Forumini'09 Creativity: Challenge #7 of 10 (Deadline 7 Aug)

Tincancaptain · **Tincancaptain**

edited: sorry

NeuralDream · **NeuralDream**

Please don't comment on the entries of the competition before we start voting. It's unfair.
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DaJudge · **DaJudge**

By the way, my entry is not official, it was meant as a joke. Sorry for any confusion. I hope that no one would think that flying 12 inch guns are viable. Smile

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Sharpe · **Sharpe**

DaJudge · **DaJudge**

acs0424 · **acs0424**

I provided a link to a picture in my entry, not mine but I hope it will suffice, it's all i can get.
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"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Churchill
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drittal · **drittal**

My entry, I do not know if anything like this was ever proposed. If it was, I was not aware of it.

U.S.S. Rebecca Grace
Anti Aircraft support vessel. The USN, at the start of WWII soon realizes the need for Anti Aircraft capabilities. The Atlanta class CL was a suprise success for the USN, and wanting to further bolster the fleets AA defenses, they start looking to new designs.

Henry J. Kaiser, visionary ship builder proposed a class of ships based on the Liberty Ships his shipyards were cranking out at a record pace. His proposal was a standard Libery ship Hull, sharing the machinery of a Casablanca class escort carrier. Armed with 4- dual 5"/38 mounts, 10-quad 40mm bofors mounts, and 22- 20mm olerikon cannons. She had nearly the same AA pontential as a Baltimore Class CA for a fraction of the cost. Not only did pack a heavy punch, but they also carried vast ammunition stores and could resupply other ships with AA ammunition while underway.

Stats.

USS Rebecca Grace
12,000 tons
135m x 17.3m
18 knots
Range 10,000 nm at 15knots

Armament:
8- 5"/38 cal
40- 40mm bofors
22- 20mm olerikon

Armor:
Minimal, although magazines are protected by 3" side plating and 2" top plate.

Machinery: Two Skinner Unaflow reciprocating engines, 2 shafts, 9000 shp

Now, I don't have fancy Image Studio Software. What I do have is styrene, glue, and paint.

WaS Stats.
USS Rebecca Grace Cruiser 8pts
Speed 1
MG 6/5/5/-
AA 8/6/-/-

Armor 2 Vital 7 Hull 3

Heavy Anti Air: This units Anitair attack has a range of 1.
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Sharpe · **Sharpe**

Chastened Sharpe removes post.
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acs0424 · **acs0424**

can somebody tell me if my picture is legal?
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"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Churchill
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jfkziegler · **jfkziegler**

acs0424 · **acs0424**

Okay, great! Thanks for letting me know.
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"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Churchill
+45 on GTL

RAEVSKI · **RAEVSKI**

V3 Intercontinental Kommando

Germany in the late war period needed to take the war to the enemies home soil. In an attempt to get small Kommando groups quickly from destination to destination, they coverted V2's into the now famous V3 Kommando carrier. Instead of a normal payload this Rocket had space for 5 Kommandos and equipment(1 of which was the pilot), oxygen equipment and retractable landing gear.
Operation use was to be get in fast land rocket near target place charges and detonate before the enemy responds and take off for a new target quickly place therefore getting there before the airforce or landforces could find them. Downside was fuel, the potato fuel was only sufficiant for 2 take offs. finding a friendly fuel station is difficult in Britian.

Raevski.
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The Tirpitz · **The Tirpitz**

Russia:n supercarrier

225 ft wide deck

1750 ft long deck

speed: .5 knots

Armor: 10 inch deck armor, 6 inch side armor

Armament: 14 4-in guns
84 3 In AA guns
24 4 in AA guns

Capacity: 20 aircraft

Built to base DaJudge's bomber Very Happy

, this carrier was very slow and costly to make, but it greatly increased the aircraft's range.

Captain Morevo · **Captain Morevo**

If I cobble up a picture, I'll add it to this... in the meantime, read, laugh, and maybe cry.

