A pulp picture...the USS Manhattan

[proditor]

Be nice, it's my first real fiddling with Photoshop.

The USS Manhattan was originally laid down in 1928 at both the Brooklyn Navy Yards and the Wingfoot Lake Hanger facility. It was an attempt to go one step beyond even the audacious dreams of the USS Acron and Macon, that were then only just in the blueprint stage.

Moving beyond merely the extended scout concept, the USS Manhattan would mate the striking power of a full airwing (40 aircraft) with the speed and versatility of the blimp. A new doping process was used as well as secrets in lift technology that are classified even to this day. It is rumored that what began with the USS Manhattan culminated in the modern day USS Halsey class Stealth Airborne Aircraft Carriers (SAAC).

Here the newly christened USS Manhattan has hurried to San Francisco to deal with the machinations of the insidious Red Death airwing of pirates that had been plaguing the West Coast for a few weeks. Arriving before the "wet" navy, the Manhattan was instrumental in helping to bring the Red Death to trial.

She went on to greater fame in World War 2 when she managed to get within a whisker's width of the Japanese fleet at the battle of the Coral Sea and launched a full strike that caught both the Shokaku and Zuikaku as they were leaving the area. This, coupled with the success at Midway, are credited with helping to end the war in the Pacific in early 1945 without forcing the choice to use Atomic weapons.

[shadowcat1313]

interesting idea, what holds two envelopes together?
it looks like there is some kind of structure atop the two envelopes

[Barton]

Good job on photo and backround, okay to "steal"... oops, I mean use in a pulp game of mine?

PS rep to you.

[proditor]

Yeah, the tilted angle limited what I could show, but it's a flight deck. The envelopes are arranged catamaran style with the flight deck located at the center.

EDIT: Sure, borrow to your heart's content.

[Cancer]

You know, depending on how the propellers are arranged, this thing could carry, say, a company of parachutists and a few artillery pieces for them instead of small fixed-wing aircraft, or perhaps mixtures of the two, giving you a rapidly deployable multi-threat force. A very versatile heavy-lift platform.

[The Monster]

Well, my first reaction was "gah - that would never work!" - I know too much about airships...

But, being pulp, to heck with that!

The deck would probably be connected to the hulls with flexible joints, to allow for air currents and handling restrictions. The most likely employment of a ship like this is as a high-altitude base - it's a flying aircraft carrier, and just like the wet variety, does *not* want to get into the fray itself (though the possibility of a missile-carrying version for bombardment presents itself - a flying Aegis cruiser, perhaps?).

The real advantages of a vessel like this is its speed and range: it can fly over land (of course), and given airship speeds were in the highway-plus range, they could reach and cover areas much faster than wet ships. It may not be able to carry as much spare parts and fuel as a big wet carrier, but its ability to quickly return to base could atone for that. (Such large amounts of heavy lifting might require a set of maintenance blimps to follow it around for load/unload duty).

Put a radar on it and it would be unbeatable for scouting. A touch of pulp science to make it stealthy...

An emergency launch of planes might be simply to start the engine and push them over the edge! The pilots could then dive to speed, then pull out. Risky, but kewl enough as flavor text.

Ah, well, a cool idea indeed .I just had to ruminate over some of the implications..

[Mentor]

This contraption just has to have a couple dozen anti aitcraft machine gun stations, which is more than enough to handle the flight of biplanes which would typically be encountered.

Hmmm, isn't that the Soryu down there?

[LoresLost]

As you might know the US Navy had two Airship Aircraft Carriers, the USS Akron and the USS Macon. They successfull launched and retreived Curtis Sparrowhawk Biplanes . Both the Akron and the Macon crashed soon after commission.

Edited to correct a misspelling

[Twilight]

That strikes me as a very cool base for your heros in a Pulp or Golden Age game then an actual military vehicle. Think about it, your heroes could launch all thier cool vehicles [well the flight capable ones anyway] from it and your gadgeteers would never be far away from thier labs. Not sure how many points that would be worth of course, but it sure would be worth it simply for the coolness factor alone.