[The E]

Yes, but the V2 was a weapon designed to act as an early suborbital bombardment weapon. I don't think the climate that swashmebuckle has created going off of my concept would be amenable for the development of such a weapon, since dealing with the floating ships requires something more along the lines of that Wasserfall SAM you posted.

Think it would be theoretically easy enough (in this mod universe) to mount a guidance system and armor piercing tip on a V2-style rocket?

Well, the necessary tech did exist back near the end of WW2. But honestly, the way I envisioned the combat here was more like bombers trying to get in position above a battleship, then unloading a mass of bombs, or doing dive-bombing precision attacks (The theory being that the ships are most heavily armored on their keel and sides to guard against ground-based artillery). Missile combat, I think, has not really advanced beyond what we are seeing in Crimson Skies, meaning that you have ship-to-ship torpedoes that are controlled via wire, or home-on-tag missiles.

To sum up, to get an airship to ground, you have to:

• Breach its hull using AA-capable artillery
• Use precision fighter attacks to render the ship combat-ineffective
• Carpet bomb from higher altitude
• Dive-bomb for more precise damage

[lostllama]

IIRC in Air Power there's a device like the Wasserfall called the Sky Harvest, designed to destroy a fleet of airships (the rigid gas-filled type). But against floating battleships, I'd imagine a more precise means of delivering ordnance in order to breach their armour would be more favourable.

Still, a blast-effect weapon might be useful for removing escorting fighters / light dirigibles (if they haven't been pulled from service due to obsolescence) prior to starting a bombing run on the battleships.

Another idea I have is that because these ships are vulnerable to attack from above, in addition to having AAA, they could have rapidly inflatable barrage balloons anchored to them to provide a (perhaps minor) deterrant to aircraft flying above them. Of course, this would really only work if the ship was stationary in the air, because that way the balloons would be positioned directly above the deck, thereby providing the most cover. If the ship were moving, the balloons would probably be dragged behind it somewhat, unless they were somehow kept in an optimal position and height above the deck. Overall, I suppose this would probably be a last-ditch means of defence if the AAA were to be destroyed. Alternatively, barrage balloons could be used as an emergency means of reducing the rate of descent in the event of damage to the Flugstein grid.

[starlord]

just something I saw:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/invasion1/images/hastings-ingame#imagebox

[lostllama]

I've done a bit more research on barrage balloons and about how they could form a better deterrent to aircraft. Balloon aprons could be deployed by having each balloon anchored to a separate ship (or a single large ship, with one balloon anchored to the bow and the other to the stern), thereby providing a kind of mobile shield that could be deployed where needed around a battleship. This could be used to defend against side, rear or frontal attacks. The cables are there to ensnare aircraft, but I’m also thinking of a variety that could have explosives contained in the cables that could be detonated on contact with flying anti-ship torpedoes or aircraft. Some historical barrage balloons carried explosive charges that would be pulled up and come into contact with aircraft, making them a sort of aerial mine.

You could possibly have a similar design for warding off attacks from above (or maybe even from below?), with the cables forming a web that would be hung horizontally between the balloons. I’d imagine that the presence of balloons above a ship would obstruct dive-bombers, and carpet bombing would have to take place at a higher altitude, forcing bombers into the range of concentrated AAA fire (WW2 AAA mounts didn't have the fast-tracking ability of modern AA guns, which made defending against fast low flying aircraft more difficult). As a result of this, bombing accuracy would be decreased. If a captain chose to hover above a city or civilian infrastructure then this would probably deter any bombing run, assuming that the enemy doesn’t want to inflict civilian casualties.

You could also perhaps have anti-ship mines, such as larger versions of the explosive-carrying balloons, or maybe some kind of Flugstein-powered device that has some sort of low-tech homing ability.

To counter the balloons, they could be simply shot down or, as the Luftwaffe attempted in WW2, have aircraft outfitted with special cable cutting devices attached to their wings. I can imagine that the presence of well placed balloons (combined with effective AAA and a fighter screen) would make downing a ship more of a challenge. In gameplay terms it would be fun trying to dodge and/or shoot down these obstacles, so as to pave the way for a bomber strike.

I partly got the idea of including such things from the old Carrier Command game; those of you who may remember it might recall those expendable, programmable decoys that you could deploy around the carrier in a particular formation to distract incoming missiles. Although I've tried to tweak the concept of barrage balloons in order to apply it to this setting, I think that I might not have thought it through well enough. You can probably come up with reasons why barrage balloons wouldn't be needed to be applied to aerial fleets, so feel free to pick apart these ideas.

