Shipbucket

Hello everyone I would like to present you with my latest SB related endeavour, a brand new AU as you can probably guess by the title and it's contents this AU is going to explore the (admittedly overused) concept of an axis Victory and it's effect on the world going forward, but but unlike some other AU that explore this concept, I have decided to try and keep it as realistic as possible when it comes to military equipment that both the greater germanic Reich and imperial Japanese Empire and their accompanying satellite States and other entities would use from World War II going forward

when it comes to the lore of this AU I am going to mostly tell it the text that accompanies the vehicles I make and use, but for those who are not the biggest fans of Reading walls of text you can enjoy some pretty drawings at least, also this thread will get updated every now and again, but it is never going to be my main focus, and therefore I guess you could consider this a side project to my currently top secret main Project

so without any more further ado, may I present to you the schöne Welt AU


the first aircraft I present to you, is the Pride of the kriegsmarine Fleet Air Arm, the Focke-Wulf 320 Tigerhai

crew: 1 or 2 depending on variant
Length: 20.08 m (65 ft 9 in)
Wingspan: 13.64 m (44 ft 7 in)
Height: 5.23 m (17 ft 1 in)
Wing area: 69.21 m² (745 ft²)
Empty weight: 43,735 lb (19,838 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 74,350 lb (33,725 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Junkers Jumo 027 A turbofan
Dry thrust: 16,610 lbf (73.9 kN) each
Thrust with afterburner: 28,200 lbf (125 kN) each

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2.26 (1,735 mph, 2,792 km/h) at altitude
Range: 1,700 nmi (1,959 mi, 3,148 km)
Combat range: 500 nmi (580 mi, 930 km)
Service ceiling: 57,000 ft (17,373 m) plus g limits: +7.5[N 2]
Rate of climb: 45,000 ft/min (230 m/s) plus
Wing loading: 96 lb/sq ft (470 kg/m2) [182]
48 lb/sq ft (230 kg/m2) effective[35]
Maximum g-load: +9/−3.6g (+11g in emergencies)


originally born out of the need by the kriegsmarine to replace its aging fleet of Me 544 carrier Fighters, the Focke Wulf 320 Tigerhai and it's contemporary the Me 600, were in many ways are returned to the reichs World War II era mindset of the thoroughbred and workhorse Fighters, with both Fighters meant for fill the same functions within both the Luftwaffe and kriegsmarine, trials of various different aircraft manufacturers entries in the 1970s carrier fighter proposal would result in the Focke Wulf 320 deserve to be far superior to most of the competitors when it came to handling and maneuverability, another feature of the aircraft that enticed interest from many in the kriegsmarine, was that it was developed to be completely compatible with the brand new Siemens XR433 x-band phase Doppler radar, which for its time was considered one of the most powerful and most capable aircraft mounted radar in the world, however Siemens had yet to find a suitable aircraft to Mount the radar which infuriated the kriegsmarine top brass to no end, however with the prospect of the Fw 320 being designed specifically to Mount this brand-new radar, meant that it was quickly fast-tracked through the rest of its development and resulted in it being adopted and put into service, however this would proved to be a slight detriment to the aircraft and would result in teething problems in its first years of service


