Armada Lexington Questions

RogueBanshee

Rear Admiral
1: Why is the Lexington class referred to as a Heavy Carrier when it's crew and fighter complement are both less then a Light Carrier or an Escort Carrier?

2: How exactly was the Lexington supposed to attack Kilrath when according to the Armada section of the ship guide and the specs for the Lexington class she had no bombers, no anti-capital ship weapons, and nothing close to the number of fighters required to take on Kilrath's defenses.

It's sounds almost like a space-borne version of the Charge of the Light Brigade, even if Lexington had reached Kilrath she had no way to damage or destroy Kilrath.

3: Were the Confed Joint-Chiefs drunk when they came up with the plan for Lexington to attack Kilrath?
 
Didn't the Lexington have an onboard shipyard or something like that? Its ability to create its own manufacturing facilities independent of the rest of the fleet might explain its heavy carrier status.

But yeah, it is very strange that Confed would send a single ship to take out the Kilrathi Empire, without any sort of backup besides a pair of arrows.

Who knows, maybe it had some sort of secret last-ditch superweapon or something, because when you win, Kilrah is seen blowing up.
 
I had forgotten about the onboard shipyard. Which brings up a new question was 18 fighters her max load or just what she launched with?


I honestly think the listing that says 62 crew was a typo that was short a zero or two and I still don't see why she didn't carry, and apparently couldn't produce bombers. As for the lack of anti-capship weapons now that I've thought about it some more I bet her anti-capship weapons were there they just weren't listed. It's the only explaination that makes sense since every other class of carrier has at least some anti-capship weapons.
 
In Armada the Gladius and the Banshee are basically bombers... what else does a wingnut need for capships apart from torpedoes anyway? :D
 
RogueBanshee said:
1: Why is the Lexington class referred to as a Heavy Carrier when it's crew and fighter complement are both less then a Light Carrier or an Escort Carrier?

It is more of a mobile construction carrier than a strike weapon. It has the ability to build mines, shipyards and fortresses in areas it has passed. As for the limited crew, not entirely sure.

2: How exactly was the Lexington supposed to attack Kilrath when according to the Armada section of the ship guide and the specs for the Lexington class she had no bombers, no anti-capital ship weapons, and nothing close to the number of fighters required to take on Kilrath's defenses.

The Banshee and Gladius are its bomber wings. It's a carrier not a ship of the line. We wouldn't expect it to mount a lot of heavy weapons (AMGs, Plasma, etc) Now before you say "What about the Concordia?" You have to remember that the Concordia is a dreadnaught/carrier. It mounts the PTC and 8 AMGs because it was designed with the possiblity of engaging other ships of the line if the need arose.

It's sounds almost like a space-borne version of the Charge of the Light Brigade, even if Lexington had reached Kilrath she had no way to damage or destroy Kilrath.

3: Were the Confed Joint-Chiefs drunk when they came up with the plan for Lexington to attack Kilrath?

It's Kilrah. The Lexington op was instituted after BoT when Confed was looking for any way to strike back at the Kats. They weren't drunk, they were desperate.
 
Say, wasn't the Lexington taken out during that mission? I seem to remember something about her going off-line, or at least no longer transmitting. Well, then the Concordia-class carrier TCS Lexington shows up, so yeah, it probably was destroyed.

As for Armada... they've got to be typos. A heavy carrier with so few fighters and crew (compare it to the Jutland and Concordia class carriers) is an oversized, overpriced escort carrier. And why didn't it carry anti-capship weapons? It saves room in the ship for additional storage space for fighters, crew, supplies, and ammunition. It also saves power for the engines and shields. Besides, you don't ever want your carrier to go in swinging - that's what the fighters are for. If it gets jumped, the escort is supposed to take care of the other capships.
 
Crazy J said:
Say, wasn't the Lexington taken out during that mission? I seem to remember something about her going off-line, or at least no longer transmitting. Well, then the Concordia-class carrier TCS Lexington shows up, so yeah, it probably was destroyed.

