> Flying insects must beat their wings to fly, they can not glide like birds.
Surprisingly enough, some _do_. Insects which are both large and which
have large wings can glide -- mostly dragonflies and butterflies, but
there are a couple of species (lamellicorn beetles, wasps, damselflies)
which come close -- you might be able to breed 'em for gliding, or have
them glide short distances. BUT: if wing load is increased too much, and
too much parasite drag (from da trolls on da back) is added, gliding is
reduced. Mobility might help to correct this, and it gives you a good
reason to dress in slick, stylish leather flight jackets.
> Ages ago I read an article about this; I think there is a correlation between
> wing-beat frequency and disorder, so insects and hummingbirds swarm, whereas
> geese fly in formation.
>From what I read, there is something about insects not being able to fly
in a straight direction at steady speed -- they jerk all over. Some of
this is due to wind, I believe, some might be because of their wings.
Apparently, as bugs are usually small and light, wind -- even light winds - -- are a real pain. Larger bugs probably don't have as big of a problem, but the Orlanthi may well not _need_ to worry about the TAF, with Increase Wind lying around...
> One problem with the troll airforce would be that their 'aircraft' aren't evan
> bird-brained!
I'm assuming it's the trollkin, beating the bugs on the head with a stick,
that enforce formation flying. <g> Note that, with your later reference to
Yelmists on griffin-back, the Yelmists have the _further_ advantage that
their steeds are sentient!
To carry this on a bit: I think you could make a good case that trolls _don't_ use "tight" formation flying, as you suggested, because such organization isn't necessarily trollish in nature. They'll use what is useful, IMO -- read, not having some of your bombers fly under the other ones. While Yelmists, who stand in line to do everything from worship to eat to fight to procreate would _want_ to fly wingtip to wingtip.
But no airshows for the trolls? How else do you instill mindless patriotism, and keep the Red Lunar threat visible? Next you'll say we can't polish up our tarantulas for parades. :(
> Insects couldn't make swooping attacks. If they swarm, I guess they are
Again, some can. Dragonflies are great at ambush on the wing; locusts can
powerdive; most just barrel in at you and sting/bite/whatever. "These
jabugs, ripened, ready to tilt..." You might be able to _train_ other
bugs to swoop and dive, note.
Speaking of speed -- dunno how fast the giant insects go, or how fast they'd accellerate, but the little RW bugs are _sick_ -- dragonflies pull 9 G on accelleration, bee flies 18G! Honest! It's in the _Evolution of Insect Flight_ by Brodsky! I just assume they don't pull it very _long_, because otherwise they'd fly past jets... And this must be awful;y hard on the trollkin pilots: falling off, going unconscious. "A g-load disaster from the rate of climb..."
> position. I doubt insects could fly high and steady enough to make good high-
> altitude bombers.
Well, RW locusts, and grasshoppers, at least, can fly over a kilometer --
almost 1750 meters in some cases. RW dragonflies can get a couple
hundred meters up, at least. Who know what the giant ones can do,
particularly when a troll's motivating it? And I strongly suspect that
"precision" is not a particular troll virtue in bombing. Any high-level
bombing is mostly ineffective, and for annoyance value, as I did suggest.
;) No, no, these aren't trollish B-17s, or something. More like Gothas, if
Gothas carried rocks. As first postulated, the Trollish Air Force is
able to bomb _roughly_ as well as some Human armies can use ballistas as
field artillery: enough to be useful, but only enough.
Granted, with all of this, RW examples aren't strictly applicable (since the bugs in question are, what, 10-15' long?) but they give a good idea of what a bug is capable of.
> I like the idea of Yelmists flying giant birds of some sort. I reckon the WW2
> RAF would be a good analogue: stiff upper lips, upper class accents,
There could be some MGF with the glorious Solar Air Force holding out,
outnumbered and embattled, against the ravening trollish hordes. Even
if there aren't giant birds there are Griffins, at the very least. A fine
chance to plagarize bad dialogue from Battle of Britain flicks... Or use
films about allied bomber command for troll dialog: use your own version
of _Memphis Beetle_, _50 Mission Crush_, _Top Sun_, Iron Maiden's "Maces
High", _Iron Vrok Hawk_, etc. "A horde of trollish bombers across the
canal, after 12 they'll all be here, I think you know the job..."
I think both sides have some good strengths and weaknesses. When the flight of griffins swoops in, they're gonna chew down a bunch of trollkin -- but there are a _lot_ of trollkin, and you only need a couple of lucky hits to knock down a Griffin (their wings are vulnerable, too -- and more trollkin = more disruptions = more healing for their own mounts). Kind of got that quality vs. quantity thing going -- your F-15/Griffin can shoot down 8 MiGs/Fly Trollkin, but there's 12 trollkin for every F-15/Griffin... And occasionally one of those elite dragonflies gets on your 6 o'clock, and watch out!
Granted, I'm I'm simplying how easy it's going to be for the different branchest of Gorakiki to work together -- if you think interservice rivalries are difficult in normal armies, whoo boy! I mean, half these guys want to _eat_ the other half. Hard to persuade them to work together...
> BTW How good is troll eyesight. My recollection of the 'official' sources is
> that troll eyseight is as good as humans. I think that is ridiculous.
Long range (say, over a mile) it's supposed to be fairly good (eg, as good
as a human) In close, it's nearly useless, or so Trollpak infers. Going
over to eyesight while flying for trolls has to be as hard as WWII
night-fighting was before radar -- you know you're perception is mucked,
so just let your bug take over the controls...
James Frusetta
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #239
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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