even though the Fw 320 faced many teething problems in its first couple years of service, it would quickly gained a reputation as being one of the best fighter aircraft that the greater germanic reich had and it's disposal, with pilots from both the kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe, praising the aircraft for its maneuverability and speed, however the aircraft in its first major engagement would stumble and have it design put in question, incident occurred on the 2nd of October 1982 during a routine Patrol flight over German occupied Kerala India, the patrol consisted of two brand new Fw320 A1's and three Indian Defence Force Me 544 U5's, the two Fw 320's were flown by veteran kriegsmarine pilots, flight sergeant Otto Hans krabe and flight lieutenant Hermann theodore Himmler, At approximately 17:23 hours the patrol was just reaching the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram the largest city in the Kerala region, when they will pounced upon by a flight of six captured Ta 270's belonging to the Indian communist Rebellion, even though the joint Indian and German Patrol were surprised the fight was relatively one-sided, within 10 minutes three out of the six Ta 270's had been shot down, with one Indian Me 544 having to disengage from the battle due to damage an engine problems, flight sergeant Otto and flight lieutenant Hermann continues to pursue the now retreating aircraft, not realising that one of them had managed to gain a significant altitude advantage over both of them, Otto was the first to realise when the enemy aircraft began to dive for an attack, Otto was then reported by Hermann to perform a very hard left turn but halfway through the turn Hermann described Ottos aircraft as simply folding in two before bursting into a ball of flames, the ICR pilot use the opportunity to escape, combined with energy advantage and Herman's momentary surprise, meant that Herman and the patrol could not catch up to the enemy aircraft before It disappeared, Otto's aircraft came to rest approximately 2 miles outside Thiruvananthapuram, Ottos remains were found still inside the aircraft which made the investigators concluded that Otto had died when is aircraft suffered its catastrophic structural collapse, this incident ultimately would lead to an enquiry into to the design of the FW 320, however the investigation with ultimately conclude that the design of the aircraft wasn't the cause of the structural failure, the actual cause of the failure was damaged the aircraft sustained during shipping India from the Reich

_________________
Work list: 1. various pre-1900 Zipang ships 2. Some protected cruisers and other miscellaneous projects

I present to you another fine addition to this thread

the Focke-Wulf Ta 270

by the start of the 1980 the Ta 270 hopelessly outdated and obsolete, however the Ta 270 still form the backbone of many Air Defence units in the Greater German Reich, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, was where the Ta 270 saw the last of it's service for the Reich, the aircraft played a very prominent role in The angolan crisis, and quite substantial uprising anti Reich forces in the Southern half of Africa, due to the speed of these small pockets of resistance growing into a full-scale Rebellion, the Luftwaffe was unable to mobilize its forces quick enough, as a result much of the combat against the Rebels was undertaken by the recognised government of South South Africa's Air service and the aircraft carrier KMS admiral doenitz, which happened to be in port in South Africa at the time along with its strike group

Over the course of the 6-week conflict, the joint African and kriegsmarine would conduct many operations in South Africa, particularly in Angola where the Communist Rebellion was believed to be situated, however due to the the long distances the strike units will have to fly, several South African Fw-220's jet bombers were converted into tanker aircraft, making it so that the the strike units could fly the long distances is required to reach their target. as a result of being horribly obsolete the Ta 270's were primarily used in the ground attack roll destroying resistance units and anti aircraft installations, while the kriegsmarine Fw 320's were to clear the skies of any enemy resistance, however since the rebellion lacked that many aircraft that posed a threat to the strike units, meant that most of the time the kriegsmarine Fighters patrol the area and protected the Ta 270's however by late September Luftwaffe forces had been deployed to South Africa in large numbers, however by that point the rebellion was all but destroyed thanks in no small part to the South African air service, the Ta 270's would continue in South African service before finally being retired and replaced by Me 560's in late 1983

_________________
Work list: 1. various pre-1900 Zipang ships 2. Some protected cruisers and other miscellaneous projects

Quite an ambitious concept, but one that you've pulled off quite well so far.

I eagerly await the next installment.

thanks my man

_________________
Work list: 1. various pre-1900 Zipang ships 2. Some protected cruisers and other miscellaneous projects

It’s no problem, though I’m afraid that I won’t be able to offer much in the way of constructive commentary when it comes to the aeroplanes.

