WesWorld

Oh, it'll only be a matter of time before someone in RAMSES puts together the rocket work of RDRC and the aircraft of DAF.........

Thanks RA, the existance of this programme enables me to build an aircraft I wanted to but could see no rationale for it. Now I can...

The DAF wins the first bicycle undercarriage design in WW (heck the RAF has yet to even go tricycle yet!). Cramped fuselage but I can see the obvious advantages.

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Originally posted by Hood
Thanks RA, the existance of this programme enables me to build an aircraft I wanted to but could see no rationale for it. Now I can...

Not sure what exactly you mean, or why this would influence the RAF much.

Could also be an Argentine plane...

Another entry by Caproni but for a smaller and lighter aircraft able to operate from aircraft carriers. There is no internal bomb bay, but plenty of hardpoints provided on the wings for bombs or torpedoes.

Crew: 2
Length: 13.73m Span: 17.08m Wing Area: 42.0m­^2
Empty Weight: 5816kg Maximum Weight: 10000kg
Engine: 2 x 1610hp Fiat Ciclone RC.18/40 2v
Maximum Speed: 549km/h@sl
Rate of climb: 665m/min Service ceiling: 9800m
Range: 2700km
Armament: 2 x 20mm Scotti in lower fuselage, 4 x 7.7mm Gebauer in fuselage sides
Bombload: 2000kg over 900km combat radius

Pucara on steroids, guess Argentina will be interested

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Originally posted by Vukovlad
Pucara on steroids, guess Argentina will be interested

Its a nice little aircraft for fulfilling lots of roles. Not having turboprops adds a fair bit to the weight and size of the nacelles (need to rethink in the landing gear as well). Its not too big either which means its easier to fit onto carriers.

What is the engine based on? Could be an interesting engine to upgrade my GW-107´s with

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What is the engine based on?

Its a liquid cooled V12 based off the Fiat AS.5 and AS.6 technology. 145x135 cylinder dimensions running at 3400rpm with desmodromic valves (a bit harder to make and maintain but higher rpm and more power). Scaling off the Merlin XX gives 1350hp at 6400m, and 1610hp at 1800m and 4000m (decided to restrict power a bit at low altitude for structural + heating reasons). Weight is about 700kg. It should be a nice compact engine as well. Not in service yet though but it should be around by the time these aircraft get built.

I've got GRAVE doubts about this aircraft as a carrier plane in-period. It's heavier than about any wartime carrier aircraft (the F7F-4N, which was heavier loaded, wasn't accepted for carrier use until well after the war), while the wing-loading is relatively high for a carrier plane (the F7F had a higher wing-loading, but also more power). There are no steam catapults available, so getting off the deck without requiring the length of the deck to get up to speed may be difficult. Not to mention that the engines look a bit close to the fuselage for best use of the power available in the specified engines.

The engines, of course, are another issue that can be raised: taking an engine that was one of the best of the period and airily adding 400 rpm while tweaking the cylinder and stroke size is amusing, but definitely a leap of logic and faith.

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I've got GRAVE doubts about this aircraft as a carrier plane in-period.

Italy has rather large aircraft carriers so it shouldn't be a problem. Sea Hornet and Sea Mosquito were fine on the Illustrious class (and the Majestics). 45000lb AJ savage operating from unmodified Midways, 25000lb AF Guardians operating from unmodified Essexes. Hangar height is a bit low for the current carriers but that would be rectified on future builds. With 30knts speed and 10knts wod take off run is about 400ft. There are available cats powerful enough but I need to look into that a bit more.

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taking an engine that was one of the best of the period and airily adding 400 rpm while tweaking the cylinder and stroke size is amusing, but definitely a leap of logic and faith.

Hardly. Piston speed is the limiting factor, not rpm per se (though the valves help with that), and its pretty much the same (other period engines were a fair bit higher). Definitely doable and a fairly logical implementation of experience gained with racing engines like with the Merlin and Griffon.

All of those aircraft are post-war, ie, after 1945. Currently we're in 1937.....


