Sharonian Aircraft?

(I don't know if it would be better to start a new thread or re-create this one)


I think the Sharonians are pretty far from making useful, even WWI level, airplanes.

But dirigibles should be well within their tech. A steam-powered dirigible was flown in 1852 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffard_dirigible) but it was slow and very limited by wind.

Sharona has internal combustion engines, but they seem to be a new development and so may be limited in terms of power-per-weight. Apparently the first internal-combustion dirigible was as early as 1872 though... either way the Sharonans should be able to make them.

Possibly not much use unless they can get helium though - I wouldn't want a hydrogen airship anywhere near a red or black dragon!

staruries wrote:hi all just added a thought

the sharonians did well because janaki glimpse gave them the edge in the prepostioning of thier weapons in advance. not saying they wouldnt have downed some dragons as demonstrated by the first portal battle. also of note because sharonians are tech people it curious that they were not at a minimum using light then air units at least as far as artillary observation and plotting a map talen placed in a observation balloon would lead to a deadly amount of fire course i could be wrong but did strike me as funny that they had no air concept at all

Probably the existence of Mapper, Plotter, and Distance Viewer talents meant that they had little use for observation balloons.

I wouldn't be surprised if they invent balloons/airships now, though, since Arcana has introduced the idea of air"craft".

cralkhi wrote:(I don't know if it would be better to start a new thread or re-create this one)


I think the Sharonians are pretty far from making useful, even WWI level, airplanes.

But dirigibles should be well within their tech. A steam-powered dirigible was flown in 1852 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffard_dirigible) but it was slow and very limited by wind.

Sharona has internal combustion engines, but they seem to be a new development and so may be limited in terms of power-per-weight. Apparently the first internal-combustion dirigible was as early as 1872 though... either way the Sharonans should be able to make them.

Possibly not much use unless they can get helium though - I wouldn't want a hydrogen airship anywhere near a red or black dragon!

staruries wrote:hi all just added a thought

the sharonians did well because janaki glimpse gave them the edge in the prepostioning of thier weapons in advance. not saying they wouldnt have downed some dragons as demonstrated by the first portal battle. also of note because sharonians are tech people it curious that they were not at a minimum using light then air units at least as far as artillary observation and plotting a map talen placed in a observation balloon would lead to a deadly amount of fire course i could be wrong but did strike me as funny that they had no air concept at all

Probably the existence of Mapper, Plotter, and Distance Viewer talents meant that they had little use for observation balloons.

I wouldn't be surprised if they invent balloons/airships now, though, since Arcana has introduced the idea of air"craft".

I would be very surprised if any heavier than air craft were built by Sharona. Against a dragon that can fly 200mph and is that agile I think a dirigible would be a sitting duck. Unless you can put guns on all aspects of the craft the dragons can come in from an unprotected direction and a single hit will bring the whole thing down.

Sharona's problem to me is that dragons are about equivalent to first generation jet fighters or maybe the last generation of turbo-prop. The best Sharona is going to manage anytime soon is a WWI biplane, which is going to be hopelessly outclassed in the air. Add in the fact that Sharona is not going to be developing an electronics industry they won't be developing some key support technologies like radar and radio communication which would be needed to meet the dragons in the air.

A couple of points:

A dragon can reach 200 mph only in a dive, in fact it's top speed in a level flight seems to be quite a bit slower than that. Textev indicates that a dragon can make 1,000 miles in a day, and assuming a ten hour flight (may be more or less), that is an average speed of 100 mph. top speed probably doesn't make much more than a third again that say 130 mph. The numbers are guesses and could be changed by further evidence in the text, but don't seem unreasonable to me.

Dragons combat ability doesn't even come close to that of 1st generation jets. They don't even seem to reach WWII monoplane level, although they exceed the performance any biplane I have looked at, or even heard of.

The only areas were a dragon might out perform a WWII aircraft is in rate of climb and maneuverability, we have no real way to measure or compare as of yet.

