Author Topic: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber  (Read 4197 times)

Cryhavok101

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'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« on: 23 October 2016, 14:58:10 »
Albisat Alssahri

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Albisat Alssahri

Mass: 1000 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Rules Level:

Chassis: Large Airship
Power Plant: Class F Fusion
Safe Thrust: 3
Maximum Thrust: 5
Armor: BAR 8
Armament:
    18 RISC Advanced PDS
    120 ton Internal Bomb Bay

================================================================================
Equipment             Type                         Rating                   Mass 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Structural Integrity: Class F Fusion               20                       198
Engine:                                                                     78
    Safe Thrust: 3
    Max Thrust: 5
Armor:                Class F BAR 8                139                      6

Bays:
   Bay 1: 2 Superheavy Vehicle Bays 1 Door                                  400
          2 Arresting Lift Hoists                                           6
   Bay 2: Infantry Compartment (100 tons) 1 Door                            100
          4-100m Ladders                                                    2
   Bay 3: Internal Bomb Bay (120 Tons) 6 Doors                              120

================================================================================
Equipment                                 Location                          Mass 
3 RISC Advanced PDS                       Fore                              9
3 RISC Advanced PDS                       FR/L                              18
3 RISC Advanced PDS                       AR/L                              18
3 RISC Advanced PDS                       Aft                               9
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ammo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RISC Advanced PDS 432 rounds                                                36

The Albisat Alssahri, a.k.a. 'Magic Carpet' is one of the few large airship support vehicles designed to actually engage in combat. Primarily it carries up to two 200 ton vehicles or small craft, and up to 100 tons of battle armor. It can deploy these at nearly any altitude that isn't approaching the vacuum of space. It has 4 retractable ladders which allow infantry to even re-board the ship without it landing.

It carries an array of advanced point defense systems, which not only protect it from incoming missile fire, but also a massive area around it also, forcing enemies to find other ways of engaging the ship, and anything under it's protection.

It's armor is BAR 8, nearly the heaviest armor an airship can carry, and thick enough to prevent even large lasers from penetrating the ship's hull.

Other than the vessel's passengers, it's primary armament is a massive internal bomb bay system, which has doors in multiple places across the ship, allowing it to deploy ordnance against almost any target, from HE Bombs dropped on ground units, to Air-to-Air missiles deployed against enemy aircraft. The ship even has doors on the top for this bay, which if it ascends to a high enough altitude, allow it to engage space-borne vessels with anti-ship missiles.

Weighing in at 1000 tons, this airship is a very cheap alternative for planetary defense. (sorry, did this by hand and was too lazy to calculate BV or C-bill cost, but it is gonna be a lot cheaper than most things that can deploy capital missiles, which is what an anti-ship missile basically is).

With the rise of retrotech in the inner sphere, this airship was developed to aid in planetary defense around the boarders of the Fortress Republic, and has seen action against several capellan raids. Currently only a few RCTs have one of these supporting their infantry regiments. (I'll admit, I am not even sure if the Republic even has any infantry regiments along it's boarder with the capellans, so let me know if I should correct that)

Col Toda

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #1 on: 31 October 2016, 06:24:08 »
Other than Disaster relief  this just does not have the speed needed for general purpose troop transport . Infantry and Battle Armor are area denial units and as such they tend to be most useful if they are inserted ahead of the advancing enemy . Objective raids work because they land close to a couple of objectives so the enemy does not know which one they are going to and rush the objective before forces can be concentrated to oppose them . This tends to mean unless the battle armor is in hover APCs they are unlikely in the right place unless they are already positioned at the raid site . I did a post called " Has anyone tried " to make an ultralight small support vehicle that can move 1 suit of battle armor at high speed from a central location to be at the point of impact . The unit as written is fine but also requires air superiority to stay alive . Still it is by far the best Disaster Relief ship I have ever seen .  As a Salvage Ship it looks great as well . If the planet has large bodies of Water a WIGE transport might be a better choice for a troop transport . True in cannot carry as much at a time but it would move at least 50% or more faster .  This permits strategically more round trips and tactically gets something to where you want in a timely manner . I will not dispute your assertion of how cheap this is over anything else but is it the right tool for the job however cheap .

