- Location
- USA
Wait is 300 an old movie now?
That Time I Became A Dictator Of A Small Asian Communist Nation
- Thread starter HeroCooky
- Start date
- Original
HeroCooky
Unverified Monstergirl
That movie is old enough to drive, drink, and enlist in most countries...
Thors_Alumni
Proud member of Thors Class VII from Liberl
- Location
- Liberl Zemuria.
I was actually talking about an even older movie, Like 1960's or 1970's old if not earlier. There was a similar scene in it with almost those exact words in that scene. My point is that it was old.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It seems weird to me that the soviets didn't try and make stuff like national parks or eviromental protection laws since invasive species are reallt embarassing and quite damaging to public health or the economy.Plus national parks can be great PR stunts and are relatively cheap forms of entertainment that are great to show off to foreigners.
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
They were too busy draining the aral sea's tributaries to stimulate steppe agriculture in an effort to modernize from their incredibly dire precommunist starting line to worry much about the environment.
Sub-Vote - Make The Skies Your Own
HeroCooky
Unverified Monstergirl
-[X] Military
--[X] Design A Native (Fighter) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
--[X] Design A Native (Transport) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
-[X] Wei Jungming - (RP)
--[X] Personal Action: Wei is making you attend some seminars at Mingxiang after getting fed up with your lack of engineering sense.
--[X] Design A Native (Fighter) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
--[X] Design A Native (Transport) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
-[X] Wei Jungming - (RP)
--[X] Personal Action: Wei is making you attend some seminars at Mingxiang after getting fed up with your lack of engineering sense.
--[X] Design A Native (Fighter) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
(6 + 2 = 8 - Optimal)
--[X] Design A Native (Transport) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
(4 + 2 = 6 - Optimal)
-[X] Wei Jungming - (RP)
--[X] Personal Action: Mai is making you attend some seminars at Mingxiang after getting fed up with your lack of engineering sense.
(65)
Well, after the massive conference filled with techno-babble, where your engineers, metallurgists, chemists, and the whole gaggle of science-types who are focused on researching new metallurgical alloys, their uses, and applications in civilian and military matters, talked your ear off about the rather exciting discovery of the "Star Blood Alloy" (no, they won't change the name, you asked again to be sure) and what it could mean for your military, you had returned home with a headache, a rather vague understanding of what that discovery meant, and the knowledge that the people in charge knew what they were doing.
Mai, the love of your life, Tigress of Guangchou, mother of your (many) children, and blossom of eternal beauty, thought that letting the people who knew what they were doing do their jobs wasn't enough. You tried to protest. Tried being the keyword here, as she blocked any attempt to argue that you were merely following the basic principle of communism (From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs) by focusing on your ability and letting them do the same, with a withering rebuke and the usage of cruel logic. "As the Leader, you should have at least some grasp of what the people are talking about instead of none!" She had said while fixing you with her Serious Glare #2c.
So, you asked someone who knew what they were doing (and who had been vetted to make sure they were neither bullshitting you nor were not saying what you needed to hear) and let them boil it down for you into sentences you could understand, before going into more technicalities.
In other words, you had them explain this Star Blood Alloy to you like you were five, then six, seven. etc., until you both had more pressing things to do.
You went out of that explanation with a better grasp of what this new alloy means, especially for your military. In essence, the SBA (even thinking it in the privacy of your mind is annoying now) has properties that place it as equal to current modern (and you mean the modern modern here, top-shelf stuff) armor alloys used in vehicles like tanks, APCs, boats, and planes. Or Iron Tigers. Also, besides being an instant catch-up in the armor department for Guangchou, the SBA has another upside: it weighs less. By around 11%, meaning that when other people need a ton of modern alloys for protection, you can achieve the same amount of protection with 890 kilos.
Apparently, when that factoid came out, your teams who had been working away at creating the first ever native Fighter and Transport Plane were thrown into a bit of a disarray, what with the whole weight savings now giving them a lot more space (or armor) to play with than before.
Anyways, you are deeply interested in how that will pan out in the coming weeks and months...
[] [Fighter Plane] (Write-In Design)
[] [Transport Plane] (Write-In Design)
Name (Guangchou uses a mix of the German and Chinese naming conventions, with the use of your design being plainly stated, followed by a Type #. Said Type # represents the number of iterations the system has undergone until final prototyping and release. For Example: ALDR-Type 69, or, spelled out: Auxiliary Logistic Defense Rifle - Type 68.)
Nickname (What people actually call the darn thing.)
Type (What you are trying to make. Gun, Vehicle, Boat, Plane, etc., further identified by the type of said category, like an assault boat, transport helicopter, heavy smg, etc.)
