The Battle Of The Denmark Strait Warship+Aircraft Pack (WIP, Several ways to help!)

[pTrevTrevs]

The Swordfish is pretty much done, there's only one small problem. Well... two small problems that combine to form a very big one; the engine isn't powerful enough and the wheels don't work.

Even if this thing did take off without slamming its torpedo onto the runway or spinning widly out of control and smashing its wings, it would never take off in a short enough distance to be launched from a carrier of any size. That's not good, considering the real Swordfish was flown off escort carriers. Hey, at least it looks nice. At the very least you have a nice prop for the film. I guess you can set up some sort of device to hang it from a string and make it look like it's actually flying in to attack the Bismarck.

[kapteenipirk]

On 7.5.2016 at 5:25 AM, pTrevTrevs said:

The Swordfish is pretty much done, there's only one small problem. Well... two small problems that combine to form a very big one; the engine isn't powerful enough and the wheels don't work.

Even if this thing did take off without slamming its torpedo onto the runway or spinning widly out of control and smashing its wings, it would never take off in a short enough distance to be launched from a carrier of any size. That's not good, considering the real Swordfish was flown off escort carriers. Hey, at least it looks nice. At the very least you have a nice prop for the film. I guess you can set up some sort of device to hang it from a string and make it look like it's actually flying in to attack the Bismarck.

I would really like to look at that craft file and see if i could make it work a little better.

[pTrevTrevs]

5 hours ago, kapteenipirk said:

I would really like to look at that craft file and see if i could make it work a little better.

I have a few ideas I want to try on it first (replaced e two Juno engines with a Wheesely, remove the rover wheels and let it use the real landing gear). If they don't work you can take a look.

[kapteenipirk]

On 7.5.2016 at 6:07 PM, pTrevTrevs said:

I have a few ideas I want to try on it first (replaced e two Juno engines with a Wheesely, remove the rover wheels and let it use the real landing gear). If they don't work you can take a look.

Alright.

Oh, and btw, i slapped together some landing gears you might be interested in. They can survive landings of up to 45 m/s no trouble at all.

[SaturnianBlue]

Here's a early release of the Prince Of Wales (definitely not for actual release) version, and I know that when it touches the ground/water, it shakes and explodes. Can someone see if you can find any fixes? Also, i've got a request: Music for the cinematic and a logo for the project? Also, last or so chance to build the County-Class Cruisers before I might run out of time!

[RixKillian]

On 5/6/2016 at 3:14 AM, Columbia said:

Also, here's the craft file for the Spitfire that I made, and a few more images in the page.

Nice, what's the scale on yours?

[pTrevTrevs]

Swordfish is fixed. All it needed was a bigger engine and better wheels (the ones i use can retract, but nothing forces you to, so I decided that I had no reason to not use them)

 I revised the tail too. It's cruising speed is something like 100m/s in level flight, and is fairly maneuverable for its size and intended role. Looks like I nailed the old Stringbag's performance right on the head this time!

The torpedo releases with no problems, looks pretty nice, except that most airborne torpedoes didn't have parachutes.

Well, I guess a low altitude drop doesn't give it enough time to slow...

Maybe if I drop it from higher up?

Nope, still drowns. I'll have to either add more of those parachutes or replace them with full size ones. After that I need to check to make sure the fish runs alright in the water. I'll also add on a BD Armory explosive warhead eventually and probably replace that .30 caliber landing leg with a BD weapon as well.

It's... fairly easy to maneuver, although if someone's never flown a plane in KSP before and is trying to use a keyboard they might have some trouble. I'm going to add a probe core for control, since it seems that when you quicload the Kerbals spawn in some weird orientation in their seats, and since the navball is based on them and not the seat, you get a completely worthless artificial horizon and must fly by the seat of your pants, like I was here.

Textbook!     No? Well, it's the best I could do with a navball that was off balance in at least two axes (axises?) and an already somewhat jittery aircraft that barely looks like it can fly.

Once I sort out the torpedo and adjust a few other things I'll hand it off to you. Carrier based capability not guaranteed.

[Heckspress]

2 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

Nope, still drowns. I'll have to either add more of those parachutes or replace them with full size ones.

perhaps put a radial drogue chute right at/ in front of/ very slightly behind the CoM

[kapteenipirk]

On 8.5.2016 at 4:25 AM, pTrevTrevs said:

Swordfish is fixed. All it needed was a bigger engine and better wheels (the ones i use can retract, but nothing forces you to, so I decided that I had no reason to not use them)

Remember when you said that the tail needs some fixing, yea, i think it does need some fixing. Other than that, i think it`s looking very good.

And here you go, i think something like this should do it.

