Flying Phantoms
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
March 2009

We launched our line of print-and-play digital download games and supplements for the purest of reasons: to spark some cash flow while we moved our warehouse. Their sales numbers are dwarfed by those of our printed products, but they require no shipping and no warehousing and they've definitely helped us through our journey. They also allow pretty much unbridled creative freedom. There are few topics too strange to try out with a downloadable game or supplement, within the bounds of good taste.

Our second new product for the download line was Second World War at Sea: Imperial and Royal Navy, released in December. It's a purely alternative history title, adding the Austro-Hungarian navy to our Bomb Alley game, positing the empire's survival into the 1940s. In the scenarios, the Austrians fight the British, Italians and Japanese in various combinations.

We looked at the Austrian ships of the phantom fleet in an earlier installment. Today we have a look at the aircraft of the Dual Monarchy.

Conventional Fighters

Austria-Hungary entered the First World War with a very small air arm, and expansion proved difficult. Oesterreichische Flugzeugfabrik AG (Oeffag) in Wiener Neustadt obtained a license to build the German Albatros D.III fighter, and turned out over 500 of them during the last two years of the war. The Oef210 fighter represents a standard first-generation piston-engined fighter from the same firm (which did not, in our harsh reality, survive the empire).

Most Austrian aircraft engines during the Great War came from Austro-Daimler, a former subsidiary of the German firm, and Daimler-Benz had a strong Austrian flavor from early leaders like Ferdinand Porsch and Emil Jellinek. The Austrian firm likely would have had access to the company's excellent 600 series of inline engines that appeared in the 1930s, either through licenses or by developing them at Wiener Neustadt rather than Stuttgart. These engines powered many successful fighters including the Messerschmitt Bf. 109, the Macchi Mc.202 and Kawasaki Ki.61.

Avia was a Czech firm founded in 1919 and absorbed by Skoda in 1928. The company built mostly licensed aircraft, but here it's been assigned the second-generation Austrian piston-engined fighter, the Av.550. The plane has a good range and the good performance of most planes carrying the DB.605 engine.

The Avia B.534 was an actual plane built as the Czech Air Force's front-line fighter. It was a small and nimble biplane, well-suited to carrier operations and so in the game it serves as the first-generation Austrian naval fighter. It's not as good a plane as those on American decks, but it's a match for the Royal Navy's Fulmars and Sea Gladiators or the German Arado 68.

Tactical Aircraft

For their strike component, the two Austrian aircraft carriers have planes built by Letov Kbely. Founded in 1919, the firm supplied the Czech Air Force with tactical planes during the 1930s. The S.178 torpedo bomber in the game set is based on the S.328 light bomber, a plane that could have functioned in that role and was rugged enough to be produced in a floatplane version.

Letov built a whole series of bomber prototypes and would have been in the mix to provide a dive bomber for the Imperial and Royal Navy's carriers. The S.228 is similar to most planes of the period, though not as capable as some of the better dive bombers like the Junkers Ju.87.

In the medium bomber role, the Austrians field the Av.320, a tough plane with good range and attack capability. The Polish State Aircraft Works produced the very capable PZL.37; this Austrian plane is based on the follow-on project, the PZL.49 Mis ("Teddy Bear"). Would a post-war Austro-Hungarian Empire have included Poland? I never really thought things out to that extent, but as in the pre-war years the empire would have had access to Polish talent thanks to its greater cultural freedom and so the plane flies under Austrian colors here.

Over the Sea

I like helicopters. I don't know why, but I do, and I wanted my fantasy Austrian Navy to have some. Austria was a helicopter pioneer, as noted by an article in our Dreadnoughts book, but Anton Flettner who designed the German Fl.282 had few if any Austrian connections. But it would have made an excellent anti-submarine platform for the helicopter cruisers provided for the surface fleet (themselves based on the Andrea Doria class built in Trieste in the late 1950s for the Italian Navy).

Lohner built the Imperial and Royal Navy's flying boats during the Great War, in both fighter and reconnaissance versions. Had the empire somehow survived, the firm would no doubt have continued this practice and the L.200 is a typical seaplane of the period, a single-hulled flying boat with an overhead engine. It has an extremely long range and a nominal attack capability.

Jet Planes

Austrian connections to jet aircraft development are fairly tenuous; Vienna's Schwechat airport served as a testing ground but the early jet pioneers in the Third Reich were all Germans. The Czech firm Avia built the Messerschmitt Me.262 both during and after the war. The Imperial and Royal Navy countersheet still had some space on it so I decided to give the Austrians some jet planes. The Av.600 is the jet fighter, and the Av.620 the jet-powered attack bomber. Both are highly capable aircraft, but with few opponents in the Bomb Alley set so at some point we'll just have to provide some excuse to use them.

And for the future ...

The alternative history downloads have met their sales targets, so we'll continue to make them. And they are certainly fun to do. Alternative Austria probably needs a fleshed-out background, and I've been eyeing the ships in our Dreadnoughts supplement and thinking that some of them need Second World War at Sea versions. Austria-Hungary probably needs some smaller carriers; the large ones I put in the first set are kind of unreasonable for a Mediterranean power. Before doing that, though, Arctic Convoy really needs a powerful early-Cold-War Soviet Navy. And the Italians need some ships to match the Austrians. And the Cone of Fire 1930 scenarios have sparked the thought of 1930 sets for other fleets as well. The weirdness will continue.

Put these planes into the air TODAY! Click here to download Imperial and Royal Navy.