Air force or Navy

[Duzzyy]

Ok so I guess this is sort of therycrafting but, my friend and I have recently start to wonder if the ships we are flying would be considered a Navy or an Air force

One would think Air force because we're flying in the air (durr) but I can't help but think the battles we fight are move like naval combat more that air dogfights

What do you think guys?

[Swizy]

Zeppelin were used in the first and second world war to e certain extend. This is basicly the closest our airships are.
My german wiki says
"Alle anderen Nationen verwendeten ihre Luftkreuzer hauptsächlich bei der Marine. Während des Krieges kamen insgesamt rund 300 nichtstarre und etwa 100 starre Luftschiffe zum Einsatz."

Translated it means everybody used their airship in the navy.

[Duzzyy]

Sooooo... we're a naval air force?

[Piemanlives]

Essentially yeah.

[Gryphos]

Navy doesn't seem that strange. I mean, they're referred to as ships, with all the different ship parts on them like bow and stern, port, starboard, etc. and they basically manoeuvre like boats, just with an added dimension of movement.

In addition, in the faction feature for the Mercantile Guild, it explicitly states that the Guild has a considerable naval force, used to patrol aerial trade routes.

So there you have it, airships are considered part of the navy. The only trouble is differentiating between airships and seaships. Do they call both "the navy"? do the factions each even have a sea navy? So many questions, so little answers...

[Swizy]

To my knowledge the Naval air force does already exist. Aircraft carrier belong to them.

[Gryphos]

I think naval airforce includes airplanes operating at sea and their carriers. And I don't think calling airships a naval airforce would work because there is no airforce to go with the navy, it's just ships. And anything navy related is to do with warships. Essentially, navy = ships, airforce = planes. If there was some kind of military until of planes operating off of an airship carrier, you might call that a naval airforce.

[Captain Smollett]

The united states air force didn't exist until 1947 , control of air support was under the US army.

Considering the alternate history of GOI begins around the time of WWI before most countries officially had air forces I think the better question would be.

Air Force, Navy or Army?

[Swizy]

The Royal air force exists since 1918 and the Royal navy exists since the 15th century. The fleet air arm was founded even before the second world war.

[Gryphos]

Air Force, Navy or Army?

Well, as I said previously, it's basically been confirmed by the Guild faction feature that military airships are referred to as the navy. And land forces would obviously be the army. The only thing I'm torn on is the area of aeroplanes. My best guess is that, since the concept of planes is probably a new or not yet perfected technology, the nations haven't come up with a definite title for their units of planes.

[Zenark]

Well, in Science Fiction, ships operating in space are considered Naval vessels.

I figure we're all Navy since tactics, weaponry, and positioning is more Naval. The only relation to the airforce is that we're in the sky.

[Duzzyy]

We have to remember that this might be set in a post apocalyptic world it it either the same year or in the very near future and has the same tech as the early to mid 1900s so the humans that are currently alive wouldn't know what a Air force or a Navy is, let along the difference.

[HamsterIV]

Air Force and Navy are constructs of our civilization which in this world collapsed and is replaced with a different civilization. For all we know the ship are flying under the authority of "Town Guard," "Militia," or "Department of Transportation." I if I had to choose between Air Force or Navy, I would go with Navy. An individual unit of the navy is expected to work autonomously for several months where as an individual unit of the air force has to go back to base every day.

[JaegerDelta]

I would say that the name would depend on the faction.  It would have most in common with a Navy, but it is very much distinct from a Navy.  Much like Hamster said, a town could have airships as part of its defense force and not call it a Navy. the word Navy could even not exist in certain parts of the world.

[Swizy]

Well the navy wouldn't be completly out of idea. I don't know the exact story or the timespan. But If your civilisation jumps from in holes living people to airships in such a short time it's very unlikely they haven't had any knowledge about that technology before. Even people from the 1900 know of the navy and it sure has been well documented or at least there would be enough remaining stuff lying around (thinking of the big war ships) to give at least a hint on what that is. The idea to invent something completly new wouldn't be the case but rather adopting something like this. And if we're speaking about technology there sure was a ship (as in floating in the water) before there were air ships. So it's more likely a navy came first to control the seas.