Confederation at War

Sarty said:
Now you are changing your arguement. You said Recon and Air(should be Space) Superiority fighters dont win wars. When I point out the instance in WC that it happens, you reply, "Oh, well he had a bomb so that doesnt count". I dont think so.

No, you're failing to understand my original point. My original point was that new carriers would need a new, more complex CIC to effectively control the new found strike capability of their fighters. Former recon and *air superiority* designs would have had far simpler designs since they were not involved in fleet engagements. (I state "air superiority", because the useful attack ability that Forstchen assigns to fighters is to fight with landing craft and perform ground bombardment. Launching space superiority fighters would be kind of stupid if the capships could just shrug them off.)

It may have been overhauled but do you not notice that after the last of the Bengals were decommisioned no "Strike" carriers have been designed. Thats my whole point. When the Kilrathi attacked McAuliffe with torpedo bombers and decimated Confed's fleet, Confed changed their focus. Suddenly, fighters were the key to military dominance, therefore carriers were needed. They no longer needed ships with large anti-capship armaments.

That's probably because they don't call them Strike carries any longer. Once strike capability is the norm, there is no longer a need to refer to it. Sort of how the Enterprise 6 was referred to as CV(N)-6 with the N denoting night operations. The new Enterprise is designated CVN-65, but the N now stands for Nuclear. If nuclear became the norm, they'd probably drop that from the designation as well. Alternatively, the theory about being a capship in addition to a carrier could be correct.

It is stated in the WC3 guide that most of the capship missile racks found in OLDER ships were replaced with ImRec and heat-seeking missiles, which are anti-fighter missiles.

Fair enough, but that is referring to missile racks and not torpedo racks. They were two separate technologies. Not to mention that they were probably referring to WC1 style missiles, but I digress...
 
TC said:
The reason the Confederation was always short on carriers was that it takes 10 years to tool up a shipyard and then a further 5 years to construct a ship. This style of construction doesn't really give you the opportunity to halt construction on existing designs in the middle of a war. You damned well have to keep building what you have because it's better to have the three older style carriers than the first new one you could get out in the same time period. The bottleneck with carrierr superiority was always time and yard capacity. Money wasn't an issue. That noted, they did come up with the Confederation Class during the war, which isn't bad considering the investment they need to make for any new class.

What is your source for this information? Truthfully, it sounds like nonsense to me. Shipyards don't work that way, because every ship is custom built. Take 10 years to retool a shipyard (!) would suggest that they'd need completely new bearths, manufacturing technology, crew, etc., etc., etc. Actually, I can't even see it taking that long to *build* a shipyard. Also, once a keel has been laid, it's always possible to adjust the hull. Existing hulls can even be modified to new specifications. An excellent wet navy example of that was the Shinano carrier which was orginally laid as a Yamoto class Battleship. She was converted during construction due to the changes in doctrine. She would have been a fearsome carrier too, exepct that the Japanese had no planes to put on her deck. (Oops.)

Info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Shinano

AFAIK, all new ships of the US Navy come from Norfolk. It certainly did not take Norfolk 10 years to retool for the first lines of supercarrier, and they had no trouble chucking out standard size fleet carriers. Granted, each carrier took several years to build, but that's why they built several in parallel.

Taking this into space, it should actually be EASIER to produce ships. Why? Because you can use manufacturing methods that would never work here on Earth. For example, 3D printing here on earth is only useful for prototypes and field replacement parts. But in space, you could print just about anything you could melt. Plastic, durasteel, iron, etc. Whatever you want to build things out of. Not to mention that the large stores of iron in most Asteroids would provide more than enough raw materials to build thousands of WC standard size carriers. (80,000 tons is about equivalent to today's supercarriers.)
 
Another one of Forstchen's mistakes? The WCIII adaption is the only source I am aware of that refers to fighter's shields as "phase". The Kilrathi Saga manual OTOH, says the following:

Phase Shield
The latest in defense technology, capital ship shields are impervious to damage from all fighter mounted missiles and guns. Torpedos are the only fighter-mounted weapons capable of getting through.

Well, as I pointed out in my last post, the 'co author' books are generally written by their co-authors... so you'd have to blame the reference on Andrew Keith. Still, I believe Ohlander again uses the term when discussing fighter shields in the Wing Commander IV adaptation.

I don't see a necessary contradiction between the idea that all shields are "phase shields" and the fact that the JFS 2664 Update is discussing specifically the newest capital ship shields. It can say "Heat Seeking Missile" and then discuss specifications for a specific model of Javelin.

Eh? How is the Vesuvius's single massive deck more capable than the two good sized Midway decks? Not to mention that the Midway is capable of carrying, refitting, and launching far more planes, Its design obviously reflects a different strategic thinking, but I don't see how it is any less capable than the Vesuvius.

