Matrix Games

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ORIGINAL: bjmorgan

I can't believe it.  Only on the WITP forum would you see an argument about the comparative ASW efficacies of Airships and PBYs.  Good grief.  Somebody release AE.  Please! 

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Fishbed:
Even with a giant leap forward, the HQ would never have gone for something they may lose in a storm while costing as much as 16 heavy floatplanes which can do the same job and much more...

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Engineer:
I think the numbers speak for themselves that patrol planes are a more effective method of naval search.

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Fishbed:
With such an accident rate (even with safer units, that still would be much more than the average plane), the vulnerable and heavy infrastructures (means having special stations to take care of those beasts, which are so vulnerable on the ground anyway), the inability to defend themselves efficiently in the air against more than a pair of planes, how can you expect the airship option to be more interesting than the equivalent amount of PBYs you could buy for the same price?

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Engineer:
by distributing the search over 12 independent platforms instead of one primary and up to 5 dependent platforms, the PBY squadron is more robust in terms of being more resistant to a single point of failure that would disable the squadrons search ability.    

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

The Macon was scuttled!

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ORIGINAL: engineer

Naval Search:

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Fishbed:
Even with a giant leap forward, the HQ would never have gone for something they may lose in a storm while costing as much as 16 heavy floatplanes which can do the same job and much more...

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Engineer:
I think the numbers speak for themselves that patrol planes are a more effective method of naval search.

Maintenance:

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Fishbed:
With such an accident rate (even with safer units, that still would be much more than the average plane), the vulnerable and heavy infrastructures (means having special stations to take care of those beasts, which are so vulnerable on the ground anyway), the inability to defend themselves efficiently in the air against more than a pair of planes, how can you expect the airship option to be more interesting than the equivalent amount of PBYs you could buy for the same price?

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Engineer:
by distributing the search over 12 independent platforms instead of one primary and up to 5 dependent platforms, the PBY squadron is more robust in terms of being more resistant to a single point of failure that would disable the squadrons search ability.    

Actually, we agree on quite a bit. 

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ORIGINAL: bobogoboom

and no one is shooting at it.

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ORIGINAL: mikemike

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ORIGINAL: bobogoboom

and no one is shooting at it.

That's definitely not correct. I've read an interview with a Blimp pilot a few years back; he said that whenever they fly cross-country in the US, they have to patch up bullet holes in the envelope afterwards. Too many people with an itch in their trigger fingers, apparently.

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Almost every pilot that I've ever talked to (private or military) has had a story about bullet,buckshot or birdshot holes in his aircraft.

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ORIGINAL: mikemike
It's not just aircraft. Since the Eighties, every passenger carrying vehicle on US railroads has to be equipped with side windows that are bulletproof, and the front windows of locomotives have to be able to withstand the impact of a cement block thrown from a bridge, corner first, when the train is traveling at 87 mph.

But idiots are not confined to the USA; a year or so ago, here in Germany, a guy with bad impulse control threw a log off an autobahn bridge to vent his frustration; the log pierced the windshield of a car passing below and took the head off the driver. Her children were in the back seat. I confess to getting nervous when passing under a bridge with someone standing on it ever since.