Some sources of info that I've been looking at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_balloon (a general summary)
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj89/sum89/hillson.html (an interesting essay-like article which covers their history and suitability for modern-day air defence - well, as modern as it was in 1989)
http://www.worldwar-two.net/armamento/90/ (interesting article which covers their effectiveness during WW2)
http://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore/2008/04/the-semi-encaps.html (plans for balloon deployment around London leading up to the war)
http://www.skylighters.org/barrageballoons/ (more history and some pictures).

Edit: Replaced bad link in first para with a working one, added an extra link and altered a few sentences.

[lostllama]

Here are a few designs (pictures only) that might be useful for any modellers interested in this project to base their designs on - a carrier type airship (looks like a rigid type), a giant seaplane, and a combat autogyro.

http://solidstate.110mb.com/index.php?entryid=140
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=208&t=788131 - the third page in this thread has some profile views that might be useful.

[Thaeris]

You know, I really quite love that combat autogyro.

 

[Rodo]

This one: linky and linky2

Some of the concepts by this guy are pretty cool.
sorry not the same guy, just deviations under the same category.

[JGZinv]

Found you guys some more concept art.
http://io9.com/5686141/the-blimp-was-on-fire-at-the-edge-of-the-atmosphere-platform

Maybe you should get a title and your own section started. Being stuck in modding is kinda odd...

[lostllama]

Not sure if this has been done before....but what about using user-made Microsoft Flight Simulator models? Here are some examples. Note that some of these are unfinished and lack textures, also note the disclaimer near the bottom.

It seems that FSDS (Flight Simulator Design Studio) is required for editing and converting, but that's only available via purchase from Abacus. There's a free plug-in for it called CVA to provide support for exporting to extra file formats.

There are lots of freeware Flight Sim models out there to download. Going by the detail that such models can have, I'm not sure that they would be the best to use.

(On another note, I once found a site offering free models of a Colonial Viper and the Millennium Falcon for Flight Sim. )

Perhaps the VRML (.wrl) files that I posted links to earlier would be easier to convert and use for the time being. Ignore what I said earlier about Blender not loading them - you need to select 'X3D & VRML97' in the import file menu. Am wondering if this Me-109 might be worthy of conversion. There are some issues with the canopy, the tailplane struts and a couple of minor holes in the mesh. 2,022 faces.





Also, here's a Bell XP-59 (that looks a bit more like an XP-52 to me) that I posted on the IRC channel recently, from AlexStoll.com.

[Thaeris]

Well, if you can convert them, fine. But keep in mind that you'll need to reduce the detail heavily once you've optimized the mesh. The one thing I can tell you immediately is that good models don't come freely - either by making it yourself or converting it to your own purposes, you're in for a lot of work.

[swashmebuckle]

Now to multiply the potential factions:

The Roaring Thirties

According to most mainstream economists, the arms race that has dominated international politics from the late twenties to the present day has failed to substantially alter the balance of power between the European states.  Internally, however, major shifts have occurred that have made unlikely allies of former enemies and vice-versa.  The most important development, and one which was going on well before the advent of Flugstein reenergized the military buildup, was the emboldenment of an emergent corporate class.  Distinct from the old aristocratic bases of power, this nouveau riche had little interest in international conflicts and would frequently come into conflict with their governments' policies.  In wealthy but vulnerable border cities, representatives of this class were able to amass significant support, to the point where the state was forced to grant them the right to create local air forces to protect their ports with.  These armies, though small and lightly equipped, are more well suited to their duties than the national forces, which basically serve a deterrent role.  As a result of this realignment, many border metropoles are now effectively city states unto themselves, with only limited defense and taxation agreements tying them to their mother counties.

Another bone of contention between business and government is the issue of narcotics smuggling, a phenomenon that has become increasingly prominent as standards of living have risen.  While majorities in most nations support the prohibition of opiates and other drugs for their perceived detrimental effects on society, the presence of significant demand as well as the sheer volume of air traffic to hide in have secured a virtually bottomless supply of "entrepreneurs" willing to take the risks.  As the drug cartels do not interfere with local shipping, business magnates are loath to waste resources pursuing smugglers and typically advocate a laissez-faire approach to these social issues.  Consequently, a situation has developed similar to that of alcohol in America in which a city's dedicated policing squadrons have no interest in enforcing the law of the land (and often actually turn a considerable profit from the smugglers' business), leaving national agencies to deal with the criminal underground (and, some suspect, their corporate backing).

