No, I did not search the archives to see whether this has been posted before but I personally have not seen it before...apologies if it has been discused and dismissed before. How about a V-1 buzzbomb (a perk bomb of sorts) that can be selected in the hangar, launched from a base and directed to a target within a range of x number of miles? Not mannable but sort of a fire and forget weapon. Of course it would have to be very expensive (bomber perks) or peeps would be showering V-1's all over the damn place. By necessity it would not be a pinpoint precision weapon. It would also require a ramp to be modeled on any given base (I'm thinking it would be available at large fields only). Also, a randomized program with several options like malfunction and not able to make target, gyro malfunction and unable to hit the selected target, dud, mechanical breakdown (although I think the pulse jet was very reliable...but I don't know for sure) and other variables. Basically you pay your perks and hope that it makes it to the target. And, if it did, there would be no guarantee that it would hit what you were aiming at (i.e. fighter hangar, ordnance, etc.) No, not a real great incentive to launch one of these things but being that this is just an idea, things can be changed so that it would be worth spending the perks for. That's the beauty of an idea...nothing's set in stone.
I think historical statistics of targets hit vs. numbers of V-1's launched might be useful (if they are available...I have not checked). I believe flight performance data should be readily available but again, I have not looked. Again, this is just an idea...no more than that at this point. I know the V-1 was not a precision strike weapon but if used in the game, we might make it a little bit more accurate than it actually was given the sizes of bases and installations related to the size of London and wherever else these things were aimed at. It would be almost useless against cv's given the mobile nature of the ships (unless it was right off the base the V-1 was based at).
I would also add that in the hangar, you could select the fuel loadout (which would present a max range ring on the map for target selection) and target map (once the base or installation was selected) and when you selected launch, you would be put out on the field, in a shack watching it get rocketed off the ramp and take flight (after pressing the secondary fire button/key). You could then exit and go fly something else. I would also limit the number of V-1's anyone could lauch to one at a time. While one was in the air, you could not launch another until the first one terminated (for whatever reason). Also, while one was in the launch shack, nobody else could launch one, precluding a horde of V-1 launches.
It'd also give us fighter jocks that fly the highspeed aircraft the opportunity to shoot down a doodlebug or two (which would be recorded as a kill). We could also fly alongside, and upset the gyro by flipping a wing under the V-1's wing and tipping her off her heading and making it crash...also resulting in a kill. And should the person who launched it get a kill, the system would report it as such (with the two kill minimum as usual). It might make using the weapon a bit more desirable than it otherwise would be. It would register exactly the same as if you flew a bomber sortie.
I don't know what the historical weight of the explosive was but I doubt it was more than a 4,000 cookie from a lancaster.
Oh well, FWIW,
