at twenty degrees per second when it went to manual traverse. On the way out, however, it did experience some trouble with it's gas turbine, before the crew operating it finally managed to get the rpm reducers to properly engage.
While you planned to do incline testing, the fact there wasn't really a good incline over about fifteen percent grade put a dent in that. None of the mounts seemed affected by the quick tests you did there, so you'd call that test checked off and completed.
Then came the glider testing. Due to realities of road and range placement, the car wouldn't be driving a straight line during the eight hundred meter approach run, and would begin the "attack run" about twenty degrees off the bow of the attack at a kilometer as the bullet flew, driving through the slightly curved coastal access road as fast as they could, terminating about two hundred meters away from the gun as the car made a turn that would bring it into an area where the glider couldn't be allowed to crash. If the glider was still flying, the Dimarchssen floatplanes would go check it out, take photos to assess damage, and then the glier would be released before another turn so that the tow car was clear of the crash. If the glider crashed mid-firing, then that was a success. The provided gliders were all Lufwaffe tug target gliders, retrofitted to work with a downward pull source by having some of the weight moved tailward and the tow and control points moved off the upper nose to the lower nose.
The first test run, which was a simple feasibility test, worked beautifully. The glider took off, flew the course admirably well with the ocean wind and the car's guidance, and then preformed their simulated attack run easily.
Next up was the Skoda, the first to serve in a live shooting role. When the signal was given, both guns opened up, quickly training on the target and landing enough shells close enough to cause the glider to shake ferociously. While it was still nominally flying, on the recovery turn the glider lost control and crashed into the sand. Being mostly intact, analysis revealed that several shells had passed through and exploded on the far side, while one of them had passed through close enough to the control relay where the "cockpit" was to damage the cable harness and cause a crash that way.
The MwF1 was next, and quite promptly earned itself the nickname of "bumblebee" for the amount of buzzing and rattling it did as it started pumping lead. The car was about seventy meters down the attack run when the glider broke free from getting the tow point shot off, and then proceeded to pitch up, stall, and then crash into the ground. Crash analysis performed while shovelling it off the road revealed about a quarter of the hits on the glider detonated, and that the wing roots and structural fuselage were barely holding on. Considering there were only about forty strikes on the glider for nearly five hundred rounds fired, however, you weren't entirely happy.
The MwF2, meanwhile, had proceeded to do their research ahead of time on the speed of the target, and were ready when they went into position. As soon as the glider began it's attack run, the entire swarm of rockets greated it, with at least two scoring direct hits. Missing one wing, most of the aft fuselage, and the control relay, the craft promptly crashed. Post-crash analysis revealed it was dead, and that those rockets killed things very dead.
Things did not go as well for the MwF3, however, since the car crew had decided they wanted at least one glider to get through intact and by now were very fluent with the glider controls. After the first rocket dump, the ground crew dived the glider to where it was most likely scraping the dunegras, and then popped right back up to jink around the gunfire. Even though they dumped another two cells of rockets at it, the release was late on the cells, and the double Slk.69 had to hold the line. Fortunately, it was enough, eventually causing the glider to do a hard starboard dive into the dirt. Crash analysis revealed cause of death to be a destroyed main wing spar that failed, and that none of the rockets even got shrapnel damage off. Requesting the range to do a quick test on, the answer was found in that the fuse ranging charts were off- what was supposed to be the five hundred meter setting actually detonated the rocket at something like a twelve to thirteen hundred meters, as well as being more finicky at longer fuze times. The F2 crew then deigned to inform the F3 crew (who were apparently a bunch of brown-noses to get this comfy job) that no, the fuzes weren't that great, so they just fired their barrage in full contact mode.
After seperating the resulting fistfight, the F4 went up to fire. As the glider came into the attack run, the commander ordered the gun up, and then proceded to ripple-fire every rocket battery on the craft. The glider, having been well padlocked by the gun, proceeded to then disintegrate, with the largest recovered piece being a tail assembly portion measuring nine and one half square centimeters. Analysis went to get a drink at this point, and you joined them.
When lunch was over, you got back to work with the Embiggened Kettenkrad. Once the exercise was spun up, things went about as normal- the glider did it's attack run, the guns opened fire, the glider continued it's attack run. Surprisingly, the glider was not destroyed, and continued it's overflight back to the launch field after being photographed. On a controlled set-down, the craft lost it's landing gear and went into a belly skid, but Analysis was still ready to go. Digging through it, the result was pretty quickly found, in that the projectile hits didn't have any real degree of concentration. The glider had been structurally abused, badly, but with twenty hits on it, mostly on the furthest out wing portions, it didn't receive enough damage to actually go down. If the glider attempted any strenuous maneuvers or less practiced handling forcing it into anything past a gentle bank, however, it probably would have broken up immediately.
After what was being quietly referred to as the "Großer Kettenkrad" cleared the range, the Reinhardt design came up. After cleaning the sights while the tow car came around to the position, the gun tracked cleanly and started firing just after they cleared the attack turn, and about twenty second later the tail of the glider fell clean off, forcing the aircraft down into the sand. Analysis, on disecting the remains, determined that the first few shells had hit the glider in the center of mass, with a few detonating in the wings. Once the gun started hitting the fuselage again, the strain promptly shredded the plane and it disolved into the crash.