Within this fluid and multilayered political situation, corporate power is held in check by a number of social and regulatory factors.  At home, most governments are extremely popular, whereas business interests are seen as more of a necessary evil.  Whereas the exploits of storied units and aces have furthered the patriotic romanticization of fighting for king and country, revelations of rampant corporate greed such as that which triggered the first Venetian lending crisis have cast the new money in a highly unflattering light.  Those corporate-dominated autonomous border areas which do exist are looked on with suspicion by the heartlands' true believers, with many believing that the people of such regions are little better than foreigners.  At the same time, the nationalization of industry, whether for left or right-leaning motivations, is viewed unfavorably by the governing classes.  To see the ugly results of such attempts, Europe's leaders need only look to the chaos of the South American states, where numerous military interventions by the United States have been necessary in order to stymie progress-killing populist revolts and coups d'état.

The exceptions to this model have been The United Kingdom and Germany.  In the UK, parliament was already in step with business interests long before the surge of the thirties, and the Empire's history of granting broad corporate mandates in colonized territories, coupled with a lack of borders on the home front, has helped ease the new class more seamlessly into the national discourse.  For these reasons, explicit profit motives do not carry the same stigma in Britain as they do in mainland Europe, and England is noted for its well-informed citizenry's high level of participation in their governance, though certain colonized regions of the commonwealth are understandably less enthused.

Eisernes Kreuz

Germany's unique relationship with the newly empowered group comes more from the country's recent history and zeitgeist, with a shared resentment of all non-Germans stemming from the events which ended and followed the World War.  To the people, German border cities were vulnerable not because of failures of the military to quickly respond to pirate threats, but because the Luftwaffe had been crippled by the treacherous Treaty of Zurich.  German industry was not an ignoble but necessary pursuit; it was the only lifeline sustaining the German people.  German banking was almost nonexistent.  With foreign enemies to blame for all of her woes, the internal tensions that mired other nations were swept away in Germany by a sense of shared outrage and purpose--infighting was exactly what their oppressors wanted of them, and only the belief that German ingenuity and spirit would ultimately prevail could see them through their darkest times.  When the military restrictions were finally lifted (by the brilliance of German minds, no less), Germany quickly began to build what has become the world's most modern air force, and amicably negotiated contracts between capital and labor (including some notable cases where employees actually own their companies) helped to keep the mechanisms of government and production efficient and relatively free of discord.

After the Flugstein incident caught the other powers flat-footed, this prodigious growth spurt made their old foe a serious threat once again, and a means of breaking German unity and resolve was sought.  The problem Europe faced was that no amount of punishment or misfortune could halt Germany's momentum; for example, being the target of a disproportionate share of pirate raids only fed into the German people's sense of us-against-them, pushing them to augment their technological and industrial advantages.  Trade tariffs against German goods were even less productive as they both reenforced Germany's self-perception and highlighted their own countries' disunity when, inevitably, some nation would cut a sweetheart deal with the Reichstag and leap ahead of the others.  The United States also hindered efforts at isolating Germany; their status as a non-belligerent in the World War left them in the perfect position to establish lasting and lucrative trade ties.

The means of containing this threat was eventually found in the person of the former Kaiser Wilhelm, now an embittered old man living in exile.  Ever since the end of the War, Wilhelm had been maneuvering for a return to power, but his nation's weakness precluded any such action.  Now that Germany was approaching a dominant position, he found his efforts blocked by the current government, a group that was not eager to be removed from power.  While Wilhelm (and, to a lesser extent, his eldest son, the former crown prince William) were considered great heroes by the German people, there was little concrete support for a possible return with Germany being as prosperous as it was--the old royalists such as Hindenburg had fallen out of favor with the public after the failure of the Weimar Republic, and Wilhelm's official abdication gave the current leaders all the excuse they needed to deny his restoration.

Hoping that the threat of regime change would convince the aristocracy to deal with them on more equal footing, the European powers began secretly backing Wilhelm against the sitting German government.  Receiving generous donations from allies all over the world, the old Kaiser soon found himself in possession of a personal Swiss airbase and the world's largest private air force.  Even more galling for the Reichstag were the frequent sightings of Wilhelm's famous Imperial airship over German territory (he often traveled between estates in Switzerland and the Netherlands, particularly during election times).  Though at first scoffed at, these activities exposed hidden divisions between those who had grown up under the old Imperial Germany and were still eager to avenge their losses and a younger generation who wanted to put those dark times behind them. 