Branch/es (Somebody needs to use the darn things, so who does?)
Intended Role (Why does it exist? What role and purpose does your design fulfill?)
Notable Quirks (What stands out, put in short words and sentences. Large magazine, caseless bullets, lightweight, unwieldy, prone to jamming due to cheap materials, a flaw in production leading to unforseem consequences for guns. Notable armaments for vehicles and boats, perhaps a weird shape or cramped interior beyond what is normally the case, a capability to turn on the spot or a weird innovation not widely used?)
Fluff (Here you can go into detail about your design, and throw in numbers if you wish. Though do note that this section won't be copied into the Design Section of the plan and is purely here for others to point out mistakes/impossibilities, as I will be operating the designs on the categories above.)
Nickname (What people actually call the darn thing.)
Type (What you are trying to make. Gun, Vehicle, Boat, Plane, etc., further identified by the type of said category, like an assault boat, transport helicopter, heavy smg, etc.)
Branch/es (Somebody needs to use the darn things, so who does?)
Intended Role (Why does it exist? What role and purpose does your design fulfill?)
Notable Quirks (What stands out, put in short words and sentences. Large magazine, caseless bullets, lightweight, unwieldy, prone to jamming due to cheap materials, a flaw in production leading to unforseem consequences for guns. Notable armaments for vehicles and boats, perhaps a weird shape or cramped interior beyond what is normally the case, a capability to turn on the spot or a weird innovation not widely used?)
Fluff (Here you can go into detail about your design, and throw in numbers if you wish. Though do note that this section won't be copied into the Design Section of the plan and is purely here for others to point out mistakes/impossibilities, as I will be operating the designs on the categories above.)
Good News: You have this now! Bad News: Work is kicking my ass, and it'll not stop until the 26th, or around there, so updates will resume thereafter; apologies.
KhazintheDark
May or may not be insane...
- Location
- Not where you are. Probably.
[] [Fighter Plane] MJF-1 Type 93 (Minxjiang Fighter 1 Type 93)
Nickname Mynas-F, Mynas-I, Mynas-A & Mynas-T (NATO Reporting Name Midas)
Type Multirole Twin Jet
Branch/es Air Force, earmarked for future naval capability
Intended Role Nuclear Bomber Interception, High Altitude Interception, Air Superiority & Ground Attack
Notable Quirks Twin Engine, 28mm Autocannon, Drop Tank Capability, Mach 2.1 with reheat, Supercruise capable at M1.5, BVR missile capability, single seat fighter/interceptor air superiority variant, double seat attacker/trainer variant, large maximum take-off weight (bomb truck), experimental version that cuts down on weapons payload to increase the pilot's ability to function at extremely high altitude, air/ground-scanning radar
Fluff The Mynas (Asian Starling) is intended to defend the homeland from an american nuclear bomber threat, combat high altitude flyovers by unknown presumed American aircraft, combat enemy fighters and perform ground attack missions against targets on land or at sea.
[] [Transport Plane] MJT-1 Type 228 (Minxjiang Transport 1 Type 28)
Nickname Mazu-C/E/M/R/T (NATO: Crickey (1st encountered by RAAF pilot [Australian])) C = (air Control/AWACS), E = EWAR, M = Maritime Patrol/ASW, R = Transport, T = Trainer
Type 2-engine Turboprop
Branch/es Air Force (Transport, EWAR, AWACS), Naval Air Arm (AWACS, EWAR, Maritime Patrol, Transport), Army (Transport)
Intended Role All purpose medium lift transport with Transport, AWACS, EWAR & Maritime Patrol variants
Notable Quirks Twin Engine, BVR missile capability, air/ground-scanning radar, Torpedoes (ASW/Patrol), semi-modular internal bay; the fuselage is reinforced to enable sustained, intensive low altitude flight and allow for the almost complete replacement of the interior with equipment refits in the factory
Fluff The Mazu is Guangchou's one-stop solution to the significant quantity of roles across all branches of the military that require a large medium-lift capability. There is some discussion of the Transport variant serving as the base for future development for a civilian regional aircraft program.
Opinions?
Nickname Mynas-F, Mynas-I, Mynas-A & Mynas-T (NATO Reporting Name Midas)
Type Multirole Twin Jet
Branch/es Air Force, earmarked for future naval capability
Intended Role Nuclear Bomber Interception, High Altitude Interception, Air Superiority & Ground Attack
Notable Quirks Twin Engine, 28mm Autocannon, Drop Tank Capability, Mach 2.1 with reheat, Supercruise capable at M1.5, BVR missile capability, single seat fighter/interceptor air superiority variant, double seat attacker/trainer variant, large maximum take-off weight (bomb truck), experimental version that cuts down on weapons payload to increase the pilot's ability to function at extremely high altitude, air/ground-scanning radar
Fluff The Mynas (Asian Starling) is intended to defend the homeland from an american nuclear bomber threat, combat high altitude flyovers by unknown presumed American aircraft, combat enemy fighters and perform ground attack missions against targets on land or at sea.