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by kapteenipirk

[pTrevTrevs]

2 hours ago, kapteenipirk said:

Remember when you said that the tail needs some fixing, yea, i think it does need some fixing. Other than that, i think it`s looking very good.

And here you go, i think something like this should do it.

 

I think something like jay might work, I'll take a look later today when I have time.

8 hours ago, Heckspress said:

perhaps put a radial drogue chute right at/ in front of/ very slightly behind the CoM

The problem right now is that the two chutes it has aren't enough to slow it down. When I dropped it from several hundred meters, it was traveling at 27m/s, not slow enough for it to survive impact.

[Columbia]

17 hours ago, SaturnianBlue said:

Also, i've got a request: Music for the cinematic and a logo for the project? Also, last or so chance to build the County-Class Cruisers before I might run out of time!

How long do you plan the cinematic to be? I can find a few ones that are 2-4 minutes long and some even longer, so it would be a good idea to know.

Also, that's going to give me an excuse to start brushing up on Photoshop instead of always doing vectors in a program that wasn't designed to do so.

I'm still trying to make the canvas for the logo, but with Philippine elections coming around, I might be a little busy.

As you can see for my first draft... it's not too creative nor pretty. Eugh.

16 hours ago, RixKillian said:

Nice, what's the scale on yours?

Thanks, I'm not exactly sure but it's a little larger than Kerbal scale to make room for more refinement in shape.

[SaturnianBlue]

1 hour ago, Columbia said:

How long do you plan the cinematic to be? I can find a few ones that are 2-4 minutes long and some even longer, so it would be a good idea to know.

Also, that's going to give me an excuse to start brushing up on Photoshop instead of always doing vectors in a program that wasn't designed to do so.

I'm still trying to make the canvas for the logo, but with Philippine elections coming around, I might be a little busy.

As you can see for my first draft... it's not too creative nor pretty. Eugh.

Thanks, I'm not exactly sure but it's a little larger than Kerbal scale to make room for more refinement in shape.

I'm planning it to be probably in the 6-9 minute length, at least the lead-up and the Battle bit, since I may make another bit for @pTrevTrevs's Swordfish Fighters to attack Bismarck. Thanks for taking up the logo! Also, how's the Bf 109s (110?) doing?

Edited May 8, 2016 by SaturnianBlue

[RixKillian]

1 hour ago, Columbia said:

Thanks, I'm not exactly sure but it's a little larger than Kerbal scale to make room for more refinement in shape.

Just downloaded and calculated it - it's 165% scale. It does fly nicely though!

[Heckspress]

5 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

I think something like jay might work, I'll take a look later today when I have time.

The problem right now is that the two chutes it has aren't enough to slow it down. When I dropped it from several hundred meters, it was traveling at 27m/s, not slow enough for it to survive impact.

Maybe use a full chute rather than drogues?

[pTrevTrevs]

Yep, two full sized chutes is actually enough to allow low altitude drops, so now the torpedo can be dropped from 70 meters (maybe less, I haven't had the courage to check yet).

I'm testing the torpedo against a quickly thrown together test ship made out of stock parts.

It runs at something like 30 or 40 m/s in the water, and thanks to the reaction wheels (go ahead and crucify me for making a guided torpedo on a WWII craft), it's easy to control during its run.

Don't mind if I do, Mr. Dummy Ship!

MAGNIFICENT! Wait... Why didn't any parts of the actual ship explode?

You have got to be kidding me... So where did the explosion come from if none of the parts even exploded?

Oh yeah, I crashed it again while trying to land and brake the craft within 200 meters to prove that it can land on a carrier about the size of HMS Ark Royal. Also, the guns don;t fire even when they have the correct type of ammo on the plane ( I did try using a regular BD .50 caliber ammo box, it didn't work either)

Well, there are a few more bugs to squash, but I'm getting closer!

[pTrevTrevs]

Alright, I removed CAL and NAS and BD Armory works fine now.

I swear, if you pull another Back to the Future particle acceleration "impact" again, I'm gonna send you to the foundry and have you melted down for scrap!

Well, I guess that'll do the trick.

  I added a Browning .50 cal to the fuselage too, but it fires really, really slowly.

It also looks like the plane can take off from carriers just fine-

Oh... never mind. The carrier seems to have eaten the back half of our torpedo.

[Heckspress]

pTrevTrevs, you seem to have lots of bad luck with WW2 replicas, first the Gato, now this poor, poor swordfish!

Maybe we should be saying "break a leg" instead of "good luck"?

[pTrevTrevs]

40 minutes ago, Heckspress said:

pTrevTrevs, you seem to have lots of bad luck with WW2 replicas, first the Gato, now this poor, poor swordfish!

Maybe we should be saying "break a leg" instead of "good luck"?