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In 1939 Hitler asked his engineers one question "Kanst du machen mir das grossen, schnellen, am meisten schwer bewaffnet kriegschiffe je?" his engineers took a day to answer him "Ja, meine furher." It took five years and seventy million marks to do it. The Result was the Sleipnir-Class Super-Battleship, a 176,573 ton behemoth, 322 meters long, and with a beam of 42 meters, she was truly massive, larger than any warship produced in the second world war, she would've bankrupted Germany both financially and materially... if she had been built in Germany.

Instead Hitler, knowing that he could not do this with what he had in Germany, contracted out the components of the ship, built in several smaller yards all around Europe, Asia, South America, and even Africa to be assembled at a secret German Naval Base on the coast of Antarctica. For three years, Antarctic Convoys made their way south to Gefrorenenflottenfestung (Frozen Naval Fortress) to assemble the great beast of a Vessel.

She had 12 20 Inch Guns, mounted in six turrets, three fore, three aft, the vessel was designed so that four turrets could fire amidships and three turrets could fire bow and stern. Her anti-aircraft armament was unprecedented, 156 Quad Mounted 20mm Anti-Aircraft cannons, 72 88mm FlaK Guns, and a collection of machine guns that would make the Heer and SS jealous, this was so designed due to her great size. All of the main battery weapons were constructed in Japanese yards, as only the Japanese had been working with such large caliber Artillery on a naval scale. Secondary weaponry was produced in Germany and consisted of a mixture of 40 eight inch and five inch guns twin mounted in 20 turrets around the center of the vessel. Tertiary Weaponry was procured at South American yards, which had, in-turn procured them from yards in the United States. Anti-aircraft weaponry was brought in, again, from Germany, as 20mm and 88mm weapons were not in short supply, even in 1939.

Armor was more than impressive, it was nigh impenetrable. Uniform 420mm Belt armor, 220mm Deck Armor, Bulkheads at 300mm, Turrets with 700mm, barbettes at 450 and the conning tower a full 50cm of hardened alloy steel. The mystery of where all the steel was from has never been answered, some say it was from iron mines in Africa, smelted and rolled in the United States, and shipped to China as procurements then routed by German interlopers instead to the secret naval base.

Fully laden she sat 15 meters in water, with a freeboard of 7 meters, her deck was very wet at full speed.

Her Engines needed to be not just massive, but powerful to propel her bulk to der Furhers demand of 25 kts. She had 16 boilers, built in germany, driving six turbines, which turned the six four-bladed propellers allowing the ship to reach an incredible 25 knots, exactly as demanded.

She had a full Radar suite, internal capacity for 3000 Sailors and 200 Marines, 8 Seaplanes with 2 catapults, she was launched in 1944, destroyed the naval base behind her in the greatest act of cowardly treachery to prevent her secrets from being discovered, and set sail for the atlantic with her full escort of eight destroyers, four light cruisers, and Flugzeugtrager C and D (Manfred von Richtofen and rechristened Otto von Bismarck).

When she arrived on the scene on the 25th of December 1944 she was a total surprise to the Allies, who had thought they sank the last german capital ship, Tirpitz, in November of that year. She was met with disbelief and panic as the allies once again turned to throwing absolutely everything they had against her and her task force.

She swept aside her opposition. The allied battleships were simply no match for her incredible size, air missions against her we futile in the presence of the fliers of Richtofen and Bismarck, and even the tallboy bombers which had been usedd against Tirpitz proved impotent against a ship that vomited exploding death into all corners of the sky.