As for Armada... they've got to be typos. A heavy carrier with so few fighters and crew (compare it to the Jutland and Concordia class carriers) is an oversized, overpriced escort carrier. And why didn't it carry anti-capship weapons? It saves room in the ship for additional storage space for fighters, crew, supplies, and ammunition. It also saves power for the engines and shields. Besides, you don't ever want your carrier to go in swinging - that's what the fighters are for. If it gets jumped, the escort is supposed to take care of the other capships.

No one knows exactly what happened to the Lexington, she just disappeared.

And I know Carriers aren't meant to stand toe to toe with Capships but still every class of Confed carrier, with the possible exceptions of the Concordia class and the Lexington class, has anti-capship weapons.

Bengal Tigers and Escort carriers have Torps, Rangers have Capship missiles, and the Super Carriers have AMGs and Torps, and I find it wierd for an Escort Carrier to have anti-capship weapons and a Heavy Carrier not to.
 
This is sort of a strange thread. We say that the Lexington is a heavy carrier for exactly the same reason we say it carries X crew... a manual says so. In this case, Victory Streak: "A heavy carrier (name unknown for security purposes) is equipped with self sustaining recycling systems, mining apparatus, and a 62 person Special Operations team."

More importantly, though, like all of the Armada ships, the Lexington is a strangle single reference that we haven't explored at all. The Tiger's Claw has all sorts of "capital" weaponry because it was retconned in for later stories... her complement in the original Claw Marks is a set of defensive turrets. The Lexington doesn't have the luxury of ever appearing again.

We also have no idea what the numbers mean -- is 18 ships the number of fighters or the number of support ships in the Lexington's battle group? Is 62-person Special Operations team the crew of the ship... or something else, possibly a unit sent to deploy weapons against Kilrah? Say, do we know any small covert groups like that sent to Kilrah in 2669?

I don't think we can question the ability of the ship to destroy Kilrah, though... because you can do it in the game -- win the eleven sector Campaign mode, and the planet blows up.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
This is sort of a strange thread. We say that the Lexington is a heavy carrier for exactly the same reason we say it carries X crew... a manual says so. In this case, Victory Streak: "A heavy carrier (name unknown for security purposes) is equipped with self sustaining recycling systems, mining apparatus, and a 62 person Special Operations team."

More importantly, though, like all of the Armada ships, the Lexington is a strangle single reference that we haven't explored at all. The Tiger's Claw has all sorts of "capital" weaponry because it was retconned in for later stories... her complement in the original Claw Marks is a set of defensive turrets. The Lexington doesn't have the luxury of ever appearing again.

We also have no idea what the numbers mean -- is 18 ships the number of fighters or the number of support ships in the Lexington's battle group? Is 62-person Special Operations team the crew of the ship... or something else, possibly a unit sent to deploy weapons against Kilrah? Say, do we know any small covert groups like that sent to Kilrah in 2669?

I don't think we can question the ability of the ship to destroy Kilrah, though... because you can do it in the game -- win the eleven sector Campaign mode, and the planet blows up.

Or perhaps she carries 18 fighter squadrons?
 
Well, no, I'm not sure how "eighteen ships" could mean eighteen fighter squadrons.

... but what's the interest in making yet another super-carrier?
 
RogueBanshee said:
Or perhaps she carries 18 fighter squadrons?

Um, no.

A fighter sqaudron contains (during the WC3 period) 10 fighters - that would give the Lexington 180 fighters - the larger Confederation dreadnoughts don't carry that many. Worse, the pre-war and post-war standard was 16 fighters... that would give her 288 fighters... more than the blasted Midway!

Most logical solution (now that I think of it) is that she was given 18 fighters because that's all that was left spare after the Battle of Earth. She would probably have space for at least 50 fighters and bombers (mind now the construction equipment) and would have to build them herself. Now that it says covert ops team, that might be a group similar to the one that established the depots on and around Kilrah. It would HAVE to have a crew larger than 62; destroyers have more than that, and even the CVE run had far more than that.
 
Crazy J said:
Um, no.

