Air Ship Fighters ?

[NARSES2]

Yes I have been down the pub but just supposing that heavier then air flight was impossible how would "airships" have developed to fill the void ?

In the March MAM there is a profile of the Morane Saunier L which shot down the first Zepplin and won it's pilot a VC. Now the blurb talks about the Zep manouvering to attack the Morane ! So if for whatever reason you want there had not been aircraft would we have got fighter or ground attack airships ? It's got my little mind going that's for sure 

[NARSES2]

I now have vissions of an "Age of Sail" type battle fleet, with Ships of the Line, Frigates, Cutters etc.

A kind of 1920's Trafalgar. You could probably adapt some wargames rules for the Trafalgar period to suit, updated with WWI weapons stats ?

[pyro-manic]

Games Workshop's Battle Fleet Gothic ruleset could be workable, thinking about it. And it's free(!): clicky.

[puddingwrestler]

I think airships would always lack the manoueverability to work like fighter planes, especially the fixed gun single seat type. More likely to evolve into something like a wet navy ship with a multi-person crew and trainable weapons mountings. There are a lot of pics of how people expcted them to evolve during the later part of the 19th century in SciFi art, some very elegant, and some looking like nothing but flying submarines! Michale Moorcock wrote an excellent alternate history in which your scenario came to pass, full of swashbuckling airshipmen, russian revolutionaries and massive aerial naval engagements (Russian revolution never happened until the 70s, and the British empire still covered most of the world as I recall). I think it's called the 'Sky Lords' trilogy or some such, but I appear to have leant my copy to my brother and thus am unablke to check the title.
His airships where made from light weight plastics allowing considerably greater size, super structure and weapons fits.

[GTX]

Interesting idea - maybe a mix of smaller and larger airships to creat air fleets.  A smaller 2 seat airship fitted with a turret gun and powerful, directional thrusters could for the basis for a fighter (or should that be a corvette?) airship. 

Damn you this inspires many ideas, the worst of which is a full on diorama, all scratch built!

Regards,

Greg

[philp]

Always liked these kind of air ships:



Was a wargame or something called Space 1899 I think.  A guy built several models of steam type ships with sails that operated in space.  But for some reason I can't find anything on the web.  Know there was a few of them in an old FSM.

[Joe C-P]

Yes, Space 1899. A cross of "Earth Men in the Moon" - Cavorite - and Burroughs' Barsoom. Victorian England tries to conquer Mars.

[Madoc]

Phil,

You couldn't find reference because you're off by a decade!

It's not "Space 1899" you're looking for but rather...

Space 1889 - Adventures in a more civilized time!

See what a difference just ten years makes?   

The guy who did the models you speak of is Dan Thompson.  I met him when I worked down in Huntsville, Alabama last year.  He's a model maker of many a year and with some very eclectic interests.  We first crossed paths due to his interest in the old "Blackhawk!" comics and my interest in the Grumman XF5F Skyrocket.  I think that plane is uber cool and Dan has a section about it on his Blackhawk! page as the Skyrocket was their mount of choice for many a year.

It turned out Dan was also much into Space 1889 and just about anything else science fiction related.

Drop on by that site and give 'em a shout!

Madoc

[philp]

(smacks forehead)
Madoc, thanks bud, that is exactly what I was looking for.  Actually started out looking for 1888 so was even closer.

Love his stuff and the Blackhawk and Batman stuff he has done.

Course, while googling, I came across the site with the Landships.  Another thing I got to try and make.
I ain't never gonna catch up on my RW modeling.

[NARSES2]

Now I think Skytrex or someone similar does Zepplin's in either 1/700 or 1/1200 scale to go with their WWI ships. I'm getting some ideas for conversions now, fitting turrets to Zep's etc

[Radish]

I once built a Revell "Emden" as an intergalactic raider attacking spaceships on the Mars "run".

I like the idea of flying battleships, and have often thought of converting a Bismark to a Nazi "Germania" based on a flying saucer design, as in Luftwaffe 46. The same with a USS Missouri, and trhe Warspite is perfect for a space battlewagon.

Nice thinking.

Air Pirates too.

[philp]

This guy used 3 20oz soda bottles to scratch one.  The 1 liter bottles should work for you chaps in Europe.  A couple of 2 liter ones would make a bigger one.

http://www.zeitcom.com/majgen/581airship.html

[pyro-manic]

This is an excellent steampunk/victorian sci-fi site: http://pauljamesog.blogspot.com/

Lots of cool stuff there.

[jcf]

I now have vissions of an "Age of Sail" type battle fleet, with Ships of the Line, Frigates, Cutters etc.

A kind of 1920's Trafalgar. You could probably adapt some wargames rules for the Trafalgar period to suit, updated with WWI weapons stats ?

Don't forget to add in the third dimension, altitude.

Airship to airship combat would most closely resemble combat between submerged submarines, but with
the advantage of being able to see your opponent.

Also remember folks, sails don't work for propulsion on balloons and airships.
You can't sail an airship like you sail a boat. 

Jon

[Dork the kit slayer]

Narse you are  right out of your tree...and as such should feature on all of Royal Mails postage stamps alongside Brunell and the like.
Im sure this is one pig that will fly.  Now where are all my  Squeezy liquid bottles.