How do Flying Battleships Work?

I’m not.

Historically, the only aircraft weapons which have been able to pose a threat to heavily armoured warships have been bombs and torpedoes, and both rely at least partially on gravity. Short of the development of primitive cruise missiles and aircraft capable of carrying them (which I assume to be outside the technological scope of the setting), nothing an aircraft can carry is going to be able to penetrate a battleship’s armour belt if launched from below.

As for ground fire, we have the same problems: the sort of huge artillery pieces needed to punch through a dreadnought’s armour are not only extremely difficult to move over land (“as in move-in-parts along rail lines and then assemble atop poured concrete bases” difficult) but they’re also extremely difficult to build and extremely difficult to aim, especially when taking the parabolic effect of the shells into effect, and creating firing solutions which take into account three, not two dimensions: you’d need one hell of an F/C setup to manage that with any degree of accuracy, especially when there might only be maybe a dozen or so of the necessary gun tubes in the entire country.

@Shoelip
The problem is, an airship that requires a special facility to power down is relegated to their operational range around that base, and is limited in the amount of time it can remain “on patrol”. A vessel with a ship hull also wouldn’t necessarily be limited to operations over water: they could easily traverse airspace over land, they just wouldn’t be able to do so indefinitely (since they’d need to land in water to refuel and rearm).

An added problem is the fact that land-based facilities can be disabled, and if a state requires a gigantic, expensive facility to keep its blue-sky fleet operational, then that would be the absolute first target any naval planner would go for.

I like how all Herrington had to do was pose a question then all the mad scientists, engineers, historians and military enthusiasts appear. You guys will end up not only inventing flying battleships but write his story for him.

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Loads of responses here, I’ll try my best to answer.

Regarding airplanes, biplanes already exist and heavier-than-air craft are nearing military-level performance. Considering that aircraft are way cheaper and faster than a flying battleship, they’ll still be useful especially when they achieve more performance boosts. It’s heavier-than-air strategic bombers which will suffer hard. The usage of pairelite on heavier-than-air craft is something I haven’t considered yet. The appearance of heavily armoured aircraft may also encourage more experimentation for adding cannons to planes.

I’m thinking that the service ceiling of the flying battleship shouldn’t be too high. Somewhere around 1-3 km above sea level. They may be more vulnerable to ground fire but the guns that can actually take them down won’t have the elevation gear to target them yet.

@cascat07 @Shoelip

Flight dynamics are always a problem for these kinds of things, I just don’t know how to solve it. I’m flexible in making the hull more aerodynamic (something more cigar or wedge shaped maybe), naval styled hulls are just the main preference. The part which requires the most editing seems to be the bottom of the ship

For turning, I was thinking of adding propulsion to the sides of the ship, either perpendicular to the ship or parallel with catamaran-like structures (or even short wings). These designs do mean that the ships have a similar disadvantage to a paddle-steamer, namely its propulsion is now more vulnerable.

From the other comments, it looks like wind is going to be a problem. No idea how to solve that one aside from making the ship more aerodynamic.

For the heating and cooling problem, that’s a good one. I haven’t actually thought that one through. Any suggestions? I’m currently considering @idonotlikeusernames 's ideas.

As for being a poor sailor and a poor flyer, all it really needs to do is fly. They are not going to be fast or fuel efficient craft anyhow.

@Cataphrak

Fair points. They’ll be noted. I’m also thinking that the airships that can serve above land for extended periods of time could be armoured zeppelins with destroyer level armament or flying gunboats which act like gunships.

@Nimbian

Not really a big fan of mirroring the top of the ship with the bottom, but I’m sure someone in the story is probably going build a ship like that so it goes into the idea box. Your interesting propulsion idea seems like a jet rather than a rocket. That also goes into the box.

