Author Topic: Luftschiffe  (Read 1489 times)

Norsehound

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Luftschiffe
« on: November 30, 2010, 02:37:23 AM »
Hi all.



The USS Enterprise, CR17, returning home after a five month patrol in the Pacific. She is greeted by the USS Lexington and USS Excalibur, also idling in San Francisco bay.

neko128

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2010, 11:59:28 AM »
Very nice!  You drew that yourself?

MrPete

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2010, 01:02:19 PM »
Quite interesting.
Especially the large rudder. Would that be of use while flying in the air?
And the placement of the turrets below the "waterline" is clearly marking the Lev as to be used against ground targets.
Wait, how do other Lev's target hostiles on the ground? With distance and then "shooting down the hill"? At some point there is a big piece of metal blocking the turrets arc...
Every near miss is a shot lost without proximity fuses...

Wolvenhaven

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2010, 02:12:02 PM »
Quite interesting.
Especially the large rudder. Would that be of use while flying in the air?

As large as it is, it would work as a thrust deflector and would actually give it very good mobility; think like a jet ski.

Norsehound

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2010, 02:22:46 PM »
Heh, the impracticality of the rudder never occured to me as I was drawing. To introduce myself here I wanted to draw a take on what I saw in the gallery on the main page. I've done airships before, usually with rudders such as that, so I thought it would work as a main rudder *shrug*

As for the lower turrets, they are to put fire into the negative hemisphere relative to the rest of the ship and aren't just for bombardment. Cruisers such as this are designed to fight other leviathans as well, which might involve diving out of the sun or coming at their targets from a higher altitude. I did not imagine leviathans going 'nose down' at their targets to bring their weapons to bear, so I placed some secondary batteries on the underside for this purpose. The main guns are still topside because there's a limit as far as how large a gun can be mounted 'suspended'.

But I know little of the Leviathans! universe except what I see in the gallery and read on the site. For my uh 'introduction' here I wanted to draw and see what people thought.

Something for the Germans;
« Last Edit: November 30, 2010, 03:16:36 PM by Norsehound »

Toolian

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2010, 04:33:33 PM »
Dude, you can make a Leviathans comic series.

Wolvenhaven

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2010, 04:45:34 PM »
Dude, you can make a Leviathans comic series.

I second that, the artwork is amazing, you could probably graphic novel-up the stories they've written so far or something :P

Worktroll

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2010, 04:49:12 PM »
Something for the Germans;


Now that is seriously sweet, and exactly how I'd picture Levs in flight! You've got a real talent for that style of drawing, Norsehound.

The US ship looks like I'd want it for the 1930s version ;) At the moment, there aren't any ventral turrets - Levs in 1910 make do with barbette or casemate mounts along the lower hull, that can depress 45 or more degrees. Yes, there's a shadow underneath, but the absence of vertically pointing guns makes this moot. (And yes, this is reflected in the elevation rules in the Captain's Manual, and yes, this won't be the final word on the subject ;) )

And while this isn't cast in stone yet, the only Type IV American leviathan named was the USSF Abraham Lincoln ...

W.

Worktroll

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2010, 05:22:40 PM »
Just looking at your Enterprise again ... that makes more and more sense for the 1930s version. I can totally see that deep keel with ventral hatches, and some of those hook-and-eye biplanes like they had on the USN airships launching & retrieving ...

W.

Norsehound

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #9 on: November 30, 2010, 07:11:53 PM »
Good to know I hit the mark on some areas :D

I guess cira 1910 nobody knows how to mount an underbelly turret? Id' have thought by then proven skirmishes between Leviathans would have exposed the need for weapons at all angles of trajectory, but maybe the fighting mentality still hasn't fully grasped the Z-axis concept yet. At least, beyond dropping bombs or other things on the enemy.

Which brings me to a thought- World War 1 probably wouldn't have happened the way it did with Leviathans now in play. Major advances that shaped that war historically (machine guns, tanks) wouldn't be as effective since you have essentially heavy bombers that negate trench warfare. Dare we see a history that averts world war two?

Yes, the Enterprise would have had a squadron of trapeze launched biplanes (Pups? Prolly F9Cs in a 1930 scenario), to compliment the heavier armaments. I imagined the Americans would be the first to equip their cruisers and capital flyers with smallcraft to assist in spotting, skirmish attacks (with rockets) and courier duties. It would help offset the lack of 'areal torpedoes', since I also imagined Americans would just use massed heavy rockets instead.

