A study of why Confed was having trouble defeating the Kilrathi.

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nicewitch

Veteran Spaceman
1, the Kilrathi have superior strength and presumably superior reflexes when compared to humans. Ok, there was nothing Confed could've done about that except maybe the GE program (and that was I think a decade after this war started).

2, the technology from what I observed from the WC games and WCATV series, the technology was pretty much the same though I think in Fleet Action novel, Forstchen typed how that the Kilrathi aerofighters were never significantly advanced when compared with Confed's aerofighters. So that got me thinking: what if the energy and ballistic weapons on Confed aerofighters each were mounted on a combination left&right&up&down turret? This way, Confed aerofighters could have firing arcs that could keep them out of the nonfiring arced Kilrathi aerofighter weapon shots. And how about gigantic smoke screens to cover Confed ships; I mean during the Battle for Earth the Confed civilian and Marine ships could have been covered and could have been vectored to their targets by other Confed craft. Also, the Kilrathi were bloodthirsty, so they most likely wouldn't've used energy shield colors beyond red; Confed should've used all seven colors of the visible light spectrum (ROYGBIV) for their energy shields.

3, the Behemoth supergun ship was a total waste of Confed resources, funds, and time. While Tolywn was having that ship built, Kilrathi Prince Thrakhath was having several smaller ships being built - the supercarriers and other ships that practically protected the Kilrathi from invasion (improving Thrakhath's reputation amongst the Kilrathi) and nearly enabled the Kilrathi to defeat Confed in Fleet Action novel (giving Thrakhath even more popularity & lessening Confed's morale).

4, Confed should've tried to capture more Kilrathi ships when possible. Captured Kilrathi ships used against the Kilrathi would've humiliated the Kilrathi military leadership and that might've lead to a Kilrathi civil war making it easier on Confed.
 
You agai... Just Kidding. I'm your huckleberry ;)

Technologically, Humans and the Kilrathi were pretty even-steven: Kilrathi fighters had weaker shields but superior Jump technology (having defeated the alien race that gave it to them) allowing them to build bigger capital ships. And stealth technology. Humans had better shields (per Action Stations,) but the power drain for shielding reduced firepower (when is that last time a kilrathi had to wait for its gun capacitors to recharge to fire at YOU?). Which leads to believe that the powerplants of Kilrathi fighters were equal or superior to human fighters.

Physically, humans were better equipped for technological combat. While the kilrathi had size, strength, and stamina advantages (per Wing Commander Acadamy, Action Stations, and the opening scene of Wing Commander 3) Humans seem to have better dexterity and fine motor skills. All the better to fly and shoot with, my dear.

The Behemoth project did end up being a gigantic (pun intended) waste of resources, but only because it failed. It seems to me that Confed realized that a) To defeat the Kilrathi, it was necessary to take out Kilrah (Paladin's "All roads lead to Kilrah" speech in WC3) and b) Confed was only going to get one shot at Kilrah. The only reason the Tarawa task force was able to make it in End Run was a diversion by Human Marines peeing on the Emperor's grandmother's castle, drawing away the home guard fleet in response. The next ship to make it to Kilrah was an experimental cloaked Excalibur flown by Blue-hair himself.

I have a very brief synopsis of the ebb and flow of the Kilrathi war in this thread. In my humble opinion, the main reason for the difficulty with the Kilrathi (besides the obvious reason of them being a worthy opponent) was economic. While all of Kilrathi culture was geared towards making war, humans had other things they wanted to spend their resources on. Both Action Stations and Fleet Action (and the battle of Repleetah in WC1) mention budget as the reason for bad military decisions.
 
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5, there is a volume (I think 6) of books (I won't post the name of these books because I don't want to violate SPAM prohibition rule). In one of those books it tells of highly evolved people that live on a far eastern part of Earth that have mastered teleporting their bodies onto various parts of Earth and also how these people have lived for hundreds of years (they have a minimally stressful life). If in the future in the fictional WC Universe people like them still existed, then they could teleport their bodies back in time to a previous point they can remember to arrive to warn Confed ahead of time of the Kilrathi attacks and also give Confed information from future Confed personnel. Sounds like there are a "new" bunch of WC books to be typed.
 
nicewitch said:
I won't post the name of these books because I don't want to violate SPAM prohibition rule
Click to expand...

If something is relevant to whatever the argument actually is, then it's not spam. However, your thread topic has nothing to do with the junk you're actually posting here. This isn't a thread about why it was difficult for confed, it's a "wouldn't it be awesome if" thread. You've come up with some elaborate idea in your head and are using the thread so you can think out loud. Which brings us back to your book series and time machine idea and it's big magic undo button.

Well, What if I had 13.7 billion dollars and a Marshmallow house built under a Kevlar tarpoline with whisky fountains and a harem of busty women to peel grapes and feed them to me? What If! I know I certainly wouldn't care about this thread.
 
nicewitch said:
So that got me thinking: what if the energy and ballistic weapons on Confed aerofighters each were mounted on a combination left&right&up&down turret? This way, Confed aerofighters could have firing arcs that could keep them out of the nonfiring arced Kilrathi aerofighter weapon shots.
Click to expand...

The swivel guns thing was done with the Excaliber--note that it had an auto-aiming mode in the game where you just have to face the enemy and didn't need to get it fully centered in your crosshairs. As for why other fighters didn't have it before, from a storytelling perspective either the A.I. technology was unavailable to match a human gunner's performance for aiming the guns (the Broadsword, Sabre, and other bombers had manned ball turrets), or it was just too bulky/expensive to put on most fighters while maintaining sufficiently high production rates.
 
nicewitch said:
5, there is a volume (I think 6) of books (I won't post the name of these books because I don't want to violate SPAM prohibition rule). In one of those books it tells of highly evolved people that live on a far eastern part of Earth that have mastered teleporting their bodies onto various parts of Earth and also how these people have lived for hundreds of years (they have a minimally stressful life). If in the future in the fictional WC Universe people like them still existed, then they could teleport their bodies back in time to a previous point they can remember to arrive to warn Confed ahead of time of the Kilrathi attacks and also give Confed information from future Confed personnel. Sounds like there are a "new" bunch of WC books to be typed.
Click to expand...

Wow. Just wow. Now you lost me.
 
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