Second: I think you are overestimating how much damage a dragon attack will do to an airship. Dragon lightning and fireball attacks lack penetration, so as long as the lifting gas isn't exposed to the attack it the airship will take minimal damage. Airships on earth were protected against natural lightning. IT would be more difficult to protect against intelligently directed (targeted) lightning, but shouldn't be to hard.

Protecting the airship from fire would be more difficult and depend on materials available. If you can make the bags out of a nonflammable substance, or layer it in a fire retardant insulation (like asbestos) your airship will be largely immune to fire attacks. a layer of thin sheet metal around the bag might work as well, you just have to be able to stop the strike, and take the weight of the protection.

And you could also protect propeller planes from dragon strikes as well.

As for the armament on an airship a single rapid fire gun on each facing (six in all) with good turrets would take a heavy toll on any dragon attack. You could have several variations on a single frame, the original design could be a transport for troops and supplies having only the six machine guns for self defense. Another to protect against dragon strikes, just add a few lighter guns (something like the ones used to kill dragons at the fort in HHNF, Yerthak pedestal guns I think). And one to attack ground targets, add a single light field piece (forget bombs for now) and ammo magazine for it. Weight is the key to all airship designs, but you would also have to be careful of black blast on weapons.

The problem with Sharona countering dragons is that it will take years, likely decades, before they can build a viable solution. Early airships will lack the endurance to be viable platforms, and biplanes (with wood and canvas) appear to be little more than target practice for dragons.

Also Arcana has let the number of combat dragons dwindle, so they will need more of them. Arcana will spend twenty years growing and training new dragons, while Sharona spends that same time designing and prototyping fighter craft and airships. By the time Arcana has enough dragons to overwhelm Sharonan ground forces, they may well have enough planes and airships to make the effort futile (or even a mass slaughter of Arcanan air forces).

However it is unlikely that Sharona will have it all their way, regardless of what happens next.

Astelon wrote:A couple of points:

A dragon can reach 200 mph only in a dive, in fact it's top speed in a level flight seems to be quite a bit slower than that. Textev indicates that a dragon can make 1,000 miles in a day, and assuming a ten hour flight (may be more or less), that is an average speed of 100 mph. top speed probably doesn't make much more than a third again that say 130 mph. The numbers are guesses and could be changed by further evidence in the text, but don't seem unreasonable to me.

Dragons combat ability doesn't even come close to that of 1st generation jets. They don't even seem to reach WWII monoplane level, although they exceed the performance any biplane I have looked at, or even heard of.

The only areas were a dragon might out perform a WWII aircraft is in rate of climb and maneuverability, we have no real way to measure or compare as of yet.

[snip]
The problem with Sharona countering dragons is that it will take years, likely decades, before they can build a viable solution. Early airships will lack the endurance to be viable platforms, and biplanes (with wood and canvas) appear to be little more than target practice for dragons.

Also Arcana has let the number of combat dragons dwindle, so they will need more of them. Arcana will spend twenty years growing and training new dragons, while Sharona spends that same time designing and prototyping fighter craft and airships. By the time Arcana has enough dragons to overwhelm Sharonan ground forces, they may well have enough planes and airships to make the effort futile (or even a mass slaughter of Arcanan air forces).

However it is unlikely that Sharona will have it all their way, regardless of what happens next.

I'm not sure. Even wood and canvas biplanes could be effective at curtailing some of the operational flexibility of dragons. Admittedly it'd take the equivalent of a 3rd or 4th generation WWI design - something with a top speed of around 120-130 (nearly as fast as you're estimating a dragon can sprint) and capable of mounting a heavier machine gun or light cannon.

But you don't need something that can dog fight, or even survive close in with a red or black dragons - but something that would be hard for them to chase down that mounts enough firepower to do a number on any unescorted transport it caught would alter the equation. That would force Arcana to divert some of their limited combat dragons to patrol for penetrating fighters, or to escort any transports sent near (or beyond) the front - or risk getting those nearly irreplaceable assets shot out of the sky.