[] [Transport Plane] MJT-1 Type 228 (Minxjiang Transport 1 Type 28)
Nickname Mazu-C/E/M/R/T (NATO: Crickey (1st encountered by RAAF pilot [Australian])) C = (air Control/AWACS), E = EWAR, M = Maritime Patrol/ASW, R = Transport, T = Trainer
Type 2-engine Turboprop
Branch/es Air Force (Transport, EWAR, AWACS), Naval Air Arm (AWACS, EWAR, Maritime Patrol, Transport), Army (Transport)
Intended Role All purpose medium lift transport with Transport, AWACS, EWAR & Maritime Patrol variants
Notable Quirks Twin Engine, BVR missile capability, air/ground-scanning radar, Torpedoes (ASW/Patrol), semi-modular internal bay; the fuselage is reinforced to enable sustained, intensive low altitude flight and allow for the almost complete replacement of the interior with equipment refits in the factory
Fluff The Mazu is Guangchou's one-stop solution to the significant quantity of roles across all branches of the military that require a large medium-lift capability. There is some discussion of the Transport variant serving as the base for future development for a civilian regional aircraft program.
Opinions?
Last edited:
[][Fighter plane] ASF - Type 32
Nickname: Tiān shā (Sky Shark)
Type: Fighter Plane
Branch: Airforce
Intended Role: Air superiority fighter
Notable Quirks: Immense speed, high maneuverability, lightly armoured, bristling with missiles, cramped, runs hot.
Fluff: With the advent of SBA armour allowing greater freedom in weight allocation than ever before, this design was put forward to take advantage of the high defensive capabilities of the armour, paired with the lower weight.
Fundamentally, the trade off the designer settled on was this, in a world where weapons technology almost always supersedes armour technology, the greatest defense available for a Fighter Plane and the pilot inside of it was to simply not get hit. As such, the SBA armour was assigned, not to match the armour of other nations, but merely to match the armour capabilities already present on previous gen Guangchou fighter planes. The sheer weight loss provided by this approach would allow for two major improvements. Engine size, and weapons loadout.
Some detractors of the design call it a death trap, a coffin, slung between two furnaces and twelve missiles, but even they have to admit that its ability to fly at Mach 3+ is only matched by the Great Powers of the age. Unfortunately, the drawback of this incredible speed is that the interior of the cockpit is quite small, but that is an issue that isn't yet too difficult to deal with, due to malnutrition causing the average citizen to be smaller in stature than potential future generations. Alas, the size of the engines also means that this Jet also runs uncomfortably hot for the pilot, especially at top speeds.
Nickname: Tiān shā (Sky Shark)
Type: Fighter Plane
Branch: Airforce
Intended Role: Air superiority fighter
Notable Quirks: Immense speed, high maneuverability, lightly armoured, bristling with missiles, cramped, runs hot.
Fluff: With the advent of SBA armour allowing greater freedom in weight allocation than ever before, this design was put forward to take advantage of the high defensive capabilities of the armour, paired with the lower weight.
Fundamentally, the trade off the designer settled on was this, in a world where weapons technology almost always supersedes armour technology, the greatest defense available for a Fighter Plane and the pilot inside of it was to simply not get hit. As such, the SBA armour was assigned, not to match the armour of other nations, but merely to match the armour capabilities already present on previous gen Guangchou fighter planes. The sheer weight loss provided by this approach would allow for two major improvements. Engine size, and weapons loadout.
Some detractors of the design call it a death trap, a coffin, slung between two furnaces and twelve missiles, but even they have to admit that its ability to fly at Mach 3+ is only matched by the Great Powers of the age. Unfortunately, the drawback of this incredible speed is that the interior of the cockpit is quite small, but that is an issue that isn't yet too difficult to deal with, due to malnutrition causing the average citizen to be smaller in stature than potential future generations. Alas, the size of the engines also means that this Jet also runs uncomfortably hot for the pilot, especially at top speeds.
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Vista
(Verified anomalous street lamp)
- Location
- appears to be in a containment cell
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I like it a lot
- Location
- Gällivare Sverige
- Pronouns
- He/Him/Sir
(if it's alowed i'll just make a more fighter centric version of the MiS-27)
[X] Name: MiS-27/F
-[X] Nickname: Father/Mrs F
-[X] Type: Jet plane
-[X] Branch/es: Airforce
-[X] Intended Role: Fighter/Interceptor
-[X] Notable Quirks: higher hard point count then parent design, mach 2.5 capability, SBA outer layer, reverse thrust capability, tight turn capable, rugged, reliable, sturdy, highly manuverable.