The next unit, the W-5J, made the Großer Kettenkrad look absolutely flawless however. After the attack run, photography and observation revealed next to no damage on the glider, and as a point of order the tow car took the glider through another attack run to no effect. Once testing was done, the gun operator explained that the slow traverse made it hard to track the plane, and the system stopped firing when the turret accidentally pulled the connector line from the foot trigger to the gun out.
Following the lackluster display Großer Kettenkrad, the GBA flak trucks went up. The first one, with the 4,6cm Baal, was a predictable success story, which managed to take the attacking glider down halfway through it's run. The resulting post-crash autopsy revealed cause of death was the nose, and therefore control lines and tow bar, getting mostly blown off. The second one, with the quad 2cm autocannons, did slightly worse while still downing the glider. Analysis proved that the cause of death was structural failure on the firing range exit turn, which made sense since it had basically spiraled out of control into it's crash.
The Reinhardt entrant proved a much better show, with the gun captain smartly laying his turret onto the target, and then ordering the fire opened up. The shooting was straight and true, and the glider had it's right wing shot entirely off in short order, causing it to roll and dive into the sandy ditch next to the road.
The HsKw was up after that after a twenty-minute engine starting procedure you watched with something halfway between amazement and shock. You didn't know if this gas turbine thing normally needed a turkey baster full of gasoline to get sprayed down the intakes to start it with the APU running full tilt, but the result was a wall of flame out the exhausts before it got into position. Once the glider began it's simulated attack run, it was shot down quickly and brutally, with the entire center of the unit basically collapsing in on itself as the plane spiraled into a crash. Analysis determined the main cause was the junction of the centerline spar getting the shit shot out of it, followed by a lot of secondary damage by the 13.2s.
With the fun stuff concluded, you all went to bed to do road marches tomorrow.
Starting bright and early at ten o'clock, you got to work on the road march plans. Since there'd been unpleasant surprises with long range travel and fuel economy, you got to work planning a road march that would eat a portion of your budget that eclipsed all the other parts entirely- a hundred kilometer road march. After some talking to from General Baumgartner, the Dimarchssen base commandant, however, you amended this up to a hundred and ten kilometers so your vehicles could go to Lunesburg, circle the city in an impromptu parade, and come home. For the trip, each tank would have two dedicated kettenkrads with it, and twelve trucks would be assigned as a supply train, along with one tanker hauling twelve hundred liters of fuel per tank and six tankers for the supply train.
After everyone got all fueled up and rolling, you took your spot in the head of the column and promptly got to watching. Since you weren't allowed to take your vehicles on the macadamized highway, you were taking the county roads out to your destination, which reduced practical speed by a lot.
Your first breakdown was the HsKw, and the second one too. Between the factory supplied repairmen and the crew, the issues identified were thermal dispersal issues and bad throttle response for the first one that had ended up overheating the engine, and the second one was one of the RPM reducers falling entirely and needing replacement. Both were fairly heavy-duty operations, taking twenty minutes to cool the engine off and forty minutes to change the RPM reducer respectively. Distance at this point from Dimarchssen, thirty-five kilometers.
The next major breakdown was on the MwF4, with a double track failure because two of the roller wheels were misaligned. Took about twenty minutes to fix, and another five minutes to get out of the ditch it landed in. Distance from Dimarchssen, forty three kilometers.
After that, it was smooth sailing until something fritzed on the Großer Kettenkrad, which turned out to be one of the transmission breakers getting thrown after a power spike. You hadn't actually realized it used a electrodynamic transmission, but one quick peek under the hood (so to speak) cleared up the misconception- it was, mechanically, basically a kettenkrad and a half with two Opel engines tied to two generators, tied to a bus bar and the electric drive motors. You didn't think Fenrus had it in him to be this creative, but since all the "transmission" needed was a good cooling off, it seemed like his idea worked. At that point, the distance from Dimarchssen was fifty six kilometers.
About ten minutes later the HsKw threw a fit, made a loud screaming sound, and violently ejected through it's rear armor plate a hot mess of flying engine parts, which traveled about four meters, impacted one of the GBA flak carrying trucks, and destroyed it's front end and radiator. After bodily clearing yourself and your aide-de-camp from the ditch you'd dived into from the staff car, Analysis showed up to look at it. Apparently, the turbine engine had overclocked it's run time, overheated, and had a traumatic bearing or shaft failure and the engine basically exploded straight through the rear blowout system. You declared it dead, resisted the urge to shoot one of the Gronsky engineers, and marked the distance down as seventy kilometers and change before moving on.
Once that was done, things continued until the aforementioned damaged GBA gun carrier died an inglorious death to radiator failure and oil loss. The distance was marked as seventy two kilometers, and the crew duitifully got in one of the trucks to finish out the ride.