The Vesuvius carries four fighter wings, for a total of 400 fighters -- compared to the Midway's three fighter wings with 252 fighters total.

The Midway is special because of its 'extras' -- the science division, the Marine Expeditionary Unit... but as a straight up carrier, the Vesuvius-class is still the heaviest class in the fleet (Vesuvii also have significantly more offensive weaponry than the Midway-class does -- carrying anti-matter guns, torpedo tubes and the like.)

I thought about this too. The Cerberus kind of bothered me, because Jeep Carriers were all decommisioned after the war. After a bit of thinking, I realized two things:

1. The US operates amphibious assault ships, which are a form of mini-carrier. These ships operate helicopters and harrier jump jets off their decks, and are capable of independent operations and supporting fire. Very similar to the Cerberus's role.

2. After WWII, Britian switched to using nothing but light carriers. While these were later found to have problems projecting power, they were full blown carriers with complete flight ops capabilities. e.g. The Centaur class and later the Invincible class. If we assume that Confed encompasses a parallel of both Britian and the US, then things still make sense.

I'm not referring to the Cerberus class, which hasn't really been developed into anything but an unusual CIS program at this point. The ICIS Manual makes clear that the carrier fleet of the 2681 is divided between fast escort carriers and heavy fleet carriers (like the Vesuvius and the Midway). It talks about how fighters like the Panther and the Shrike are designed specifically for escort carrier operations -- while the Vampire and the Devestator are designed to serve on the larger carriers.

No, I'm attempting to suggest that either:

1. The fan concept of the Concordia class carrier in the AS timeframe is wrong. The class was either the Ark Royal, or a non-ship name as was common in British ships. This would have made the Concordia class a later arrival. Given its precense at the Battle of Earth, it makes sense that the namesake may have been destroyed and thus replaced with the newer Confederation carrier. This would make the Concordia class easily only 10 years old or less by the time of WCIV.

2. The fan concept of the Concordia class carrier in the AS timeframe is wrong. The class was either the Ark Royal, or a non-ship name as was common in British ships. Jane's manual "mistakenly" printed the class type as Confederation class, when the Concordia was in fact the first of her kind. Thus later references to the Concordia class carrier actually refer to a ship similar to the WCII Concordia. (Note that this explanation harmonizes with the books the best.)

I guess I find the latter situation unacceptable because it clearly goes against the intent of the game - the TCS Lexington (CV-44) is clearly not the same class of ship as the TCS Concordia (CVS-65). The old fan backstory about how they were 'based on the same design, without the Phase Transit Cannon' always seemed exceedingly silly to me, and I was glad that AS created a better solution.

As to the first situation... I just don't see why it's necessary. Without any contradicting evidence in the Wing Commander continuity, I don't see how it can be appropriate to invent an extra TCS Concordia (when there are already three) based only on a gut feeling. I love how some of the incidental details match up between Wing Commander IV and AS -- like when Tolwyn describes the white hull and such. (Also, it strikes me as somewhat disjointed to first complain that AS is *too literal* a WW2 analogy... and then that Wing Commander doesn't exactly mimic one type of carrier history over another.)

Stop putting words in my mouth. I said that drawing from the WWII parallel, the Confederation would immediately decommision and mothball its early war/pre-war carrier assets, thus allowing the newer models to remain in service while the latest in carriers finished construction.

They DID immediately decommission all of their early war/pre-war carrier assets. I named several classes in both the USN and RN as examples! It's EXPENSIVE to keep wartime readiness! So the fleets were immediately scaled back.

I would say that the Confederation did the same thing -- in fact, we know for a fact that they retired the Victory and her sisterships. Carriers built more recently - like the Princeton and the Lexington - would be kept in service for the time being, until the "modern" carrier force could be built up.

But the Vesuvius *was* commisioned. Earlier than originally planned, but she was commisioned. And Tolwyn was certain that the existing carriers in service should be more than a match for the BW tech. (Which he would be correct.) It's possible they pulled a carrier from mothballs, but I sincerely doubt it. Remember, the whole situation was smoke and mirrors designed to place the blame for genocide on the Border World's sholders.

I think the idea that they pulled a carrier from mothballs (in the case of the Princeton) seems possible (although unnecessary, since in the final analysis there is absolutely no evidence that a carrier whose design is thirty years old has to be retired in 2673) -- since it's supposedly replacing the TCS Lexington (that may well be what "ad hoc repairs" are).

