Kadaicha Man

This webpage features pictures of the "back breaking" effect from the use of heavy weight torpedoes exploding under the hull of a warship: http://www.btinternet.com/~warship/Feature/sink/sink.htm These websites feature extensive pictures and video of the sinking of HMAS Torrens - again by torpedo, which broke her back http://smmlonline.com/reference/walkabouts...ns/torrens.html http://www.metacafe.com/watch/21456/torpedo_hit/ Videos of other ships being sunk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkUu2NR6t7M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQeWD6hm6Ak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQm_gOwxsuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjnpcdG8Tww http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwyNaBsITxs By Penguin Missile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw9f3SQbLJQ Interesting series of articles by an old friend of mine: http://www.ausairpower.net/Warship-Hits.html http://www.ausairpower.net/ASPC-Expand-Mirror.html

As you yourself point out, one should be careful about drawing correlations. When they were attempting to scuttle the carrier, they were deliberatley attempting to make it possible that she would settle and do so quickly (one wonders if they still fit seacocks in CVNs?), so obviously they had to expend considerable effort to make it do what it wasn't designed to whereas if it was hit by an enemy's weapons, then they would do the work for them and do it in a catastrophic manner as well. Those doors and compartments they cut away/holes in, would be stoved in and burnt out. Further, war damage often, as the experience of the Sheffield showed, ways of defeating ship designs which the designers never understood or expected. Look at the way Hood was destroyed by a flash-fire which ignited her magazine, after only a few lucky hits by Bismark. The RN had known about the dangers of flash-fires since Jutland when three battlecruisers were lost after being hit. Hood was intended to be modernised in 1941 IIRC but because of the outbreak of war made it impossible to remove her from service, and as a consequence she never received the scheduled update. The design fault which caused her demise was left in place, despite she having been redesigned in 1918 to prevent it, in light of the losses at Jutland to exactly the same thing - flash-fires in the handling rooms and then the magazines. Sheffield likewise was designed without fully understanding what a missile like an Exocet was capable of and she suffered accordingly. She was designed to a price. So are CVNs. As the old saying goes, "always remember the rifle in your hands was designed by the lowest bidder!" ;)

Like all information, unless you know the correct terms to search on, the information will remain hidden. I'd love to do what you ask but you're using terms I am unfamilar with such as "main forums" - what/where are they? And how about, "‘Hot Topic’ Forums"? I assume you mean this one, which is, I note entitled, "general discussion" - where else to discuss such issues then, than here?

On a lighter note about CVN construction

Ah! Ha! Thank you, very muchly indeed! That does the trick. Now, I seem to remember when I first looked at this game that there was a little utility that one could download that would tell you how far from the target you had to be in horizontal flight, flying at a particular altitude to get your bombs within coo-eee of the target. Doing it by eye has proved thus far just how little I know about bomb dropping. I supposed I could trot out my old copy of Air War'79 and look at its "falling bomb" plotting table but that works IIRC in hexes so it wouldn't work too well in SFP1. :) So, does anybody know where I can find that little utility or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Is there a single key/command that allows me to drop all the bombs on an aircraft at once, rather than individually? Jettison does it but it appears to drop everything, rather than just the weapons I've selected (which means AAMs also go :roll: ).

I was aware there were two missiles but failed to note it, except in the last sentence of my para on the Stark. My apologies. As far as the torpedo's effect on a ship, most heavy torpedos are designed to explode below the hull of a surface target. In doing so, the water magnifies the pressure wave from the explosion, which causes considerable damage but the real killer is apparently the large bubble of gases which is produced by the explosion, which rising immediately after the shockwave, makes the ship bend - literally and this results in its frame fracturing ("breaking it's back"). Influence mines, such as magnetic/acoustic/pressure actuated ones, laid on the seabed utilise the same effect. HMS Belfast, exploded one of the first German laid magnetic mines and broke her back in 1940 and was so badly damaged that she nearly had to be scrapped, however the RN desperate for ships, decided to repair her. Apparently she still has a slight bend in her hull, with the result that the bow and stern are lower than the midships by a matter of an inch or two. Belfast was built to much stronger standards than a CVN is so I would expect one or two torpedos would finish a CVN.

