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Excerpt from "A Short
History of Air Carriers"
By Steven Ganske ("Starkweather")
...During the Great War, the Central Powers used these primitive
air carriers in a series of militarily inconsequential, but
morally devastating raids. These raids sparked development
into air carrier technology by the Entente. An Uslandic development
team was charged with developing a 'Total Air Superiority
Carrier'. This carrier would be required to hold at least:
12 aeroplanes and support equipment, air defence guns and
ammunition, 50,000 pounds of disposable munitions, enough
fuel and supplies to keep the planes and air carrier in operation
for a month, and enough armour to withstand machine gun fire
from enemy planes.
The concept for the air superiority carrier was to be a mobile
fortress that would fly over enemy lines and crush enemy planes
with its internal squadron and air defences. Then it would
turn its attention to the trenches below, strafing and bombing
the enemy into submission. Then after entente troops have
secured (what entente strategists hoped to be) a hundred-yard
gain on the battle field, the air carrier would be resupplied
and attack the next hundred yards of enemy trenches.
The development team thought that the requirements were impossible
to fulfill, because not only would a traditional airship have
to be gargantuan to carry the load, it would also have to
vent valuable helium when it dropped its bombs or when an
aircraft took off, lest it climbed to a height that would
rupture its bladder. However, a design that used propellers
would also be unacceptable, because it would use so much fuel
that it would only be able to stay airborne for a quarter
of an hour. The development team was instead going to suggest
an airship armada, with a basic modular design that could
be changed to suit its mission (TASC-PX-1, with modules a,
b, c).
Then a young nameless engineer made a unique suggestion. The
suggestion was to create a hybrid airship which would only
carry enough helium to reduce the empty weight of the airship
to nearly zero, then use propellers to hold the weight of
the aeroplanes, equipment, and bombs. The development team
then started work on an airship which was to have a single
bladder and carry a superstructure on the sides and bottom
(TASC-PX-2).
However, that design was deemed "Too fragile,"
and was abandoned for a double bladder design, with a fuselage
in the middle holding it together (TASC-PX-3). The design
was then streamlined, with an integrated hull (TASC-PX-4),
and sent the central entente war office for approval. The
design was rejected because the air defence turrets were deemed
too vulnerable and the armour 'too thin'. So the design team
again took to the drawing boards and made modifications. To
solve the problem of air defence gun vulnerability, the design
team placed the anti-aircraft guns into recessed cavities
in the balloon structures. The design team also shifted armour
around so that the bottom of the craft met the required standards
of the War office, while the top was thinned to meet weight
restrictions. Unfortunately this also meant that a well-placed
artillery or mortar shell would go through the top of the
airship and detonate on the heavier armour on the floor, thus
crippling the craft.
The design (TASC-PX-5) was sent to the war office and was
immediately approved. The construction of three TASC air carriers
was contracted out to various Glorious People's Blimp factories
in Thembria. During construction, it was realized that the
air carriers would be very vulnerable to artillery fire from
below. (They were a quarter mile long. As said by one advisor,
"It would like pitting a barn against fifty trap shooters.")
This vulnerability resulted in one of the air carriers sacrificing
its bomb racks for two retrofitted Thembrian railroad guns
(TASC-PX-5a). Its revised mission was to use the guns and
its aeroplanes to destroy enemy artillery placements from
afar. (When properly aimed, the railroad guns had a range
of approx. 12 kilometres.) Then the other two air carriers
would rush into the area and commence their attacks.
Unfortunately, due to a long development process and construction
time, plus the chronic leaking of the bladders due to the
fact that the construction crews were unable to handle the
complex welding that the project required, the TASC-PX-5 air
carriers never saw a battlefield. Of the three, the TASC-PX-5a
was the only one where the welding crews managed to fix all
the leaks, but just as it was being outfitted, an armistice
was signed, ending the Great War. Due to disputes over ownership
and who would field the cost, the three air carriers were
put in mothballs, until recently.
An unknown band of air pirates broke into the warehouse and
stole the PX-5a for use as a mobile airbase. From reports,
the air pirates improved the electrical systems and modified
the takeoff doors to resemble a beak. After the heist, Thembrian
officials ordered the remaining two to be dismantled. However
this has yet to occur, since the ownership dispute with Usland
had not yet been resolved by a League of Nations court.
Note: The designation 'PX' meant 'Practical Experimental'.
The designation was only used for designs that are to go straight
from blueprint to production, with no prototypes or scaled
down 'proof of concept' crafts.
Design History of the TASC (Total Air Superiority Carrier):
- TASC-PX-1 (Never Built)
Concept: Armada of small modular airships would
work in a convoy to accomplish requirements.
Variants: There were technically no variants,
for the basic design of the airship could accept various
modules. These modules were:
.
TASC-PX-1a: Aircraft launch and recovery. The
module held one aeroplane, plus extra ammunition and
fuel for the plane.
TASC-PX-1b: Bomb racks. Could hold 4,000 pounds
of munitions.
TASC-PX-1c: Anti-aircraft guns. Equipped with
six heavy machine guns.
- TASC-PX-2 (Never Built)
Concept: Hybrid airship, central bladder with
superstructure. Was considered to be too structurally
unsound.
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