Launch tubes on tigers claw

[Atekimogus]

Beeing new here i'd first like to great everyone and second i'd like to ask a few things.

Does anyone know how many launch tubes the tigers claw had and where they were located? When i say tigers claw i do NOT mean the claw from the movie or acadamy but the good old claw from wc1. I read in some thread that they where located in the "wings" but that seems a bit odd because when you are looking at the drawings in claw marks you can see that they only have a height of about 6-8 meters which is clearly not enough for a 19-20 meter high raptor (the biggest fighter we see in the game launching from the claw)

Another issue is the small flight deck. In the landing scenes we see clearly that the deck is easily broad enough for at least two raptors (which are about 34 meter in wide each). But when you look at the "blueprints" from clawmarks and work with the numbers also stated there you get a deck which is only about 60 meters wide. So we have here the interesting situation, that the numbers from claw marks (which i think are canon) do NOT match the pictures we see in the game (which also is canon imho ) So can we asume that the lenght of the ship is incorrect? I am strictly against inventing stats for a ship so i think thats not an option. But restricting my altime favorite carrier to only be able to service one fighter at a time doesn't make me happy either, so what is to be done?

Although i know that the reason for this is probably only bad drawing from the wing commander 1 artists i'd like to hear a few suggestions to explain this paradoxon and i am looking forward to your explanations.

 

[Mace]

hmm tough call, the launch tubes would more likely be located under(yes, under) the
landing strip. why? because it should be somewhere in the fuselage(misspelled?), since it would be more logical to have the fighters moved down by an elevator then sticking them into a tie-fighter-like launch contraption to move them into the wings.... that, and wings stick out, making them an easy target...

and why below the landing strip, so you have a massive border inbetween incoming and outgoing ships( a ship in trouble landing could make some strange manouvers possibly getting in the way of another ship taking off...)
also, as i watch the animations from prophecy up close, it looks like the midway's tubes ar also located in front aiming downwards, designs don't change completely...

and, from watching WC1's landing animation, you'd see the landing strip is at least 3 times the width of a raptor, and the raptor is 36 meters LONG, not wide... say it's 25 meters wide and it all fits again...

 

[Dundradal]

I think you might have you X - Y - Z dimensions in the wrong order. The Raptor is not 30 meters high (that would make it over 60 ft tall!) You might want to consider looking back over the numbers.

As to the location of the torpedo tubes...just wait for LOAF he'll probably have the best answer for that question...

 

[Iceman16]

As to the location of the torpedo tubes...just wait for LOAF he'll probably have the best answer for that question...

And the answer to any question related to WC is....*Drumroll* ask LOAF! lol

 

[Nomad Terror]

That's a tall fighter.

 

[Delance]

Since it's supposed to be the *same* claw, it must operate via the "tubes" and normal hangars. The launching tubes of the Tiger's Claw. should be located in the front, because when you take off on WC1, if you look back, you see the front of the carrier, so there's where the fighter came from.

 

[Chernikov]

Odd, I thought so too for the longest time but was therafter told in no uncertain terms that the launchers were in the side pods, which also housed the planetary bombardment guns.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Does anyone know how many launch tubes the tigers claw had and where they were located? When i say tigers claw i do NOT mean the claw from the movie or acadamy but the good old claw from wc1. I read in some thread that they where located in the "wings" but that seems a bit odd because when you are looking at the drawings in claw marks you can see that they only have a height of about 6-8 meters which is clearly not enough for a 19-20 meter high raptor (the biggest fighter we see in the game launching from the claw)

The tubes we see in the original game are in the 'wings' -- the best indication of this in the original Wing Commander is that there's no exposed runway in the takeoff 'segment'. You're shoot out a hexagon and you're in space. As in the movie and Academy the ship can launch fighters from other areas - in the SM1 port of the original Wing Commander, for instance, there's an alternate takeoff scene where an elevator raises the fighter onto the recovery deck and it runs the length of the ship externally (thanks, Mode 7 graphics).

(And for good measure, the 'third' option for launching a fighter is small decks facing to the left and right, seen on the animated series and in Super Wing Commander.)

I'm not sure how you're measuring the Tiger's Claw, though... resizing the 'side' view so it's 700 pixels long and then measuring the height of the 'wing' box indicates that it's roughly 100 meters tall -- versus only 50 meters for the forward part of the recovery deck. (The same method gives a 17 meter high Raptor).

Another issue is the small flight deck. In the landing scenes we see clearly that the deck is easily broad enough for at least two raptors (which are about 34 meter in wide each). But when you look at the "blueprints" from clawmarks and work with the numbers also stated there you get a deck which is only about 60 meters wide. So we have here the interesting situation, that the numbers from claw marks (which i think are canon) do NOT match the pictures we see in the game (which also is canon imho ) So can we asume that the lenght of the ship is incorrect? I am strictly against inventing stats for a ship so i think thats not an option. But restricting my altime favorite carrier to only be able to service one fighter at a time doesn't make me happy either, so what is to be done?

This isn't a problem withh the Tiger's Claw, it's a problem with Wing Commander's impossibly giant fighters - a Raptor can't possibly be 36 meters long based on the size of a person next to it in cutscenes. (In general, capital ships are sensibly sized for their capabilities.)

Odd, I thought so too for the longest time but was therafter told in no uncertain terms that the launchers were in the side pods, which also housed the planetary bombardment guns.

Yes, but facing forward.

 

[Atekimogus]

Hm thank you for the answers!

