WesWorld

I assume the judge handed Manzo his trophy and then immediately dove for a foxhole? ^_^

The love story could involve "Oni" Goto Sachio, Oonishi "Crash" Manzo and any Japanese geisha girl.

We have learned a great deal.
1) speeds are much faster
2) engines must be more reliable
3) Well designed monoplanes can match biplanes in dogfights
4) Monoplanes are faster and better climb abilities
5) Combat training for pilots is essential

Next year my be very interesting.
FMA welcomes any potential buyers for the I-100 Barron, its the best fighter yet built in WW.

Quoted

I never thought speed would be an issue for CR.32 and Ba.27, then again I wasn't expecting to be against Venoms and A5Ms(almost). Guess I should have entered something faster...

Well with all the additional countries throwing time and money at them, it's logical that aircraft designers would be 1-3 years ahead of @, say 2-4 years for those on the bleeding edge.

Quoted

[Hang on, Goring's still in prison! He's going to be released later this year for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch, but that hasn't happened yet!]

Better check the prison again! :-)

Great story.

One nitpic Poland dosnt have a two headed eagle it has a crownless white eagle.

Quoted

Originally posted by Swamphen

Quoted

I never thought speed would be an issue for CR.32 and Ba.27, then again I wasn't expecting to be against Venoms and A5Ms(almost). Guess I should have entered something faster...

Well with all the additional countries throwing time and money at them, it's logical that aircraft designers would be 1-3 years ahead of @, say 2-4 years for those on the bleeding edge.

Atlantis has been caught slightly flat footed too...

I'd think that the great number of nations building aircraft would translate into a greater number of mediocre aircraft, not more world-class models sooner. You can only push technological progress so fast.

The FMA I-100 sounds impressive, but six .50 cal machine guns in a 1931 fighter seems premature.

True, I'd expect to see an armament more around 2-4 rifle-caliber MGs or 1-2 rifle-caliber MGs and 1-2 HMGs or 1 (possibly) cannon.

I go with the 5 year rule, basically we could be 5 years in advance of historical tech.

How do you define what is cutting edge?
I admit the Vickers Venom did not fly until the late 1930s, being part of the specifications that led to the Hurricane and Spitfire. It never flew until they did and was vastly outclassed. The design is very antiquated when compared to these designs.

The engine I've chosen was available in early 1930s and was fitted to the Bristol Bulldog IVA for Finland. The performance of the engine was some 15-20hp greater than the Bristol Aquilla fitted to the real Venom. I have reduced the wing thickness and the fuselage would also be narrower, this would cut drag.

The armament is heavy, if there is strong oppostion I would reduce it to four 13mm MG.

The whole purpose of fighters is to destroy other aircraft. Why would more nations building planes equal inferior aircraft? If there are more enemies then the need for a superior fighter is greater. The evolution of fighters always gets better, air forces simply did not purchase fighters that did not match or surpass current fighters. What would have happened of the RAF had brought Venoms in 1938 instead of Hurricanes or Spits and faced the Bf 109 in 1940? Most fighters in the 1930s were only in service for 2-4 years, as soon as one model went into production its successor was already on the drawing board.

All this boils down to one decsion, either we stick to real world type aircraft at real world times, ie only 1931 types in 1931 and no future aircraft, or we accept a five year rule and the progress that brings. If we choose the first then why have we got such powerful AA defences on our ships for shooting down basic biplanes that travel about 100-150mph?

The only area I see us being ahead of the times is in the engine department. Monoplanes are just starting to come into service now (historically).

Armament wise 6x13mm may be a wee bit overkill as the Bleriot-Spad and Atlantean F-8 cyclone both mount 4x7.5/7.62mm guns, and I thought these were overkill!

I'm open to debate on the armament issue.

As CanisD said in another thread, we are 3 or 4 years ahead of the Real World time line in terms of aircraft technology.

What I've started doing for Nordmark is taking historical designs and slightly adapting them for my own use, thus my new Fighter design, which will enter service with the Airforce in 1933 is a slightly slower, and less powerful Hawker Hurricane (first flight 1935).