With Workt talking about torpedoes, I decided to draw out what I always saw when I heard "Air Torpedo" thrown about;
« Last Edit: November 30, 2010, 09:20:28 PM by Norsehound »

MrPete

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2010, 01:53:20 AM »
You are awesome!
And I really don't like using that word since it's used for everything (you dug a 15-year-old-car out of the scrap heap? Awesome man! ->see? Bad awesome!) but here it's used for describing my joy on seeing the drawings and how stunned I feel.

On ventral turrets:
The main difficulty is the weight of the turret which needs to be held by the mounting. Topside turrets fix themselves in place through their weight but once that's hanging things get a bit difficult.
Every near miss is a shot lost without proximity fuses...

Norsehound

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2010, 04:33:33 AM »
Turret weight restrictions was the main reason why I didn't mount underside batteries on the Enterprise. Though the Dreadnought ushered in a time where battleships would have same-caliber primary guns, the United States re-introduced the secondary batteries when they wanted to have underside mounts as well.

Anyway, I tried a battle scene.



US v Spain, cira 1898 over Havana.

Toolian

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2010, 12:20:38 PM »
Dude, serious, please make a mini comic for the forum.

PLEASE!

you can base your art on the fluff from Randall Bills.

neko128

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #13 on: December 01, 2010, 12:47:46 PM »
Dude, serious, please make a mini comic for the forum.

PLEASE!

you can base your art on the fluff from Randall Bills.

If you talk him into it, he could always base it off of "He Who Merits It".  :)

Norsehound

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Re: Luftschiffe
« Reply #14 on: December 01, 2010, 08:10:50 PM »
While I'm not opposed to doing a comic, It's going to be a commitment in time and effort. Unless it's a story I'm particularly eager to illustrate (maybe one of my making... I am a writer as well), the only way I could seriously consider something like this is if I'm contracted to do so.

There are other things to consider as well, since the only visual elements set in stone are the British and French ship designs up on the main gallery. I'd be swinging a free hand in defining the elements for things without a visual identity (say, uniforms, other ship designs). While my art seems to be appreciated from the community and I'd love the chance to define these things as a fan, I can only wonder how the official heads in charge of the game would respond.

Whatever the case, this is a fun universe to draw in.



So, some thoughts on where I go with drawing these things.

1. Germany. Since it seems Brittan and France took the lead in LEV development, Germany was in a position to watch both and develop their own system based on the lessons learned from their neighbors. The common hull form of the Imperial Luftmarine was the 'helmut' design, with sloped sides to the top and a wide base. This was a compromise in Electroid use and stability from the mono- and tri-balance designs, which used one and three rows of Electroid cells respectively. The flight of the Imperial Cruiser Furst Bismark under this system bore out some merit in the design. The Germans were also the first to pull away from the idea of wide vertical stabilizers, though only a few designs omitted them entirely.

2. America. Even without the benefit of espionage or seeing the inner workings of the existing Leviathan designs, American ingenuity found a way when it faced a growing imbalance of naval force at the onset of the 1880s. With only a fleet of relics from the civil war (and among them less than a dozen combat-worthy LEVs of the first generation), America needed to modernize in the quickest way possible. In the congressional battle between navy interests and those of the budding air corps, the latter undercut the situation by adopting the designs of John Chaste, an inventor in the united states who created an independent suspension system. It was implemented into the BB-1 Indiana, and has been the foundation of American LEV designs since. A little wider than the German system, the American design suspended the Electroid in the center of the ship while adding a weighted keel to the bottom. Reminiscent of work in early submarines, this would create a very stable platform to later allow American designs to mount increasingly heavy canon with little fear of recoil.

3. Spain. Like America, Spain's LEV program adopted the works of an eccentric. In this instance it was a French Designer, Louis Dupont, who could not solicit attention from native French designers (who were already into the second generation). Proposing a catamaran system, the theory was that the redundancy could allow an airship to survive otherwise crippling damage and still remain aloft. It also better protected the interior, which would lead to interesting carrier proposals in the 1920s. Though perhaps more stable than even the American designs, the Spanish Armada never really saw success with this design during the Spanish-American war.

...that's what I think, anyway.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2010, 09:30:43 PM by Norsehound »