I bring to you today another audition to this thread, however this time the spotlight is going to be on the Japanese instead of the Germans, hopefully you will enjoy what I have created for you


Nakajima G11N

with the complete surrender of the United States of America, the Japanese took stock of the many captured US technologies and aircraft that have been developed at the time of the Invasion, of particular interest was some of the prototype and production aircraft that the US was producing at the time, such as the B-29 superfortress and F6F hellcats and F8F bearcat carrier fighters, with the capture of Boeings main production facilities many examples of b29s in all stages of construction were captured by the Japanese Imperial army, with many flying models of the aircraft been shipped back to Japan for evaluation and testing, from this evaluation and testing it was found that the B-29 if deployed against Japanese, would have been a very formidable weapon and on top of that, was a revelation that would shock the Japanese Military and government, this revelation was that the US had plans to modify b29s to carry atomic bombs, which if deployed against a populated Japanese City such as Tokyo, it could have brought the Empire to its knees in one fell swoop, of course with hundreds of examples that have been built and many that were almost complete the Imperial Japanese armed forces, came to the sensible conclusion that's not putting to use such powerful aircraft would have been a waste, as a result both imperial Japanese army and Navy would take on quite a few b29s with the aircraft being redesignated to the G11N for the navy and the Ki-300 for the army, nakajima was also responsible for the maintenance of aircraft for their projected service lives and any future modifications that would be necessary for the aircrafts service,

although the B29 in Japanese army service wouldn't last that long with all of them being retired by 1955, the navy and it's G11N and derivatives would see much success throughout the 40s and 50s, in particular operation Okha would see the G11N responsible for initiating Japan's first nuclear attack on a foreign enemy, with two modified G11N2-B's from the 120 Kōkūtai, dropping two Type 9 15kt special devices on Barnaul and Novokuznetsk which had become larger staging ground for what remained of the Red Army that had fled from from the German advance in the west, this would ultimately vindicate the aircraft has been reliable for its mission, with many at the time doubting it's performance due to it being of American design instead of Japanese. after the conclusion of operation Okha in the summer of 1952, the G11N would continue to serve the Imperial Japanese Navy for years to come, with quite a few of them in their later years finding their way back to the US, with the largest portion of them being station out of vandenberg air base in California, with many of them being modified to carry a single Type 12 anti ship missile and some being converted for Coastal Patrol duty,


however by the late 50s many of the now quite old G11N's well being retired in favour of newer aircraft, however some would be selected for an experimental modification to turn them into motherships, for a brand new type of reconnaissance vehicle, this was the Mitsubishi type 25 aerial reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle, which was a modification of the type 12 anti ship missile, in total 16 aircraft would be converted for this duty, with many of them being deployed the Japanese German India border, to observe Third Reich military movements and other developments in the region, however after an incident in 1967 with one of these aircraft being shot down along with its UAV would be that the entire operation would be compromised, the remaining G11N's would quickly pulled from service and replaced with much newer and faster modified mothership aircraft, bringing an end to perhaps one of the most prolific American designs that was employed by the Imperial Japanese armed forces

_________________
Work list: 1. various pre-1900 Zipang ships 2. Some protected cruisers and other miscellaneous projects

Gosh it has been quite a while since I've updated this thread, but fingers crossed hopefully I'll be able to update it more frequently in the future, anyway this time around we have a Japanese aircraft for all of you to enjoy

Yokosuka Q4Y

General characteristics



Crew: 2 Depending On Variant
Length: 42 ft 3 today in (12.9 m)
Wingspan: 54 ft 4 in (16.56 m)
Height: 13 ft 12 in (4.00 m)
Wing area: 483 sq ft (44.9 m2)
Empty weight: 14,069 lb (6,381 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 18,600 lb (8,436 kg)
Powerplant: 1 × Nakajima HA-280 24 cylinder H engine, 3,700 shp
Propellers: 8-bladed Sumitomo contra-rotating propeller

Performance
Maximum speed: 290 mph (466 km/h)
Endurance: 5–6 hours
Service ceiling: 25,000 ft (7,600 m)

Armament
Up to 2,000 lb of bombs, torpedoes, depth charges and rockets (ASW variants)

with the end of the 1940s and official end of the Second World War, it was very clear to the higher ups of the Imperial Japanese Navy that a large rationalization was in order after such a prolonged period of conflict, during this rationalization, it was found that certain aspects of the imperial navy, were woefully underdeveloped with the biggest one of these being anti-submarine Warfare, despite the Americans not having the largest submarine Fleet in the world, it was found that many losses could have been prevented if suitable anti-submarine aircraft and warships would have been available, as a result starting in 1951, began work into designing a new dedicated carrier based ASW aircraft, after finalising the requirements the contract was put out to many of the Japanese aircraft manufacturers, with the entry from Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal, proving itself to be the superior aircraft during trials.