I think the six MG may be overkill but that's the point of a fighter to ensure the destrcution of your enemy, no use fitting peashooters is there? I feel it is too early to fit 20mm cannon yet given recoil problems.
The engine is totally historical and was used 1931/32. I agree though that engine technology is something that would hold back aircraft design.

Earl I have an aircraft that fits the bill. The Hawker Fury Monoplane developed from 1933 was essentially a Fury with a new monoplane wing and powered by a RR Goshawk. In 1934 the RR PV.12 (aka Merlin) was added and the design became, eventually wth a new wing, the Hurricane. Armed with four MG it could by 1935 reach an estimated 330mph. I have no other data but it looked similar to the Hurricane but crossed with a Fury style front fuselage and covered cockpit. How many guns are you using?

For the Sopwith Odin and it's predecessor the Saab Viking i'm using 6-0.3inch machine guns compared to the maximum 12 browning 0.303's fitted to some Hurricanes, or the 8 of the Venom.

N.b remember that the Nordish firm Husquarna bought out Sopwith's in 1921 thus allowing them to continue in production and modify they're existing types for service in Nordmark.

Chile seems to have two basic and typically seperate requirements:

1. High Altitude capable fighters, bombers, and recon planes. (transports as well) These planes would be useful against Bolivia.

2. Carrier capable fighters and scout-bombers. These would be for the lower regions and carrier operations.

(Techical third requirement...floatplanes for cruisers and floatplane carriers)

Nordmarks current specification for fighters is that they should be able to be ship based or land based

Quoted

Why would more nations building planes equal inferior aircraft?

By mediocre, I mean "average", not necessarily inferior.

I agree that the AA armament of warships is sometimes greater than historical - but I attribute that to a greater awareness of what aircraft can do, rather than the aircraft themselves being better.

My impression is that the aircraft industry of twenties and thirties is not a lot different from our recent computing industry. The industry's growing at a tremendous rate because there are constant breakthroughs being made. But it's important to note that the consumers can't or won't adapt to the new technology as fast as the producers conceive of it. A two to four year life span for a fighter is barely enough time for a bureaucracy to purchase it, train its people on it, operate it, and perhaps even figure out whether it bought the right aircraft for the job.

I don't think we can expect that this model life span can be further shortened without a government saying, "Heck, let's just wait another year and buy something then" or "Why are we bothering to buy something that the Japanese will outclass next month?". I'd also question whether we can expect many pilots to graduate from a slow biplane with two pea-shooters to a six-gunned monoplane in the span of four or five years. It's like starting somebody off with a slide rule and expecting them to master an ipod in that time period.

Quoted

If there are more enemies then the need for a superior fighter is greater.

More potential enemies or not, Wesworld has seen just one non-historical instance (the Filipino Revolution) with any notable amount of air-to-air combat. Lessons learned from that conflict are likely still being digested by the participants, and are probably not available in great detail to the rest of the world.

For these reasons, I chose to stick with ~historical aircraft capabilities.

First off, I did enjoy the article, well done.

It did push me towards thinking a bit more on new Netherlands fighters. I’m wondering just how far ahead to push as well in specifying what the Netherlands fields. Planes aren’t really my thing, and planebuilder doesn’t agree with me, so it’s a bit disconcerting to look up a historical design and find it way outclassed.

According to my Jane’s aviation, in “Real Life” the winner of the 1932 Zurich International Fighter speed competition went 340km/hr. That would have captured a distant 4th in the 10 mile straight here.
For that matter, the monoplanes beating biplanes in turning seems suspect, I thought monoplanes managed as energy fighters vs. biplanes.

The FMA is a low wing monoplane with extraordinary armament for it’s time, a slightly larger engine but at 318mph/ 511kph is way faster than most in that time.

The Military Aircraft Database has the He112 of 1935 with a 680hp engine and only 488km/hr while it competed with the BF109 which sported 730hp, 470km/hr, 4x7.9mm. Even these would loose to this “1931” fighter.

So the FMA seems way ahead of it’s time, overarmed and to and too fast for it’s engine and size. The argument of more countries… wasn’t racing driving engine development quickly in OTL as it was?

Now if we want to push aircraft forward by 5 years, and we all agree, fine – but we should have some idea of what’s “ok”. Perhaps I should go and tap the 1936-38 Fokker planes already J