The Prevanian Air Fleet

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Introduction

The Prevanian Air-fleet is a unique division of the Prevanian armed forces, consisting of over 144 airships designed for compatibility with modern Warfare.

History

The Prevanian air-fleet was founded in the 1920s, during the massive boom of the airship industry started by the capturing of a German airship during the first world war. However, as the country didn't really go with the idea of planes, the airship stayed predominant until it was declared obsolete.

In the 1980s however, funded by two massive corperations of Prevania, the Airfleet was re-enstated, equipped modernly and armoured to withstand attacks from nearly anything.

The Ships

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A pair of D Class Patrol ships
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The airships follow a long tradition in Prevania of being named after famous English, French, German and Russian military personnel. The Prevanian airfleet is led by the Direktor's personal airship,the HDAS Boris Berenovski, a heavily armed 1200 metre monstrosity that signals the doom of an attack by the slow-moving, deadly craft.

The Previnian Air-fleet consists of 4 fleets, each consisting of:

Attack

Non-Attack

  • 2 x Air-tenders (350 metres long)
  • 1 x Air-tanker (400 metres long)
  • 7 x Transport Airships (620 metres long)

Construction

All the airships are constructed inside the famously large airship hangers that dot the islands. Constructing an airship is a hard, skilled process, which can take up to 18 months with the largest ships.

Small Airships

  • The first part of the airships to be constructed are the massive skeletons. These nowadays are made from composites of air-steel, nanotubes and ceramics, to create a very light, very strong skeleton. These are usually made seperately in factories.
  • After they are slotted together, the gondolas are mounted on the skeleton. These are made from either air-steel or kevlar-enforced plastics, and are layered with ceramic plating or ERA bricks to protect from missiles.
  • Next, the skin is added: a thick layer of 7- layered Kevlar impregnated with fire retardents and woven to be airtight. This is extended to in between the cells, which are divided by a 3-layer Kevlar curtain and linked with steel-woven pipes.
  • Then the cell control electronics and gas control valves, are fitted, and the oxygen bled to be replaced with a mixture of Helium and Hydrogen: normally 2:3. The entire ship is then leak tested, overpressure tested and shock tested.
  • Once satisfactory, the Gondolas are furnished and loaded with fuel, controls, supply cabinets and the LPG engines, and the internal/external missile racks are fitted and combat tested.
  • The final stage is the field test: the airship is subjected to a 1 week testing period over the land and seas of the nation, and tested at high altitude and on the military ranges.
  • Then the airship is inducted into the ranks of the Prevanian Air fleet.

Large Airships

With the larger Cruiser classes, plates of ceramic armour are added onto the airship once construction is completed, to add to the armour. Also, the ships are mounted with water collectors around the envelope and with solar panels on the top of the fabric, to act as extra power sources.

Massive Airships

In Prevania, there are only two hangers that can accomodate the construction teams and actual body of the Admiral-class Battle Airship, and only one that can hold the construction for the Direktor's own airship.

  • With these, the gondolas are interior mounted, so require extra manpower and make space a commodity.
  • Also, each ship is powerted by an SSTAR 10MW closed Nuclear reactor system, which is used to propel the airship and has a life of 20 years.


Weapons

Air-to-air

As the names suggest, the primary armament of the Airships are batteries of missiles, usually locted behind the main gondola, or on a separate central gondola.

Usual battery sizes contain 32 AMRAAM AAMs, which are used to take down any enemy aircraft, with up to 8 batteries on the Admiral class Airships.

As well as the missile pods, there are Lafayette LASER air defence turrets to protect against fighters and missiles.

Air-to-ground

The usual craft are armed with bombs, to flatten ground targets. As the platform is slow moving, accuracy is optimal, even for dumb bombs. Due to the crafts vast volume, up to 50 000 kilograms of ordinance can be fitted onto a Missile Crusier before buoyency is affected.

However, these are rapidly being phased out in exchange for massive batteries of cruise missiles or Air-Surface missiles, able to strike at targets from many miles away.

Technology

AIR LTA ISIS Raytheon Concept lg2.jpg

The Prevanian Air Fleet has recently started a relativity drive project. If successful, this will completly revloutionise warfare, rendering airships obselete and eliminating the need for large, flammable, gas bags. However, the relativity drive, working on physics that have been theorised to be nearly impossible, may not lie up to expectations.

Stealth Airships

With the stealth ships, the entire envolope consists of kevlar fabric dyed black. RADAR is able to pass straight through the envolope, so does not pick it up. However, the internal struts can, so are made from RADAR dispersing beams, so that the entire ship shows up as at worst a raincloud.

However, the specially designed gondolas can be picked up, so are designed to look on RADAR similar to a small flock of birds.

As the ship is powered electrically, it is silent and leaves no heat signature, so is very hard to detect with IF.

Its only weakness is its visibility during the daytime, thus it is not deployed duuing the day.