Looks from here like your piston speed is faster than a Merlin, a Griffon, a DB-605, or a V-1710, and just a little slower than a Sabre. The only engines in common use that had a clearly faster piston speed were the DB-603, the Jumo-213 and the Klimov VK-107, all of which took until 1943 or 1944 to get into service.

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Originally posted by Red Admiral
Definitely doable and a fairly logical implementation of experience gained with racing engines like with the Merlin and Griffon.

The litmus test is, was, and remains, regular production engine. Allowances are made for such things as wars, untimely deaths, etc, but not theoretical expansion on racing engines. It's a wonderful engine if you have a dedicated team of engineers standing by.

Simple question- You cite the Racing -> Merlin -> Griffon as an example of such an evolution. Was there a production engine developed from the AS.6? I.e. was this type of evolution of the AS.6 ever Done on a production basis?

Also, poking around to refresh my memory, I noted one site indicated the AS6 ran at 3200rpm with it's caretakers, this runs higher and is to be production?


As for carrier ops for the plane, I think Hrolf has a point. It's very large, very heavy. Very much comparable to the F-7F, which wiki at least says was to large to operate from pre-Miidway carriers.

I could see newer carriers take the plane, but there is no particularly reason the older Italian carriers would be built with the foresite to host such a beast, and would likely need a refit to accommodate the better cats, arresters, deck strengthing, perhaps up the elevator ratings, etc. There will be, at a minimum, a long time until it works it's way into acceptance.

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Was there a production engine developed from the AS.6?

No, because SuperAero decided to throw away all the research on liquid cooled engines and build licence produced radial engines. But it was done with the R->Merlin->Griffon. The AS.6 ran at 3300rpm but had a longer stroke. Merlin is 7.6m/s, this is 7.65m/s which is hardly any difference at all.

Compared to the IV-1430 which in WW miraculously works (and years ahead of historically). Given the decade and millions of $ spent on that engine historically, its pretty clear that it doesn't work. Here, no problems whatsoever.

With aircraft size, the carriers were able to take larger planes with the existing arresting gear and catapults. Sure it wouldn't be able to operate from every carrier, just the rather large ones Italy is building and will build.

Why a cetral mediteranean power needs such a large carrier fleet is beyond me but everybody can build what he wants.

I also leave the field of engine tech to Hrolf and the others but what concerns me here is aerodynamics. This one like other italian planes introduced lately show an aerodynamic layout and perfection which makes me wonder how the Italians could come up with it. Wind tunnels of that era are rare, typically small, low speed if larger and there is no computer aided equipement for detailed analyses of what the wind tunnel actually shows.

But that´s probably just me and I´m sure you can provide data that historically all was there in Italy, just not used....

(Hopefully this statement will not make you angry, Gavin, but it´s no surprise most on this board think Italian ship and plane designs are well beyond era and show technics and resemble doctrines well in advance of anything else in WesWorld - and all this without any war that provides real combet testing and allows to question standard doctrines. To me Italy is at the touch of the 1970s while the rest of us is stuck somewhere between 1935 and 1943.)

The IV-1430 exists, something that can't be claimed about desdronomic-valved children of the AS.6. Money was spent on it, yep, especially the O-1430, and it took a long time to mature (most likely because about the time the USAAC realized that the buried engine idea was unnecessary, the war was on and Continental stopped getting much money, only a few IV-1430 prototypes (23) were built). Here, the IV-1430 works about as well as the absolutely historical O-1430-1: 1148 hp out of 1300 pounds.

I know i saw this beauty somewhere .....



It looks very similar.

The Bronco is actually an older aircraft then Pucara

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Why a cetral mediteranean power needs such a large carrier fleet is beyond me but everybody can build what he wants.

They're not meant for the Mediterrenean. They're meant for the Indian or Atlantic Oceans to 1:protect against Indian expansionism and 2:fulfill treaty obligations. The Italian army is too small to realistically contribute to defend central america from Mexican attack, or DEI from Satsuma. Its rather difficult to deploy an air force to the middle of nowhere, so naval forces are the most important contribution. Aircraft carriers allow strikes to be made further inland in support of land operations by allied forces. Battleships/cruisers etc. to deny the seas to opposing forces.

