Rodondo's little Australian AU(1910-1950)

Rodondo wrote:

Put in Brewster Buffaloes in AU RAAF colours because I am not sure what they would use as aircraft, suggestions?

Like other people said, you pretty much selected correctly with the Buffalo (which IIRC the RAAF did use in some quantity).

After that you're probably looking at Sea Hurricanes/Seafires, or Hellcats.

AFAIK the Buffalo also suffered from a shortage of the right type of engine, leading them to being rather underpowered compared to design.

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

Well, if you are going for an American aircraft, you might try the Grumman F5F, being better than the Wildcat at speed and climb rate, as well as having a fair armament. Introduced in 1940, so this would make a good piece for an early Pacific War air group. As for attack aircraft, maybe the SB2U.

If you want British aircraft, you might go for the Sea Hurricane, along with the Albacore or Swordfish.

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Puerto Oeste - AU - WWI-WWII

I haven't had a chance to finalize my air-wing but here is the back story and a nearly done 1939 drawing

The Ballarat was a steamship built in Ireland for the P&O company for the United Kingdom-Australia run, in 1920, being named after a city in Victoria. After an eventful career of 15 years, she was deemed too old for service and was laid up. The Australian Navy bought her with the intent of turning her into an aircraft carrier, work on which started in early 1936 and ending in 1937. She emerged significantly changed(with the exception of her name) and was even different compared to other aircraft carriers.She served out the first two years of the war with not much distinguishing service (with the exception of helping hunt for the Graf Spee) , until May 1942 when she was anchored in off Kimbe, in New Guinea, when a number of zeros and vals took the town unaware and the Ballarat herself shot down a few assailants but sustained a bomb hit forward of the bridge,required major repairs in Brisbane which resulted in her hangar being lengthened to accommodate another aircraft. She was present at the actions off Rabaul in February 1943 and earned an extra battle honor. She was in every major action of the war after that and was in Tokyo Bay during the surrender of Japan. After the war it was clear she was not going to make keep her role as fleet aircraft carrier for the next decade with the arrival of the jet age, even through she was carrying a new squadron of navalized CAC Kangaroos, placed in reserve after the immediate aftermath of returning troops home. In 1950, with the advent of the purchase of the Fleet Carriers HMAS Perth and HMAS Sydney, Ballarat was used as a plane storage and repair ship which rarely left Sydney, let alone home waters. Concerning, irreparable damage from the war and and in her previous life where catching up to her with her already slow speed being reduced to 12 knots on a good day.She soldiered on until 1958 when she was decommissioned for a second time and struck from the Naval list and was broken up in 1959.

Length-158.1m(160m after conversion)
Beam-19.6m(25.4m after conversion)
Draught-9.1m(9.3m after conversion)
Displacement-15,000t(15350t after conversion)
Speed-14knots cruising, 16.5knots full

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Miscellaneous|Victorian Colonial Navy|Murray Riverboats|Colony of Victoria AU|Project Sail-fixing SB's sail shortage
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"Loitering on the High Seas" (Named after the good ship Rodondo)
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If you want Australia to start even earlier, you could speculate that they acquire the Olympic or Mauritania for conversion to a carrier, being done so in another country. If its the US, you may even get some more modern aircraft (SBD, TBD, F2A, F4F, or F5F) into the airwing.

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Puerto Oeste - AU - WWI-WWII

She looks beautiful, well done Rhodondo!

As for the Finns using Buffalos, the Buffalos went after Bombers and were told to scatter if they came upon Fighters. Thats why the Finns were successful with the Buffalos.

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And this was the aircraft that the RAF used to defend Malaya and Singapore against the might of the Japanese military, rather than ground or naval forces; no wonder they got massacred.

Quote:

As for the Finns using Buffalos, the Buffalos went after Bombers and were told to scatter if they came upon Fighters. Thats why the Finns were successful with the Buffalos.

Well its actually more to do the fact that Soviets used still mostly I-16 and I-153 as their main fighter on the finnish front, to compared which the Bwester was superior in every form. They also faired relatively well against the LaGG-3 and MiG-2, plus Hurricanes that Soviet used.

Here is a chart of the Hävlav 24 (figther squardon 24) air victories.(it is in finnish, but the names of the planes should still be recconisable to english) the upper chart is for the Air victories in winterwar flewn without Buffaloes (marked as BW- in the collum "oma kone" = own plane) but the bigger one is from the contiunition war with Buffaloes. (the last collum marks the type of the downed soviet plane)

Still haven't finalized the air wing yet (nearly there!) but have the structure of the Navy in 1906

Monitors

Cerberus Class x1 (from the VCN)
-HMAS Cerberus 3340 tons

Cruisers

Challenger Class x1
-HMAS Encounter 5880 tons (from the RN)

Pelorus Class x2 (Both from the RN)
-HMAS Psyche 2135 tons
-HMAS Pioneer 2200 tons

Victorian Protected Cruiser x1 (from the VCN)
-HMAS ? 1040 tons

Powerful Class x1 (from the RN)
-HMAS Powerful 14400 tons

Gunboats

Albert Class x1 (from the VCN)
-HMAS Albert 350 tons

Victoria Class x1 (from the VCN)
-HMAS Victoria 530 tons

Gayundah Class x2 (from the QCN)
-HMAS Gayundah 360 tons
-HMAS Paluma 360 tons

Protector Class x1 (from SA)
-HMAS Protector 920 tons

plus 6 torpedo boats and 2 training vessels

Abreviations

VCN-Victorian Colonial Navy
QCN-Queensland Colonial Navy
RN-Royal Navy

Looks good, I'm looking forward to where this is going

Shipbucket

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