And if the dragons get to agressive at chasing the planes away turn the tables by luring them into flak traps


Now I agree it should still take several years for Sharona to develop aircraft of even that capability. But you don't necessarily need to be able to win against combat dragons to be an effective warplane.

I agree.
At least 90% of Arcana's dragons are Transports,
without weapon-breath ability, or with very little.
And, most of the war-dragons were thrown away at Salby.
Now Carthos-force will have none, until more are sent.

HTM

Jonathan_S wrote:.
[snip - htm]
But you don't need something that can dog fight, or even survive close in with a red or black dragons - but something that would be hard for them to chase down that mounts enough firepower to do a number on any unescorted transport it caught would alter the equation. That would force Arcana to divert some of their limited combat dragons to patrol for penetrating fighters, or to escort any transports sent near (or beyond) the front - or risk getting those nearly irreplaceable assets shot out of the sky.

And if the dragons get to agressive at chasing the planes away turn the tables by luring them into flak traps


Now I agree it should still take several years for Sharona to develop aircraft of even that capability. But you don't necessarily need to be able to win against combat dragons to be an effective warplane.

The issue for Arcanian dragons is that their lightning weapon ones possess a line of sight, speed of light, directed energy weapon with a field of engagement limited by Dragon neck/movement and an unknown range of engagement.

As a magical weapon, things like the physics of electrical grounding may not apply.

Had the Arcanians simply placed a cloaking spell over their dragons and spit lightning from a distance at the anti-aircraft defenses of Fort Salby, the outcome of their attack could have been far different.

Sure, the Sharonan far seer broke through the Arcanian heavy cavalry cloaking spell...eventually.

The issue would be dragons move faster and could have gotten several passes with lightning weapons before the Sharonan's got effective gunfire barrages going, and hard maneuvering crossing targets are much more difficult to hit with anti-aircraft fire than closing ones.

Several cloaked shallow dive passes with lightning weapons would have cleared the battlements of Sharonan heavy automatic weapons before flame dragon and Griffin attacks.

Much of the ability of the Shronans to successfully resist was being forewarned and the Arcanians being surprised with the equivalent of .50 caliber machine guns and 40mm pom-poms.

Those will not be a surprise the next time Dragons and Griffins come over the wall.

The one small bit of information that might play merry H**l with Arcanan air attacks is the Imperial control of the prognostication talent. The dynasty can "awaken" the talent. I am not sure what prerequisites apply so the actual number of potential prognosticators available is unknown.

I do believe that there can be a great deal more precog variant talents available to the armed forces. Precog farseers and similar variants might well offset whatever cloaking spells Arcana has available.

PeterZ wrote:The one small bit of information that might play merry H**l with Arcanan air attacks is the Imperial control of the prognostication talent. The dynasty can "awaken" the talent. I am not sure what prerequisites apply so the actual number of potential prognosticators available is unknown.

I do believe that there can be a great deal more precog variant talents available to the armed forces. Precog farseers and similar variants might well offset whatever cloaking spells Arcana has available.

"He who defends everything, defends nothing."

Arcania can store cloaking spells in devices to build up a stock that dragon airpower can use anywhere.

Counter-Talents are far more limited in mobility and range, all be it they can pass on lessons learned far faster.

Arcania now had a much better idea what precognitive and farseeing talents mean through bad experience and a huge incentive to find counters.

All quite true. Surprise is going to cause both sides all kinds of problems in this war because neither has any idea what the others true limits are.

As regards your suggested attack plan. It might work but there are at least two number of assumptions there that might not be true.

1) The cloaking spell works as well at 200 mph as it does at 40 mph.

2) The cloaking spell can be automated. The Seventh Zydors lost the cloaking spell when the Commander of 50 who was running it was killed. There isn't room on a battle dragon for a second person so it may be impossible to put the spell on a dragon.

