[WWII] Fokker A.III autogyro medium bomber [Netherlands, fictional]

[copeab]

This is really a pulp (crimson Skies) kind of vehicle, but just marginally might appear in a weird WWII campaign. Thus, for the WWII angle, it has been provided with a fictional background. As always, GMs are free to change the fictional background (or ignore it entirely) to what best fits their campaign.

One more combat autogyro is coming next week.
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Fokker A.III autogyro light bomber
Copyright 2012 by Brandon Cope

In the late 1920's, Fokker began to test the military application of autogyros. After a few aircraft of limited military applications, the combat autogyro first to enter production was the A.III, a multi-crew light bomber, in 1935.While it had four defensive machine guns and a useful load of 1,000 kg of bombs, it's poor speed (240 kph) and range (640 km) hampered it's use (although on mainland Europe, the short range was less of an issue than it would have been elsewhere). It was envisioned that the A.III would be deployed from small fields (a soccer field could easily handle several aircraft) near the borders of the Netherlands, to strike at any hostile forces (ie, German) attempting to cross into Dutch territory. Fighter planes deployed from more distant airfields would provide cover if needed. A total of 80 were built, with over half still in service in 1940. By then, the A.III was badly outdated and most were shot down. However, six or seven survived and were taken over by the Germans, for unknown purposes. A few had been transferred to Java and saw use against the Japanese.

Crew consists of a pilot, bombardier/navigator (who operates either beam MG), dorsal gunner/radio operator, and ventral gunner. The A.III uses 33.6 gallons of aviation fuel per hour.

Subassemblies: Huge Helicopter Chassis +3, Rotors -1, three fixed Wheels +1
P&P: 746 kW HP gasoline engines w/746-kW prop, 150 gallon standard tanks [Body]
Occ: 4 CS Cargo: 3.

Armor
Body: 2/2
Rotors: 3/10
Wheels: 3/5

Weaponry
2*Aircraft LMG [Body:R,L] (500 each)
Aircraft LMG [Body:B] (500)
Aircraft LMG [Body:U] (500)

Equipment
Body: Medium range radio receiver and transmitter, bomb sight, navigational instruments, 2,200-lb hardpoint.

Statistics
Size: 70'x50'x12'
Payload: 2.04 tons
Lwt: 4.31 tons
Volume: 400
Maint.: 62 hours
Price: $10,300

HT: 12
HP: 360 [body], 100 [each rotor], 30 [each wheel]

aSpeed: 150
aAccel: 5
aDecel: 8
aMR: 2
aSR: 1
Stall: 31 mph

Take-off roll (loaded): 36 yards. Landing roll (loaded): 12 yards
Take-off roll (no bombs, max fuel): 23 yards. Landing roll (no bombs, 10% fuel): 5 yards

Design Notes
Design speed was 164 mph, which was reduced to the maximum of 150 mph for a rotary wing aircraft.

To save weight, some planes omitted the ventral gunner (the bombardier manned this crew position, if needed, resulting in him being extremely overworked).

To better match historical autogyros, rotor area was raised to the 1.75 power in stall calculations and 1.5 power in speed calculations. Takeoff was divided by 3 and landing distances by 10.

[johndallman]

Interesting ... the short-field capability is outstanding, but the craft is amazingly light for its size. A Fairey Battle is contemporary, and is heavier, but faster and longer-ranged, and needs a much bigger field. It got slaughtered by Bf109s, and this would too.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Interesting ... the short-field capability is outstanding, but the craft is amazingly light for its size. A Fairey Battle is contemporary, and is heavier, but faster and longer-ranged, and needs a much bigger field. It got slaughtered by Bf109s, and this would too.

Wings add weight ;)

Also, the survivability of autogyros unprotected against contemporary fighters isn't much worse than the survivability of modern attack helicopters unprotected against modern fighters.

[RogerBW]

A thing worth keeping in mind when using this sort of aircraft in a game is that these autogiros aren't the tiny things we see today: they're smaller than most aircraft of the era, but they clearly share lineage. (Take something like http://www.foro3d.com/attachments/11...togiro-raf.jpg and mentally stick biplane wings on it instead of the rotor, and it's not all that far from a Hawker Hind or similar inter-war craft.)

Possibly not quite as easy meat as the old biplane fighters were - they did have that giro manoeuvrability - but certainly not something one would want to put out un-escorted.

[johndallman]

This one is rather larger - a little smaller than a Handley Page Hampden, or a Ju 88, decidedly bigger than a Mosquito. It's lighter than any of them, as Brandon said above, and a lot slower.

[copeab]

It's worth noting that the very low speed can be used as an advantage, at last briefly.

The Germans had a hard time shooting down the Soviet Po-2/U-2 biplane because it's top speed was about the same as the stall speed of the Bf 109 and FW 190. This made it harder to line up shots and meant the fighter pilot could keep the targets in his sights briefly (even by air combat standards).

An autogyro that is flying at 40 mph and 100 feet will be a difficult target ;)

In the abstract air-to-air combat system in VE2, there is a maneuver bonus for helicopters; not sure if it applies to autogyros (haven't read the section in some time and the book is in a box right now).

It is worth noting that autogyros (and helicopters) have a lower aMR than oone might expect since (in 3e) it's more a function of how many Gs the rotors can take than simple agility.