It wasn't until a half hour later that the Skoda accidentally steered into a ditch during a shift change for the driver, and you got to ask the tank commander about the fact you could switch drivers on it while it was still in motion. Apparently the old engineer's driving station came back as a feature on the SkW-3 since there was space for it (and the new V16 and Opel APU combo could cause issues with power balancing to the subsystems of the tank) so naturally the crew used that capability to swap drivers every hour and a half or so. And then the engineer had slipped, and well tank meet ditch. Six kettenkrads pulling and thrity minutes of swearing later to fix a track, and things were back to normal at about seventy eight kilometers.
The next accident- and you were honestly quite surprised by this- was the MwF3 getting rammed by a traction engine in an intersection about twenty kilometers from Dimarchssen. Apparently the farmer had come out to see the parade and maybe stop in at the mechanics, but in the end the damage was mostly to the traction engine and the tracks of the MwF3 and the turret wing rocket rack. Ten minutes later, you were on the road again.
When you finally got back to the base, you groaned. That road march (and the cash it would take to tow the HsKw back) had cleaned out your budgeting for this period. You'd need to wait until next week to start up the destructive and maintenance testing. In the meantime, though, you could call up Anne-Marie and the kids, though!
VOTES
[] Write-in testing procedures
-[] Write-in recomendations to manufacturers
-[] Write-in any vehicles to drop
(Note: that road march was expensive. You'll need to drop vehicles or next round of testing is your last)
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Glitchrr36
Slick's Short Company, CEO
- Location
- The Wastes
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It seems to me that the turbine is a potential death trap, what with the violent unplanned disassembly capable of damaging another vehicle and all.
Am I being blind or did we not get to see the GBAs shoot? edit: sorted.
Turbine power tanks are not yet ready for showtime. We should drop the HsKw. The unstable traverse on the F3 and F4 probably justify dropping them* and over-reliance on the rockets with imperfect fuses is also against them. The W-5J simply can't do the job so that can go too.
That radiator damage suggests things won't go well for the GBAs in destruct testing but they've done well enough so far to let them move on. The cavalry I'm sure will be interested in a Kettenkrad or GBA solution - since that's the mix in their current pool - even if armour and artillery want someting heavier. edit: but we can drop whichever of the GBAs shot worse, no need to test both.
*As flak. Someone is going to want the F4!
Turbine power tanks are not yet ready for showtime. We should drop the HsKw. The unstable traverse on the F3 and F4 probably justify dropping them* and over-reliance on the rockets with imperfect fuses is also against them. The W-5J simply can't do the job so that can go too.
That radiator damage suggests things won't go well for the GBAs in destruct testing but they've done well enough so far to let them move on. The cavalry I'm sure will be interested in a Kettenkrad or GBA solution - since that's the mix in their current pool - even if armour and artillery want someting heavier. edit: but we can drop whichever of the GBAs shot worse, no need to test both.
*As flak. Someone is going to want the F4!
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It probably goes without saying that the W-5J is getting cut. As is the HsKw (though I'd love to find a way to get continued development of that engine funded). I want to dump Skoda's entry on cost grounds but can't necessarily justify it, and want to drop the Thryssen vehicles on rocket stupidity grounds, but that worked a lot better in practice than I had really expected.
Contest 8 General Testing Round 1 Table
Winged_One²
SACQ Tablemaster
- Location
- Germany
| Tank | Armament | Sights | Traverse Speed (Manual) | Shooting | Road Testing |
| SkW-3fz | 2x40mm Baal | N/A | 25 (10) | Overpenetrations, crash on turn | Bad turn on driver change into ditch, recoverable with some effort. |
| MwF1 | 2x35mm | Double Spider | 40 (25) | Crash after 70m | N/A |
| MwF2 | Lightning Knife, 32 Rockets (4 reloads) | Pivoted Ring for rockets, rangefinder, spider-sight | 42 (21) | Missile hit, kill | N/A |
| MwF3 | 2x2cm SlK, 64 rockets | Ring and post for gun, rangefinder, pivoted ring for rockets | 38 (18), noticable acceleration delay | Rockets missed upon maneuvring, guns worked | Ramming damage, one pod and track damaged but repairable. |
| MwF4 | 128 rockets, 19x110 gun | Pivoted Ring for rockets, rangefinder, ring-and-post for gun | 29 (12), noticable acceleration delay | Missile hits, total destruction | N/A |
| Großes Kettenkrad | 4x2cm SlK | Spider with distance dial | 65 (Manual Only, pintle) | Glider survived, not enough concentrated damage | Breaker thrown after power spike, only needed to cool for a bit. |
| Mglkw 1 | 1x46mm Baal | Spider Sight | 45 | Success, nose destroyed | Succumbed to radiator damage through HsKw turbine explosion. |
| Mglkw 2 | 2x2cm SlK | Spider Sight | 32 | Lesser Success than 1, overall structural failure. | N/A |
| Ft-1 | 1x40mm Baal, up to 4x 13.2mm | Synthetic Aperture w/ windage adjustment | 32 (32) | Success, wing destroyed | N/A |
| W-5J | 2x2cm SlK | Spider Sights | 20 (Manual only), 270° arc only | Traverse too slow, no kill | N/A |
| HsKw | 1x40mm Baal, 2x13.2mm | Pivot Ring | 37 (20) | Kill, 40mm hit to center spar | Overheating, rate reducers failed. Total blowout afterwards. |
HsKw is a no go, as is the W-5J. Additionally, I want to throw out the MwF2 through 4 because unguided AA rockets are stupid. MwF1 looks really great (newer imagined saying that about a Thryssen), Skoda is also good, as is the Ft-1 and the GBA entries (where I prefer the first variant with the 40mm).