The aristocrats could decry his foreign backers until they were hoarse--for a sizable portion of the populace, Wilhelm embodied the purest essence of Germany, and only his restoration would fully return her lost glory.  In supporting the Imperialists, Europe gained by proxy what it could not achieve directly--leverage over their largest competitor.  Of course, being manhandled in this way eroded the current regime's position even more.  Wilhelm would never accept the short end of a bargain with foreigners; Wilhelm would not suffer these fools in the League of Nations, and so on.  The game that Europe was engaged in was a dangerous balancing act--if the Kaiser became too bold and launched an invasion, support would have to be pulled and the puppet threat of Imperial power would be deflated, leaving them back at square one.  Worse yet, if he actually had some success, it could trigger a full scale popular revolt, restore the Imperial throne, and plunge Europe into a second World War.  Though several skirmishes have broken out between Wilhelm's Luftstreitkräfte and the Luftwaffe, little has come of it so far outside of a series of one-sided contracts for Germany's enemies and a greater incentive for all the players to continue their struggle for technological superiority.

[gevatter Lars]

I just found something funny in the P.M. magazin that could very well be build using "Flugstein"...... the "V7 - Flugscheibe"
Its a modern myth of a wonderweapon of the german army build by Hitler in secret...or so the myth goes.

When I saw the image of it and remebered the "Flugstein" capabilitys I thought...that is definitly something this mod should have ^_^
They also had a pretty nice image of it that attached to this post.



[attachment deleted by admin]

[ssmit132]

Just thought I'd let you know: another good place to get aircraft models is from YSFlight. Although the default distribution only comes with a few WWII-era aircraft, there are plenty of addons available (getting permission may be a problem though). I have a utility that can convert YSFlight meshes to VRML files. The only problem is that YSFlight does not use texture maps - all colours are created by the geometry - so depending on what you convert, you may need to do some work to remove the inefficiencies that this causes.

[lostllama]

Yeah, I was going to mention the YSFlight models but decided not to when I found out about those texture limitations. I think Thaeris extracted some ship models from it a while back for use in another atmospheric flight mod (there's a thread about it somewhere). Those looked somewhat modern though. I'm not sure if WW2 style vessels are featured in it.

It would be great to have models of actual historical WW2 naval vessels converted to Flugstein-powered vessels. Some of the ships from the Leviathans game would probably fit in well (http://monstersinthesky.com/gallery/).

Well, if you can convert them, fine. But keep in mind that you'll need to reduce the detail heavily once you've optimized the mesh. The one thing I can tell you immediately is that good models don't come freely - either by making it yourself or converting it to your own purposes, you're in for a lot of work.

You're correct. I'd probably take this on if I was more experienced.

EDIT: FlightGear model library: http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/aircraft-2.0.0/. As always, permission required before use. Info on importing and exporting these models here.

[Thaeris]

Ultimately we determined we wouldn't use YS Flight models for FS Atmospheric. With my program, when getting a VRML dumped from the application (which required a buggy tool, etc., etc.), the mesh was not fused, and each surface was its own object. Even worse, none of the objects could be merged together. To get a coherent mesh, I needed to cut off a part of the target model, save it as a sub-object, and then take a quad mesh and drag each vertex into position, eventually making a clone of the original shape.

As you can guess, that's a LOT of work, and then you'd need to UV and texture the thing still. Furthermore, permissions would still need to be obtained. With such a community as YS Flight, or what I precieve of their community, the latter might be a formidable task indeed. In that regard, you're better off working with an X-Plane model - which is actually something I'm working on in my background projects right now.

[ethaninja]

So, is this mod going down or not?
I would really like to be a part of it in some way. But I'm not sure how I would go about doing that >.<
I've only just started out in c++ programming so I'd be useless in that aspect, and well, I'd probably come 1, 000, 000, 000th in a 3D Modelling tournament of 50 contestants.

Honestly, the only thing I consider myself to be is a good actor. And even then, I haven't had someone judge my performance.

Well, if I am or not, doesn't bother me. I would really just love to see and play this mod

[Angelus]

So, is this mod going down or not?
I would really like to be a part of it in some way. But I'm not sure how I would go about doing that >.<
I've only just started out in c++ programming so I'd be useless in that aspect, and well, I'd probably come 1, 000, 000, 000th in a 3D Modelling tournament of 50 contestants.

Honestly, the only thing I consider myself to be is a good actor. And even then, I haven't had someone judge my performance.

Well, if I am or not, doesn't bother me. I would really just love to see and play this mod

Then you're better then me... 

[Vardar]

hello mates, i wouldnt mind helping out with modeling, even though im not that great, im prepered to try and help out^^ just need some refrence to go by seeing as i never played crimson skies

[The E]

Well, to be perfectly honest, I am not that interested in using Crimson Skies designs verbatim.

Take a look at the various "inspiration" posts scattered in this thread for visual cues, what I'm looking for can be summed up as "Flying ships from the 1940s".

As for fighters and bombers, if it looks like it would fit in a WW2-era setting, it'll be considered.

[Vardar]

ok so WWII era fighters and bombers and WWII Era looking battleships/carriers just able to fly? ill try to make something  soon to show