Shado SkyOne - A Question, or Three?

[Mako]

So, want to run some other SHADO vs. Aliens games from the ancient TV show, UFO.

Have been wanting to do this for ages, and have worked a bit on it.  Seeing the Stingray post has rekindled my interest in that.

For the SkyOne fighter, what do you all think about having it be capable of fighting under the sea's surface? 

I'm leaning towards that being a no, given the preferred launch attitude of launching it upwards at a 45   degree angle from the Diver section of the sub, normally.  However, in Sub-Smash, it was fired slightly downwards at about a 10 degree angle in that episode.

Letting it be undersea capable would open up some interesting tactical options against alien USOs and UFOs underwater. 

I really think though, that a ramjet-like launch aid to get it out of the water and into the air makes that implausible.

Adding this consideration to the issue is the weapons loadout shown for Sky in one of the old images of it, showing missiles, rockets, torpedoes, and what appears to be one of those airfield attack cannisters, among many items it can carry in addition to the regular weapons.  Seems that would be hard to get them onto the craft, and time-consuming, underwater.  Definitely have to come to a full stop to add those on.

Torpedoes could be used for attacks vs. surface ships, but perhaps undersea attacks too?

To do that, Sky will need sonobuoys or some sort of targeting aid to locate USOs, and UFOs under the surface of the sea.

Thoughts?

[bandit86]

hey be careful of what you call ancient

[Ultravanillasmurf]

hey be careful of what you call ancient

Indeed.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Diver is the undersea half, and would be doing all the under water combat, whether with the Sky part attached I do not remember.

[Daeothar]

UFO is one of my favourite scifi series, so I've watched a lot of footage of Sky-1 over the years. And to me, it seems that the craft is purely a supersonic interceptor, that just happened to be launched from a submarine.

My take on it has always been that the reason for it to be launched from a submarine is to keep it hidden until it's required. If I recall correctly, there were many Skydivers on station around the globe. A bit (or a lot) like cold war nuclear strike submarines, but with a single, manned launch, because UFO crews got clever and started to avoid atmospheric entry above land masses when S.H.A.D.O. began deploying fighter craft on all continents.

What irked me more though is the thought of how the Diver portion of the two would then suffer in terms of hydrodynamics, speed, balance, maneuverability etc. Because after launch, it went from reasonably streamlined, to having a vertical flat surface as a bow

So I would vote against using Sky-1 as a submarine on its own, based on the footage shown in the series. But then again; off screen, this may just as easily have been common practice, so going with that, I'd say do whatever the heck suits your game.

As for weapons; it's got fixed ZUNI-like rocket pods and according to the Wiki page 4 machine guns in the fuselage. Also it can launch torpedoes, which are probably hidden inside the fuselage. Estimating weapon load-outs based on real-world counterparts, each Sky interceptor would carry 2x 18 rockets (or missiles, if we assume a more high-tech payload), approximately 4x 1000 rounds of ammo for its machine guns and/or 1 or 2 (?) torpedoes.

I'm assuming the torpedoes would replace the landing gear inside the craft though... ;P

[Hobby Services]

hey be careful of what you call ancient

No kidding.  I spent all of grade school using a UFO lunchbox, and I'm barely middle-aged yet. 

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I would go for dumb rockets, SHADO are at a tech disadvantage and guided weapons can be spoofed (they have issues tracking UFOs using ground radar).

It has been a while since I watched it, I think I remember the sub portion hydro-planing when Sky was away.

[Hobby Services]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skydiver_(submarine)

Going by that, the Diver section was armed with torpedoes, and could operate at very high speeds on the surface in "seaskim" mode to compensate for poor underwater streamlining when the interceptor was absent.  The Sky interceptors could launch from underwater and land on water for recovery, as well as on land although there's no confirmation that they hand landing gear so that may have been an emergency measure?  There were at least 4 Skydivers, and probably more - you'd presumably want at least one per ocean for planetary coverage, and likely quite  a lot more than that.

[fastolfrus]

Didn't the Salute crew game it a few years ago?

[Mako]

I would love to get a copy of the rules for SkyDiver, if anyone has come up with some, from Salute, other conventions, or home-brew rules too, just for comparison.

Would also like to see any rules for using Mobiles and troops vs. UFOs too, and/or Sky vs. UFOs. 

The only game I recall seeing rules for are the Interceptors vs. UFOs, though I know that they've held games using the Mobiles vs. UFOs in the past, too, at conventions, and/or clubs.  I think those were put on by the Warlords/Werelords, back in the day, and last I checked, the UFO vs. Interceptor rules were available on-line for free download.

Thinking I'll probably just stick with the standard stuff for Sky that we see in the show.  Might add on a few aerial-dropped/fired weapons, just for grins, for "unofficial" game, or a bit of variety - air-dropped ASW torpedoes and sonar buoys perhaps.

Yea, Diver had SurfaceSkim, or something like that.  IIRC, could cruise at 60 knots using that.

Testing adapting the Stingray rules to SkyDiver vs. USOs and UFOs looks promising.