-[X] Fluff: the MiS-27/F leans more into their Viggen ancestry then their parental design, in addition to that the MiS-27/F has 10 hard points under the wings and 4 on the under belly, the pair of 25mm autocannon's are still retained although they are more effectively built into the wings, and the MiS-27/F dose have a higher fuel capacity then the parental design.
[X] Name: MiS-27/F
-[X] Nickname: Father/Mrs F
-[X] Type: Jet plane
-[X] Branch/es: Airforce
-[X] Intended Role: Fighter/Interceptor
-[X] Notable Quirks: higher hard point count then parent design, mach 2.5 capability, SBA outer layer, reverse thrust capability, tight turn capable, rugged, reliable, sturdy, highly manuverable.
-[X] Fluff: the MiS-27/F leans more into their Viggen ancestry then their parental design, in addition to that the MiS-27/F has 10 hard points under the wings and 4 on the under belly, the pair of 25mm autocannon's are still retained although they are more effectively built into the wings, and the MiS-27/F dose have a higher fuel capacity then the parental design.
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dgr11897
FBI surveillance Tank
- Location
- Behind you
Uh, aren't we currently unable to make Star Blood Alloy at scale? So we can't really use it for planes unless we want the planes to be incredibly expensive?
Hmmm Idk anything about planes. Make sure they are fast and have missiles as well? We got ok rolls so it should be fine unless the winning design is silly.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
-[X] Military-[X] Military
--[X] Design A Native (Fighter) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
--[X] Design A Native (Transport) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
-[X] Wei Jungming - (RP)
--[X] Personal Action: Wei is making you attend some seminars at Mingxiang after getting fed up with your lack of engineering sense.
--[X] Design A Native (Fighter) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
(6 + 2 = 8 - Optimal)
--[X] Design A Native (Transport) Plane (+3 Reputation) (Sub-vote) (Bonus: +2 omake)
(4 + 2 = 6 - Optimal)
-[X] Wei Jungming - (RP)
--[X] Personal Action: Mai is making you attend some seminars at Mingxiang after getting fed up with your lack of engineering sense.
(65)
Well, after the massive conference filled with techno-babble, where your engineers, metallurgists, chemists, and the whole gaggle of science-types who are focused on researching new metallurgical alloys, their uses, and applications in civilian and military matters, talked your ear off about the rather exciting discovery of the "Star Blood Alloy" (no, they won't change the name, you asked again to be sure) and what it could mean for your military, you had returned home with a headache, a rather vague understanding of what that discovery meant, and the knowledge that the people in charge knew what they were doing.
Mai, the love of your life, Tigress of Guangchou, mother of your (many) children, and blossom of eternal beauty, thought that letting the people who knew what they were doing do their jobs wasn't enough. You tried to protest. Tried being the keyword here, as she blocked any attempt to argue that you were merely following the basic principle of communism (From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs) by focusing on your ability and letting them do the same, with a withering rebuke and the usage of cruel logic. "As the Leader, you should have at least some grasp of what the people are talking about instead of none!" She had said while fixing you with her Serious Glare #2c.
So, you asked someone who knew what they were doing (and who had been vetted to make sure they were neither bullshitting you nor were not saying what you needed to hear) and let them boil it down for you into sentences you could understand, before going into more technicalities.
In other words, you had them explain this Star Blood Alloy to you like you were five, then six, seven. etc., until you both had more pressing things to do.
You went out of that explanation with a better grasp of what this new alloy means, especially for your military. In essence, the SBA (even thinking it in the privacy of your mind is annoying now) has properties that place it as equal to current modern (and you mean the modern modern here, top-shelf stuff) armor alloys used in vehicles like tanks, APCs, boats, and planes. Or Iron Tigers. Also, besides being an instant catch-up in the armor department for Guangchou, the SBA has another upside: it weighs less. By around 11%, meaning that when other people need a ton of modern alloys for protection, you can achieve the same amount of protection with 890 kilos.
Apparently, when that factoid came out, your teams who had been working away at creating the first ever native Fighter and Transport Plane were thrown into a bit of a disarray, what with the whole weight savings now giving them a lot more space (or armor) to play with than before.
Anyways, you are deeply interested in how that will pan out in the coming weeks and months...
[] [Fighter Plane] (Write-In Design)
[] [Transport Plane] (Write-In Design)
AN: Hot minute since the last update, ey?Name (Guangchou uses a mix of the German and Chinese naming conventions, with the use of your design being plainly stated, followed by a Type #. Said Type # represents the number of iterations the system has undergone until final prototyping and release. For Example: ALDR-Type 69, or, spelled out: Auxiliary Logistic Defense Rifle - Type 68.)