A fighter sqaudron contains (during the WC3 period) 10 fighters - that would give the Lexington 180 fighters - the larger Confederation dreadnoughts don't carry that many. Worse, the pre-war and post-war standard was 16 fighters... that would give her 288 fighters... more than the blasted Midway!

Most logical solution (now that I think of it) is that she was given 18 fighters because that's all that was left spare after the Battle of Earth. She would probably have space for at least 50 fighters and bombers (mind now the construction equipment) and would have to build them herself. Now that it says covert ops team, that might be a group similar to the one that established the depots on and around Kilrah. It would HAVE to have a crew larger than 62; destroyers have more than that, and even the CVE run had far more than that.

a 50-60 fighter wing sounds about right since she's actually not as long as a Concordia class though she's much slower proably because of all the extra goodies like the shipyard, and food/oxygen gardens.

It still seems odd that they couldn't spare 2 full squadrons for a mission that was so important.
 
RogueBanshee said:
It still seems odd that they couldn't spare 2 full squadrons for a mission that was so important.
There's a lot of things that seem odd about the Lexington - but you're trying to figure this out the wrong way. If 18 fighters seems odd, that doesn't mean that it was actually meant to be 50-60 fighters - it just means that we don't know what this was all about. We don't know what their plan was, and we don't know what weapons they intended to use.

Besides, at the end of the day, Kilrah was destroyed not by a huge strike force, but by a wing of four jump-capable Excaliburs. So, why wouldn't 18 fighters be enough, especially when all of Armada's fighters appear to be jump-capable?
 
Quarto said:
Besides, at the end of the day, Kilrah was destroyed not by a huge strike force, but by a wing of four jump-capable Excaliburs. So, why wouldn't 18 fighters be enough, especially when all of Armada's fighters appear to be jump-capable?

If you about it most of confed penetration into the Klirah system were made by a limited number of ships. I would say that the largest fleet of confed vessels to get to Kilrah during the war would be Task Force Valkyrie, which even then was only three vessels.

The Lexington's 18 ships were merely what it left with as well. It had quite the construction ability if you think about it. It could produce more fighters itself and construct shipyards that could construct even more.

I wonder if it would be wise to assume that the Lexington had a fairly automated mining/construciton setup, similar to the Andrew Carnegie factory ship in FC. That would help explain the limited number of crew, we know of. I'd like to think that the 62 person special ops team is merely that. A 62 person team onboard a fully crewed carrier, which has the ability to construct installations to aid its advance.
 
I just kinda assumed that the Lexington was exactly what it was made out to be - an automated self-sufficient carrier with all the abilities and services that would remove any need to return to a starbase, and because of all that automation it only needed some pilots and officers to coordinate the machinery. One notion I kinda kicked around for a while was that maybe the Lexington was responsible for the secret bases, satelites, and ground deployment revealed at the end of WC3. But that's just an off the wall notion with no real support from any of the existing fiction IIRC.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I don't think we can question the ability of the ship to destroy Kilrah, though... because you can do it in the game -- win the eleven sector Campaign mode, and the planet blows up.

(I haven't finished the armada campaign yet) Do we actually see the Lexington destroy kilrah or just a video of Kilrah exploding?

Is 62-person Special Operations team the crew of the ship... or something else, possibly a unit sent to deploy weapons against Kilrah? Say, do we know any small covert groups like that sent to Kilrah in 2669?

I kinda like that theory. As well, It would also mean that the lexington wouldnt need to be physically capable of destroying kilrah to cause it's destruction. If that special ops team did include Angel and co. then their simple presence at kilrah directly affect and results in the destruction of the planet. After all, it was their work that made it possible for the T-bomb run to be succesful.
 
AD said:
Do we actually see the Lexington destroy kilrah or just a video of Kilrah exploding?

It's a video of a slowly exploding planet.
 
The only figure that really perplexes me is the mass of the carrier. 3,250 tonnes for a ship 725 meters in length designed for long-range operations and complete self-sufficiency just seems way too light and doesn't mesh well with all of the others in pantheon of Wing Commander capital ships.
 
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