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Correction to Contest 8: Testing Round One
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Once again, copy+paste and general formatting errors has kept part of this update from happening according to plan. As usual, corrections not included in the text will be within the spoiler, while below is some nice padding of lorem ipsum to get a notification to ping.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum eu diam nec neque ullamcorper sollicitudin vel at ligula. Morbi mattis risus in ex molestie vulputate. Ut faucibus vehicula enim, sed suscipit erat rutrum vel. Nunc laoreet eleifend nisi nec sagittis. Proin aliquet ligula lacus. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Phasellus a vehicula libero. Aliquam risus odio, tristique ac vestibulum nec, elementum sed mi.
Maecenas in sem consequat, pharetra sapien at, bibendum dolor. Maecenas gravida, orci non mattis mattis, felis nibh pretium enim, sed molestie quam neque sed augue. Nullam porttitor posuere libero at consectetur. Maecenas lectus dolor, malesuada in neque vel, porttitor iaculis quam. Curabitur non odio diam. Quisque ac laoreet lacus. Mauris ut semper dolor. Nullam non nulla tincidunt, posuere quam eu, rhoncus massa. Nulla et finibus nisi. Suspendisse nec sem tellus. Ut ante purus, sollicitudin sit amet porttitor vel, pulvinar sed neque. Aliquam auctor ex vel est tincidunt feugiat.
Fusce quis arcu id nunc rhoncus tristique. Nulla vel nibh imperdiet, rhoncus nulla in, mattis elit. Mauris finibus gravida lacus, ut tincidunt sem molestie ac. Nullam eu ultricies lacus. Suspendisse gravida non mauris ut mollis. Morbi vel ultrices erat. Vestibulum ullamcorper sem sed nibh tincidunt, eget efficitur dolor iaculis. Vestibulum a sem id ipsum dignissim vehicula. Duis ac ultricies massa. Curabitur sapien odio, tempus quis tellus et, vehicula molestie enim. Sed sed mauris dolor. Nullam libero augue, bibendum eget tempus quis, suscipit non leo. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Integer feugiat pretium turpis interdum accumsan. Sed ut gravida leo. Aenean arcu diam, finibus ut ligula vitae, fermentum mollis odio. Sed ultrices eleifend felis facilisis dictum. Ut vulputate nulla vitae aliquam lobortis. Nam augue velit, bibendum eu feugiat non, hendrerit et sem. Nulla mollis feugiat ex, vel vehicula arcu sollicitudin eu. Praesent gravida pulvinar mauris sit amet pretium. Curabitur pulvinar sem sed purus porta aliquam. Morbi bibendum scelerisque mattis. Nulla facilisis neque in lacinia laoreet. In lorem est, pretium ut sem vel, finibus blandit mauris. Vivamus bibendum arcu eget volutpat vulputate. Aenean vulputate libero id neque tristique, eu dapibus velit euismod.
Proin sed ante et erat facilisis facilisis. Suspendisse viverra cursus sem vitae convallis. Proin dignissim a quam id tincidunt. Sed placerat erat nec hendrerit vestibulum. Nunc quis bibendum velit. Etiam non cursus ligula. Aenean dapibus non lacus eget finibus. Vivamus et nunc lacinia, efficitur velit a, dictum risus. Integer egestas semper ex in scelerisque. Integer ut ipsum vestibulum, porttitor metus non, malesuada lectus. Nam fermentum, tortor sed suscipit commodo, neque enim venenatis lacus, nec ullamcorper purus ipsum eget enim.
Suspendisse metus justo, eleifend eget urna sed, dictum consequat tellus. Sed convallis non ligula sed dictum. Vivamus ultricies nunc a diam accumsan laoreet. Morbi vel ullamcorper justo. Aenean quis mauris sit amet velit auctor cursus id et arcu. Morbi eget sodales libero. Curabitur interdum egestas ante vitae mattis. Maecenas dapibus in tellus vel dignissim. Curabitur a risus in mi aliquam feugiat eget quis libero. Pellentesque sed justo nec turpis tempus laoreet sed sit amet justo. Proin vel leo quam. Proin augue neque, bibendum interdum pellentesque sed, ullamcorper ac urna.
Praesent eget condimentum nisi. Mauris lectus erat, imperdiet non velit sed, porttitor lacinia lacus. Sed ut convallis enim. Donec sed risus sed dui dapibus ullamcorper. Aliquam in rhoncus risus. Fusce malesuada nisi quam, id consectetur neque porta nec. Morbi sit amet tincidunt massa, et tempus sem. Morbi ut velit vulputate, egestas metus eget, ullamcorper nunc. Integer sodales rutrum nisl nec egestas. Vivamus aliquet neque sed lacus rhoncus tempor. Mauris nunc magna, vehicula et gravida finibus, tristique ut turpis. Proin non laoreet velit. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Duis dictum finibus convallis. Nam tempor tortor condimentum, cursus turpis at, porta tortor.