One should be very careful about making assumptions in warfare. It was once claimed that the Yamamoto was "unsinkable" as was the Repulse. Both were sunk. Throw enough weapons at a ship, no matter how big and how well designed and eventually it will be sunk. Long before that point is reached though, it will be rendered inoperable and effectively hores de' combat. In the case of the CVNs, a heavy torpedo under the hull and its back would be broken. A couple of large anti-ship missiles (bigger than Exocet or Harpoon which are now considered rather small by today's standard) and it would be rendered inoperable, more than likely on fire and needing to be towed. The comparison with Forrestal is inappropriate - the explosions and accompanying fires were all on the flight deck, outside the ship. While they were nasty and they did cause quite a bit of damage, it was largely superficial and the ship was able to return to operations relatively quickly. A missile hit, which penetrates the hull and then explodes would be a whole different kettle of fish. Crew casualties would be considerably greater, as well as structural damage. Further, fires would be also quite a bit more damaging. If the hit was able to put the engines out of action, the ship would be helpless. Unlike WWII, there would be nothing immediately available which was powerful enough to provide a tow. Effectively, she would be written off. She might still be floating but that would be able it. Further, the comparison with Stark is also misleading. Stark was saved more by luck, than design. The missile struck when the ship was not at action stations. Thankfully it failed to explode, although as with Sheffield, the burning fuel was more than sufficient to do considerable damage. Quick thinking and hard work by the surviving crew saved her, otherwise she would have been a goner. As it was, she was rendered inoperable and only barely limped away. All-in-all, a very lucky ship indeed. Its crew should be thankful the Iraqi Airforce was so incompetant and that one of the missiles failed to explode. I wonder, is it possible to set the damage rating on a carrier at some midway point - where it can still act as an airfield but can be damaged sufficiently, if not to sink it, render it inoperable?

I usually use the dimensions which are publically available. I've been wondering if the publicly available plans and dimensions (sometimes from two different sources) are correct or not. However, while I can overcome that problem, I'm more interested in getting the vertices correct. Why is that I can align the top or the bottom contour of the fuselage but not both?

I have followed them but the problem I have is that when I attempt to make the fuselage, I can get it correct from the front but when I do it from the side, the cylinder becomes distorted in odd shapes. I can make the vertices conform to, say either the top or the bottom contour of the fuselage but not both! The result is a fuselage which looks decidely odd. The other problem I have is that when I create my front, side and top view from the 3 view drawing, invariably the side view doesn't line up with the front view on the "box" which I created. Very strange.

What I'd like to see is some means to use those honking big Russian anti-ship missiles properly. Some means to achieve a radar lockon with them and let them loose to hit their target.

Nice to see everybody leap to help me.

I'm also interested in trying to get into making models for SF/WOV. I've been working my way through the tutorials done by, "mustang" I think his name was, which I downloaded off one site. However, I get a very different result to what he does. What I need is either some better tutorials in how to use 3ds max or someone to help me. Any takers? I've got several projects I'd like to try and do, if I could.

I've recently just reinstalled Strike Fighters. Because of circumstance I've had to downgrade my PC and am now using one with Win2k as an OS and only 256 MB RAM, with a PIII CPU. This is within the specs for SF. However, when I attempt to run Strike Fighters, all I get is, well nothing, when I come to fly the mission I've selected. The applicaiton simply dies and I'm returned to the desktop. Everything appears to run fine up to that point but then, it simply gives up the ghost. Does anybody have any suggestions as to why that occurs?

I've just installed my Valuesoft edition of SFP1 and started patching. However when I attempted to apply Patch 1, I was informed that it couldn't because the MessageSystem.dll file was different. So I then proceeded to do patch 2a. That went OK. Then it comes to patch 3a, that went OK. Patch3.1 goes OK. Patch 3.2 goes OK. My question is, do I really need Patch 1?