u/Remarkable_Help1103

Today I bring a thought experiment for designing the ideal home-built family aircraft. It shouldn’t be too big or too expensive, but should have room for about six adults, a decent amount of cargo, and plenty of fuel for good range without breaking the bank. To start narrowing things down, we can rule out two engines as they’d be too much hassle for most people, and skip turboprops and jets since they’re too costly—so a larger single engine it is.

In my opinion, the best family of aircraft for this purpose is the Piper 6, specifically the 32 and 32R. I’d also be open to discussing how the same ideas apply to the Cessna 200 family—excluding the 208, of course. The 205, 206, 207, and 210 are all high-wing counterparts to the Pipers I’m talking about today, but anyway, back to the topic.

The main drawback of these two aircraft is that you can’t realistically use their full seating capacity with average-sized adults. Ideally, increasing the maximum takeoff weight for the Pipers to about 4,000 pounds would be perfect. With 100 gallons of fuel, that would allow you to carry six 200-pound people, each with 25 pounds of cargo—pretty practical for vacation trips, I’d say.

Add a bit of extra headroom for the rear row, a more modern cockpit, and that leaves us with the big issue: the engine. If my calculations are correct, 350 hp is the minimum, with 400 hp being more realistic. That means at least a turbocharged IO-540, possibly an IO-720 for commercial production, or a larger V8 for an auto conversion. Anyway, what are your thoughts and suggestions? What would you want in your ideal family airplane like this?

Sorry for the delay in posting; the past couple of days have been pretty hectic.

Getting to the topic at hand, this is once again about the military structure of the English army in my fictional story set around the year 1535, though it is far more modernized. We’ve already discussed up to the company level, and now it’s time to move on to battalions.

Today we’re looking at a basic light infantry battalion, which is how most of them start out in the book. Later on, many are upgraded to medium motorized or heavy mechanized battalions, using an 8x8 wheeled AFV similar to the Stryker or BTR. In the case of the heavy variant, the vehicle is more comparable to a Bradley.

I won’t go into more detail about the structure of the relatively straightforward infantry companies, as I’ve already covered them before with links provided here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryWorldbuilding/comments/1t6rji9/im_new_here_and_have_a_question_about_the/

https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryWorldbuilding/comments/1t9kjks/respond_to_the_feedback_and_criticism_and_thanks/

The standard force consists of three previously discussed companies, a heavy weapons company that we’ll cover shortly, and the headquarters. I have a decent understanding of the structure needed for the heavy weapons company, but some advice on the structure required for the command element would be helpful.

Due to differences in the structure of my force compared to World War Two American doctrine, the first major change comes from the large number of automatic weapons at the company level. I’ve inverted the standard heavy weapons company layout, keeping only a single machine gun platoon and replacing the rest with two 81mm mortar platoons. Another notable change is the addition of a fourth platoon designed to provide organic direct fire support using recoilless rifles. I haven’t yet decided on the caliber for these weapons, whether to base them on the 75mm M20 or the larger 106mm M40.

I won’t go into the exact design of the machine gun platoon. If anything, this is the one most likely to be removed due to the existing automatic weapons firepower, so let’s move on to the medium mortars.

Each of the two platoons has a six-man HQ, structured similarly to the HQ of other existing platoon designs, made up of the standard command group with their usual weapons as previously discussed. The only member without a traditional rifle is the overall commander, who carries a carbine and is equipped with a backpack-mounted medium radio equivalent to the SCR-300.

Each of the two platoons is divided into three sections, each with about 20 men and equipped with three 81mm medium mortars. Almost everyone carries a carbine, except for the main gunnery crews—three men per mortar—who are only armed with pistols. At this lowest level, every pair of mortars is supported by at least two handheld walkie-talkie style radios, equivalent to the SCR-536.

The recoilless rifle platoon setup is quite flexible, depending on the weapon available. With a 75mm-class rifle, four can be used effectively, while a 106mm Weapon typically uses only three. Most of the crew would carry carbines, with gunners armed with pistols. The group would also have one or two radios for communication.

I’d appreciate hearing everyone’s thoughts. Sorry this isn’t as detailed as my last post about creating the rank structure, but I wanted to get some feedback from others. Thanks.

Hi everyone, I’ve been working on a theoretical design for a home-built aircraft using an auto-conversion engine. Ideally, in a twin-engine setup, one engine would rotate in reverse to the other. The engine I’m considering for this is the Chevrolet LT4. Is it practical to reverse the rotation of one, or should I explore other options? Thanks.

Hello, and thanks to everyone who responded to my first post about the theoretical military for my book. I’ve decided to make some changes to the basic company structure, removing the M1919-based component of the weapons platoon and replacing it with the M60, as well as swapping each individual M60 equivalent for a 7.62 Minimi equivalent. After that, I have some questions for the forum, with two upcoming topics to discuss—one on theoretical vehicles for the army and another on battalion structure. I’m not sure which to post first, and since I don’t know how to make a poll, I’ll just check the comments in 24 hours. Thanks for sharing your opinions. oh And Happy Mother's Day.

I’m working on a time travel book, and later in the story, the military develops into something resembling a World War Two structure. If this isn’t the right place to discuss it, I apologize, but I’m just seeking some advice on my structure plan.

Let’s start with the basic structure: the squad consists of 12 men divided into 3 fire teams. Two of these teams each have three men armed with rifles equivalent to the M14, with one member in each team also carrying a rifle grenade discharger. The fourth man in these teams carries a weapon equivalent to an M60 or M240. The third fire team has four men, two of whom are equipped with longer-barreled designated marksman rifles, while the other two carry rifle grenade dischargers.

At the next level, the platoon is made up of three of these squads and a five-man headquarters consisting of a Commanding Officer, a Command NCO, a Secondary NCO, and two messengers. Everyone is armed with a rifle, except for the Commanding Officer, who carries a shortened-barrel carbine. The unit also has one rifle grenade discharger and a short-range hand radio set Equivalent roughly to the scr-536 or AN/PRC-6.

At the company level, there are three rifle platoons along with one weapons platoon. The weapons platoon includes three 60mm class mortar squads, two machine gun squads equipped with heavier machine guns firing the same caliber as the other weapons but featuring a larger barrel and better cooling for more continuous fire—similar to the World War II M1919, but chambered in 7.62×51 instead of .30-06. Finally, it contains one recoilless rifle squad made up of four two-man teams armed with weapons equivalent to either the 90mm M67 or the 84mm Carl Gustaf.

I’d keep going, but I think this is a good place to wrap up my first post.

Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions for improvement.

And thank you to all active and past members for your service.