Fusce id fringilla dui. Proin posuere erat ut tellus malesuada semper. Sed eu lectus id metus placerat cursus a scelerisque felis. Ut hendrerit neque felis. Donec ut viverra nisl, ac porttitor est. Ut non turpis lectus. Donec nec quam ut urna facilisis aliquam sed eget purus. Donec nec congue sem. Integer porta ullamcorper convallis. Etiam tincidunt rhoncus risus, sit amet fringilla tellus vestibulum ac. Nullam et elit in lorem porttitor commodo. In imperdiet libero a condimentum imperdiet. Donec aliquam tortor nec placerat faucibus.
Quisque id vulputate sapien, quis volutpat tellus. Nullam convallis purus a nulla iaculis, eget accumsan augue maximus. Nunc vestibulum dui a lorem eleifend, vitae finibus elit laoreet. Cras pretium ex in enim vehicula, nec varius est eleifend. Nullam egestas.
...
Following the lackluster display Großes Kettenkrad, the GBA flak trucks went up. The first one, with the 4cm Baal, was a predictable success story, which managed to take the attacking glider down halfway through it's run. The resulting post-crash autopsy revealed cause of death was the nose, and therefore control lines and tow bar, getting mostly blown off. The second one, with the quad 2cm autocannons, did slightly worse while still downing the glider. Analysis proved that the cause of death was structural failure on the firing range exit turn, which made sense since it had basically spiraled out of control into it's crash.
The Reinhardt entrant proved a much better show, with the gun captain smartly laying his turret onto the target, and then ordering the fire opened up. The shooting was straight and true, and the glider had it's right wing shot entirely off in short order, causing it to roll and dive into the sandy ditch next to the road.
...
Following the lackluster display Großes Kettenkrad, the GBA flak trucks went up. The first one, with the 4cm Baal, was a predictable success story, which managed to take the attacking glider down halfway through it's run. The resulting post-crash autopsy revealed cause of death was the nose, and therefore control lines and tow bar, getting mostly blown off. The second one, with the quad 2cm autocannons, did slightly worse while still downing the glider. Analysis proved that the cause of death was structural failure on the firing range exit turn, which made sense since it had basically spiraled out of control into it's crash.
The Reinhardt entrant proved a much better show, with the gun captain smartly laying his turret onto the target, and then ordering the fire opened up. The shooting was straight and true, and the glider had it's right wing shot entirely off in short order, causing it to roll and dive into the sandy ditch next to the road.
...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum eu diam nec neque ullamcorper sollicitudin vel at ligula. Morbi mattis risus in ex molestie vulputate. Ut faucibus vehicula enim, sed suscipit erat rutrum vel. Nunc laoreet eleifend nisi nec sagittis. Proin aliquet ligula lacus. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Phasellus a vehicula libero. Aliquam risus odio, tristique ac vestibulum nec, elementum sed mi.
Maecenas in sem consequat, pharetra sapien at, bibendum dolor. Maecenas gravida, orci non mattis mattis, felis nibh pretium enim, sed molestie quam neque sed augue. Nullam porttitor posuere libero at consectetur. Maecenas lectus dolor, malesuada in neque vel, porttitor iaculis quam. Curabitur non odio diam. Quisque ac laoreet lacus. Mauris ut semper dolor. Nullam non nulla tincidunt, posuere quam eu, rhoncus massa. Nulla et finibus nisi. Suspendisse nec sem tellus. Ut ante purus, sollicitudin sit amet porttitor vel, pulvinar sed neque. Aliquam auctor ex vel est tincidunt feugiat.
Fusce quis arcu id nunc rhoncus tristique. Nulla vel nibh imperdiet, rhoncus nulla in, mattis elit. Mauris finibus gravida lacus, ut tincidunt sem molestie ac. Nullam eu ultricies lacus. Suspendisse gravida non mauris ut mollis. Morbi vel ultrices erat. Vestibulum ullamcorper sem sed nibh tincidunt, eget efficitur dolor iaculis. Vestibulum a sem id ipsum dignissim vehicula. Duis ac ultricies massa. Curabitur sapien odio, tempus quis tellus et, vehicula molestie enim. Sed sed mauris dolor. Nullam libero augue, bibendum eget tempus quis, suscipit non leo. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Integer feugiat pretium turpis interdum accumsan. Sed ut gravida leo. Aenean arcu diam, finibus ut ligula vitae, fermentum mollis odio. Sed ultrices eleifend felis facilisis dictum. Ut vulputate nulla vitae aliquam lobortis. Nam augue velit, bibendum eu feugiat non, hendrerit et sem. Nulla mollis feugiat ex, vel vehicula arcu sollicitudin eu. Praesent gravida pulvinar mauris sit amet pretium. Curabitur pulvinar sem sed purus porta aliquam. Morbi bibendum scelerisque mattis. Nulla facilisis neque in lacinia laoreet. In lorem est, pretium ut sem vel, finibus blandit mauris. Vivamus bibendum arcu eget volutpat vulputate. Aenean vulputate libero id neque tristique, eu dapibus velit euismod.