The Vesuvius is commissioned ahead of schedule, on 2673.224 -- which is several days after the fighting in the Border Worlds had already begun (and to the credit of your idea that much of the fleet has been mothballed, the Wing Commander IV adaptation does make a big deal about the fact that the Lexington is the Third Fleet's only carrier).

What are you basing the smaller size on? I have the manual up at the moment, and I don't see any sizes given. (Some stuff cut because I hit the char limit again - see above)

The sizes are from the 'ship viewer' in the game (in the Midway's lounge, by the killboard).

The only ship that sets any sort of speed record is the Vampire -- clocking in at a mere 10 kps faster than the WC3 variant of the Arrow (this ignores Armada's higher speeds - taking them into account, Prophecy holds no records for speed). The rest pretty much fall into line with their Wing Commander III/IV role equivalent.

If I may, I'd like to cite a lack of information here. While the Bengal class may have differed significantly between ships, we don't have a whole lot of info on any other than the Tiger's Claw. The Yorktown and Essex classes were in a very similar situation. The Hornet and Wasp were technically in their own classes, yet the Hornet is usually listed as Yorktown class, and Wasp is considered to be part of the Yorktown family. In the Essex class, it has long been stated that no two ships were alike, and the only definition of the Ticonderoga class was the longer hull. Some have even argued that the Ticonderoga wasn't a true class, but rather a way of indetifying some of the more advanced Essex ships.

With so little information, we may be identifying Bengal class carriers that are actually of another subclass or in a class of their own.

Actually, we have fairly detailed sets of specifications for the pre-Tiger's Claw and post-Tiger's Claw Bengals. The original TCS Bengal is 75 meters shorter and 25,000 tonnes less massive than the Tiger's Claw. I agree with you that this is a good historical parallel -- but the fact that we still refer to the Tiger's Claw as being Bengal-class does serve to indicate that significant changes to a design don't indicate a new class of ships in Wing Commander.

Yes, but when new technology changes the very face of how a ship functions, it also allows for overall design changes that shipbuilder will take advantage of. For example, the introduction of torpedos would have suggested the addition of torpedo tubes. While a carrier could be refitted with these, they would probably have several issues that make them less effective than a ship which was designed with the tubes in mind. That's what happened between the major WWII classes. For example, the Essex class added the side elevator after the Yorktown class showed how the deck elevators made the carrier vulnerable. That, combined with other major structural changes, resulted in a new class of carrier.

As I said in one of the posts below, I don't see a huge change in the way a ship functions - the logistics required for supporting a squadron of torpedo bombers doesn't seem significantly different from supporting a squadron of space-to-ground bombers.

We don't see torpedo tubes on Concordia-class ships ever, so there's no contradiction if they aren't there (the old quote about a carrier captain who allows enemy ships coming within visual range of his ship deserves to die applies). The Concordia-class is Confed's standard "center of a battlegroup" ship -- it's not a semi-ship-of-the-line like the Bengal Strike Carriers or the Confederation dreadnoughts.

I'm well aware of the novel. In the game it was unnamed, so I try to refer to it as nameless when speaking about it being an old carrier as opposed to a new carrier.

Well, at the very least, the designation does appear in the game: CV-48. The name was established in material created for the game rather than generated by Mr. Ohlander -- I'm not sure why it didn't make it into the actual mission artwork.

I said "effectively" the same source. Most of the KS manual is a reorg and reprint of the WC1-WCIII manuals. Speaking of which, can you tell me what page it refers to the problems with the Concordia's cannon? I keep hearing about the issue, but I'd like to read the reference.

Page 126 in my copy. The explanation is derived from a situation in Special Ops 2. (If you haven't taken a good look the Kilrathi Saga manual, it's worth a look -- most of the WC2 material is newly created, as there was no 'Claw Marks'/'Victory Streak' style manual for that game.)

Huh? You said the *game* used the term battleship interchangably, and that you are forgiving of it. I said that I'm even more forgiving, because the term battleship is actually quite generic. I think we both agreed that "battlewagon" was a stupid name, but it's now psudo-canon.

Yes, I suppose I'd say I'm forgiving of it (and the unusual battleship reference in Fleet Action). I guess what I'm asking about is something you said in a post yesterday (when the subject of battlewagons was first brought up): "His insistence on calling what are rightfully cruisers, "battlewagons" only serves to underscore that point." As best I can tell, he's not referring to what we know as cruisers in Wing Commander, but is rather creating a new type of ship derived from the heavily armored WW2-style battleships. (And yes, I'm aware that practically every warship can be boiled down to a point where it's referred to as a cruiser -- the term is somewhat more distinct in terms of Wing Commander.)

No, it does not. One could read that into it, but that's playing with words. I could say that the Enterprise CVN-65 was a "new type of nuclear carrier" without suggesting that nuclear carriers existed before that.