Nickname (What people actually call the darn thing.)
Type (What you are trying to make. Gun, Vehicle, Boat, Plane, etc., further identified by the type of said category, like an assault boat, transport helicopter, heavy smg, etc.)
Branch/es (Somebody needs to use the darn things, so who does?)
Intended Role (Why does it exist? What role and purpose does your design fulfill?)
Notable Quirks (What stands out, put in short words and sentences. Large magazine, caseless bullets, lightweight, unwieldy, prone to jamming due to cheap materials, a flaw in production leading to unforseem consequences for guns. Notable armaments for vehicles and boats, perhaps a weird shape or cramped interior beyond what is normally the case, a capability to turn on the spot or a weird innovation not widely used?)
Fluff (Here you can go into detail about your design, and throw in numbers if you wish. Though do note that this section won't be copied into the Design Section of the plan and is purely here for others to point out mistakes/impossibilities, as I will be operating the designs on the categories above.)
Hmmm. My initial thought was that SBA is a nice high strength steel - we're well into the age of HEAT rounds so any sort of rolled homogeneous armor isn't that useful - we need to use some sort of composite armor. At the same time, making parts of that armor from lighter alloys has a lot of benefits to mobility.
On the other hand... the fact that it's applicable to planes definitely threw me for a loop, because planes don't have armor in any conventional understanding of the word. They're mostly made of aluminum alloys, and rely on not getting hit, because actually armouring them would absolutely kill their payload capacity.
That means SBA is some sort of aerospace grade alloy. And it sounds like it's not some sort of massive leap, so it's likely a variation on an existing composition rather than something like a magnesium alloy. The go to candidate would be aluminum, it's by far and away the most popular air-frame material. I know we use Titanium for our ITs, but it's much harder to machine than aluminum, while not providing a significant increase in specific strength over aluminum alloys.
Now, IIRC HC has said that we have some aluminum manufacturing capability, just not for making it in absolute bulk. Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like we'll have enough for military use, but won't be able to serve the bulk civilian market? In which case we should be ok proceeding with it for our planes.
A few notes for everyone making designs:
The Guangchou Air Force is called the Airy (keeping the Navy, Army, ___y theme).
The AWACS has to be pretty big. The Soviet and American AWACS are based on long-haul passenger jets - we have better electronics so we can probably cram them into a medium-haul sized jet, but we definitely can't go smaller.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Same. I'm waiting to see what the gearheads come up with and ignoring the cloud of dust until we get reasonably good options out of the end of the process.
[] [Transport Plane] Military Aerial Transport - Strategic: Type 78
Nickname: White Whale
NATO reporting name: Closet - Cargo variant, Matrix - AWACS variant.
Type: Quad-engine turbofan heavy lift transport.
Branches: (As transport variant) Airy, Army. Other variants decided upon design.
Intended Role: Move significant amounts of military cargo where it needs to go. Serve as a base frame for other variants intended for different roles in the future.
Notable Quirks:
Well, here's my toss in the ring for a large cargo aircraft capable of holding the massive early AWACS systems. Somewhat barebones though IMO as there's not much to really describe here other than: "It's a cargo aircraft that can be refit easily."
Nickname: White Whale
NATO reporting name: Closet - Cargo variant, Matrix - AWACS variant.
Type: Quad-engine turbofan heavy lift transport.
Branches: (As transport variant) Airy, Army. Other variants decided upon design.
Intended Role: Move significant amounts of military cargo where it needs to go. Serve as a base frame for other variants intended for different roles in the future.
Notable Quirks:
- +Relative ease of maintenance.
- +Designed with modifications for different variants in mind.
- +In theory can roll ASCMs out the back ramp while in flight.
- -Not the fastest cargo plane out there.
- +/- No turrets.
Well, here's my toss in the ring for a large cargo aircraft capable of holding the massive early AWACS systems. Somewhat barebones though IMO as there's not much to really describe here other than: "It's a cargo aircraft that can be refit easily."
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Air Defense Fighter Type 3 - Accepted Design
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"When you go up in this plane and you've got the stick in one hand and the throttle in the other, the wind beneath your wings, you lose yourself. You don't have to look down at dials and gauges, you don't have to fight the controls. The line between woman and machine blurs and you feel like you become one. No self. Anattā." - Irina Popova (1979)
The Anatta displays the distinctive gray radar absorbent paint associated with stealth aircraft. Note the lighter colored edge treatments applied to gaps in order to absorb incoming radar waves before they can scatter off of the sharp breaks in the aircraft skin. Above we see the distinctive red and black tail fins of its airshow livery.
