PBY Catalina and Combat Examples

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by safisher

Or:
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/P/b/PBY_Catalina.htm

Black Cats... snip snip

This is very cool and exactly the sort of thing a group of PCs would get up to. Thank you!

[safisher]

General War Game RPG Advice: Don't design your war game any different than a typical RPG. If you wouldn't put first levels against a dragon, don't put a Cat against AAA. Design your mooks and boss fights accordingly. The Cat can bomb or strafe a barge or a civilian ship. It can hit a village or dock or an unarmed convoy or train, but not a military installation ringed with guns. It can land anywhere and has a long range, so it often has the element of surprise. Which it needs. It's most useful for transporting the group around so they can do exciting things away from the Cat. It's a good idea to figure out what it can do ahead of time, but as a rule always put it into a situation where it can win most of the time. War games are no different than any other RPG campaigns, the GM has to manage the threats just the same.

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by safisher

General War Game RPG Advice: Don't design your war game any different than a typical RPG. If you wouldn't put first levels against a dragon, don't put a Cat against AAA.... Snip snip.

Sound advice.
Understanding the limitations of the hardware is why I set out to model the airplane instead of just handwave. I had a sense that pitting it against a serious attack craft was a Bad Idea, but just how much so was not known to me.

In the table below, range is ground distance. Actual distance was Pythagorean of altitude and ground distance, plugged into this equation for altitude adjustment and using Douglas Cole's equation for speed penalties.

Against a stationary ground target at altitude 40. Does not include accuracy (clamped to 3 by SR), RoF, or target SM.

	Airspeeds					
Dist	0	33	50	63	98	
33	-7	-10				
50	-8	-10	-11			
70	-9	-11	-11	-12		
100	-10	-12	-12	-12	-13	
150	-11	-13	-13	-13	-13	
200	-12	-13	-14	-14	-14	
300	-13	-15	-15	-15	-15	
500	-15	-16	-16	-16	-16	
700	-15	-17	-17	-17	-17	
1000	-16	-18	-18	-18	-18	
1500	-18	-18	-18	-18	-18	<- Half damage range of an MG34
2000	-18	-19	-19	-19	-19	<- Half damage range of a Browning M2HB
3000	-19	-19	-19	-19	-19	
5000	-21	-21	-21	-21	-21	<- Max range of MG34
7000	-22	-22	-22	-22	-22	
10000	-22	-23	-23	-23	-23	<-Max range of Browning H2HB

If I understand correctly, relative airspeed of close to 0 is possible when the pilot is nose on target. The ground will object strenuously to any attempt to do this at ranges below current airspeed.

Edit: After testing altitude from 10 to 200 in steps of 10, I've observed there isn't much variance due to altitude except at ranges which would result in a crash, so I've updated the table to altitude 40 (from the original 50). This table will serve as an approximation for any altitude under 40y. Over 40y the very lower numbers get marginally worse out to 100y altitude and above that it's all pretty bleak. I've also snipped values that would result in a crash.

Second edit: whoops forgot the gun ranges on the table

[GameDaddy]

Flying boats are pretty awesome! When I first moved to Miami in 1996 I lived on NE 14th street, right downtown just a couple blocks from the Port of Miami, and just across the Miami bay from there was the Miami Seaplane Base.

About every day I would watch the Mallard Flying Boats of the Pan Am Air Bridge take off and land. They mostly flew to Bahamas, and Bimini, and they flew to other locations in the Caribbean as well. They were very impressive. Never did fly on one although I did take cruises out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

They went bankrupt in 2005 shortly after a seaplane crashed losing everyone aboard. NTSB Investagtion revealed cause of the crash was the structutal failure of one of the wing struts. The Mallards had been flying since the 1970's.

Miami Seaplane Base (2014 from the deck of Carnival Glory)
http://i.imgur.com/8083gGI.jpg

The seaplane base is right in the center just in front of the bridge from this view. You can still see the water ramp slightly left, the terminal, and one of the hangars in this 2014 photo.

PanAm Seaplane Base, Coconut Grove
(2014 flying into Miami on the MD-80 for Spring Break. Now this is Miami city hall. Back in 97 when I visited here it was a run down artists enclave with a few hot Nightclubs. PanAm had long since been gone...)

http://i.imgur.com/xv2bfYW.jpg

Coconut Grove is just above the wing. You can still see one of the PanAm Hangars. Coconut Grove Yacht club is right next to where the PanAm Seaplane Terminal was originally located. When I was there in 1997 I was looking at buying a sailboat. They used to let people live on their boats in the harbor, but they don't anymore, you have to have a registered land address now, even if you have a boat anchored in the harbor.