It was a plan by a relatively new Captain in the Royal Navy that finally brought her end. Using a combined fleet of 6 Submarines, 4 Battleships, 10 Heavy Cruisers, 22 Destroyers, and all the air the allies could bring, the Surface and Air forces would engage the mighty Task Force as a diversionary action while the submarine group would dive to maximum depth to avoid the destroyers then come to attack depth right near the great beast, unloading full salvoes of torpedoes into her. At 10:35AM, January 6th 1945, KMS Sleipnir, pride and joy of the Kriegsmarine, was struck simultaneously by 20 torpedoes, 12 port, 8 Starboard, she rapidly took on water from the massed and concentrated torpedo attack. Damage control was incapable of repairing such incredible damage, and at 11:12 she slid under the ocean. As if a quiet death did not become her, an internal fire from secondary damage that had taken hold in her watertight bulkheads had reached the still dry magazines, at 11:20 she erupted beneath the waves in a titanic explosion that managed to not only push, but also capsize Richtofen and Bismarck, sinking both vessels. Her bowmost turret was blown off, out of the water, propelled 200 meters, and landed ontop of a German Destroyer. Her Captain, Rear Admiral Hallanit, went down with the ship. Of her crew, only one survived to tell the tale of the beastly vessel, he was picked up by the Destroyer HMS Javelin, and interrogated for five days before they realized he was just a dishwasher. Rumors abound that her hulk was found and floated by a massive engineering effort have been denied as patently false as any effort would be herculean in the history of Naval Salvage and Recovery.

Hitlers Yacht took five years to construct, and was sunk 32 days after launching.

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NeuralDream · **NeuralDream**

3 days left.
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The_lucky_Y · **The_lucky_Y**

The evolution of the Otto Lilienthal Class aerostatic aircraft carrier...

The private Zeppelin company could sign some contracts for a steady delivering of helium gas and the LZ 129 Hindenburg was filled with helium instead of Hydrogen gas.
so the Lakehurst disaster did not happen and the economy success of the LZ129 and their sister LZ130 let the military heads think about having some own units.

Prospecting the northern plains of Germany the drilling teams found some natural gas sources near the city of Jever in 1938 that also contain 0.01% of helium gas so now Germany was able to extract its own helium.

An unknown engineer working at the Linde group had the idea putting a
flight deck right above the top of an large "Zeppelin" that creates an airborne aircraft carrier.
The German government picks up the idea and create a prototype out of the LZ 131 and install some new Ideas for e.g a large compressor compartment for compressing helium out of the carrier cells for adjusting the altitude permanently without wasting helium gas away by simply venting that was used on older ships.
Other improvement was adding bulges on the sides of the airship providing much more air displacement ,much more engines on the surface for more ground speed including a large nose tip propeller that could be swiveled in any possible direction except those that let touch the blades with the airship itself.
The prototype was launched as Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger (aka the tailor of Ulm) in august 1937 and going on trials with the German Air Force.
the fact that the flight deck on the Albrecht Ludwig was only
240 Meters long the trials could only made with the Fi 156.

two main flaws are discovered very early:

The top tail fins they are fitted in X shape on the tail narrows the
flight corridor for landings too much and let not much room for mistakes

The total payload was to little due to the size of this airship.

but the following advantages led into the series:

very high altitude that gives your aircrafts a boost
great endurance
can travel across land

The following series would have improvements about these flaws and
led into the final design of the Otto Lilienthal class:

The Otto Lilienthal itself had an total air displacement of 2 million cubic metres
that allow a total weight of 4300 tons , most of that weight is spend on the superstructure,the compressor facilities, fuel and other.
the final payload for aircrafts was about 900 tons enough for almost 200 Fw 190 and some extra fuel+ammo.
The size was 10 times bigger than LZ129 Hindenburg but in tridimensional sight it grows just 4 times bigger allowing to have an full size airfield on its top almost 8oo m long made out of plywood and aluminium.
The tail fins are now in + shape and the airfield get Y shape with the branches of the Y around the topmost tail fin.
This improved the flight operations because the Y shape enable starting and landing operations during the same time.
The airships surface was covered with very thin alu plating providing much sturdier than the textile cover that the normal Zeppelin airships would have.
Also self sealing carrier cells are added and a large fire fighting system including inert gas for the fuel tanks and pipes.
Large landing pods at the bottom of the aerostat connected with the internal structure allows to land on a plain surface if necessary for e.g. service and overhauling.
The self defending AA guns on these ships are near to nothing only some heavy MG are mounted on the roofs of the conning towers.

