Alt-history writing project

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Captain Wheelgun
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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randy wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 2:36 pm Good, however,

Just because you touched on one of my pet peeves :twisted:

I don't know that I would include avoiding the runway:

1. Autogyros are not going to need a lot of room, and could operate from taxiways or the ground beside the runway if needed.

2. Thermobarics are not going to do any significant damage to runways.

3. Even GPs are not going to do a lot of damage, and would not do any significant damage to a runway unless the laydown was purposely planned to do so.

This is a pet peeve from my targeting days. One of the ways you can tell an amateur when planning an attack on an airfield is that they target the runways first.

For a lot of reasons, they are poor targets and usually not worth the weapons (or risk to aircrews; Ask the Tornado crews that went after Iraqi runways using the JP233 "runway denial" weapon system). Much more productive places to bomb.

The only exception is if you want to degrade operations for a short period of time at a very specific time window (for instance keeping fighters on the ground while strike package passes through their area). Even then you are only degrading sortie generation, not stopping it.

Usually better to just put some fighters over head and kill them as they take off. (i.e. the "Wheels Up, Blow Up" model from DESERT STORM).

/Rant Off
Thanks, Randy. Once again, this is exctly the kind of feedback I was hoping to get. :lol:

I figured that thermobarics wouldn’t do anything to the runway, but I wasn’t sure about GPs. I had them avoid hitting the runway because I want the good guys to be able to use it later.

If I had wanted to destroy the runway, would AP bombs be effective? Would it need shelling from the 12” guns on the cruisers offshore?
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randy
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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Captain Wheelgun wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:38 pm
If I had wanted to destroy the runway, would AP bombs be effective? Would it need shelling from the 12” guns on the cruisers offshore?
If you want to "destroy" a runway, I would go with a 10 Megaton ground burst. :twisted:

The problem with runways as targets:

1. When talking about fighters (and when I say fighters in this rant, assume I also mean fighter/bombers and attack aircraft) , runways are usually 2-3 times as long as need for takeoff, so you need to cut it in multiple places. Often bomber and transport fields have runways longer than needed for take off and landing (especially under combat conditions). Some bomber bases have runways 5 times as long as needed for a fighter combat take off. Also, especially runways designed for bombers and heavy transports, are often twice or more as wide as needed for a fighter sized aircraft to use.

2. Other surfaces, such as taxi ways, parking aprons, even roads can be used for emergency runways. And if you have multiple runways at a base, your weapons lay down problem just effectively doubled, if not more.

3. I don't know about the capabilities of the Frog aircraft in your timeline, but you might notice that RAF Spitfires Hurricanes and Luftwaffe aircraft of the era your are writing about often operated off grass fields. During the 80's, Soviet fighters had "rough field" capability, which meant they could use the ground beside a runway if needed.

4. Under combat conditions, runways are fairly easily and quickly repaired if you are prepared for it. At least to levels suitable for combat conditions (i.e. peace time safety regulations and procedures are out the window).

5. In the early 1940s, "Precision Guided Munition" meant some sort of glide bomb, or Kamikazes. No laser or GPS guidance. And even if you postulate the German Electric Optical RF controlled weapons show up early, you are not going to have enough of them to effectively degrade a runway for any length of time. You basically have to drop enough dumb bombs so that it saturates the area to the point where random distribution works for you. Not something you are going to get from a couple of carriers. (Think the 1,000 plane four engine bomber raids of the RAF/USAAF).

6. There are no good runway denial weapons, despite the marketing hype of certain contractors.

The JP233 I mentioned earlier ended up making, what an acquittance of mine who did a ground survey of Iraqi airfields in the closing hours of DESERT STORM, "dimples" in the runway that were not effective in doing anything to Soviet designed fighters. The Bomb Damage Assessment profile of a JP233 strike was a bunch of small spots on a section of the runway, a large scorch mark where the Tornado impacted, and, if lucky, two ejection seats on the ground. Runway attack was how the RAF lost most of their Tornados in DS. And accomplished nothing of any significance.

The much vaunted Durandal is about as worthless. Make a few craters that are quickly patched, or just ignored as they used another part of the runway or other surface. The only effective use of it I am aware of is when the Iraqis used them against Iranian tankers during the Tanker War. The effect of Durandal on a runway is about the same as the AP bombs you suggested, except the dumb AP bombs are not going to be oriented to be even as minimally damaging as the Durandal.

7. The cruiser bombardment would make some nice craters that would take a while to fill in and patch, if you can put them in the right spots. Again, no precision/terminal guidance. You would have to saturate the area. Note that Henderson Field on Guadalcanal was regularly shelled by Japanese battleships and was never out of action for more than a few hours.

Bottom line, unless your objective is to degrade sortie generation for minutes to a few hours at most (i.e. keep them on the ground so they can't interfere with an operation in a specific time window) runways are lousy targets.

To put it another way, if you have enough munitions to effectively cut a runway in all the places you need, you get better results using them to hit aircraft parking areas/revetments/shelters, POL storage and pumping facilities, maintenance facilities, crew quarters, etc.

Probably way more than you wanted to read, but once you get me started...
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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randy wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 4:34 pm
Captain Wheelgun wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:38 pm
If I had wanted to destroy the runway, would AP bombs be effective? Would it need shelling from the 12” guns on the cruisers offshore?
If you want to "destroy" a runway, I would go with a 10 Megaton ground burst. :twisted:

The problem with runways as targets:

...Snip lots of reeeeeally good info about targeting runways...

Probably way more than you wanted to read, but once you get me started...
Thanks again, Randy. That’s about what I figured.

Yeah, French fighters should also be able to use grass fields. And definitely no PGMs (yet :twisted: )
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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Another snippet - A moral debate...

Removed due to upcoming publication of Book 2. See my post on 09/07/2022 for more info.
Last edited by Captain Wheelgun on Wed Sep 07, 2022 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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Another short snippet - The (German) plot thickens...

Removed due to upcoming publication of Book 2. See my post on 09/07/2022 for more info.
Last edited by Captain Wheelgun on Wed Sep 07, 2022 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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The Haunted Library anthology Vol. 2 just went live on Amazon.

This is the one that has my short story ‘The Ghosts of Port Aransas’ in it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BBN ... 885&sr=8-1
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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Just One Clicked it
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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Normally, I get a free download with my Kindle Unlimited subscription, but I went ahead and paid for Vol. 1&2 for the library. Excellent stories so far.

Ray
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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tfbncc wrote: Wed Aug 24, 2022 7:14 pm Normally, I get a free download with my Kindle Unlimited subscription, but I went ahead and paid for Vol. 1&2 for the library. Excellent stories so far.

Ray
Cool. Yeah, there’s a lot of good stories in both volumes.
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Re: Alt-history writing project

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Another snippet, this will likely be the last one, I’m almost finished. Looks like it will be somewhere over 70,000 words.

Removed due to upcoming publication of Book 2. See my post on 09/07/2022 for more info.
Last edited by Captain Wheelgun on Wed Sep 07, 2022 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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