Death said:
The PTC was integrated into the design of the Confederation class, and formed the basis of that design's keel ("Joan's Fighting Ships", WC2 manual). Simply "don't include it" won't cut it, as the design is built for the stresses of carrying and firing the PTC, and redesigning for a PTC-less Confederation could easily be more expensive than just starting from scratch with a new design. Cost would also make installing but not using the PTC not a likely option. Warships in general don't really have the luxury of carrying around "dead" mass/volume.
I agree. I believe the Lexington-class of 2668 was exactly that. Unfortunately, to design, build, test, and deploy a new carrier would take years (not to mention getting funding from the government for the project). In the interim, Confed would still need new carriers. So even if Confederation-class ships were launched as essentially floating hulls with a fighter wing, it would mean something was being built.
I am not sure that I subscribe so much to the theory that Concordia-class Carriers (the 2633/34 models) were massed produced throughout the war. The Lexington in WC4 was supposed to be a Confederation-class ship, but due to moddeling problems, that didn't come to fruition.
Also, if you analyze Confed and Kilrathi ship comparisons throughout the war, you will notice that their statistics are nearly identical. This would well represent a 35-year arms and technology race. The Kilrathi ships are usually slightly larger with a greater amount of firepower. I would assume that Confed balances this with a slightly greater technology in detection, ECCM, and shield recharge rates.
In the Victory Streak manual we have listings for various capships...
Confed Destroyer- Length: 490 meters, 9 turreted weapons (Laser, Flak, AMG, etc...)
Kilrathi Light Destroyer- Length: 450 meters, 8 turreted weapons
Kilrathi Heavy Destroyer- Length: 530 meters, 13 turreted weapons
and
Confed Cruiser- Length: 530 meters, 12 turreted weapons
Kilrathi Cruiser- Length: 550 meters, 15 turreted weapons
There is a listing for Light Carrier (which may include both of the Ranger and Concordia classes. Both ships utilize the CV designation and not CVL or CVA).
Length: 720 meters, 11 turreted weapons
But, there is no listing for a heavy carrier or CVS (perhaps this denotes Strike Carrier, or perhaps it doesn't. Either way it is definately separate from the CVs)
The Kilrathi Heavy Carrier was 920 meters, and had 8 turreted weapons.
The Kilrathi Heavy Carrier may have been a competitor to the Confederation-class which in this case was slightly larger and had more weapons points, but had far less mass (survivability) and protection. Again, common trade off features in an arms race.
The new fleet carriers from the WC4 novel, like the 800-meter TCS Princeton were most likely intended to be Lexington-class. Only in the WC4 game do we hear of the "Concordia-class" reference for the CV48 in the Speradon missions. The CV48 is never identified in the game as the new carrier Princeton, it is just assumed. The CV44 and CV48 penant numbers are very close to the TCS Victory CV40 which entered service sometime during the first year of the war (as established by some of Capt. Eisen's dialogue in WC3). Also, the TCS Concordia entered service in the year of the McAuliffe ambush in 2634 and would probably aslo have a similar penant number (perhaps CV38 or CV39).
Separating the Confederation-class CVS, and the Jutland-class CVA (in my opinion, the Jutland was a reconfigured Waterloo-class Cruiser) we are left with the Concordia-class Carriers dominating the CV40-50 range and the Lexington dominating the CV60 range. Then would eventually come the Vesuvius CV70.
This could be what Forstchen meant when he said that all 40-series carriers (Ranger and Concordia-classes built in the 30s) were decommissioned after the war.
The Lexington-class Heavy Carrier was built to most likely eventually replace the Confed Heavy Carrier of the day, the Confederation-class.