The Q4Y would very quickly find an opportunity to prove itself, when in 1958 a year after its introduction, a Chinese maritime Defence Force diesel-electric submarine would go rogue after reports of Japanese brutality in several cities and villages, as a result the full anti-submarine might of the Imperial Japanese Navy was called into track down the rogue submarine, after a two-week long Chase the submarine would be sited 64 miles off the coast of mainland China buy a pair of World War II vintage h-6k flying boats operated by the Chinese advents Force, the location of the submarine would be transmitted to the 1st carrier division which was operating in the area at the time, a squadron of 6 Q4Y's would be dispatched from the carrier kaga, after a further 2 hours of searching the submarine would be located on the surface, however as the aircraft closed in for their attack run, the submarine initiated a crash dive, the aircraft of the group Q4Y (へ-516), would manage to score a hit on the diving submarine, with the submarine submerged aircraft return to the carrier, after the submarine not having been cited for several days and a large patch of while being spotted at the approximate location of, it was concluded that the hit on the submarine was indeed a fatal one with the submarine sinking to the bottom, as a result vindicating that still new Q4Y in the eyes of the Navy.

with the success of the Q4Y, it was decided by the Imperial government to to sell a slightly modified export version of the aircraft too many of its Partners in the co-prosperity sphere, with the largest order of 68 going to the Pacific States of America, which despite not having an aircraft carrier of its own, the aircraft still prove themselves reliable and effective at the mission they were designed for, another large-scale operator of the aircraft was the Philippine maritime Defence Force, with the Q4Y 3's operating of the navy's only carrier BRP Gregorio del Pilar starting in 1960, throughout the rest of the 1960s the aircraft would be operated by a number of countries in the co-prosperity sphere, surprisingly a few aircraft even be sold to Benirteixo Republic, one of the few countries in the world not directly under control of either the Germans or Japanese, however by the beginning of the 1970s the Q4Y was beginning to look it's age, as a result starting in 1973 the Imperial Japanese Navy began looking into replacing the old but reliable bird, with this enquiry eventually leading to the Q8K aircraft in 1976.

by the mid 1980s the Q4Y had been completely replaced by its successor, however many of the aircraft that were taken out of service, were stored in a aircraft rehabilitation centre in northern Australia just in case they were needed again in the future, this decision would pay off in 1984 when the Japanese army and Air Force agreed to help Indian communist rebel cells in destabilising the control of the greater germanic reich in northern India, to do this many aircraft most of which were old and outdated were employed with markings that were hastily painted over, Q4Y was chief among them, with a total of 36 ex Navy aircraft being retrofitted for ground attack, despite not being designed as a ground attack aircraft Q4Y proved itself to be a reliable aircraft in this role, having a confirmed total of 128 armored targets destroyed between the 38 aircraft, with only 4 aircraft being lost in the 6-month operation, however with a full-scale southern Indian counterattack on the Japanese side of the border in late August 1984, many of the aircraft would either be abandoned at the airfield they were stationed at by the retreating Japanese forces or would be flown to other Japanese held air bases in Southern China, however by 1985 the Japanese army and Air Force had managed mustards forces and repel the southern Indian advance, and with their duty fulfilled the remaining Q4Y's would be retired for the final time, bringing an end to the almost 30 year service of the remarkable aircraft.

_________________
Work list: 1. various pre-1900 Zipang ships 2. Some protected cruisers and other miscellaneous projects

Awesome! That shading!

The Man in the High Castle?

_________________
Welcome to my Kingdom!!!
( http://shipbucket.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8293 )

thank you very much friend This AU is very much inspired by the man in the high Castle, but this is its own separate thing

_________________
Work list: 1. various pre-1900 Zipang ships 2. Some protected cruisers and other miscellaneous projects