@Jopari

Coal or whatever fuel used for propulsion and the ammunition are all flammable. There will be pretty fireworks in the sky :stuck_out_tongue: . Your point about the recoil is noted. No idea how to fix that except for using the ladder fire method.

a) No idea, I’ll probably have to do research on this.
b) I know this has to do with a) so…
c) Pairelite is for the lift.
d) Not sure. I was envisioning multitudes of cannons arranged like any pre-dreadnought you can imagine, but this is subject to change.
e) No idea.
f) I’m envisioning the service ceiling to be 1-3 km above sea level.

@Razgriz

That’s somewhat like the idea :stuck_out_tongue: . Though I haven’t actually given many details of the setting yet (not like there was much to begin with).

Traditionally the steel hull under the waterline is much more susceptible to damage than the armored bits above because it is naturally protected by the surrounding water. Something as small as a 50 caliber machine gun is capable of penetrating that steel armor even above the waterline and with the parelite aboard an aircraft could hover in the ship’s blind spot and whack away at it until they are out of ammo, of which an airplane could carry considerably more of than IRL being equipped with parelite.

Same applies for flak cannon. The main innovation you need is time fuses. Most historical AA is quite capable of hitting at 3km, usually possessing an effective ceiling in excess of 10km where humans will pass out from lack of oxygen unassisted.

@Herrington
If you want to go with @Cataphrak’s suggestion I would focus on making these ships fly since it is how they will do most of their fighting. It just needs to float to justify its naval hull and take advantage of existing or “cheaper” naval infrastructure. Like the AAV you have to see it as an opposed pair. The more naval you make it the less useful it is as a APC which is it’s primary function. Same goes for your airships.

I’m thinking less like the AAV, and more like submarines: basically developing from ships that can make short hops into the air for tactical advantage, and iteratively gaining more and more in the way of aerial capability.

Another thought: this thread has mostly focused on the possibilities of air-to-air combat. Personally, I’m thinking that airships offer a considerably more useful capability:

Strategic Bombing.

Think about it: A four-engined strategic bomber like the Avro Lancaster (not counting the B-17 because of its relatively pathetic bomb load) could carry at most, 10 tonnes of bombs. A battleship hull could carry 2000 times that, and unlike a bomber, they would be protected with armour which only the heaviest artillery pieces could pierce, and which would almost be impervious to interceptor aircraft. The amount of damage which a single ship committed to such an attack (let alone an entire fleet) would be above and beyond what could be possible with aircraft, at least before the development of nuclear weapons.

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Submarine is kind of the same thing. The most imposing modern nuclear submarine is absolutely useless as a surface warfare vessel from which it “evolved.” A sub’s armor and crew complement are also comparatively anemic when compared to a destroyer for instance. That’s because it doesn’t need any of that (in fact it would be counter productive) to make the submersible warfare community moniker true. “There are two types of ships: subs and targets.”

As to the strategic bombing, absolutely. That is a feature of the parelite though. You could instead make massively armored strategic bombers that are also aerodynamic, riddled with gun emplacements of every caliber on every surface of the plane, and specifically designed with the strategic bombing mission in mind. Unless we are taking the wings off because “you don’t need those you have parelite stupid” and making it float for the reasons you indicated and because “it looks cool” I’m not sure why we are still sticking to “it has to look like a battleship.”

@cascat07
True, but the reason why subs are now pure-blooded submersibles stems from the fact that they can stay underwater with minimal refuelling and resupply almost indefinitely. That’s not going to be the case for a ship that’s going to need to coal up every few weeks, and one whose tactical role is almost the exact opposite of the modern submarine’s.

Fleet-in-Being doctrine would require a fleet of capital ships to have the ability to hover ominously around the enemy’s fleet for an indefinite period of time. While it could do that if the enemy’s fleet base were in close enough proximity to a friendly base, the ability to maintain a blockade would be heavily curtailed by the need to return to a specialised facility to land and rearm.

Likewise, Decisive Battle doctrine would require a fleet to be able to chase down and force an enemy fleet to give battle. Being able to land and refuel on water would give any fleet such an advantage in strategic mobility that it would effectively be able to choose the conditions of engagement every single time.

Forgive me for being pedantic, but battleships only work in line-of-battle.