For all the ones I have bad luck there are loads of replicas I've had good luck with, like the Fokker Dr.I (only had to test fly that thing once), the P-26, and my U-Boat. I've always thought my biggest trouble is that they never seem to get much attention. 

Besides, working out all the problems and refining a design is what engineering is all about. it wouldn;t be fun if everything I built worked perfectly the first time.

Well, maybe it would be a little more fun...

 

[Columbia]

22 hours ago, SaturnianBlue said:

I'm planning it to be probably in the 6-9 minute length, at least the lead-up and the Battle bit, since I may make another bit for @pTrevTrevs's Swordfish Fighters to attack Bismarck. Thanks for taking up the logo! Also, how's the Bf 109s (110?) doing?

Hmm, 9 minutes seems pretty long, maybe you could use multiple pieces for certain parts? I'll keep looking. Vivaldi's Winter is epic but it doesn't sound appropriate for a cinematic. Zack Hemsey's "The Way" is damn cool, but it just doesn't fit the theme of a WW2 battle. Two Steps from Hell's songs are okay but a little overused, not to mention too short and too climactic. War Thunder's soundtracks are nice to listen to and fit pretty well, but.. you know,

Also, here's my first draft for a logo, the detail on the Bismarck is a little too simplistic however. What do you think?

I'm readily able to modify my Bf 109 to either an F (taking off the G-6 blisters should be easy) or an E (I'd need to modify the nose and wings, but nothing that I can't do.) 

Also about those Bf 110s, I found this as the source that Bf 110s escorted: 

But a Wikipedia passage says otherwise: 

There are still a lot of sources, I can dig deeper still. But as a last resort I'm modifying my Bf 109 G-6 to an E-4. 

The Bf 110s I have are either WIP (look ugly) or not totally restored. I can take the Nachtjäger equipment (Antennas) off the nose of my Bf 110 G-2, it's a bit big however:

I guess I don't need to be that accurate for the cinematic. 

 

22 hours ago, RixKillian said:

Just downloaded and calculated it - it's 165% scale. It does fly nicely though!

Thanks! I do feel a little bad that my replicas are a bit too big for their own good, but I need to be precise with the fuselage shape.

[SaturnianBlue]

@Columbia Yeah, The Bismarck could use a bit more detail, and it would be nice to have Prinz Eugen and Prince Of Wales, but if it gets cluttered, that fine to leave it out. As for music, I think multiple tracks is fine, so in case the length turns out to be different, I can adjust.

[SaturnianBlue]

HMS Prince Of Wales progress... Behind schedule so to speak. The ship sort of just floats atop the water, and obviously without the Kerbpaint working as far as I'm concerned, I might have to resort to filming the German scenes only until Prince Of Wales gets fixed.

DOWNLOAD SHIP

Edited May 10, 2016 by SaturnianBlue

[Columbia]

Still working on it. I'll complete the flat design of Prince of Wales tomorrow.

I've also started converting the Bf 109 G-6 to an E-4:

[kapteenipirk]

On ‎9‎.‎5‎.‎2016 at 6:40 PM, Columbia said:

I guess I don't need to be that accurate for the cinematic.

Sorry to be a bit of a downer, but I think that being as accurate in terms of detail (Well, not every little detail tough) and size is pretty important in a cinematic like this.

You don't want to put a 1:1 aircraft/ship in the same shot with a 1,6:1 aircraft/ship, or everybody will be confused.

But, that's just my opinion.

As I have plenty of time and interest, I will have a go at trying to make my own BF-110 D or E/BF-109 E-4 this weekend, in same scale as the spitfire.

But, the choice is yours @SaturnianBlue, use whatever you want, I won't mind since I'm doing this for the fun of it anyway (and because I like to help).

[SaturnianBlue]

Tried to weld my ships to reduce part count. Sadly, it doesn't work, so I might as well have to deal with 2000 Part combos of ships sailing together...

Also, any updates on Music? I've wondered about the Battlestations Midway/Pacific music, but it might not give much of an Atlantic battle vibe.

Edited May 11, 2016 by SaturnianBlue

[pTrevTrevs]

30 minutes ago, SaturnianBlue said:

Tried to weld my ships to reduce part count. Sadly, it doesn't work, so I might as well have to deal with 2000 Part combos of ships sailing together...

Also, any updates on Music? I've wondered about the Battlestations Midway/Pacific music, but it might not give much of an Atlantic battle vibe.

The soundtracks from Silent Hunter may work, but I'm not reallysure. The one I'm thinking of is from SH4, but it's more suited for a Pacific Ocean setting. SH5's music is more quiet, although more tense. It's probably better for a scene where you see the different aspects of the fight converging, like a brewing storm. I haven't listen to SH3's track in detail yet.