The ships are too big for every hangar so the German government create
landing facilities in narrow valleys in the alps and just cover the top of them with braced cantilever tent roofs with camouflage pattern on them.

The Otto Lilienthal was launched in september 1939.

max ground speed: commissioned 230 km/h after reconstruction 260 km/h
max ceiling: 67oo m commissioned / 7ooo m after reconstruction
endurance: 23ooo nautic miles by cruising speed of 120km/h, endurance was dropped to 95oo nautic miles after reconstruction.

Prototype later supply unit :
Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger 08/1937

sisters in class are

Gustav Weißkopf 04/1941
Karl Jatho 09/1941
Arthur Berson 11/1943

I have only pencil and paper to make some pictures...:

By The_Lucky_Y

By The_Lucky_Y

During the late 1940´s the surface cover of Otto Lilienthal was replaced with a special light steel alloy to recycle the aluminium for building up the sister ships,improved weight saving internal structure ,energy saving engines and 10% more air displacement would let the newer sisters basing the same amount of aircrafts.
Another feature were the additional Carrier cells that could be filled with hot air as like used in those hot air balloons. This extra allow to displace up to 9o ooo cubic meters more in case of emergency. The hot air cells are fitted into the nose and tail areas because that places are very exposed to gunfire.

Arthur Berson´s design goes back towards the X shape tail fins and got
an straight airfield on a 20% longer main hull with catapults and
arresting cables. That facelift allow to launch and land the brand new
Me 262

The main duty of these big units was providing fighter cover for the
submarine force during the battle of Atlantic.
At the beginning of the war only the Lilienthal are on the action station and
participed in several convoy battles and even help the surface ships against the Royal airforce.
The Gustav Weißkopf enters the service just in time with the overhauled Lilienthal as the chase of the Bismarck went on, nothing to say about that
Ark Royal´s complete air wing was wiped out by the combined air power of the two airships.
As the Karl Jatho enters the service the Lilienthal get the second general overhaul near Berchtesgaden.
during that time the old prototype Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger was reconstructed as supply and reinforcement unit for the other ships.
The poor Berblinger also teach the enemy how to destroy those units.
about 8oo B-17 Flying fortresses loaded with HE bombs drop their payload above the homebound Berblinger on February 12th 1944 across Biscaya gulf. Regardless of the severe damage that was dealt to her she manage to reach the coast by dropping all unneed overwight.
Fuel shortage and especially helium shortage during the late war make it difficult to have all units in the air together and the never fly alone rule becomes obsolete too and make the next losses possible.
Karl Jatho was accidently catched up alone over the North Sea by more than 12oo B 17 with original destination to Berlin on march 6th 1944.
After getting new order they launch attacks against the Jatho.
The intercepting forces from Weißkopf and Berson come too late to the battle and could only escort the nearly destroyed Jatho to the dunes of Helgoland who the aerostat was grounded.
A bomb raid a few weeks later against the heavy camouflaged facilitys in Berchtesgaden that are now discovered by Bletchley Park Intelligence forces destroys the Weißkopf and the few months old Berson.
Only the Lilienthal again manage to escape a few hours before the raid because her commander had bad feelings about being grounded at this place together with the others. They fly to the "Ersatzbasis" near Salzburg and carry out the final combat voyage on D-day 1944 to fend of the allied landing forces.
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YVAN EHT NIOJ !

Greyh Seer · **Greyh Seer**

The Japanese AA-1 Class Submarine.

Japan needed a submarine that could utilize the one major advantage the IJN had: the Long-Lance Torpedo. Often, the IJN submarines were able to get within striking distance of the American fleets, but they simply did not have the payload to make the long-distant torpedo strikes effective. Thus the AA-1 was born.