Reference:
PanAm Seaplane Base, Coconut Grove (Now the Miami City Hall) Website
This was pretty run down when I visited in 1997. It looks way better these days!
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/aviation/pam.htm

Chalks Airlines Wiki Page (Bought back from PanAm after PanAm went bankrupt in 1999)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk%...ional_Airlines

Chalks Airline Website (From the Wayback Machine)
http://web.archive.org/web/200502120...flychalks.com/

Some other photos from my Spring Break 2014 Miami collection including
Starr Island, mansion & Retreat for Al Capone in Miami, Port of Miami, Miami Coast Guard Station and one image of the Bahama Islands from 20,000 feet.

http://imgur.com/a/WtexP

[adm]

In 1937 PBYs did not have wheeled landing gear yet, that was the PBY 5A and later, first built in October 1941. The earlier ones had to use trolleys. Note that the non-wheeled PBY 5 was still built until 1943.

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by adm

In 1937 PBYs did not have wheeled landing gear yet, that was the PBY 5A and later, first built in October 1941. The earlier ones had to use trolleys....

That's very interesting. Source?

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by weby

What version of the catalina are you trying to do?

This one. Which is the 5-A.

Originally Posted by weby

The PBY-5 and 5A (1940-43) had top speeds of 196 mph that is move 98.

I detect a rounding error on my part. Fixed. Thank you!

Originally Posted by weby

The typical ranges given for it are the 2500 miles at about 125mph. The top speed burns a lot more fuel, not the +50% given in campaigns.

Yes. 2,520 miles at move 63, to be precise. How much fuel is burned at top speed is not clear to me. For simplicity's sake, halving range at top speed makes game sense.

Originally Posted by weby

The very long range flights like the Perth Australia to Colombo Sri-Lanka are achieved by traveling at only slightly over stall speed further reducing fuel use.

Interesting! and potentially important to know for those emergency long distance flights.

Originally Posted by weby

A more typical armament for such is 2-3 .30 MGs(1-2 frontal+ventral) and 2 .50 MGs(sides). But there was a big variation.

I noted that in my research, but considering the variance I decided to go for the simpler set. In my actual game I've got it loaded with one Browning in the nose and one MG37 in each blister.

Originally Posted by weby

Snip snip...

Realistic: ...snip snip

Semi-Cinematic: ..snip snip

Yours are the results I've discovered in running the game math. I've just got my excel sheet sorted out, so standby for actual numbers. In brief: Heroes can shoot stationary ground targets, but their attack ranges must be close enough such that they would stand no chance against AA guns. Minions have a low chance of success even at close ranges. It should be possible to improve these odds to a degree by adding MOAR GUNS, but since the AA can do the same and they will almost always be bigger, you should not play chicken with AA guns in a Catalina. Not on purpose, anyway. Actually, do not play chicken with AA guns is a good flight rule no mater what you're flying. Right up there with do not argue with the ground.

Incidentally, how is suppression fire game mechanically better than targeted shooting? By my reading of the rules, it still suffers range/speed penalties. Am I wrong?

I have not started on the bombing rules yet.

Against an attacking aircraft, the Catalina Pilot's job is to present her defensive gun(s) to the enemy when that enemy turns nose on target to fire (dropping relative speed to 0). From my watching of documentaries, this may happen at surprisingly short ranges, such that hits from the defensive guns are possible, though the Catalina is unlikely to survive the exchange with a much more heavily armed FW190. Especially where the Catalina's vehicular dodge gives its gunner -4, and the pilot of the FW190 can dodge at no penalty to their attack!

[Dustin]

Originally Posted by Engurrand

Armament was typically two MG34 [Ht134] machine guns in the nose and one in the ventral turret, plus one Browning M2HB machine gun [Ht133] in each "blister" turret.

Nitpick: Instead of MG34s, I think you'll want the M1919A4 (High-Tech p.132) in its AN/M2 variant.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Engurrand

TL	Vehicle		ST/HP	Hnd/SR	  HT	Move	LWt.	Load	SM	Occ.	DR	Range		Cost		Locations	Stall
6	Catalina	110	-2/3	  12	3/98*	17.7**	2***	8	9A	3	2,520†		$1,500,000	g,rR2,rW,Wi,t4	33

Thanks for this. We were using this statline yesterday in a Weird War II campaign, doing air-to-air combat.

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.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

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.

If the submarines were aware of you, their options were:

1. Cast loose the magician in the rotor kite, crash dive, and try to explain it to their superiors when they got home
2. Stay on the surface and hope for the best, against a depth-charge-armed Catalina

I'm not at all sure which of those is safer.