Brandon replied to me: > MA Lloyd addressed this in his unofficial vehicle expansions after VE2 > came out. IIRC, a sub need to be at least 80% maximum displacement or it > couldn't sink.
Hello Brandon, that is exactly what my formula gave -- when ballast tanks add 25% to displacement, so they are 20% of the total component and tank volume. If all of the tank volume is filled with water, the remainder must be between 80% and 100% of flotation. Making subs this heavy is not a house rule, I simply keep away from exploiting a loophole in Vehicles. > This may be where the planes of Sky Captain start becoming impossible > while the Russian project remains vaguely plausible -- the Russian fyling > boat, > as best I could tell, only flooded the pontoons, with wings, budy and > engine pods sealed. The conning tower may or may not have taken on water to > improve submerged performance. Imagine a tiny submarine, with HP gas engines instead of diesel. Instead of a screw propeller in the rear, it has an aerial propeller in front. Add free-flooding wings. Why shouldn't that work just as well as any other small submarine? The submersible option doubles the weight and cost of the hull. You ought to get something for that ... > A lot depends on how far you want it to go down. While the planes in Sky > Captain were fairly deep-diving, the Russian sub was not really intended to > go below periscope depth. As deep as I can conveniently go. Depth is not a priority. > You may want to look at how Graham Hawkes _Deep Flight_ submersible works > as an alternative. That gets into house rules. > Bigger wings, STOL wings! They already were STOL, and much more than 10 cf means it won't have the prop fighter look. > The biggest problem I see with the Sky Captain planes is the transition > between land and water. Six G for one second should be enough to lift the plane out of the water and accelerate to 100 mph. A solid rocket would require 2.7% of Lwt per use. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