Proin sed ante et erat facilisis facilisis. Suspendisse viverra cursus sem vitae convallis. Proin dignissim a quam id tincidunt. Sed placerat erat nec hendrerit vestibulum. Nunc quis bibendum velit. Etiam non cursus ligula. Aenean dapibus non lacus eget finibus. Vivamus et nunc lacinia, efficitur velit a, dictum risus. Integer egestas semper ex in scelerisque. Integer ut ipsum vestibulum, porttitor metus non, malesuada lectus. Nam fermentum, tortor sed suscipit commodo, neque enim venenatis lacus, nec ullamcorper purus ipsum eget enim.
Suspendisse metus justo, eleifend eget urna sed, dictum consequat tellus. Sed convallis non ligula sed dictum. Vivamus ultricies nunc a diam accumsan laoreet. Morbi vel ullamcorper justo. Aenean quis mauris sit amet velit auctor cursus id et arcu. Morbi eget sodales libero. Curabitur interdum egestas ante vitae mattis. Maecenas dapibus in tellus vel dignissim. Curabitur a risus in mi aliquam feugiat eget quis libero. Pellentesque sed justo nec turpis tempus laoreet sed sit amet justo. Proin vel leo quam. Proin augue neque, bibendum interdum pellentesque sed, ullamcorper ac urna.
Praesent eget condimentum nisi. Mauris lectus erat, imperdiet non velit sed, porttitor lacinia lacus. Sed ut convallis enim. Donec sed risus sed dui dapibus ullamcorper. Aliquam in rhoncus risus. Fusce malesuada nisi quam, id consectetur neque porta nec. Morbi sit amet tincidunt massa, et tempus sem. Morbi ut velit vulputate, egestas metus eget, ullamcorper nunc. Integer sodales rutrum nisl nec egestas. Vivamus aliquet neque sed lacus rhoncus tempor. Mauris nunc magna, vehicula et gravida finibus, tristique ut turpis. Proin non laoreet velit. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Duis dictum finibus convallis. Nam tempor tortor condimentum, cursus turpis at, porta tortor.
Fusce id fringilla dui. Proin posuere erat ut tellus malesuada semper. Sed eu lectus id metus placerat cursus a scelerisque felis. Ut hendrerit neque felis. Donec ut viverra nisl, ac porttitor est. Ut non turpis lectus. Donec nec quam ut urna facilisis aliquam sed eget purus. Donec nec congue sem. Integer porta ullamcorper convallis. Etiam tincidunt rhoncus risus, sit amet fringilla tellus vestibulum ac. Nullam et elit in lorem porttitor commodo. In imperdiet libero a condimentum imperdiet. Donec aliquam tortor nec placerat faucibus.
Quisque id vulputate sapien, quis volutpat tellus. Nullam convallis purus a nulla iaculis, eget accumsan augue maximus. Nunc vestibulum dui a lorem eleifend, vitae finibus elit laoreet. Cras pretium ex in enim vehicula, nec varius est eleifend. Nullam egestas.
Winged_One²
SACQ Tablemaster
- Location
- Germany
He forgot about it, we were talking on Discord so there should be an edit done now (at least I got the data). (Edit: ninja)
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, that fucker's out. A neat idea, but too dangerous to operate. The other bad design is the W-5 modification, which I'd say is out summarily on grounds of not being able to complete it's task. If we had to select now, I'd say a high-low of a Skoda heavy and the GBA, not sure between the 4 and 2cm cluster versions.
Feedback for Fenrus should advise setting the guns to focus aim at range t.b.d. so there's enough concentrated fire to wreck structures. Given they must be pretty close set to all be mounted on one pintle I'd guess the best convergence point is towards the outer edge of the engagement envelope which should keep them tight all burst. Seems like something that can be adjusted in use as doctrine develops.
Winged_One²
SACQ Tablemaster
- Location
- Germany
I think the issue is not that, but excessive mount vibration.
Glitchrr36
Slick's Short Company, CEO
- Location
- The Wastes
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[ ]Plan I think this is how I do this
-[ ]Request that Thryssen correct the ranging table for their rocket armaments on MwF2 for any production versions. If a new, accurate, table can be gotten to us for further testing, e cellent.
-[ ]Request that GBA modify the Mglkw 1 to mount the newer 40mm version of the Baal gun currently in use by the Mglkw 1.
-[ ]Drop the W-5J and HsKw immediately, as well as the MwF3, MwF4, and Großes Kettenkrad. Consider dropping the SkW-3fz if costs are still tight.
I don't have any ideas for recommendations at the moment so if anyone has any ideas feel free to mention me so I can add them in.
I think the HsKw, W-5j, and MwF4 have pretty obvious reasons they should be dropped, while the MwF3 is still dumb but possibly usable. The SkW-3fz is the second slowest over all, and as planes improve it'll probably be rendered obsolete at some point in the next 5-10 years, which isn't great because it's the largest and probably most logistically intensive one that wasn't complete shit.
-[ ]Request that Thryssen correct the ranging table for their rocket armaments on MwF2 for any production versions. If a new, accurate, table can be gotten to us for further testing, e cellent.
