Take 2 bi-planes and add in paintball cannons, have 2 pilots and 2 paying passengers in the gunners seat and fly around shooting at each other for half an hour or so. Winner is the one with the most hits at the end. Great fun if you can get the paint travelling fast enough and not causing too much damage on impact. (edited)-- sporn, Nov 16 2003 Paintball Scenario Games http://www.warpig.c...ational/index.shtmlvia WarPig [Letsbuildafort, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] PBLI Big Game - Paintball Helicopter Gunship http://www.warpig.c...li/2002/index.shtmlYEEEEeeHAAwwww [Letsbuildafort, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] I like it. Cold-war_20paintballBun. [Ehrm, Mar 08 2006] Bake this now! (+) and welcome.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 16 2003 well okay, i actually had the pitts special in mind, but i don't think that was used in any war anyway. Ignore the world war 2 bit.-- sporn, Nov 16 2003 In the right hands, light planes can be very versatile and pull amazing stunts quite safely. However, if you're drawing a weekend paintball crowd more used to Xbox controls than real joysticks, I would suggest using a tamer fairground round - the one where the planes "fly" on hydraulic arms, and are grounded wheen you're "hit" by enemy fire.-- DrCurry, Nov 17 2003 How far will a painball travel when fired from an elevated position? It's still better than showering the land with stray bullets I suppose... I want to try it anyway, so + for you. I'll just have to remember to cover my car with a dropcloth when I get there-- luecke, Nov 17 2003 This sounds awesome if you're using some older Tippmann ammunition thats actually egg-shaped ... today's traditional .68 calibre paintball can take-on some wacky trajectory when subject to airspeed ... and what if you get a break in one of the barrels of the cannon? ...-- Letsbuildafort, Nov 17 2003 How about you just keep with the WW1 theme, and if you get a break, then just count the cannon as 'jammed' and is out of commision until serviced ...-- Letsbuildafort, Nov 17 2003 This idea is awesome, and it'd be even cooler if expanded. Have vehicles driving around with paintball gattling guns on the back, anti-air paintball guns, lots of infantry, the works.-- just-another-loser, Nov 17 2003 I hope you have to wear the obligatory goggles and a white silk scarf whose end stiffly stretches out horizontally even when you are on the ground..-- po, Nov 17 2003 I believe the terminal velocity of a paintball is low enough that it will fall harmlessly from the sky, with not even enough speed on impact to break. Mr Burns is right about paintballs changing shape at high speeds, so this would probably limit their use here. However, since this is anti-aircraft and not anti-personnel, it would probably work acceptably if you used paintballs with thicker, more rigid shells. (biodegradable, of course)
There are places you can go where lasers are used instead of paintballs, but this would be too much fun for words if you could actually see your bullets hitting and doing "damage" to the enemy plane.
Big flaky tender buttery croissant for you!-- Freefall, Nov 17 2003 Well, since you're not worrying *too* much about injuring the pilots (perhaps even WW2 aircraft with closed canopies could be used), it would be possible to use harder paintballs capable of higher velocities sans deformation. Of course, then you'd almost have to use metal planes, since the modulus of canvas is much lower than that of human skin. Especially stretched canvas.
But it's a neat idea, so +1 to you.
Maybe ultralights would be better, since they have a maximum speed of about 80-100mph and would be more compatible with 300ft/sec (the maximum competition speed) paintballs. Besides, imagine a 2-person ultralight helicopter used in paintball fighting.
I'd love to see more vehicles (jeeps with turreted guns, armored bulldozers [tanks], motorcycles, helicopters, ultralight aircraft, and inflatable rafts), and have the game played on HUGE fields (2 miles on a side or more) with up to 30 people. And more types of weapons (from claymore mines to anti-tank rockets to 'flamethrowers').
Heh-heh-heh....-- Macwarrior, Nov 18 2003 Check out scinario games ... playingout the Battle of the BUlge, D-Day, and others ... its a cool scene for the more recreational, or realism-oriented player ... there's also role-playing scinario games, which Wayne Dollack is notorious for ... Tanks are OFTEN involved, especially at D-Day in Oklahoma ... D-Day is an annual event where you can sign-up for special teams, be on the Axis, or Allied side, and its a really cool experience ... whenever I went you could pick me out of a few square miles of woods with my competition brightly colored gear ...-- Letsbuildafort, Nov 18 2003 This is baked. I can't find a link but my friend did this near chicago, I saw the picture.-- Pericles, Nov 18 2003 // How far will a paintball travel when fired from an elevated position? //
All the way down.