Even assuming that you're right (which you're not, you just made that up), how does the "new type" differ from the "old type"? And if he really meant that, why didn't he say "a new type of skipper missile", and then follow up with it's full specs (including cloak)?

Hmm, good question. Of course, it could be something as simple as Confed having developed some form of countermeasure for the older Skippers... and the new ones are designed to overcome that.

We know that they have two different designations: K459-C (movie) versus YM-13A (WC3). There's some practical differences: the movie's skipper missile is much slower (akin to a fighter at full acceleration rather than at afterburners)... and it seems to have a much larger range, compared to the corvette-fired Skippers seen in Wing Commander III.

In terms of 'new type of nuclear carrier' -- I can't agree with you gramatically. To me, that statement implies that other nuclear carriers already exist.


What is your source for this information? Truthfully, it sounds like nonsense to me. Shipyards don't work that way, because every ship is custom built. Take 10 years to retool a shipyard (!) would suggest that they'd need completely new bearths, manufacturing technology, crew, etc., etc., etc. Actually, I can't even see it taking that long to *build* a shipyard.

The 'ten years to build a yard, five years to build a carrier' reference comes from End Run.

AFAIK, all new ships of the US Navy come from Norfolk. It certainly did not take Norfolk 10 years to retool for the first lines of supercarrier, and they had no trouble chucking out standard size fleet carriers.

Norfolk is where the Naval Shipyard is -- you're thinking of Newport News, which is where the Nimitz-class carriers are constructed. (they're both in the same area, but they're distinct facilities/cities -- Norfolk is where ships are repaired and housed by the navy... Newport News is the private company that builds them in the first place.).

It's also certainly not the only place warships are built -- another famous one is the Bath Iron Works, where the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers were built.
 
I don't think cloaked ships show up in the Wing Commander movie. None the less, it has always been heavily implied (by Super Wing Commander, by Wing Commander II itself) that Tolwyn *did* know about the existence of stealth fighters... and that he hung Blair out to dry for personal reasons.

I've never seen anything that implies this, really. Although Tolwyn is a real pain in WC2, he never gave me the impression he was unreasonable. I haven't played Super Wing Commander, however.
 
AKAImBatman said:
What is your source for this information? Truthfully, it sounds like nonsense to me. Shipyards don't work that way, because every ship is custom built. Take 10 years to retool a shipyard (!) would suggest that they'd need completely new bearths, manufacturing technology, crew, etc., etc., etc. Actually, I can't even see it taking that long to *build* a shipyard. Also, once a keel has been laid, it's always possible to adjust the hull. Existing hulls can even be modified to new specifications. An excellent wet navy example of that was the Shinano carrier which was orginally laid as a Yamoto class Battleship. She was converted during construction due to the changes in doctrine. She would have been a fearsome carrier too, exepct that the Japanese had no planes to put on her deck. (Oops.)

Info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japane...carrier_Shinano

AFAIK, all new ships of the US Navy come from Norfolk. It certainly did not take Norfolk 10 years to retool for the first lines of supercarrier, and they had no trouble chucking out standard size fleet carriers. Granted, each carrier took several years to build, but that's why they built several in parallel.

Taking this into space, it should actually be EASIER to produce ships. Why? Because you can use manufacturing methods that would never work here on Earth. For example, 3D printing here on earth is only useful for prototypes and field replacement parts. But in space, you could print just about anything you could melt. Plastic, durasteel, iron, etc. Whatever you want to build things out of. Not to mention that the large stores of iron in most Asteroids would provide more than enough raw materials to build thousands of WC standard size carriers. (80,000 tons is about equivalent to today's supercarriers.)
I admire your knowledge of modern day warships and naval operations, but you cannot use that as literally as you have been when discussing WC, which takes place 600 years from now.

You mentioned the time it takes to build and retool shipyards for warships and said that 10 years to retool with 5 years to build the ship is ridiculous, but you are basing this on modern shipyard production. You have to think of the fact that these shipyards are in space, work crews have to go EV to do even the simplest of tasks. Also, consider the Confederation class dreadnought. It is 3 times the size of a Nimitz carrier!

And of course, WC is fiction!! If it is stated in the books that it takes 10 years to retool a shipyard and 5 years to build a carrier, than you simply cant argue it. There are similarities between WC and WW2, that has been mentioned many times. But you cant say that if suddenly something in WC doesnt coincide with WW2 or the present, it must be wrong.

In story, Confed and the Kilrathi were at war for 35 years, that would put quite a strain on any governments economy and resources. It is possible that at the beginning of the war it only took say 3-5 years to retool a shipyard and 2 years to construct a ship. But by WC1, it is already 20 years into the war, and maybe by that time it takes 5 years to build a carrier, due to strains in Confed's resources.
 
Sarty said:
No, the name-ship of the Concordia class was destroyed at McAuliffe, the Confederation class Concordia was named after it.

I stand corrected on that Account.

If I may chime in with my 2 cents regarding the 30 years debate

Look at Star Trek

There are Classes of Starships still in use in the 2370s that were designed/built in the 2280s-90s

Oberth
Miranda
Excelsior

Now that's alot older than 30 years
 
Top gun, you realise that comparing a fictional unvierse and the real world with another fictional universe is absolutely useless, right?

BTW, I think that the real explanation for all this is... IT WAS ALL A DREAM.
 
Edfilho said:
Top gun, you realise that comparing a fictional unvierse and the real world with another fictional universe is absolutely useless, right?

BTW, I think that the real explanation for all this is... IT WAS ALL A DREAM.


I was just going to say that this is the world of science FICTION. :) I don't see why people get so worked up over every technical detail. Instead of trying to overanalyze every nut and bolt of the universe, enjoy the story being told.
 
I don't see why people get so worked up over every technical detail. Instead of trying to overanalyze every nut and bolt of the universe, enjoy the story being told.

But it’s fun. Like solving a puzzle. And otherwise no different from looking “under the hood” of a car, computer, scientific theory, religious faith, history, etc. Whatever interests you or drives your imagination.
 
ck9791 said:
I don't see why people get so worked up over every technical detail. Instead of trying to overanalyze every nut and bolt of the universe, enjoy the story being told.

While I think we're all here because we enjoy the story thats presented in Wing Commander, it's certainly a nessessity that on the internet, home of stupid debates, that someone is able to answer indepth details about canon, history or any other number of nuances.
 
Code:
I don't see a necessary contradiction between the idea that all shields are "phase shields" and the fact that the JFS 2664 Update is discussing specifically the newest capital ship shields.[/quote]

If that were the case, then shouldn't it refer to the model/type? i.e. "Type VII phase shields are the latest improvement to capship defenses, blah, blah, blah."


[quote]The Vesuvius carries four fighter wings, for a total of 400 fighters -- compared to the Midway's three fighter wings with 252 fighters total.[/quote]

Source? My impression was always that the Midway was a far larger capital ship than the Vesuvius. 

[quote]I'm not referring to the Cerberus class, which hasn't really been developed into anything but an unusual CIS program at this point. The ICIS Manual makes clear that the carrier fleet of the 2681 is divided between fast escort carriers and heavy fleet carriers[/quote]

As I said, though, the RN and Amphibious Assault Ships are a fairly close approximation. Although the more I dig, the less Prophecy seems internally consistant with itself.
	
[quote]I guess I find the latter situation unacceptable because it clearly goes against the intent of the game - the TCS Lexington (CV-44) is clearly not the same class of ship as the TCS Concordia (CVS-65). [/quote]

The book also describes the Lexington and Princeton as having dual flight decks, and having almost exactly the same internal design as the Concordia. How do we resolve that? 

I always preferred the alternate train of thought: The engine wasn't capable of doing a true Concordia in 3D. As a result, we were supposed to pretend that the ship was like the Concordia. Sure, it has holes, but no more holes than the 30+ year old carrier design theory.

[quote]Without any contradicting evidence in the Wing Commander continuity, I don't see how it can be appropriate to invent an extra TCS Concordia (when there are already three)[/quote]

Just to annoy the starch out of you, I'm going to point out that there are only TWO Concordias  in the game and book continuity. A third one only appears if we attempt to harmonize the movie with the game. Not to mention the fact that Action Stations kind of screwed with the continuity anyway...

[quote](Also, it strikes me as somewhat disjointed to first complain that AS is *too literal* a WW2 analogy... and then that Wing Commander doesn't exactly mimic one type of carrier history over another.)[/quote]

Actually, I considered pointing out that the Ark Royal and the Concordia line up pretty well with the Yorktown and Enterprise, but I decided to bite my tongue. No, the mapping between carrier classes is not 1 -> 1, but we can use general parallels from WWII to apply to the WC universe. Using those parallels makes it fairly easy to to demonstrate the most likely outcomes of certain situations. And one of those outcomes is that a pre-war carrier is doubtful to be manufactured throughout a 30 year war. (WWII only lasted about 6 years, and look how many new classes of carrier were produced!)

[quote]I would say that the Confederation did the same thing -- in fact, we know for a fact that they retired the Victory and her sisterships. Carriers built more recently - like the Princeton and the Lexington - would be kept in service for the time being, until the "modern" carrier force could be built up.[/quote]

The Lady Lex was recently remodelled, so it makes sense to keep her on. But was she really a Concordia or Ranger class carrier? The only reference we have is the book, which suggests that she's actually a Confederation class dreadnought! Certainly it seems that the scripts had intended the Confederation class to continue to serve despite any issues with the main canon... err... I mean cannon. 

[quote]I think the idea that they pulled a carrier from mothballs (in the case of the Princeton) seems possible (although unnecessary, since in the final analysis there is absolutely no evidence that a carrier whose design is thirty years old has to be retired in 2673) -- since it's supposedly replacing the TCS Lexington (that may well be what "ad hoc repairs" are).[/quote]

It's a possibility I suppose. It would certainly explain why the Princeton was at the shipyards, and why she had little to no defensive capability. (A carrier's fighter compliment doesn't just magically disappear.) The destruction of the Lexington would provide a good backstory for that, because the Lex (being recently remodelled) was probably supposed to cover certain operations even after the Vesuvius was online. (Actually, wasn't the Lex under construction during the Battle of Earth? In which case, she would be a relatively new carrier.)

[i]The sizes are from the 'ship viewer' in the game (in the Midway's lounge, by the killboard). [/i]

I'll have to reinstall the game and review the data when I get the chance. It just doesn't seem right that the Prophecy fighters would be *smaller*. Then again, Prophecy was done with a constant "brain drain" on its former Origin talent base.

[quote]Actually, we have fairly detailed sets of specifications for the pre-Tiger's Claw and post-Tiger's Claw Bengals. The original TCS Bengal is 75 meters shorter and 25,000 tonnes less massive than the Tiger's Claw. I agree with you that this is a good historical parallel -- but the fact that we still refer to the Tiger's Claw as being Bengal-class does serve to indicate that significant changes to a design don't indicate a new class of ships in Wing Commander.[/quote]

If I may ask, what are we using as a reference?

[quote]As I said in one of the posts below, I don't see a huge change in the way a ship functions - the logistics required for supporting a squadron of torpedo bombers doesn't seem significantly different from supporting a squadron of space-to-ground bombers.[/quote]

I do. Fleet carriers, destroyers, battleships, and the like *move*. They hide, they run, they attack, they play mind games that can keep a full intelligence agency busy. Planets don't do that. They just sit there. And recon is relatively easy to coordinate compared to the problems inherent in tracking outbound bombers, inbound enemy bombers, space superiorty battles, defensive battles, and bomber cover battles all simulataneously.

[quote]We don't see torpedo tubes on Concordia-class ships ever, so there's no contradiction if they aren't there (the old quote about a carrier captain who allows enemy ships coming within visual range of his ship deserves to die applies).[/quote]

The closest relative of the supposed Concordia class, the Ranger class, is listed as having capship torpedos. The Concordia class is larger and more powerful, so my feeling is that we've simply never the tubes in action. Not to mention that the Visual rule was broken in WCIV during the conflict between the Lex and the Durango. While that might have something to do with the fact that Paulson was an idiot, we see similar engagements later in the game between the Durango and the Vesuvius, and the Vesuvius and her sister ship. Prophecy expands on this by showing the Midway present for a variety of capship engagements.

I think the core problem with the "keep your distance" rule in the WCverse, is that ships must use jump points. As a result, there are many instances where a carrier may be required to punch her way through an enemy line either on an outbound leg, or on an inbound surprise attack. I know I'd certainly feel better if my carrier could get a few cap missiles off while I'm still getting my fighters off the deck.
	

[quote]Page 126 in my copy.[/quote]

Found it! Thanks! I now remember reading this actually, so I guess I'm just somewhat forgetful. :)

[quote]"His insistence on calling what are rightfully cruisers, "battlewagons" only serves to underscore that point." As best I can tell, he's not referring to what we know as cruisers in Wing Commander, but is rather creating a new type of ship derived from the heavily armored WW2-style battleships.[/quote]

But he lists both Battleships and Battlewagons. That makes little sense overall, and battlewagon is a really stupid name for any sort of naval craft. ("Wagon" tends to imply wheels.) If he wanted to invent a new type of ship, he should have taken the time to understand how the various types got their names in the first place. i.e.:

Battleship -> Ships of the line were also referred to as "ships of battle" or "battleships". The "line" is a reference to the practice of bringing ships along side each other and firing cannons in an attempt to disable the opponent's ship. In fleet engagements, this would often result in lines of ships making broadside passes at one another.

Destroyer -> After the invention of the torpedo, it was found that capital ships were vulnerable to small, fast boats carrying torpedos. (i.e. Torpedo Boats) The Torpedo Boat Destroyer was invented to combat this threat by chasing down Torpedo Boats and destroying them before they could intercept the capital ships.

Frigate -> From the French word "Frigata". I'm unsure as the the precise translation of the word, but Frigate originally referred to small oar and sail merchant ships. In naval tradition, it is usually used to refer to a small ship of war. 

Cruiser -> A small ship of war inteded for independent operations away from the fleet and support tenders. Originally called a "cruising ship", it was quickly shortened to "Cruiser".

Dreadnought -> Derived from the name HMS Dreadnought, so named because the ship's company would "dread nought but God." The HMS Dreadnought brought about the modern form of battleship, and thus battleships were referred to as "pre-dreadnought" and "post-dreadnought". Later, the later term was shortened to simply "dreadnought". 

Using those as a base, I suppose he could argue that there was an HMS BattleWagon, and that was what resulted in the battlewagon name. But that makes little sense considering that he still uses the term "battleship" alongside "battlewagon".  Thus it would have been far more accurate had he found a *use* for the ship, then given it a new type name. (I'd think of an example, but I really have no idea how a battlewagon differs from a battleship and/or cruiser or frigate.) Of course, given his WWII analogy, using the term Dreadnought instead of Battlewagon would have been more appropriate.

[quote]Hmm, good question. Of course, it could be something as simple as Confed having developed some form of countermeasure for the older Skippers... and the new ones are designed to overcome that.[/quote]

Hmmm... not sure about this. We never actually saw a differentiation between regular flight and afterburner flight in the movie. So therefore we don't *know* that the skipper was slower, because we don't *know* if Blair's Rapier was on full burners or not.

[quote]In terms of 'new type of nuclear carrier' -- I can't agree with you gramatically. To me, that statement implies that other nuclear carriers already exist.[/quote]

It makes perfect sense in the sort of "down home" english that Eisen speaks. (Part of the charm of his character. He manages to stay military without sacraficing his southern mode of speech. It wouldn't seem at all odd to hear him use a term like "cock-eyed.") In real life, someone might consider saying that "the Enterprise is a new type of carrier, powered by nuclear engines." Unfortunately, that sounds good on paper but lousy out loud. Most people would shorten it to the more clumsy "the Enterprise is a new type of /nuclear-powered/ carrier" or simply "the Enterprise is a new type of /nuclear/ carrier" (since the "powered" is implied in nuclear energy). Note that they will usually put a sllight pause and stress on the word "nuclear" to point to the fact that they are referring to an attribute of the new item.

[quote]The 'ten years to build a yard, five years to build a carrier' reference comes from End Run[/quote]

Interesting. But does it actually say that you need 10 years to retool for a new class? Your quote is "ten years to build a yard", which is acceptable (although a bit long, actually). As mentioned before, most of the US ships in WWII came out of existing shipyards. 

[quote]Norfolk is where the Naval Shipyard is -- you're thinking of Newport News, which is where the Nimitz-class carriers are constructed.[/quote]

Ah true. They tend to get lumped together since they are literally right across from each other. If I remember correctly, the Yorktown carriers came out of Newport News yards, and the Forrestal class came out of Norfolk yards. The Enterprise and Nimitz classes came from Newport News. To an onlooker, this pretty much means they all came out of the yards in Norfolk, but there is a difference in who actually built the ships.

[quote]It's also certainly not the only place warships are built -- another famous one is the Bath Iron Works, where the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers were built.[/QUOTE]

That's true. I should say that the majority of ships are built in Norfolk. There used to be a Naval shipyard in San Francisco as well, but I'm not sure if they ever produced any capital ship hardware. The Puget Sound yards support the Pacific fleet, although capital ships aren't constructed there. They did construct submarines at one point, however.

[quote]You mentioned the time it takes to build and retool shipyards for warships and said that 10 years to retool with 5 years to build the ship is ridiculous, but you are basing this on modern shipyard production. You have to think of the fact that these shipyards are in space, work crews have to go EV to do even the simplest of tasks.[/quote]

If they have to EV to build a ship, then someone isn't doing their job properly. Space construction should be handled in as much of a robotic fashion as possible. And as I said, it opens up the possbility for new manufacturing methods. 

Even if we assume that manual labor is still needed, then someone should hollow out an asteroid and pressurize it. That would allow work crews to operate just as effectively as here on Earth.

[quote]Also, consider the Confederation class dreadnought. It is 3 times the size of a Nimitz carrier![/quote]

Say what? The Nimitz displaces ~100,000 tons. The Concordia was about 73,000 metric tons and the Tiger's Claw about 80,000 metric tons. The Concordia is three times the length of the Nimitz, but it does not appear to be more massive.

[quote]There are Classes of Starships still in use in the 2370s that were designed/built in the 2280s-90s[/quote]

Comparing Star Trek ships to WC ships is pointless. WC Ships are ships of war, and thus will have very different lifespans than Star Trek's explorartory vessels. It's like comparing a Cruise ship to a Carrier. They just aren't the same thing.
 
During the time that those Starships came about the Federation was involved in a "Cold-War" with the Klingons, so most the the Starships of the time leaned more towards war. The Oberth-Class was a Science ship, but it can be seen fighting the Borg in First Contact (you have to search for it though), which seems like suicide. The Miranda-Class is classed as a Light Destroyer, and can be seen in most battles of the Dominion War, including the fight to re-take DS9.

I wasn't really comparing Star Trek to WC, but just pointing out that in some universes, some ships serve longer.

Back to WC, a 30 year old Class, would have had major re-fits over that time. New computer systems, weapons, shields, engines. As tech progresses, you can improve on what has served you well, rather than go for new more costly classes (which you will make anyway). but when you're at war, every ship is vital.

At some point, I'm going to have to read the WC Novels
 
TopGun said:
The Oberth-Class was a Science ship, but it can be seen fighting the Borg in First Contact (you have to search for it though), which seems like suicide. The Miranda-Class is classed as a Light Destroyer, and can be seen in most battles of the Dominion War, including the fight to re-take DS9.

Ugh. Please don't remind me of that abortion-of-a-plotline developed by Berman. He doesn't know the first thing about military tactics, and as a result makes all kinds of horrible, horrible, errors that should never stand. For example, do you think we would have seen diving and swooping starships on Gene's watch? Never! The very concept is internally rediculous to the Star Trek universe!

During the time that those Starships came about the Federation was involved in a "Cold-War" with the Klingons, so most the the Starships of the time leaned more towards war.

Three words: Organian Peace Treaty

Neither side could actually *fire* on the other, for fear that the Organians would come and "arbitrate" matters. (i.e. Blow both of them out of the water.) So it wasn't so much of a "Cold War" as it was a forcefully imposed peace. Thus Starfleet continued to build standard exploratory vessels, but did continue research into upgrading standard systems. Most hulls, however, never saw the battlefield.

Truthfully, post-TNG Star Trek has no place in any real discussions about the military. It might be fun to watch on screen, but it really doesn't make much sense.
 
TopGun said:
The post-TNG Starships are cool

They all look terrible. The Enterprise E is *okay*, but the rest are pretty poor. I mean, we have everything from the "circular station for no reason", to the "it's a fighter, no it's a starship, no it's a figher", to the "flying spoon", to the "flying spoon that splits in half", to the "overgrown shuttle", to the... I'll stop there.

But I've been a fan since I was 5 (back in 1985) :D

Got you beat there. I was at the Premeir of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)! I was only two months old at the time, but my parents had won tickets from the local radio station. ;)
 
so you're only a year older than me then

in the end it's down to personall taste, as to wether you like the later Starships or not.

what ship are you reffering to by "flying spoon that splits in half", the only ships I know that seperate are the Galaxy-Class (Saucer Section and Stardrive Section) and the Prometheus-Class (Saucer Section and 2 Stardrive Sections)
 
AKAImBatman said:
Source? My impression was always that the Midway was a far larger capital ship than the Vesuvius.

The Midway is larger, but it is not a fleet carrier. The Midway is supposed to be somewhat of a mobile starbase. In addition to the fighters, the Midway carries Marine complements, Seahawks for SWACS, etc. Not to mention the logistical support the Midway offers. It is, in a way, supposed to eliminate the need for task forces and battle groups in certain systems, being a jack-of-all trades type of ship. I think the Midway would be ideal for a command vessel. While not the most powerful ship in the fleet, its support capabilities are excellent.
 
And here I'm a fan of DS9, and consider:

TOS was too hokey

TNG was too...too...Ugh. Too perfect. Great actors, but...*sigh* Roddenberry's Rules made everybody too perfect. Made everything too perfect. And if I must ever suffer a character like Wesley Crusher again, I will kill something.

Meanwhile, let us not speak of Voyager and Enterprise. Such abominations must never be mentioned. They Just Sucked.

As far as the movies:

TMP was...eh. Spare me.

Wrath of Khan was a good movie.

3 was strange.

4 was just...silly. (Ugh, why the whales?)

5...I did not enjoy.

6 kicked ass.

Generations blew.

First Contact was decent, though I did not enjoy their messing with the ST canon so (2063???Ehhh...)

Insurrection was...decent, if hokey in plot. The weapons were quite cool.

I shall stipulate to never having seen Nemesis.
 
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