Naval Design Trends

[ELTEE]

So everyone yell at me when I get this all wrong...


I'm trying to see if I can oversimplify the trends in naval design that the Confederation follows before, during, and after the war with the Kilrathi.

Before: Emphasis is on *battleships* with decisive battles being fought ship to ship in massive fleet on fleet engagements. Fighters and some light carriers exist, but play a recon role for the most part.

During: As fighters, carriers, and their weapons progress (i.e. better torpedoes, missiles and guns) they take on a greater role, eventually becoming the cornerstone to any fleet. In addition, as the range and effectiveness of the fighters progress, they operate more independently than before. Ex: A carrier like Tiger's Claw and her spacewing can penetrate enemy space and do the damage that a group of battleships could do before (while making it hard to be detected as well).

After: As the power of capital ship design increases and the economic attitudes change, the Confederation arrives at a compromise of the previous two trends. Emphasis is on fewer, more powerful ships (think Yamato) that are built to better withstand attack from fighters. Result? Carriers like Midway and battlecruisers, which in essence at least attempts to replace both battleships and fleets of escort ships like destroyers and cruisers.


Whew. So what does everyone think? On to something here, or just plain wrong? Note that these are supposed to be oversimplified. Obviously the trends partially mix at all times (i.e. Confederation dreadnought)

Also, not sure how to incorporate the supercruisers into this...maybe they are a halfway point between *battleships* and attack carriers...???

 

[Death]

"Supercruisers" are really just plain old heavy cruisers, the "super" part possibly a political ploy to get funding for them. The 4 AMGs of the Concordia class SCs is the same heavy armament of the later Waterloo class cruisers.

As for the Claw, it's an exception to the general carrier rule. As a strike carrier, it was designed for operations deep into enemy territory with little to no support/escort vessels. Regular carriers (which we don't really see in the games before WC3, but they're there; don't make me bring up the toilet analogy ) operate as battlegroups (witness the Victory's escort of a CA and 2 DDs; the Lexington in WC4 also had escorts, as per WC4N, but left them behind on the attack that let Blair get in a mission kill on it, thanks to Paulsen's incompetence).

Altogether, we don't really have much of a basis for assumptions on the Nephilim War era fleet make-up ([edit]though Star*Soldier does say, in the sidebar article on battlecruisers, that thousands of them were made during the war[/edit]), having only two games to go by, and both of those being special circumstances (shakedown cruises) that gave only a limited view of ConFleet in the last part of the 27th century. Do note, though, that most of the other ships we run into in WCSO were destroyers.

 

[Nomad Terror]

Yes it seemed like most of the reinforcement fighter wings in Secret Ops were attached to starbases or Murphy class destroyers.

I think the only actual carriers we see in Secret Ops are the Midway herself and the one Vesuvius class in one of the cutscenes...

 

[Dundradal]

Yes it seemed like most of the reinforcement fighter wings in Secret Ops were attached to starbases or Murphy class destroyers.

I think the only actual carriers we see in Secret Ops are the Midway herself and the one Vesuvius class in one of the cutscenes...

That would be the TCS Mount St. Helens which is destroyed in the same cutscene. It was nice to see it again and even fly around it for a bit if you knew the trick

 

[Wedge009]

<cough>F1</cough>

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Space Point

I would say that the Supercruisers are a mid-way point between a fleet centered around battleships and one centered around carriers. They're heavy hitting warships for the Admirals who grew up with that school... but they're a good bit faster, they carry a fighter complement, etc.