Originally posted by BattleDog
I see you're piont about wings. However there are flaws here:
1. By WCIII missiles are carried internally.
2. In 9 years you cannot half fighter or component size, not when these craft have been around for 100-200 years. Planes aren't really getting smaller. The F-15 and F-22 are similar size IIRC. Thats 40 years.
3. The HUGE missile armerments and in most cases heavier masses are WRONG. One way or another, it means there are cubic metres of space insisde K-War fighters.
4. Look at the cockpits, on the War Birds poster in WCIII you can see the chairs, those fighters can't be that big or the pilots are 12 feet tall.
Not to mention look at the WCSO Excal, its not twice the size of the Vamp. So they screwed up somehow.
1. Correct. By WC3, they're generally using internal bays for missile storage. But also note that the fighters are twice the size of their WCP counterparts, and likely have more than double the volume in internal bays, even assuming larger components and systems.
2. Most of the ship designs we saw by WC3-WC4 were actually fairly old designs, but the most recent upgrades (think the change from the original F-15 to the F-15E, or maybe the F/A-18 Super Hornet from the original Hornet, which itself is a little larger than the original Hornet airframe). These fighter designs have been around about 50+ years by this point, versus relatively new designs like the Excalibur, Bearcat, and then the WCP craft.
Also, most of the changes between the F-15 and F/A-22 aren't due to the engines (the technology there is relatively mature, and we haven't made THAT much progress in making engines smaller, though the F/A-22 has more powerful electronics) but rather due to the stealthing technologies and materials incorporated into the design.
3. The F/A-22 has room enough in its centerline bomb bays for 6 AMRAAM missiles, which are about 7" in diameter, each, plus room, though the configuration is staggered. You've already got a few meters of capacity in the internal bomb bays... and if you look at bricks like the Longbow, which had 16 missiles plus 4 torps and 24 missile decoys... well, they've got the volume, or at least some do.
4. The Arrow is described as the only fighter one feels like they're 'strapping on' rather than climbing into, due to its very compact size compared to most WC craft of the timeframe (20 meters or around 60 feet). Note that most of the designs are relatively short, but stretched out as well. I think the War Birds poster people took some artistic license myself, with putting the chairs in the cockpits.
Remember, that's not supposed to be a diagram to be used for more than recognition purposes - everything beyond the major structural details is probably artistic license.