Nicholas

Mil-tech bard wrote:The issue for Arcanian dragons is that their lightning weapon ones possess a line of sight, speed of light, directed energy weapon with a field of engagement limited by Dragon neck/movement and an unknown range of engagement.

As a magical weapon, things like the physics of electrical grounding may not apply.

Had the Arcanians simply placed a cloaking spell over their dragons and spit lightning from a distance at the anti-aircraft defenses of Fort Salby, the outcome of their attack could have been far different.

Sure, the Sharonan far seer broke through the Arcanian heavy cavalry cloaking spell...eventually.

The issue would be dragons move faster and could have gotten several passes with lightning weapons before the Sharonan's got effective gunfire barrages going, and hard maneuvering crossing targets are much more difficult to hit with anti-aircraft fire than closing ones.

Several cloaked shallow dive passes with lightning weapons would have cleared the battlements of Sharonan heavy automatic weapons before flame dragon and Griffin attacks.

Much of the ability of the Shronans to successfully resist was being forewarned and the Arcanians being surprised with the equivalent of .50 caliber machine guns and 40mm pom-poms.

Those will not be a surprise the next time Dragons and Griffins come over the wall.

The Commander of 50 had sufficient mage talent to operate the spell from an object with a stored spell.

The issue with cloaking Dragons isn't whether the spell would stick to a dragons. It is whether

1. There are dragon riders who have sufficient mage talent of the right sort to operate the spell (All dragon riders have some mage talent in order to operate dragon control spellware), and

2. What sort of spell and dragon rider training limitations there are to employ such a spell.

For example, you may have to fly a close dragon formation to be within the cloak range.

This also means that if a far seer with future prediction talent penetrated the cloak, that anti-aircraft/dragon salvos are going to cause surprise and disproportionate casualties.

This sort of thing will drive mages to develop Farseer talent warning spellware, likely based on the war dragons innate dislike of those humans with talents.

This line of mage research is likely the basis of the Arcanian mage civilization picking up on the underlying universal laws and their flux based on human population content.

That is, of course, up to the authors, but it would work as far as a reader acceptable way to present said information.

brnicholas wrote:All quite true. Surprise is going to cause both sides all kinds of problems in this war because neither has any idea what the others true limits are.

As regards your suggested attack plan. It might work but there are at least two number of assumptions there that might not be true.

1) The cloaking spell works as well at 200 mph as it does at 40 mph.

2) The cloaking spell can be automated. The Seventh Zydors lost the cloaking spell when the Commander of 50 who was running it was killed. There isn't room on a battle dragon for a second person so it may be impossible to put the spell on a dragon.

Nicholas

Mil-tech bard wrote:The issue for Arcanian dragons is that their lightning weapon ones possess a line of sight, speed of light, directed energy weapon with a field of engagement limited by Dragon neck/movement and an unknown range of engagement.

As a magical weapon, things like the physics of electrical grounding may not apply.

Had the Arcanians simply placed a cloaking spell over their dragons and spit lightning from a distance at the anti-aircraft defenses of Fort Salbey, the outcome of their attack could have been far different.

Sure, the Sharonan far seer broke through the Arcanian heavy cavalry cloaking spell...eventually.

The issue would be dragons move faster and could have gotten several passes with lightning weapons before the Sharonan's got effective gunfire barrages going, and hard maneuvering crossing targets are much more difficult to hit with anti-aircraft fire than closing ones.

Several cloaked shallow dive passes with lightning weapons would have cleared the battlements of Sharonan heavy automatic weapons before flame dragon and Griffin attacks.

Much of the ability of the Sharonan's to successfully resist was being forewarned and the Arcanians being surprised with the equivalent of .50 caliber machine guns and 40mm pom-poms.

Those will not be a surprise the next time Dragons and Griffins come over the wall.