-[ ]Request that GBA modify the Mglkw 1 to mount the newer 40mm version of the Baal gun currently in use by the Mglkw 1.
-[ ]Drop the W-5J and HsKw immediately, as well as the MwF3, MwF4, and Großes Kettenkrad. Consider dropping the SkW-3fz if costs are still tight.
I don't have any ideas for recommendations at the moment so if anyone has any ideas feel free to mention me so I can add them in.
I think the HsKw, W-5j, and MwF4 have pretty obvious reasons they should be dropped, while the MwF3 is still dumb but possibly usable. The SkW-3fz is the second slowest over all, and as planes improve it'll probably be rendered obsolete at some point in the next 5-10 years, which isn't great because it's the largest and probably most logistically intensive one that wasn't complete shit.
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Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
The MwF 1 and 2 seem worth more testing (and the 4 should get its due for being used well, even if it's not well suited to the task) , as does the Mglkw1 if they can fix/replace it.
The rest all seem either outright unfit (HsKw, W-5J, G-Kettenkrad), or are worse than the MwF1, MwF2 and Mglkw1 (the rest, with a couple borderline between this and unfit).
So, yeah, I figure the MwF3 and 4 need to go, along with the HsKw, W-5J and Kettenkrad. The rest are worth keeping around in case further testing turns up some horrible problem with the MwF 1&2 And the Mglkw1 wich counteracts their otherwise better performance.
Those three manage fast traverse, reasonable to high damage, and the one mobility failure was inflicted by one of the other vehicles, rather than an actual fault.
The rest all seem either outright unfit (HsKw, W-5J, G-Kettenkrad), or are worse than the MwF1, MwF2 and Mglkw1 (the rest, with a couple borderline between this and unfit).
So, yeah, I figure the MwF3 and 4 need to go, along with the HsKw, W-5J and Kettenkrad. The rest are worth keeping around in case further testing turns up some horrible problem with the MwF 1&2 And the Mglkw1 wich counteracts their otherwise better performance.
Those three manage fast traverse, reasonable to high damage, and the one mobility failure was inflicted by one of the other vehicles, rather than an actual fault.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
I mean it can also get that tank up to seventy five kilometers an hour for roughly a minute too, but nobody tests that sort of thing anymore apparently. It's a design with a lot of tradeoffs, but to some people those tradeoffs were worth it.
The problem wasn't strictly with the fuses, but with the time/range table provided with the rockets. The rocket motor gets the warhead going yeh fast, which makes it go eh far, for blah time, which at blah blah time becomes yeah fast and meh far, and then some bastard manning the Analytical Engine spits out a table based on this. What happened was that Thryssen forgot these weren't cannon shells, and therefore would actually get faster over time, rather than slower. Rocket going faster means it covers more distance in the fuse timer, ergo the rocket go BOOM in the wrong spot. The MwF2 guys caught this, the F3 boyos did not. Aren't you glad you rolled high on Helper Competence?
Well, nobody got hurt. That's a pretty big improvement over a lot of the OTL expiriments with getting a gas turbine in a Panther, which had a tendancy to overheat traumatically like the Gronzy engine did... except the Gronzy one had a good blowout system, and therefore didn't blast into the fighting compartment.
Eh, sane is one of those odd things. If it had a "sane" engine in it, then it wouldn't be a HsKw, and a lot of the design choices that went into it wouldn't work. You're not in Anno Domine MCMLXXII here, so Abrams Memes about having different engine packages are right out the window. To put a relatively similar engine horsepower-wise, you're talking about something along the lines of the 9-cylinder 16L rotary that's pushing the MwF series around with an additional turbosupercharger and dry sump attached, at nearly thrice the weight of the turbine system which completely changes the balance and suspension of the vehicle. If you tried to keep the weight similar, you'd get a rather mediocre straight eight to fit in the compartment with about 10L displacement that would drop you from nearly 23 hp/ton to something closer to 7.5 hp/ton- that's the difference between a Hellcat and a Matilda II and at that point Skoda starts calling you slow.
Sanity is relative. For what it was designed around, the HsKw is a very good vehicle. That was high HP/ton, high speed, and good load capacity. The fact that you guys aren't looking for that is a different matter entirely.
The Fenrus' guns don't actually have a convergence point, since they're all mounted right on top of each other. They all fire straight on the pointer, and this creates what the Old Man Fenrus considered an appropriate beaten zone of sky (about a 2.5m2 square at 100m) and while he might be old as shit now (he's pushing 80) the fighter jockeys didn't want to fuck with it when he proposed his own in-house testing plan.
Y'all really wouldn't like Old Man Fenrus' in house testing plan.
Yeah, the mount likes to dance. That's not really a flaw, per say, since it was designed to beat a square of sky based on the assumption three or four slugs would force a plane to GTFO, so Mission Accomplished.
