I think this entire battle has been a damning indictment of exactly how weak our air game is going to be against any foe besides other other humans and Orcs/Goblins. Norscans? Harpies at least. Elves? So much worse. Chaos? Lol daemons. Trying to use bird bombers and flying scouts on ships as anything more than an incidental bonus to help harass the enemy is a terrible idea that's going to get a ship's primary striking arm annihilated the moment it runs to an enemy we wouldn't already be equipped to face.
There's a much simpler route to improving some of our warships effectiveness given the Imperial's love of ramming, oared vessels, and fire power. Alcohol siphons built into ships to pump out a further refined flammable booze are simultaneously wacky, appropriate, and historical considering the infamous Greek Fire. Even a lot of sea monsters are probably going to be loathe to breach onto a surface of fire and dive back down with a fresh paint job that might even burn underwater. Especially if they rely on regeneration.
I mean, considering we've only had an "air game" outside Oskana since Anna came up with the bomb flocks and found Leonardo's wingsuits, it's a branch of tech we've had for a comparatively short time, with development focused on other major products. Like the Vapor Tanks, and the Titan cannons. This is also their first major action, especially against other dedicated air units, so their performance can now be adjusted accordingly.
And really the wingsuits aren't supposed to be direct fighters, they're ranged air-to-ground skirmishers. Maybe we could make a variation of the suit with lightweight melee weapons, maybe whips or integrated wrist claws to give some defense against other air units, i don't think there are many other flying ranged troops, so most would have to close to melee where the wingsuits would be at their weakest, and it would give them something else to fallback on if grounded.
If we're talking ship designs...with the success of the alcohol vapor tanks powering the Alcohol Vapor Tanks, my thought is can we integrate the vapor engine onto our ships to create simple steam ships for either improved performance, especially when against the wind, or short bursts of speed to maneuver or patrol faster? If I remember right, steam ships saw success in our world for exactly for those reasons, they weren't faster than wind-powered sailing ships, but they had more consistent performances and could put on bursts of speed if needed.
Ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship
