Confed politics, and other things I find strange...

Crazy J

Spaceman
Ok, so here's one thing I thought was a crappy decision - they ceased production of the Bengal class. Ok, so the Tiger's Claw went down, everyone got upset; the rest are perfectly fine ships and there was no excuse to slash production of a ship that could carry more fighters than any other carrier then in service and could operate without the support of other vessels.

Anyone else think that was a strange decision?

And did you notice that the Vesuvius-class carriers had a very small production run before being replaced by the Midway's? Look at their stats; Vesuvius's (Vesuvii?) could carry more fighters, were better armed, armored, and they were faster, too. They were also smaller than the Midway class. And yet, they stopped making them when they were clearly superior.

Odd, dontcha think?

I know this is weird tech stuff that no one but myself seems to care about (I love going over technical sci-fi stuff and seeing how it relates to reality), but think about it - these are some of the two best ships they've made, and yet, they all had abrupt ends.

Here's another thought - it would have taken either side about 5 minutes or less to order a bombardment over Repleetah and be done with the battle, but yet, neither side did. Didja ever wonder why? So many wasted lives for absolutely nothing...
 
Ok, so here's one thing I thought was a crappy decision - they ceased production of the Bengal class. Ok, so the Tiger's Claw went down, everyone got upset; the rest are perfectly fine ships and there was no excuse to slash production of a ship that could carry more fighters than any other carrier then in service and could operate without the support of other vessels.

Bengals served the war effort almost right up to the end (or was there one that survived till then? foggy memory).

One major reason for designing a new class of carrier was the fact that the Bengal's only had 1 launch bay which as was seen on many occassions during the war almost an assured death trap if it was damaged and unable to launch or recovery fighters.


And did you notice that the Vesuvius-class carriers had a very small production run before being replaced by the Midway's? Look at their stats; Vesuvius's (Vesuvii?) could carry more fighters, were better armed, armored, and they were faster, too. They were also smaller than the Midway class. And yet, they stopped making them when they were clearly superior.

You make all the points except one. The Vesuvius class is extremely expensive to build and only geared toward force projection through fighters. The Midway is less expensive I believe and is capable of quite a bit more.


Here's another thought - it would have taken either side about 5 minutes or less to order a bombardment over Repleetah and be done with the battle, but yet, neither side did. Didja ever wonder why? So many wasted lives for absolutely nothing...

Look at the map where Repleetah is, it's the middle of nowhere that offers only secondary jump lines into each respective rear areas.
 
Where is it mentioned that the Vesuvius-class carriers were replaced by the Midway class?
 
Dundradal, i'm not quite sure I follow you there. I know that the Vesuvius was expensive, but how is it less capable? I think the only real plus to the Midway was the capacity to carry more marines; despite being larger, it still had poorer armor and shields.

Also - did the other carriers have other launch bays? The only ones i've ever seen in Wing Commander were the bays that run the length of the ship. But, just because I haven't seen 'em doesn't mean they weren't there, of course.

Still - Either side could have saved the lives of a lot of troops had they just bombed the planet and been done with it - it would have cost a lot less in the long run.

Blaster - I remember seeing it two places, one was in a list that LOAF linked to, and the other one I can't remember at the moment; i'll see if I can find. It was several months back at least. I do remember them saying that there were less than a handful built before they siwtched over almost exclusively to Midway-class carriers. I always thought that as bland as the Vesuvius was, they sure looked a lot better than those butt-ugly Midways... alas.
 
Even with the one launch bay I still loved the bengal = ) and the tcs concordia with its 2 bays =D. what can I say Im a sucker for a classic!
 
Dundradal, i'm not quite sure I follow you there. I know that the Vesuvius was expensive, but how is it less capable? I think the only real plus to the Midway was the capacity to carry more marines; despite being larger, it still had poorer armor and shields.

It also has a dedicated science division along with R&D capabilities. It was more like a mobile starbase than a carrier and that allowed it to better project force over an area.

Also - did the other carriers have other launch bays? The only ones i've ever seen in Wing Commander were the bays that run the length of the ship. But, just because I haven't seen 'em doesn't mean they weren't there, of course.

The Concordia had two launch bays. Ships mentioned in the novels also discuss and exhibit the positive side of multiple bays. The Hakaga super carriers had 6 of them in order to maintain fighting potential.

Still - Either side could have saved the lives of a lot of troops had they just bombed the planet and been done with it - it would have cost a lot less in the long run.

They might have seen it as saving more lives by not wasting any more effort on a planet with no strategic value. The science center that was there in the beginning was destroyed early in the fighting IIRC.
 
Ok, so here's one thing I thought was a crappy decision - they ceased production of the Bengal class. Ok, so the Tiger's Claw went down, everyone got upset; the rest are perfectly fine ships and there was no excuse to slash production of a ship that could carry more fighters than any other carrier then in service and could operate without the support of other vessels.

Anyone else think that was a strange decision?

Not really -- it's not like they simply stopped making carriers... production of the class was replaced by a more advanced ship, a transition planned years in advance.

And did you notice that the Vesuvius-class carriers had a very small production run before being replaced by the Midway's? Look at their stats; Vesuvius's (Vesuvii?) could carry more fighters, were better armed, armored, and they were faster, too. They were also smaller than the Midway class. And yet, they stopped making them when they were clearly superior.

I did not notice that, because no one ever decided this -- new Vesuvius-class carriers appeared in the last Wing Commander game ever released (the TCS McKinley in Secret Ops), and we certainly haven't heard anything about them since.

Here's another thought - it would have taken either side about 5 minutes or less to order a bombardment over Repleetah and be done with the battle, but yet, neither side did. Didja ever wonder why? So many wasted lives for absolutely nothing...

Presumably because war is never really that easy. The United States continues to fight wars despite having had the technical *ability* to flatten any nation in the world with nuclear weapons for roughly half a century now.

The situation at Repleetah is different, but similarly complex -- "orbital bombardment" is something *both* sides could theoretically engage in. If the Confederation can take out a million Kilrathi soldiers from orbit (and -- can they?), then the Kilrathi can do the same thing in response.

The idea behind Repleetah was that neither side wanted to escalate the fighting... and so it became a grinding trench war.

Bengals served the war effort almost right up to the end (or was there one that survived till then? foggy memory).

The last time a Bengal-class ship is seen is in End Run, where the TCS Wolfhound makes a brief appearance.

One major reason for designing a new class of carrier was the fact that the Bengal's only had 1 launch bay which as was seen on many occassions during the war almost an assured death trap if it was damaged and unable to launch or recovery fighters.

No, they had multiple launch tubes.
 
I have to ask why "launch bays" are really necessary at all for a space carrier? In the launch sequences in WC2 for example, the fighter appears to be linked to a catapult of some kind, although my memory could be incorrect. Is a certain amount of momentum needed to break through the containment field to reach space? Until reading this forum, I never thought of a "single bay" carrier as being at a disadvantage as far as time required to launch a large number of fighters; I always simply envisioned fighters powering up and leaving the deck in large groups, rather than lining up to be launched like carriers of today.

Is it perhaps explained in one of the WC novels? I haven't read them all...
 
Fighters can use either the catapult or their own power to leave the flight deck.

Bear talks about both during ER while training his new crews of the Tarawa.
 
The tiger's claw has numerous launch tubes, play WC1, watch the running sequence, and you see the numbers, so at least she has that much.

The midway has similar launch tubes.

Also, the bengal was STRIKE carrier, an offensive weapon, capable of functioning without escorts, the midway, was not build for thesame reason, but no support ships(Zero: "Put all your eggs into one tiny basket, with no backup") was a consideration here(budget)

The concordia had two landing/launch decks, wich were constantly crippled.

There is an oddity about the midway's design though, "hmm, let's split the ship, put in some connecting enforced rods, hell it could come in handy if we run into an alien gun someday, we can stick it between, connect it, and fire the hell out of entire fleets", but this was a story-wise decision.

The fly-through design is also a bad idea, "fly through it and shoot the hell out of them", however, then you can have larger craft land. (somebody might remember the (original)battlestar galactica episode as the cylons made kamikaze runs at galactica's fighter decks.) I assume chris roberts did watch the show as he was younger.

A ship is designed for a role it needs to fill, ever noticed that the space shuttle does not have the f-117 stealth in it, carries no nukes or guns, can not land on water, launch and land vertically like a harrier or (one version of) the eurofighter?
 
In regards to the Midway's design, a source in Origin (Sean Murphy? not sure) said that the WCP art department was unaware of the plot requirement of mounting the alien "fleet killer" when the Midway was first designed.
 
In regards to the Midway's design, a source in Origin (Sean Murphy? not sure) said that the WCP art department was unaware of the plot requirement of mounting the alien "fleet killer" when the Midway was first designed.
Well, theoretically the alien weapon could be mounted on anything with a large and somewhat flat surface. And if not, temporary "scaffolding" could be added to make it possible.
 
A ship is designed for a role it needs to fill, ever noticed that the space shuttle does not have the f-117 stealth in it, carries no nukes or guns, can not land on water, launch and land vertically like a harrier or (one version of) the eurofighter?

That's exactly it.

The war was over, the mission of Confed had changed. The Vesuvius and her sister ships were designed for war, for slugging it out with kilrathi battle groups, and the Midway was designed to ensure peace, taking on pirates and kilrathi stragglers, as well as peaceful scientific missions. I assume that the small number of Vesuvius class ships we have encountered (two, unless the Eisen is a Vesuvius) is due to their level of completion at the end of the war and the powerful influence of Tolwyn.

If Confed continued military spending on the same level as it did during the war, there would be outrage from an exhausted public, especially considering the outrageous abuses exposed following the Black Lance affair. Considering that the bulk of the Confederation fleet was in such a desperate state of disrepair at the end of the war, many of the surviving ships would need to be extensively repaired or simply scrapped.

In order to rebuild the fleet at minimal cost, it would make sense to build fewer, more powerful ships that could take care of anything Confed could have forseen prior to the nephilim invasion.

The Iowa class battleships were used for World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm, but none of them were active for the entirety of their sixty years afloat, as the costs would have been high and a complete waste of resources. Even now, with America at war, it makes more sense to focus our resources on supercarriers and their escorts than on battleships or fleets of smaller carriers.

One of the things that always bothered me about the Wing Commander community is the number of post-war supercarriers people have designed. They're fun, and I understand that we're just having fun, but no one seems to recognize that, following Wing Commander III, Confed was not at war!
 
I assume that the small number of Vesuvius class ships we have encountered (two, unless the Eisen is a Vesuvius) is due to their level of completion at the end of the war and the powerful influence of Tolwyn.

As LOAF mentioned earlier in the thread, a third, the McKinley, was mentioned in Secret Ops. I believe the WC4 novel spends a bit of time going into what was tied up to build first two, so the third would've been mostly built after Tolwyn's death.
 
A ship is designed for a role it needs to fill, ever noticed that the space shuttle does not have the f-117 stealth in it, carries no nukes or guns, can not land on water, launch and land vertically like a harrier or (one version of) the eurofighter?

I think you will find that the Typhoon or the eurofighter cant take off vertically you maybe thinking of the joint strike fighter which can:D it feature of STOL just means short take of landing with no vertical if you have any questions i will be happy to answer as i work on 29 sqn in the RAF
 
that is correct. One variant of the F35 JSF being developed for the US Marines and the British features verticle take off and landing capabilities (VTOL). Aside from that aircraft, only the AV8 Harrier and the Yak-38 Forger come to mind as having been operationally successful VTOL fighter aircraft (though the Harrier was by far the better of the two.)
 
even when the Harrier is operating with a light load of weapons, crews still usually take off conventionally because of the amount of fuel saved. Now, even a "conventional" takeoff in a harrier is short relative to conventional aircraft because of the extreme nature of the harrier's thrust vectoring.
 
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