The noun “battleship” originates from “ship-of-the-line” and “line-of-battle”, which refer to capital ships strong enough to fight in line of battle.

Therefore, there would not be battleship without line of battle, unless OP is planning to lining up capital ships in the skies (which will be super duper awesome!).

You are forgiven, and I’m going to keep using “battleship” in service of the very off chance it may ruffle a current or former sailor’s feathers (tentacles…whatever)

@Cataphrak Well for one landing and refueling in the water doesn’t really require a naval hull. Second what better way to be a fleet-in-being than to have a massive strategic bomber within a few hours of your enemy’s capital? You don’t have to actually hover. That’s expensive. Third what better why to catch and destroy an enemy fleet than with airplanes? Thus the carrier battle group.

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@cascat07
Not necessarily a naval hull perhaps, but it’d still need to be buoyant and some level of seaworthy.

The problem is, you might not necessarily be a few hours away from your enemy’s capital, especially if your fleet is tied to stationary bases for resupply. Likewise, to require stationary bases is to narrow down your avenues of approach.

Incidentally, if we’re getting into effective carrier battle groups capable of bringing down battleships from a distance, then we’ve already gotten to the point where big-gun ships as a whole are obsolete, save as giant bombers.

The most terrifying form of deterrent is intermediate range ballistic missiles that will only take minutes to reach enemy’s capital.:yum: They are so terrifying that US and USSR agreed not to deploy them in the real world.

By the way, fleet in being actually means the presence of major naval forces can maintain influence without even leaving their base, and keep the enemy from diverting their own naval forces. The most prominent examples include British Home Fleet in North Sea, British Channel Fleet in English Channel and British Mediterranean Fleet in the Mediterranean. Yes they are all British, after all the term “fleet in being” itself was invented by a Brit and was made famous by another Brit.

Now this is an absolutely excellent thought-experiment.

I’m not really much of a mechanic, but operational and strategy wise i might be able to contribute.

First the idea that these “ships” are developed to fight above their intended target. Since they would at all times be vulnerable (is there a max ceiling on your unobtanium?) it would make sense that the primary armour belts would be focused on the bottom of the ship rather than on the top as with our-world dreadnoughts.
This would actually end up adding an interesting “lighter” airship-type that can maneuver above the max ceiling of enemy airships to hit them in their weaker top armour (think reverse submarines). Also this heavily armoured underside might lead to an alternate form of “ramming” your enemy, since you then essentially just maneuver above your enemy and then drop down on him.

And secondly, the problem of accurate fire. Ship-to-ship artillery (especially at long range) has always been a question of shooting at an estimated range, and then zero in by using the splashes that the impact of one’s shells make in the water. With no water to zero in by, accurately hitting with large artillery is going to be a heck of a lot more difficult. Though the possibility that this then adds 18-inch tracer shells is going to make for some theatrical fighting.
Which leads me to another point. If these ships fight above land, the collateral damage is going to be absolutely astonishing. Every missed shot is going to saturate some random area with 10-18 inch shells.
Also, once you destroy an enemy vessel it is going to completely wreck whatever is underneath it in debris.

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One big problem with the armor on the bottom idea is that then it won’t float. For buoyancy to work the floating thing has to be top heavy.

@Cataphrak therein lay the problem with the whole flying battleship theme. Once you make a battleship fly you have to start wondering why it handles like crap and if there is anyway to design it to fly better.

By the way you are awfully strident on the concept of making these battleships fly. It’s almost as if flying battleships will be essential to one of your own settings…

By way of contributing to this discussion in a non-troll way I came up with an idea for making it work while thrashing myself (my best thinking time…).

So, parelite needs to be a crystal and something something about the crystal matrix when it resonates makes it lift because of reasons. To create this resonance the parelite is heated but the trick is that the resonance is also endothermic. Now in the wild these crystals form underground in submerged caves. Since the process is endothermic it is naturally balancing. It gets touched by hot water it starts lifting and now you have cold water. Getting touched by lava or something like that caused massive earthquakes and some event like that made the first peralite deposit known to humans and helped us understand it’s inherent lifting properties.