@ Dundradal, well i never said the raptor is 36m high, i stated its about 19-20meter which goes well with the numbers bandit posted later (17meters)

@bandit: thank you for your answers but to clear things up i meant the wings left and right under the coning tower of the claw. (which should indeed only have a height of about 7 meters). So it seems its a misunderstanding on my part since the acadamy claw launched fighters from small decks facing left and right i always supposed the threads were refering to this small wings. (Which stroke me as odd since after the takeof you could see the front of the claw, as stated by delance, but now everything makes sense )

Maybe it would be a good idea to post a chart of the claw where everything is described what do you guys think of it?

 

[SonOfStorm]

Hey Loaf do you have videos of those alternate launchs, might be interesting to see for those of us who never touch console games.

 

[Edfilho]

The wings being the green horizontal triangular things at the far end of the claw?

 

[Chernikov]

the wings being the box-like things at the end of the narrow wing-like extensions, in front of the engines which are housed in those green horizontal triangular things.

 

[Delance]

And there are guns as well on those wings, the Claw fire them on the WC1 cutscene for the game ending.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

We should go through all the sources and make a map using screenshots of the various 'Claw locations. Until we have time to do that, here's a quick sketch of where the aforementioned hangers are:

The eighteen small tubes in the wings (per WCA, though it goes well with the "TUBES 6-9" sign in WC1) are for individual fighters. The green hangars on the sides are for larger craft and shuttles (in general) and then the blue area is the recovery deck (which also has... two?... catapults.)

 

[Atekimogus]

great picture bandit, i didnt know the claw has that much of launching, landing capability.
It seems that until the midway this hangar configuration is the most efficient design for carriers we see, i wonder why they didnt incorporate this config in the newer confederation or jutland classes. (although the confederation-class was supposed to be a dreadnought i think they would have had enough space on this monster)

Also i find it a bit hard to believe that the claw has 18 tubes compared to the six the midway has. I mean this configuration would make the claw THE best carrier in the whole wc universe beeing able to launch 20 fighters simultaniously.(personally i would be glad since its my favorite ship )

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Well, we really have no idea what (if anything) a "Jutland class" is. Since whatever the missing carrier is is a replacement for the Bengal-class, it may have a very similar launching system.

I think the big limitation in terms of the Claw's many launch tubes is probably that it's harder to shift fighters from the main hanger to so many individual tiny launch areas at once.

 

[SonOfStorm]

Not really Loaf, if it is laid out anything like a standard carrier with a hanger deck below the flight deck then it shouldn't be too hard to move the fighters around. What you need to see now is multiple views showing the elevation of the various decks and landing/TO bays. If you figure that all the landing/TO bays are on the same level and the hanger is immediately below it then like I said moving fighters around would be no problem. THere would just be elevators then to lift the fighters into position to launch and at the same time elevators to lower them after landing. All of this would seem to make sense with what you see in game, but not read in the book freedom flight, which IRC assumes all flight ops occur off the singular visible flight deck. In the game you always see the deck crew in unpressurized suits when they make final checks and greet you after a mission indicating that the area they are in is pressurized and liking in a lower hanger deck. BUt when you look at the actuall landing sequence the guy flagging you in to land is in a pressure suit as is everyone else visible. Anyway that's just a thought on my part. Also, LOAF you mentioned take off videos from the console ports that are unique to it, any plans to make those available for viewing like you did for the SuperWC videos a while back? SPeaking of which any chance of getting those reposted?

 

[Edfilho]

I always found the BIG CLAW in the Midway quite strange. It seems weird that a huge mechanical apendage should pick up a fighter and drop it in a rail.... Looks like one of those "pick the teddy bear" machines. A system like current carriers or that had the fighters in some fixtures with rails would make more sense.

 

[Atekimogus]

Well i dont know LOAF but are you sure about the nine tubes in each wing, i mean i always thought these are mainly to house the engines (because i cant believe that the engines are only the little outtakes we se on the model and on a ship you also see only the ships propeller but the engine room which you do not see needs nevertheless very much space) and frankly as storage area, i mean if the claw really has 102 fighters (no matter what class) the need some space to store them and i dont think they are all lined up on the deck at all times.

Also the wings have roughly a length of 120 meters which is 13,3 meters per tube add the walls which seperates the tubes and you have maybe about 10 meters/tube, it seems that not even the smallest fighters would fit in such a thing.

(but maybe i misunderstood something so i would be interested where nine tubes/wing is stated? Thanks LOAF)

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Also, LOAF you mentioned take off videos from the console ports that are unique to it, any plans to make those available for viewing like you did for the SuperWC videos a while back? SPeaking of which any chance of getting those reposted?

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take an SNES with me to school this semester. Remind me in December and I'll grab any console video you want. Until then, here's some screen captures:

Your fighter is raised up on an elevator...

... and then some mode-7 graphics run it down the length of the 'Claw.

As far as I know, though, the SWC videos are still available - you should be able to find them from the news search engine on the front page.

Well i dont know LOAF but are you sure about the nine tubes in each wing

Yup, here's a screen capture:

Also the wings have roughly a length of 120 meters which is 13,3 meters per tube add the walls which seperates the tubes and you have maybe about 10 meters/tube, it seems that not even the smallest fighters would fit in such a thing.

Again, though, the issue is the improperly sized fighters and not the length of the Tiger's Claw.

(because i cant believe that the engines are only the little outtakes we se on the model and on a ship you also see only the ships propeller but the engine room which you do not see needs nevertheless very much space)

There's a pretty good internal drawing of the 'Claw in the Confederation Handbook that should give you an idea of what amount of space is required for what (and of course there's that poster that never came out...)

and frankly as storage area, i mean if the claw really has 102 fighters (no matter what class) the need some space to store them and i dont think they are all lined up on the deck at all times.

104 fighters