02-14-2016, 06:21 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
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Basically there were radars in 1937, but they were experimental beasts with a lot of downtime and low coverage. They also existed only in few places. A late WWII era radar can detect things quite well at mast height as long as you are not behind horizon, but the early air warning radars could generally not. As example the radar chain covering the channel in 1940 for the Battle of Britain could not detect thing really low. |
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02-14-2016, 09:42 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: MO, U.S.A.
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
Yeah, the FW-190 threw me as well, since it was a post Battle of Britain aircraft. Quick look up, August 1941.
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02-14-2016, 09:56 PM | #23 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: MO, U.S.A.
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
Years of reading on the subject, although I did grab Wiki dates instead of getting one of my books.
Since this was a game, I was ignoring that it was unlikely that you would have Cats in the Mediterranean Theater before January 1943, until then they were used in either the Atlantic, or the Pacific, due to their long range ability.
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Xenophilia is Dr. Who. Plus Lecherous is Jack Harkness.- Anaraxes |
02-14-2016, 10:27 PM | #24 | |
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: The former Chochenyo territory
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
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My gaming blog: Thor's Grumblings Keep your friends close, and your enemies in Close Combat. |
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02-15-2016, 01:21 AM | #25 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
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02-15-2016, 11:52 AM | #26 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
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Making it a lot faster would be difficult without a super-science way of building its structure: they are pretty fragile. And keeping it fairly slow makes it hard for it to carry high-performance aircraft, because they can't fly slowly enough to hook on without stalling and falling out of the sky. That's the best way to keep it from having fighters that will shoot the Cat down rapidly and easily, while still leaving them competitive with the Italian CR.32 and other mid-thirties biplanes. Such biplanes are slow enough that if the Cat runs on sighting them, their overtake speed is limited, which keeps them from getting good attacks from above or below. The Cat's blister guns then actually cover the arcs from which attacks are possible, so if the pilots are real mooks, defence should be practical. |
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05-27-2018, 09:30 AM | #27 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
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To be fair, this was air-to-air against one Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 at a time, in poor visibility where the towing submarines didn't appear to be aware of us. Overtaking an Fa 330 while the nose and blister gunners shoot at it would be very unsporting if their pilots weren't magicians. Got two of the submarines as well, with depth charges.
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05-27-2018, 11:27 AM | #28 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
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I'm not at all sure which of those is safer.
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05-27-2018, 11:36 AM | #29 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Wormtooth Nation
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
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Quote:
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05-28-2018, 09:33 AM | #30 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: PBY Catalina and Combat Examples
To a truly dedicated naval officer, option 1 saves his boat and crew for further service. Option 2 probably loses them. It also means the fact that the enemy have figured out this operation goes unreported, which is likely to cost more boats and crews. This should be enough to avoid the captain being executed for taking option 1, although he'll probably be punished.
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
Tags |
airplane, catalina, tl6, vehicle, wwii |
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