Name: Air Defense Fighter Type 3
Nickname: "Anata" (NATO reporting name "Fairy")
Type: Light Fighter
Branch(es): Airy
Intended Role: Multirole/Air Superiority Fighter
Notable Quirks:
Edit: I derped, it's not a Pitot intake, but a fixed ramp intake that planes like the Superhornet have. This lets you keep good Mach 2+ performance, but it feels reasonable to put in a bit of a performance hit that represents trying to optimize it to give reasonable performance at the speeds up to that as well as a result of inexperience with the design.
Note: If people are giving their planes NATO reporting names, all fighter names start with F and other planes like cargo and AWACS have names starting with M.
@7th Hex, The electromagnetic bearings have been retconned and replaced with inconell alloys - turns out I was way off the mark about what the major source of turbine maintenance was.
The Anatta displays the distinctive gray radar absorbent paint associated with stealth aircraft. Note the lighter colored edge treatments applied to gaps in order to absorb incoming radar waves before they can scatter off of the sharp breaks in the aircraft skin. Above we see the distinctive red and black tail fins of its airshow livery.
Name: Air Defense Fighter Type 3
Nickname: "Anata" (NATO reporting name "Fairy")
Type: Light Fighter
Branch(es): Airy
Intended Role: Multirole/Air Superiority Fighter
Notable Quirks:
- Almost Stealth
- Great Situational Awareness
- Cheap to Build and Operate
- Slow Supercruise
- Sluggish At Low Speed
- No Gun*
- Room to Grow
- Joy to Fly
- Initially derived from the MiG-23 airframe, the Anatta's fuselage was rapidly redesigned towards the end of its development cycle to take advantage of the aerodynamic breakthroughs in vortex lift developed for the MiG-29 (its aerodynamics being identical across both domestic and export variants, and thus not subject to restrictions when it came to tech sharing).
- This left it with the body of a MiG-29, but the radar and engine derived from the MiG-23.
- Eclectic blend of eastern and western military aviation doctrines: on one hand you have an emphasis on energy theory and stealth that's very far removed from the Soviet focus on performance and maneuverability. On the other hand while the USAF learned that it couldn't rely on missiles on Vietnam, Guangchou only saw a promising technology going through it's teething problems and have adopted the Soviet roketnaset concept to the air-superiority role.
- The Anatta also incorporates partial stealth. With Guangchou's supercomputers being used for economic planning, the opportunity cost of monopolizing them for geometrical stealth optimization was too high, and a relatively simplified geometrical stealth program would have resulted in unacceptable aerodynamic performance for a fighter. As such, the Anatta development team went for the low hanging fruits of the RCS reduction tree.
- The first and most important design change was to obscure the engine fan and compressor from direct observation from the front. This was done by redesigning the intake into a split-s lined with several centimetres of RAM on the interior. This would attenuate incoming radar waves and absorb ones reflected from the engine fan. The intakes were also changed from a rectangular cross section to a parallelogram in order to eliminate corner reflections.
- The second major part of reducing radar cross section comes from the aforementioned RAM. This takes the form of a paint made up of tiny iron balls coated with an electrical insulator embedded inside a polymer substrate. Several different sizes of balls are used and painted in layers in order to present incoming radar waves with a material of increasing density with depth. In order to reduce cost and downtime, an automated robotic painting rig was designed to actually apply the paint to the aircraft in the field.
- An indium-tin-oxide layer over sensor windows and the pilot canopy prevents radar waves from getting into the plane and bouncing around in a manner similar to a corner reflector.
- Fun Fact: Because the US tested their planes in the middle of the desert, they missed the fact that the F-22s stealth paint was sensitive to moisture, leading to the plane's reputation as a hangar queen. Guess what issue an island nation caught early?
- The third major part of RCS reduction was primitive geometric stealthing, but this was done more based on gut feelings and rules of thumb than any sort of quantitative analysis in order to save time and resources. For instance the V-tail shrouds the exhaust and reduces RADAR reflections from the sides compared to a vertical rudder, large unitary skin panels reduce the number of edges that have to be stealthed, fixed ramp intakes mean there's less variable geometry to bounce a radar reflection from, skin roughness is minimized in general for the same reason, etc.
- Taken all together, these measures do about 80% of the work of RCS reduction for only about 20% of the effort compared to something like the F-22. However detection range scales with the fourth power of RCS, so these measures only give something like a 20-30% reduction in detection range compared to a design that does 100% of the work, like the F-22.
