Originally posted by scheherazade
it takes longer to catapult fighters than to launch normally
You're basing this on what data? Conjecture based on the number of launch tubes?
Look at how Prophecy did things - fighters get loaded into tubes, and then they shoot them all out one at a time. Plus, if you're shoving these fighters into catapults - are you assuming they're the steam catapults currently in use on sea-based carriers? That they function in a similar fashion? This is like saying that a WW1 fighter is comparible in every way with a modern jet-powered attack fighter because they're both called 'fighters'.
Yes, that's a limit on land-based carriers due to the technology. Except do these limits apply in WC? Judging by the way mass launches were done in the games - apparently not. Fighters were launched promptly, one craft every thirty seconds or so on the Tarawa which didn't even have a proper launch platform. Concordia, when it had its tubes functional, apparently did MUCH better than this. 'Better' being defined as 'being able to launch 120 fighters' in less than 30 minutes.
Besides, you could drop fighters into these things like you do bullets into an automatic. That'd speed up your launch significantly.
sure the first 2 or 3 or whatever can fit all toghether are out fast, but the rest have to be prepared to launch off the catapult. while if doing normal takeoff could go ahead and go. like russian su-35's taking off carriers without catapults. they go one after another BAM BAM BAM. out like wild fire. they launch 6 fighters and a U.S. carrier manages to just prepare the next 2 f-14's. catapults are just to get the fat and heavy stuff off the deck and up to speed. any time a plane can take off without a catapult, thats what it does.
Again, you're using present carrier data with a flight deck to determine what future technology does based on what we've already seen. There is one reason not to do full-power launches from your normal WC hangar deck - the engines would fry the deck itself, not to mention the support crews if there's atmosphere, and irradiate them if there's not. Remember that the WC1 fighters worked with nuclear batteries to power their engines, or at least some did.
also in space, there is nothing to escape from. you are travelling the speed of the carrier to start out with. unless the captain is a joker and wants to hit the gas as you take off to collide with you, you'll never actually hit the carrier. even if you took off at 1 foot an hour, you'd still not get run into, since you're going the carriers speed+ that one foot.
You may be travelling at a speed equal to the relative speed of the carrier, but does that mean you're not going to get hit by the carrier if it accelerates? Plus we've got the maneuvering scoop fields of WC fighters to consider, which let them maneuver without needing thrusters - but at the same time create 'drag' (noted in End Run). So you launch the fighter from the craft without thrust. Fine - then as soon as you turn on your engines, you slow down... and splat.
So you've got to be travelling quite a bit faster than the carrier in the first place, so you can turn on your engines and maneuvering scoops without getting into the carrier's way.
and the carrier is puny in mass, it would have no significant gravity well of its own.
Ahem. Look at the WC movie LOAF referenced - the thing has artificial gravity. Or did you think the reason we could walk on decks in the WC games was due to the fact we all had velcroed feet? Ditto the drinks staying in the glasses in the bar was due to some sort of magical process that kept the scotch and beer in its container?
as for escape velocity, the eleven ms^2 is relative to earths gravity well, which is a bit bigger than a little space ship. to understate.
I'd ask how this is relative to this discussion, but I have a feeling you wouldn't understand the difference anyways. In this case, we're not dealing with a signficant escape velocity needed to get free of the carrier so much of the fact that we need to have a decent velocity when we leave the carrier so we can get out of the fucking way when it maneuvers to turn the fighter bay away from incoming attackers. Or do you LIKE the idea of being shot out into someone else's cannonfire? Or having the fighter cruising at the same velocity while torpedo bombers are moving in and you're being shot out?
the false gravity is pointed into the floor always. the only force a fighter would need is 'away from the floor', not forwards.
See above.
one of the books said , and i paraphrase, 'a fighter is not an atmospheric fighter when its guns are ineffective in atmospheric conditions. their shot out energy disperses/absorbs into the atmosphere'.
If you're talking about End Run, Bear complains about fighting in atmosphere because he can't move any faster than a 1k/s without burning up, and because lasers and most energy weapons have reduced ranges due to diffraction and absorption by the surrounding air. This is a different problem from 'launching into space from a carrier'.
and i'm sure a fighter would have _some_ fuel in it when being sent out. i doubt it would be policy to send out a ship and say 'ok you got nothing in the tanks fend for yourself, gather what you can with ram scoops'. it makes much more sense for the scoops to be used to /maintain/ fuel in the tanks, not to provide it in the first place/
-scheherazade
The fighter has fuel. That's afterburner fuel. HOWEVER, the fighter gains most of its fuel for its engines from surrounding space - the same scoops which let it maneuver also get it the hydrogen needed to maintain the engines. Yes, it likely has a reserve... but that reserve isn't going to help you if you've fried the techs and hangar deck behind you, and damaged the carrier you launched from using your nuclear engines.
Which is why we've got the damned catapult. Gets you out there quick, keeps you from goign splat on the carrier, AND keeps everyone in the hangar bays and launch areas alive.