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But that´s probably just me and I´m sure you can provide data that historically all was there in Italy

Well historically, Italy actually had the most advanced aerodynamic research facilities. They were used as well though mostly to study supersonic and hypersonic flows rather than aircraft models. I'm not really sure what you mean about aerodynamic perfection. When it comes to it they're only drawings anyway. The actual stats are similar to historical aircraft. This one is pretty similar to the Mosquito. It doesn't have a bombay so is a bit smaller and faster and more limited as a bomber. Otherwise they're very similar.

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Hopefully this statement will not make you angry, Gavin, but it´s no surprise most on this board think Italian ship and plane designs are well beyond era and show technics and resemble doctrines well in advance of anything else in WesWorld

Its not anger. Its more annoyance. I actually think things through to get results that are logical and possible. Others conjure the most bizarre things from thin air when they don't work and probably wouldn't work. Its only some areas that are advanced as well, others have been neglected completely. Italy's aviation industry has been built up considerably over the past 15 years with lots of backstory. Its now at above historical levels. Then others make similar technology appear from nothing. Ship designs, not quite sure what's advanced there. Some of the submarines are fairly fast.

On the other hand Italy is pretty much the only major power still using bolt action rifles, no T-34 tanks or anything close to that, no ampibious capability, no Antarctic research stations, no rockets, no heavy bombers....

The IV-1430/O-1430 didn't work reliably though which was always the problem. The V-1710/V-3420 gives a nice development line.

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Originally posted by Red Admiral
Its rather difficult to deploy an air force to the middle of nowhere, so naval forces are the most important contribution. Aircraft carriers allow strikes to be made further inland in support of land operations by allied forces. Battleships/cruisers etc. to deny the seas to opposing forces.

This is a good point and one of my greatest concerns with your development of Italian technology and doctrine. The above reflects an understanding of carrier and aircraft capabilities that is well beyond anything real experience could have taught the Italians. Why should a power with little experience using those new technologies (CVs as strike platform) plan to do so? In a world where projection of power means large Armies or large battle fleets? This is beyond me. The only power in all WesWorld with at least _some_ experience using CVs in that role is the SAE. To a much, much lesser extend the Indians probably too. Still the RSAN has yet to derive the lessons learned from the war. Okay, part of the problem is I´m stuck in Q1/36 but even if a clever italian agent would have stolen SAE post-war battle reports etc. it is completely impossible Italy would draw all the right conclusions and be where they are in Q3/37.

You may have developed a logical chain during the past SIM years, all true, but is also has been challanged all the time for being to advanced, using too much hindsight and going from zero to 100.

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Its not anger. Its more annoyance. I actually think things through to get results that are logical and possible. Others conjure the most bizarre things from thin air when they don't work and probably wouldn't work.

I agree.

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Its now at above historical levels.

Hardly.

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Ship designs, not quite sure what's advanced there. Some of the submarines are fairly fast.

Well, subs are only one point to mention. In general Italian designs show design features for years now, that are well advanced. Remeber the discussion about carrier deck layout and lifts? We also had quite some discussion about Italys AAA technolofy. Then all your designs show an early emphasis on electronic warefare which probably better belongs to the 1950s or 60s. Hull design in general, at least on your drawings because SS can´t reflect that, also show features not seen in OTL in the current perioid, only decades later. How long until we see Italians first stealth design? I mean, the idea behind is logical once one fully understands hoe radar works. No reason Italy can´t introduce that too - just make sure you develope computer aided design early enough (sorry for the pun). I also remember Italy´s fast boat experiemence and am still waiting for water jets to be introduced.

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On the other hand Italy is pretty much the only major power still using bolt action rifles, no T-34 tanks or anything close to that, no ampibious capability, no Antarctic research stations, no rockets, no heavy bombers....

You surely have a point here. But with the exception of heavy bombers all this is also true for the SAE. So does that mean I should introduce some advanced stuff as well? I´m falling behind those powers you refer to in most fields and to Italy in all others! :o/

Anyway, as you said ,it´s a mood point and I´ve long avoided to raise my voice. Will cover me in silence again.