Cryhavok101

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #2 on: 31 October 2016, 08:26:56 »
Airships use safe/max thrust. not cruising/flank speed and velocity. Thrust is a lot faster. This moves at aerospace speeds, even if they are very slow aerospace speeds, it will still be moving faster than almost anything on the ground.

Kharim

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #3 on: 31 October 2016, 12:14:55 »
Yay! A stratospheric bomber! I would forego those vechicle and/or BA bays and add some more room for bombs, additional doors would also come in handy to up the bombing ratio.
However my only question is, how such heavy thing can possibly fly?

Cryhavok101

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #4 on: 31 October 2016, 12:22:40 »
However my only question is, how such heavy thing can possibly fly?

I temporarily disable the physics folder in my brain's hard drive before working on anything related to battletech. If you don't the battletech systems can potentially become corrupted and this can lead to damage thought the hard drive.

Sabelkatten

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #5 on: 31 October 2016, 16:17:06 »
1,000,000 m3 of Helium... ~50 meters across, ~500 meters long.

How you manage to get it up to any kind of speed is the real question!


Col Toda

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #7 on: 03 November 2016, 06:56:32 »
If it is like an Aerospace unit then it expends fuel for thrust and may be faster but comes with a whole new set of problems not the least of which is no amount of tonnage seems to been set aside for the fuel in the description . How much fuel does this have set aside to move ?  Are you sure this is the right tool / vehicle for what you are looking for ?  If not Check out the Nessie Support WIGE mentioned elsewhere in Fan Designs and Rules and see it that is more in line of what you wanted or more likely could be used as a guideline to make something more in line with what you wanted .  Massive Cargo WIGE is what the Russian's have been using for a while now .

Cryhavok101

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #8 on: 03 November 2016, 07:36:38 »
If it is like an Aerospace unit then it expends fuel for thrust and may be faster but comes with a whole new set of problems not the least of which is no amount of tonnage seems to been set aside for the fuel in the description . How much fuel does this have set aside to move ?  Are you sure this is the right tool / vehicle for what you are looking for ?  If not Check out the Nessie Support WIGE mentioned elsewhere in Fan Designs and Rules and see it that is more in line of what you wanted or more likely could be used as a guideline to make something more in line with what you wanted .  Massive Cargo WIGE is what the Russian's have been using for a while now .

It does not expend fuel for thrust. If you look on page 247 of Tactical Operations, in the rules for constructing advanced support vehicles like this, you see the following line:
Quote
*Solar-, Fission- and Fusion-Powered Airships require no mass for fuel.
This is a fusion powered Large Airship.

If you look in Tech Manual in the section that talks about both Airship and Fixed Wing support vehicle fuel requirements (TM pg 129), you would note that with certain engine types no airship requires fuel and with certain engine types and the propeller driven chassis mod fixed wing aircraft also require no fuel. Because of this I have always assumed airships are all propeller driven. When you aren't burning reaction mass for thrust, but instead have a fusion power plan turning a drive shaft, fuel is unnecessary.

Now if you question why those units with propellers can reach aerospace speeds, but VTOLs can't, I will refer you to my previous comment about *Magic*. (I refuse consider physics while doing battletech things, for my own sanity).

Where airships run into a problem is that they cannot exceed a velocity of 3 without loosing control (and probably dying) This, and other restrictions on it's thrust point expenditure are described on page 204 to 205 of Total Warfare.

Airships are also light on the maximum armor. This thing is at it's maximum with it's 139. They are also denied the 'Armored' chassis mod, so cannot get full BAR 10 Armor, so stronger weapons will punch right through it's armor. I am kind of surprised that isn't what you are citing as far as effectiveness in combat goes. That is one of the reasons this can carry small craft, so they can be launched into hotter zones than this would survive in.

When WiGEs can reach aerospace speeds, or conduct bombing runs, or fly up into the low altitude map and out of most guns' reach, or generally be 1000 tons and capable of launching and recovering it's own aerospace forces, or carry 100 tons of infantry and drop them on the target, then a WiGE would be what I want for this role.