She was designed with 18 forward facing torpedo tubes. When in range, this massive submarine could unleash a long lance salvo that was guaranteed to get a kill by sheer saturation of the target area.

Design of this submarine was full of major issues. In order to achieve the desired effect, only 2 of the 18 tubes were re-loadable. In addition, the massive drag ratio meant that the ship was extremely fuel in-efficient and would not be very fast or have a very large operational range.

These issues did not bother the IJN High Command because they did not see this weapon as a long range commerce weapon, but instead as a short range homeland defensive weapon. The High Command knew that they were loosing the war and wanted a surprise weapon that could devastate the enemy fleet as they approached the Home Islands.

As more and more resources failed to reach the Home Islands, Japan became more and more desperate for a defense against the now raging American Fleet.

The prototype ship construction was rushed and completed. However, she failed numerous seaworthy tests and had to be towed back to dock. Before these issues could be investigated however, the failed suicide run with the Yamato made it clear to the High Command that there would be no time to utilize this sub.

The prototype was towed off shore and scuttled even as the Emperor was addressing surrender.

Numerous attempts to recover and study the failed design were made by the US Navy until a month into occupation, US Naval Intelligence located the IJN report of her seaworthiness. Salvage attempts were cancelled and the AA-1's existence became top secret and only recently was declassified.

WAS Stats

Points: Muahahahaha!!!!!
Speed: 1
Torp 2/2/1/1

Armor: 3 Vital: 5 Hull: 2

SA:

Slow 1
Poor seaworthiness: If this sub is in the same sector as a squall, remove this sub.
Homeland defense: This sub must deploy as a ship.
Torpedo Salvo: Once per game, this sub may use the following Torpedo stats: 8/8/7/5

Image was found online and then modified by me (yes, it isn't very pretty, but give a guy a break Smile

)

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Snippersly · **Snippersly**

T-100 MTAT
Multi Turret Attack Tank
Vehicle- Tank

Year: 1945 / Russia

Cost: 50 Points

Speed: 2 - Can only move in the Movement Phase
Defense: 5 / 5

Attacks: 0-1 2-4 5-8

Infantry: 8 7 5

Turret 1 & 3: 10 8 6
Turret 2: 12 10 8

Special Abilities

Large: This vehicle fails cover rolls

Overlapping Fire: This vehicle can make Defensive Fire Attacks against Soldiers.

Multi-turreted: This unit can make three attacks during the assault phase. The first attack is from the combined Turrets 1 & 3, the second attack from Turret 2, and the final attack can be against an infantry unit using the AI machine gun value.

Top Mounted Rockets: Once per game this unit can fire its Katyusha Rockets up to a 12 hex range. This attack has Blast and Bombardment to the target hex, and all units in adjacent hexes. The attack is 6 dice versus a vehicle and 9 versus soldiers units. When used, this attack takes up the place of teh Turret 1 & 3 attack during the assault phase.

Oversized & Unprotected Tracks: Infantry Units attacking this vehicle using thier close assault value get a +1 on each attack die.

Exposed Transport: This unit can carry two friendly soldiers.

Unit History: Only one of these prototype tanks were produced by the Motherland. Stalin loved the idea of a do it all tank, but quickly realized the shortcomings of such a large vehicle. Near the war's end and with better available designs, Stalin cancelled the program. Rather than waste the effort it was sent to the victory parade in Berlin and then carried via train to Manchuria where it saw brief action against the Japanese.
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panzerpainter · **panzerpainter**

Judge:
To me, it looks like that thing could not fly ... except straight down, off a cliff, and maybe even then only if it had a stiff wind behind it. Maybe when it fires it could move backwards a few feet on the runway.
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Captain Morevo · **Captain Morevo**

@Snips... thats a KV-8 Kitbash.... nvm. (seeing as I have yet to provide a picture and tomorrow is the deadline)
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