Nicodemus:
From a practical design aspect I think this is a fantasy setting, so one could be fairly flexible in terms of dimensions, layout, and the parts that provide lift, thrust and stabilization. If the whole airship is magical or powered by magic (thinking of Wulfric’s ) then one could throw all of the usual constraints out the window and do anything. As my old man said to me once on the subject of designing chairs or other sitting devices “it still needs to look like a chair”, meaning even if it still serves the same function (something to sit on) it could look like the weirdest piece of modern art, but it still needs to look like a chair to someone who wants to sit down and use it day-to-day. I say this because if one were to go the wholly magical route to explaining how their creation flies, then why bother making it look like a ship at all? The shape of a ship is functional, if it’s magical then the need for function is lost and one might as well have a hollowed out mountain floating around with Chaos Dwarfs inside.
Anyway, enough of my meandering droning, here’s another link to more useful form and functioning stuff on airships:
Airship Flight Operations and Procedures (from the Hindenburg)
The above link covers flight procedures and controls (there may be a lot more things that some may have missed, such as pitch and elevator controls, navigation, etc.), weather factors, and flight operations and its officers.
It seems to me if the Chaos Dwarfs were to have an airship (or even seaworthy ships) their command hierarchy would be very different at the lower-mid level and lowest rank levels because of their slave use. The top ranking positions would still be there in some form or another, but at some point menial operations and details would be filtered down to a slave level. I’d assume that the most senior-ranking slave would be a Hobgoblin and he would be the only one to relay orders from the Chaos Dwarf officers to the crew. The rest of the crew below this Hobgoblin could be more junior ranking Hobgoblins or a mix of Hobgoblins and other slave races (the easily enslavable ones like Goblins and Snotlings and maybe the odd human or the like).
Obviously for small airships that are only designed to have a single cannon or to drop bombs one wouldn’t need such a detailed crew structure, and if it’s a hot air balloon or gyrocopter-like machine it could be as simple as one model and very little additional mechanical controls. Also, there are helicopters that have been designed IRL without tail rotors, so although the Warhammer Dwarf Gyrocopter may seem a tad simplified, it’s basic design and function are still sound, although a bit out of scale.
I’d love to hear ideas for a Chaos Dwarf fleet of airships, or designs for an aerial armada, where Chaos Dwarf gyrocopters and fixed wing slave kamikaze gliders could be launched from something like this:
~N
