This is a picture of the Westland Dreadnought, found on the website of GKN Westland, a British aircraft manufacturer. Freaky, huh? Here's the blurb:

Aircraft Data Sheet: Dreadnought (1924)
First flight: 9th May 1924
Span: 21.18m/69ft 6ins
Length: 17.07m/56ft 0ins
Max weight: 3,129.8kg/6,900lb, estimated
Max level speed: 102knots/190kph, estimated
Power plant: One 450shp/336kW Napier Lion
Total built: One prototype

The Dreadnought was built against an Air Ministry requirement to demonstrate the advantages of aerodynamic wing/fuselage design. The single prototype crashed during take off and work was discontinued.

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That's pretty cool. There is also a class of British Battleships(I think battleships) that are called Dreadnoughts.

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Wow! It's just about as big as the Voinian's Dreadnaught...Only more powerful: This one carries a quad rocket salvo launcher!

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And interesting that there was only one built :).. and that it crashed - a shame the same couldn't be said of the Voinian equivalent. I guess it makes you wonder if the Voinians had access to some early 20th century human information :).

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(quote)Originally posted by MartiNZ:
**And interesting that there was only one built;)

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Quote

Originally posted by VoinianAmbassador:
**
Aircraft Data Sheet: Dreadnought (1924)
First flight: 9th May 1924
Span: 21.18m/69ft 6ins
Length: 17.07m/56ft 0ins
Max weight: 3,129.8kg/6,900lb, estimated
Max level speed: 102knots/190kph, estimated
Power plant: One 450shp/336kW Napier Lion
Total built: One prototype

The Dreadnought was built against an Air Ministry requirement to demonstrate the advantages of aerodynamic wing/fuselage design. The single prototype crashed during take off and work was discontinued.
**

I suppose the UE government had a similar attitude towards innovations as the British government before and after World War 1. Before, they didn't believe in artificial contraptions taking to the air, and after, they thought there would never be another war like the one they'd just gone through, and stopped bothering about the air force - until the 1930s.

So the idea of the Airborne Dreadnought re-emerged briefly (Lancaster!) when a little dictator needed to be got rid of 1939-1945, and was forgotten.

Then, after a lot of political work and quite a few military campaigns (on the ground!) against nationalist partisans (in the last battle, the combined Chinese, Irish and U.S. Nationalist forces were defeated in the Hindukush mountains), the UE emerged.

And when Earth forces and colonists started spreading around a few star systems and encountered the Voinians, intelligent scientists and engineers from UE provinces were once again ignored.
As usual for government orders, complete idiots were commissioned to design UE defence crafts, resulting in rather hopeless things such as the UE fighters, destroyers, etc.

So far, there are no UE government plans towards an update of the original 1924 "Dreadnought" (airborne) or the late 19th century "Dreadnought" (seaborne) which provided the name for the concept of "superior warship".

But sooner or later, I'd find a death match "Voinian Dreadnought" vs. "UE Dreadnought" quite interesting.

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