Three words:
Pointillism carpet bombing.-- RayfordSteele, Nov 18 2003 You know you are reading the halfbakery when the terminal velocity of a paintball enters the discussion. (WTAGIPBAN)-- krelnik, Nov 21 2003 This is awesome, you could have entire paintball warfare fields... it'd be expensive as shite, and would be like basic army training, that would rule.-- Crazy Bastard, Jan 20 2004 Kool idea, but seems like it'd be much to expensive and potentially dangerous. What about remote-controlled model airplanes that you can fly around and shoot people with? Eh, eh?-- koolcj291, Jan 20 2004 Expanding on [RayfordSteele]'s idea of pointillism. If you had an area that was blocked off on the ground, you could cover the entire area with a large canvas and sell the resulting paintings for a bit of extra profit. For the ground forces, have canvas "trees" that would absorb errant shots and those could also be sold through the on-site gallery.-- Klaatu, Jan 21 2004 Me and my buddies had the idea of using Ultra-lights, too, Macwarrior. This idea would not be so off from the historical first uses of airplanes in warfare. An ultralight would initially be used as a spotter, its only armament being the pilot's gun, but valuable for scouting out enemy movements. As more ultralights appeared, you'd need to modify your ultralight with a mounted, forward facing gun so that you could strafe ground targets *and* combat other planes with it. Neither of these options would be prohibitively expensive, and they would also add a challenging new element to scenario games in open areas.
Even from the grunts' point of view, it would be real fun trying to down the Fokkers!-- Ghost Face Killer, May 01 2004 I like the RC idea. Get one, mount it with a wireless webcam and a underslung net filled with about 1000 paintballs with a remote-control servo to detach the net on two sides. It would be like a paintball Predator drone, loitering on station until you had a good concentration of enemy and then you lay the paint down.-- insomniac, Aug 24 2004 On the RC front, there are various existing forms of combat out there, one done locally by a friend involves tying a 6ft bit of fishing line to the back of the plane, with a 10 paper streamer on the other end of the line. At the end of 5 minutes, whoever has the longest streamer wins. Very exciting to watch, incredibly manoverable planes used.
I don't think the idea of paintballs would work in the real world, too many problems with range/accuracy/damage potential.-- ayt, Aug 24 2004 I don't know how well it would work but it would rock. I especialy like the full army battle thing.-- Jammer, Jan 20 2006 On the contrary [UB], the Brits used (and lost) very many biplanes in WWII - the Gloster Gladiator (helped defend Malta, and was a major component for the BEF before the fall of France), Hawker Hart and as you mentioned, the Fairey "Stringbag" Swordfish, responsible for sinking much of the Itailian fleet at Taranto, as well as disabling the Bismark. (sorry to be picky - family and Fleet Air Arm pride at stake). Obvious bun.-- coprocephalous, Jan 20 2006 // This idea is awesome, and it'd be even cooler if expanded. Have vehicles driving around with paintball gattling guns on the back, anti-air paintball guns, lots of infantry, the works. //
They have made one. Tippmann made a vehicle powered by a Yamaha 6 wheeled off-road vehicle. It has a gattling gun with air fed loading and can hold over 3000 balls on it. The driver drives and the passenger is the gunner. Its called the Hellhound. It's a very fine looking piece of machinery indeed.
// I think the question of trajectory could be solved by replacing the paintballs with actual bullets that are made of soap and don't go *quite* as fast a live round. The Army uses such bullets for live fire training exercises. The soap bullets hurt like a bitch, but they won't kill or maim, and it just adds extra incentive not to get hit. //
Will soap bullets break a paintball visor though? The goggles are made to stand up to 300-350 fps from a regular paintball, but would it break if hit by a soap bullet? Damn good idea.-- FunkyMunky, Feb 28 2006 Maybe an airplane like a Ryan PT-22 but slower and easier to fly. Plenty of open area for a rear seat gunner. It's cute and, as aircraft go, affordable.
For the sake of safety, I think an electronic targeting system and laser-guns are a better choice than any sort of projectile system. I mean, these are airplanes with people in them.-- bristolz, Feb 28 2006 Didn't they do this in Iron Eagle 3?-- Someshta, Feb 07 2007 random, halfbakery