Zeppelin Design

An example: A Patrol Zeppelin designed using this system.

Note that airship technology originates in Germany. Many airship technicians are exiles who came to America during the depression, complete with "hollywood german" accents. This means all measurements are metric. Airplane mechanics and airship technicians simply don't speak the same language.

Zeppelin Hull Table

Components

These are what makes zeppelins worth the effort. Each system has a cost in tons and crew positions. One crew member in five is a junior officer, and one junior officer in five is a senior officer (minimum one captain).

Accommodations

Stateroom: 1 tons and 1/4 crew

Can hold one luxury passenger, two persons in tourist class or four in bunk-style economy class. Airmen can be bunked four per room, engineers, pilots and junior officers two per room, aces, officers and the captain require separate staterooms. Crew staterooms require no crew.

Accommodations: 2 tons and 1 crew

These include (but are not limited to) a bar, dining room, lounge, kitchen, library, arboreum, observation deck, science lab (per field), command center, map room, radio room, brig, bridge.

All ships need a bridge, map room and a radio room, as well as a kitchen or a dining room per ten staterooms. Tourist class passengers require one leisure accommodation per ten passengers, luxury passengers require one per two passengers.

Engineering

Remember that all zeppelin crew positions include a gunshield, with the +3 Constitution modifier.

The airframe requires a crew of 3 men per hex of length.

Engine Nacelle: 1 tons & 1 crew (slow), 5 tons & 6 crew (fast)

These are the ones we all know and love from the boardgame. Add 1/2 ton and 1 crew for a gun turret with a 30 cal, 1 ton & crew for an up to 50 cal, 2 tons & crew for a 60 or 70 cal. An airship needs as many engine nacelles as it's length in hexes, plus or minus one at the designer's option.

Flak Mortar: 1 ton & 2 crew

Bomb Racks: 1 ton & 1 crew

These carry eight hardpoints worth of bombs. They cannot carry rockets.

Rocket Racks: 3 tons & 2 crew

These carry eight hardpoints worth of bombs or rockets, and can swivel to face two or three different hexsides.

Carrier Gear

Most carrier gear is limited by size of the aircraft it can handle. The size of an aircraft is 12 minus it's Base Target Number. A Base Target Number 10 plane has size 2, a BTN 7 plane 5 spaces, a BTN 1 plane has size 11 and so on.

Skyhook: [3*Size] tons & 5 crew

Used for releasing planes the traditional way, by winch. A skyhook has a maximum capacity, which is the largest size of a plane that can use the hook.

Hook-on Hangar: [2*Size] tons & 2 Crew

This is plane carried directly on it's launch hook. It is totally unprotected, and usually only small planes are mounted this way. It can be launched quickly and easily, though. It can pay off on very small zeppelins.

Launch Deck: [5*size] tons & 15 crew

Carried only on the largest zeppelins, a Launch Deck allows the deployment of fighters faster and more efficiently than a skyhook. A Launch deck can launch two fighters each turn.

Hangar Deck: 10 tons and 1 crew

This is used for stowing planes ready for takeoff. In an emergency, it can be used as cargo space, at half capacity. Each ton of Hanger Deck handles one size point of planes.

Repair Bay: [2*Size] tons and 5 crew

Used to repair onboard fighters.

Cargo

Supplies:

2 tons per stateroom per month
1 ton per plane per combat sortie (includes rockets and bombs)
1/2 ton per plane and combat sortie (light fighters without deployed weapons)
1 ton: major repairs to an aircraft

Payload: as Required

Design Notes

I have tried to make rules for building zeppelins, but I just don't have the required data. The main thing that I 'm missing is a figure for how much the airframe, gas cells and structure weights.

Full Weight is easy to calculate: the buoyancy of helium and hydrogen is known and the volume can be calculated. I have assumed all zeppelins to have a length-to-beam relationship of approximately 1:6. All figures have been rounded as convenient.

Many of the other figures are out of the blue, as they say. Basically, I have assumed the airframe weights 20% of the total capacity, favouring smaller zeps when rounding fractions.

If anyone has any ideas about the real figures, or any other comment, please write! I will give you credit for your work.