Col Toda

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #9 on: 14 November 2016, 10:58:28 »
If the object is a slow moving base . Than the Lysander may be better ( Ocean Needed )  . If it is a troop transport than it can only be used offensively as to use it defensively you have to place the area denial infantry or battle armor before the enemy passes the area and it is too slow in of itself . If you use small craft or other things to disembark than it is somewhat fragile for it's role why not do it from a base or different platform  . High altitude bombing is OK idea but the target has to be static a mobile force would just move to where they have ADA Arrow IV cover if not equipped with it in the first place.  If they do not have to hold ground then they can just move faster than 3 to avoid you altogether and move to a heavy civilian or industrial area in which misses destroy civilians or industry . Aerospace and Conventional Fighters tend to be fast enough to hit the enemy on YOUR terms as they are advancing or retreating from an objective and not around anything you care about . As an offensive platform transporting it and deploying it would seem to be a very long process . I see Airships as a Viable commercial transport for cargo and passengers in an environment with a lot of water and canyons in which rail is not viable . You Showing what can be done is great . I definitely see having these as commercial units that can be tapped if the military requires them would make sense . All commercial airlines today in this country are  partly subsidized so in an emergency they are tapped to transport troops . I can see this earning it's keep on the civilian end of things and time to time tapped for military .

Cryhavok101

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #10 on: 14 November 2016, 13:32:50 »
If the object is a slow moving base . Than the Lysander may be better ( Ocean Needed )  .

A mobile base is what I had in mind. The Lysander is bound to water, so might not be viable in a given area.

If they do not have to hold ground then they can just move faster than 3 to avoid you altogether and move to a heavy civilian or industrial area in which misses destroy civilians or industry .

Off the top of my head, on the ground map the airship moves 1 hex per .25 velocity, with a maximum velocity of 3 or 4, it moves faster than many ground bound things. If it goes into the low altitude map, it moves even faster. Anything that can get to the low altitude map can relocate faster than anything on the ground.


I see Airships as a Viable commercial transport for cargo and passengers in an environment with a lot of water and canyons in which rail is not viable . You Showing what can be done is great . I definitely see having these as commercial units that can be tapped if the military requires them would make sense . All commercial airlines today in this country are  partly subsidized so in an emergency they are tapped to transport troops . I can see this earning it's keep on the civilian end of things and time to time tapped for military .

I can see this being used in a paramilitary or police role, in a heavily urban area, as a base of operations. I could also see it as a passenger liner, or a air-ferry.

DOC_Agren

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #11 on: 24 November 2016, 21:59:07 »
not sure on the rules, but could this replace the bomb bays with an Arrow IVs?  To give this a standoff bombardment ability?

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

Cryhavok101

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Re: 'Magic Carpet' - Airship Transport/Bomber
« Reply #12 on: 25 November 2016, 00:11:15 »
That is actually what I wanted to do originally, however the problem you run into is that of space. Support vehicles use up space a lot faster than combat vehicles, and each arrow IV would take 15 space.

A 1000 ton support vehicle gets 45 space for things, so at most I could put 3 arrow IVs on this, and this would prevent any further equipment I could put on. The Internal Bomb Bay is simply cargo space, which takes up much less of the unit's available space (don't bring physics into that, your head will hurt).

The internal bomb bay allows for any bombs, including the ones from Total Warfare page 246 or the Bomb Munitions in Tactical Operations, starting on page 357. That list includes Air-toAir, Anti-Ship, and on page 359, Air-Launched Arrow IV Missiles (both homing and non-homing available). The internal Bomb Bay is a very versatile thing in my opinion.

The Internal Bomb Bay allows 6 bombs to be launched per turn, so you have a higher potential attack capability with the internal bomb bay than with actual arrow IV launchers... at the expense of having the weak point of open bomb bay doors while launching.

*Note: The internal bomb bay is actually a Design Quirk, found in Strategic Operations on page 195, and like the Bomb Munitions found in Tactical Operations, they may not be available in your game. This unit was designed with those things in mind though and is intended to be used with them available.