Now naturally growing crystals are shaped in all kinda crazy directions but you need it cut into a certain shape to get it to lift efficiently in one direction. As a side effect of cutting the crystal also becomes brittle so you can’t directly apply heat to it without causing cracks and eventually breakage but since they are naturally growing in submerged caves hot water is fine.

With the shaping you can mount the crystals directionally on structurally critical and reinforced portions of the ship to provide propulsion. I am imagining a cone with a hole in it that lifts in the direction of the base. The superheated water/steam passes through the hole, heats the crystal and condenses at the end to be recycled. If you want to go down or stop moving you close the valve to the hole.

The reason this doesn’t work on cars and planes yet is because you need massive boilers and vast quantities of coal to get the water hot enough to sustain the resonance and the crystals with enough lifting power ain’t small either. Ships and trains are big enough so they are used on that.

The other option is that you role back your time period a bit to the vicinity of the ironclads like the HMS Warrior and only lift with the peralite and propulsion is with sails.

@cascat07
To be fair, if it were for one of my own settings, I wouldn’t need to offer a practical defence: I could simply shape the conditions of the setting to make flying warships a practical solution.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

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The pairelite would have to be placed pretty low as it is, right? In my limited mechanical understanding it would make sense to armour what is providing the lift? One could then counter that by placing, Machinery, Quarters and Crew above the pairelite, putting the center of gravity higher.

If not, then we must conclude that these things fight and operate at high ceiling to avoid AAA-fire ripping through their soft underbellies. This then makes Airship-to-Airship engagements a race to the bottom as both would try and maneuver underneath his foe. This gives defenders quite the advantage as they have unlimited maneuverability and can operate from within altitudes covered by friendly artillery.

With the idea I just posed it could be placed anywhere on the ship as long as the lifting force could be transfered through the frame of the ship without causing it to break. Generally speaking that should be center keel forward center and aft for altitude and center or slightly aft for forward propulsion and the opposite for reverse. You would need bow thrusters as well.

The armored keel isn’t a problem for when it is flying. It is a problem for when it is relying on buoyancy in water for service and resupply.

My idea is that the more altitude you want to gain the more energy you need to use. So you would want to hug the terrain in most cases to one conserve the coal supply and two to protect the vulnerable underside of the ship.

A tricksy Captain could probably gently lay his ship down on its side behind a ridge or stand of trees and then launch an ambush. I was thinking maybe delployable skis but that would have to be able to support a lot of weight and not compromise the ship’s boyancy.

I was just thinking. An alternative method of airship construction someone in this world might try depending on the exact properties of the applied phlebotinum is to make a vessel where it’s kept at a neutrally buoyant temperature and altitude was changed using engines. It might not work at all, but I’m sure realistically speaking someone would try it at some point.

What about support legs? Instead of laying on its side these supports would slide from inside the ship and into the ground. Not really to hold it up but to keep it upright at least.

That could work but then we get back to the why the “why the heck does it need to look like a boat???”

@Herrington
Coal is flammable, yes. However igniting it is quite the pain, it’s why people never let coal fires die during the steam age until they were done with the engine for the day. Unless you had a weapon that generated huge amounts of heat even as it penetrates the hull, that coal isn’t going to light up. Even IF you managed to light it it would just sit there, slowly burning. You see, unlike gasoline or other modern flammables, it doesn’t produce a whole lot of gasses, as it burns at a glacially slow pace. All steam engine explosions I know of were because of steam and weakened boilers instead of the coal. All explosion are caused by an increase in pressure too great for the container it’s held in to handle, and this is rather unlikely with coal. If you used another fuel though…

@Cataphrak has a point that most AA would be incapable of penetration, and aiming existing methods is hell, I was wondering about AA bullets specifically made to penetrate, maybe even have a delayed explosive charge or similar, though a Long Rod Penetrator works just as well if the ships have spots that regularly see large amounts of human traffic.

@Razgriz
This is the website of a company where every game is “fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.”. I’d be surprised if people didn’t give the things he asked thought.