Honestly GBA'd just ship you another truck and tell you to move the gun yourself, since it's literally a factory truck with a gun bolted into the bed. This means, however, that it'll have some very usual Truck Problems, which should not be blithly ignored since the Irromic Army at this point is yelling on the table going "TREADS TREADS TREADS TREADS"
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I feel like you misattribute the problems of the SkW-3fz, as while its damage flow was underwhelming, this was due to overpenetrations not any lack of firepower. Rather than lose effectiveness with age, the increasing metal construction of planes, as well as growing engines will, I anticipate, result in increased performance as technology advances rather than decreased performance.
Glitchrr36
Slick's Short Company, CEO
- Location
- The Wastes
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I was looking at the slower traverse, actually. Planes are going to just get faster and more agile, which means that it's going to have the same issues with not being able to get a bead on the plane as the W-5j does.
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Good point, but considering its large guns, it should be able to engage far enough out for that to not matter.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
The folks at Skoda will happily ship you one with the old 6,5cm Power Assist Loader guns in it. Don't mind the salt smell, though, that destroyer it was going on is still waiting on machinery anyway.
Glitchrr36
Slick's Short Company, CEO
- Location
- The Wastes
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fair enough. That's why I said to cut it if it turns out we still need more cash to finish testing.
[ ] Plan Refined
-[ ] Request that GBA modify the Mglkw 1 to mount the newer 40mm version of the Baal gun currently in use by the Mglkw 1.
-[ ] Request that Fenrus modify the Großes Kettenkrad to improve concentration of damage on target if possible. Alternatively, reduce mount vibrations if possible, to improve accuracy. If this is non-viable, that is unfortunate but not a major problem.
-[ ] Request that Thryssen correct the ranging table for their rocket armaments on MwF2 for any production versions. If a new, accurate, table can be gotten to us for further testing, excellent.
-[ ] Drop W-5J due to uselessly bad turret, HsKw due to dangerously unreliable power train, SkW-3fz due to cost per unit, MwF3 and MwF4 due to fuse issues, lighter gun armaments than optimal, and slow turret traverse.
So, this is the preliminary version of the plan before we roll into the next phase of the tests. Right away, I don't really like the Skoda entry as much anymore, because on top of being big and expensive compared to everyone else's entries, its turret traverses very slowly under power, only about 5 degrees per second better than the W-5J does under it's purely manual traverse.
The Mglkw 1 could be good, but I would like it modified to use a 4cm Baal gun instead of the 46mm Baal gun.
The Großes Kettenkrad modifications are honestly a long shot, and I won't be at all surprised if they can't be done, nor will I be too annoyed at that.
The range table issue with the Thryssen rockets, combined with their slow turret traverse rates, makes the MwF3 and F4 non-starters in my opinion. I would like to test the ability of the MwF2 to kill things with it's gun, but considering the faster traverse rate and very high rate of fire of it's turret, I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's quite good at it. The MwF1 is also very excellent.
The Ft-1 seems to be fine, so we'll see how it handles the rest of testing.
The W-5J is so bad that it needs no introduction, nor for me to explain why I want it dismissed from testing.
The HsKw, while it's engine technology could be very interesting, is nowhere near ready for prime time. It overheats too often, the rate reducer failures are potentially catastrophic if they occur in combat, and the engine eventually just straight up exploded. That's not even remotely resembling the kind of performance we want from any vehicle.
-[ ] Request that GBA modify the Mglkw 1 to mount the newer 40mm version of the Baal gun currently in use by the Mglkw 1.
-[ ] Request that Fenrus modify the Großes Kettenkrad to improve concentration of damage on target if possible. Alternatively, reduce mount vibrations if possible, to improve accuracy. If this is non-viable, that is unfortunate but not a major problem.
-[ ] Request that Thryssen correct the ranging table for their rocket armaments on MwF2 for any production versions. If a new, accurate, table can be gotten to us for further testing, excellent.
-[ ] Drop W-5J due to uselessly bad turret, HsKw due to dangerously unreliable power train, SkW-3fz due to cost per unit, MwF3 and MwF4 due to fuse issues, lighter gun armaments than optimal, and slow turret traverse.
So, this is the preliminary version of the plan before we roll into the next phase of the tests. Right away, I don't really like the Skoda entry as much anymore, because on top of being big and expensive compared to everyone else's entries, its turret traverses very slowly under power, only about 5 degrees per second better than the W-5J does under it's purely manual traverse.
The Mglkw 1 could be good, but I would like it modified to use a 4cm Baal gun instead of the 46mm Baal gun.
The Großes Kettenkrad modifications are honestly a long shot, and I won't be at all surprised if they can't be done, nor will I be too annoyed at that.
The range table issue with the Thryssen rockets, combined with their slow turret traverse rates, makes the MwF3 and F4 non-starters in my opinion. I would like to test the ability of the MwF2 to kill things with it's gun, but considering the faster traverse rate and very high rate of fire of it's turret, I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's quite good at it. The MwF1 is also very excellent.
The Ft-1 seems to be fine, so we'll see how it handles the rest of testing.
The W-5J is so bad that it needs no introduction, nor for me to explain why I want it dismissed from testing.
The HsKw, while it's engine technology could be very interesting, is nowhere near ready for prime time. It overheats too often, the rate reducer failures are potentially catastrophic if they occur in combat, and the engine eventually just straight up exploded. That's not even remotely resembling the kind of performance we want from any vehicle.