- For its time, the Anatta is actually very good through, the built in RCS reduction and enlarged radar compared to the it's MiG-23 and 29 parents means that it can usually get off the first missile launch, and the glass cockpit and bubble canopy gives the pilots much better situational awareness than the MiG-23 if they do get into a dogfight. This is especially true if two Anattas are operating in hunter-killer mode where a plane in the rear will illuminate the target while one in front closes in using only passive radar.
- The Plane's electrohydrostatic actuators are much simpler to maintain compared to to traditional hydraulic system and lighter to boot, and when combined with the maintenance light 'Faster' engine, it means the plane has the lowest ratio of flight/maintenance hours out of any combat aircraft at the time, making it very cheap to operate.
- The airfare is largely made of aluminum alloy isogrids in order to keep costs low - the extra machining cost being absorbed by the CNC mills available to Guangchou.
- A dedicated avionics bay houses a central computer based on the Tigerlink terminal developed for the Iron Tiger. This computer is responsible for managing the aircraft's relaxed stability and engine, as well as ECM and ECCM.
- The more powerful engine combined with the drag reduction incidental to stealth shaping also allows the aircraft to maintain a very modest supercruise of Mach 1.1, allowing it to spend longer at supersonic speed compared to purely afterburner based propulsion. However the plane's overall top speed with afterburner has been reduced from Mach 2.35 at altitude to Mach 1.9 as a result of the eliminating the variable geometry elements of the ramp intakes - a change necessary to meet RCS reduction targets and reduce the overall cost of the aircraft, but which does degrade the performance a bit
- The plane also gives up some low speed and high AOE maneuvering capability compared to its parent and other fighters under development by our Soviet Allies. Its maneuvering characteristics emphasize energy maintenance more than the manoeuvrability emphasized by the USSR. This tradeoff was made in order to accommodate RCS reduction features and drive down cost and complexity.
- The engine nozzle is lined with ceramic tiles to reduce transfer of heat to the airframe and thus reduce infrared signature, as well as hiding as much of the con-div nozzle as possible from RADAR.
- Immediately behind the cockpit is a combined takeoff intake and air-brake. A bi-directional hinge allows the panel to hinge around its rear side when taking off in order to provide extra lift while allowing the ventral air intakes to be blocked off in order to prevent debris injection during rough field STOL takeoffs. During landing the same panel will hinge around the front side simultaneously with pivoting the all-moving v-tails perpendicular to the air-stream in order to serve as air brakes after touchdown.
- The side-mounted internal weapons bays can mount six missiles - typically four MRAAMs and two SRAAMs, each mounted on an independent trapeze launcher meant to eject the missile and close the bay quickly in order to reduce the window when the plane is vulnerable to radar scattering off of the interior of the weapon bay.
- The aircraft is designed to receive numerous upgrades over its lifetime, and an effort has been made to make subsystems as modular as practical. For instance the internal bays have room to fit more missiles if a double rack is developed, and the hexagonal cupolas mounted above and below the nose stand ready to receive an IRST system in future variants.
Edit: I derped, it's not a Pitot intake, but a fixed ramp intake that planes like the Superhornet have. This lets you keep good Mach 2+ performance, but it feels reasonable to put in a bit of a performance hit that represents trying to optimize it to give reasonable performance at the speeds up to that as well as a result of inexperience with the design.
Note: If people are giving their planes NATO reporting names, all fighter names start with F and other planes like cargo and AWACS have names starting with M.
@7th Hex, The electromagnetic bearings have been retconned and replaced with inconell alloys - turns out I was way off the mark about what the major source of turbine maintenance was.
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Alright yeah, I'll update that. But transport aircraft look to have their own specific starting letter of C for NATO reporting names; such as Candid for the Il-76, Coaler for the An-72/74, Condor for the An-124, or Cossack for the An-225 among others. It's the misc. aircraft like AWACS, ASW, tankers, etc that get the M names, and it doesn't matter if they have the same base frame as a transport plane, since the A-50 AEW&C plane was built off the Il-76 transport plane, but has a different reporting name of Mainstay.
General Transport Aircraft Type 1 - Accepted Design
- Pronouns
- She/Her
(Boeing Truss Braced Wing concept. Just imagine a radome on top of it and you've basically arrived at what the Tao looks like.)
Name: General Transport Aircraft Type 1
Nickname: "Tao" (NATO reporting name "Madam"/"Carol")
Type: Transport Aircraft
Branch(es): Airy
Intended Role: AWACS / Air Freight
Notable Quirks:
- Range: Yes
- Very Loud
- A Bit Slow
- Hylux of the Sky
- Surprisingly normal looking.
- A standard tube and wing fuselage with a t-tail empennage.
- T-Tail used to get the elevators into the clean air above the prop wash of the engines. This has the happy side effect of also making it easier to load and unload cargo.
- Elevators are all moving - this lets them be smaller and thus reduces drag, and allows them to generate lift while cruising instead of being a source of induced drag like a normal fixed elevator.
- The wing was inspired by the Hurel-Dubois HD.31 and the Short Skyvan, and emphasizes endurance at the expense of speed. A long and slender high aspect ratio truss braced wing generates the minimal amount of drag but reduces max cruising speed to Mach 0.7 (compared to most other large gets flying at Mach 0.8). The truss is also shaped like an airfoil, and the plane derives a non-trivial amount of lift from it. Their most dramatic feature is the integrated wing-folding actuator, designed to allow the plane to fit inside existing hangars and airfields.
- The engines use the Faster common engine core, but the propeller blades are where the bulk of R&D for this project went:
- Rather than creating a gearbox to allow a turbofan's fan to spin slower than it's turbine (and thus grow larger and more efficient without tearing itself apart from centrifugal loading), or reducing the aircraft's cruising speed further to Mach 0.5 and using a turboprop, Mingxian's aeronautics council has chased the siren screech of the propfan.
- Using titanium alloys and their superior computer aided design systems, they worked backwards from the deformed in-motion shape of the transonic propeller and calculated what the at-rest propfan blades would look like for manufacturing.
- The twin counter-rotating propfans are much louder than an equivalent turboprop or turbofan, and the aircraft was laid out to keep the crew towards the front and rear. The center, where the sound from the engines hits the hull almost perpendicularly, is given over to an airborne supercomputer for the AWACS system. This is combined with issuing the crew radio-enabled noise reduction earmuffs to allow noise levels to be brought down to comfortable levels for long term operation.
- Because the engines are mounted relatively high up and the intakes are far from the ground, it can land from unprepared runways - a key part of Guangchou air defense doctrine - and a very attractive feature for air freight operators that opens up some unconventional opportunities.
- Thanks to the advanced electronics available, the Tao can fit an AWACS system into a smaller aircraft than the American E-3 Sentry or the Soviet Beriev A-50 currently under development. This reduces the development and manufacturing costs by going to a medium haul sized airframe.
- Unlike the Soviet AWACS of the time, Guangchou opted for a fixed radome with a moving antenna, electing to further streamline the radome into a lifting body in order to offset the drag associated with it.
- Uses electro-hydrostatic actuators to reduce weight and maintenance, a fly-by-wire system, and a glass cockpit to reduce pilot informational load, and IT derived alloys for strategic reinforcement of its airframe. Altogether it creates a very robust aircraft that can function despite significant damage or neglect.
- Taken together with the relatively slow speed and low drag wing, the lift-positive empennage, and the incredibly efficient propfans, you have an AWACS that can stay in the air for 12 hours at a time and needs only minimal maintenance between flights.
- If the propfans' noise issue can be resolved, it has the potential to be a superlative passenger jet that can fly everything from medium to long-haul routes. And with further research into transonic truss-braced wings the top speed may yet rise to Mach 0.8, bringing it to parity with turbofan powered jets.
- With a few upgrades, this plane could be the 737-killer that would basically give us a dominating position over the passenger and air freight markets.
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dgr11897
FBI surveillance Tank
- Location
- Behind you
I believe this is an error?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In terms of the whole "can be refit into just about anything" idea it looks like we're on the same page there.
Personally though I'm not to sure about whether this bit is going to be as important as you think though.
I can see why the USSR wanted that capability for their Il-76, since they had to send flights out to military bases across Siberia, where it wouldn't be feasible for them to develop enough paved airstrips to cover everywhere that needed one. Likewise I could see the USA going for that capability since they need to be able to send flights to whichever country they are "liberating" this time, and can't guarantee that the destination would have a paved runway to land on nearby either.
But I don't think Guangchou really has either of those problems? To the point that my original idea, before I scrapped it for being unpractical, was to make a 6 engine transport craft that in exchange for having a limited cargo capacity and needing to operate off paved runways had the ability to travel fastTM because that was the only existing niche we had for a cargo plane I could see. With Guangchou's geography as a long thin island, anywhere in Guangchou we are going to be sending the cargo plane is going to be close enough to either or both the ocean or the Dragon's Spine that shipping or rail transport are options. And we're never going to be able to build a transport plane that can carry more tonnage than a cargo ship or or be more fuel efficient than a train, the one thing that a plane has that the other options don't is speed from point A to B.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Also, the Vietnam-era missiles were basically stuff designed in the early 1960s and there was little or no global experience in how they'd perform in a real air war, so everyone was basically just winging it. The situation by the late 1970s is quite different.
"Morons! You're not supposed to forget until AFTER you fire, dammit!"