Anyone not like the books?

[Bandit LOAF]

I don't think that is incompatible with my scenario. SOMEONE has to be killing Confed pilots. My take is this: in the Confed fleet, 20% of the pilots do 80% of the killing. In the Kilrathi, it is something like 5% do 95%. They have a core of highly skilled, highly talented pilots who are the core of the Kilrathi fleet. Due to their sheer amount of overpopulation, and a culture demanding that warriors prove themselves in battle, much of the rest of their fighter force is made up of young, inexperienced rookies flying cheap, hastily constructed fighters. This results in a high rate of attrition with a handful of extremely successful Kilrathi pilots.

I understand your take (shifting numbers aside)... but the issue here is finding something in the games (heck, or the novels or manuals since I acknowledge those) that supports that take. As best I can tell, there's no evidence of Kilrathi overpopulation.

(That said, these particular claims don't really affect the debate... since percentages do not define a whole.)

Yeah, but Japan lost the war in a few years. By comparison the Kilrathi war was a stalemate for decades. If Confed was maintaining a kill-ratio much greater than the relative numbers advantage the Kilrathi held, they would have won the war fairly quickly.

But there's no evidence that Confed *does* have a higher kill-ratio (in WC1, at least - we know from the WCP Guide they did before Custer's Carnival and that that changed). Confed's ability to kill a thousand enemy fighters with ten ace pilots doesn't in any way counterindicate that the Kilrathi are doing the same thing.

I actually kind of wrote a little timeline for WC based on my own interpretation. The way I figured it is that, the Vega Campaign and the survey of the data obtained from the wreckage of the Venice starbase revealed to Confed Tactical what they had expected all along -- that the Kilrathi outnumbered Confed greatly and that this would only get worse due to the size of the Empire and the sheer amount of population pressure (they're cats after all, they have like 8 kids in a go).

I'm all for supporting fanfic... but if Confed's intelligence didn't have an idea of what size force they were fighting for *twenty years* then they really really didn't deserve to win the war in the first place.

(With regards to the 'litters' issue... there's not necessarily any evidence of this. Every set of Kilrathi 'siblings' we've ever seen have been of different ages. Furthermore, every Kilrathi birth we've ever seen mentioned has been a single individual. Looking like cats isn't necessarily the same as being cats, in this instance.)

I'm just sort of equating 100 fighters = 1 fleet carrier or equivalent. I'm not saying those 13 carriers are *destroyed*, but without fighters they are empty floating boxes. The implication behind Confed having 10-15 fleet carriers is that they have about 1000-1500 fighters aboard these carriers. So with a 1.5 ratio, the Kilrathi would have about 1500-2250 fighters aboard their heavy carriers. So a loss of 1300 fighters would represent the annihilation of half their fighter force aboard these carriers -- a catastrophic loss regardless whether they were ground based, cruiser-based or carrier-based -- inflicted by 7 pilots in less than 3 years. And it doesn't really matter whether the number is 900, 1000, or 1300 either.

The problem with that assumption is that 1,300 fighters alone lack the most important ability of the carrier: power projection. Every planet/moon/star base/etc. in the Wing Commander universe has its supply of fighters - heck, the round starbases in WC2 carrrier four times the complement of a carrier. Without the ability to move those fighters from System A to System C those fighters are generally unimportant.

In the process of fighting through eleven systems (in WC1, not counting various concurrent fiction) the Tiger's Claw may have shot down 1,300 fighters... but killing a dozen local garrisons worth of fighters isn't the same thing as destroying a fleet carrier and its complement, because those local squadrons would never be a direct threat in any other situation.

Here's the modern equivalent: China has a two hundred million man army. That's significantly larger than any other force in the world... and communist China is generally looked upon in an unfavorable light by the rest of the world. Why aren't they a thread? No power projection. China has no lifting capacity... their army may be two hundred times the size of any other, but it can't really be sent anywhere to fight a war.

I just think it's easier to assume the Kilrathi hold a large numerical advantage such that losing 1000 fighters, the Sivar, and the Vega Sector is bad, real bad. But FAR from beating them. As far as the number, I said *at least* 4 to 1. I waffle on the actual number since there's no way of knowing. In SM2, it feels like it has to be 5 to 1 or greater. In WC2, more like 3 to 1. In WC3, 5 to 1 again.

Well, see, exactly - there's no way to tell (save in the novels, where it's actually stated). You just can't establish facts about an entire universe worth of facts based on one man (Blair)'s experiences, nor can odds be used to establish a total number (in any situation).

Aside: Of *course* the odds are 5 to 1 in the Secret Missions... your carrier is alone behind enemy lines. If a Kilrathi carrier were in Confed space, the odds would be 5 to 1 against it. The same thing applies to the entire WC1 experience... if a Kilrathi carrier were attacking a Confed system it'd be up against the 400 fighters from that systems base (mentioned earlier) and the odds would be 4 to 1 against it.

This was just an off-shoot of my argument that Forstchen places too much importance on carriers (because cruisers and destroyers can carry them too unlike in WW2). I just got the picture when I read Fleet Action that they were real concerned about how many carriers they had where as I saw it, it wouldn't really make a difference.

The fighters carried by cruisers and destroyers in the Wing Commander universe are light and medium units, though. The Exeter carried eighteen Rapier, the Tallahassee carried five Hellcats and the mighty Waterloo carried forty Ferrets and Epees. These are small recon and light strike units... they don't fulfill the same role as a carrier at all (not to mention that their limited numbers means that the vast majority of an escort ships fighter complement will be for point defense...).

I have no idea regarding the similarities behind Midway and the Battle of Earth. I was just arguing the base at Midway isn't equivalent to Earth. I would think the various orbital and planetary bases in the Sol System would make fine staging points for a defense. I have no idea what Midway's was like.

Midway was (essentially) two islands. One of them had three airstrips, the other had a seaplane base. Planes from Midway performed reconassance missions during the battle, but none were involved in the air strikes.

Orbital and planetary bases were used to defend Earth (there's a great example of that in the TPoF novel, which talks about how Confed moved Orion into LEO for the final defense of Earth)... but that doesn't change the fact that the units based on them aren't the experienced and well equipped units that have already been depleted facing the Kilrathi on the frontier.

(Relying on orbital bases in a situation like the Battle of Terra may be a problem - as Fleet Action pointed out, orbital mechanics means that there's a good chance that some of your bases are going to be on the other side of the system when the enemy attacks. All of Confed's outer planets assets (Port of Titan and such) were farther away from Earth than the Kilrathi.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that carrier did not continue on to the Battle of Earth due to the damage it took. Four torpedoes messed it up pretty bad, I don't think it's fair to say it could have taken 10 more based on what was in the book. But four torpedoes will mess up a Hakaga but only take down two Fralthra, leaving five more perfectly functional ships.

The carrier was still operating under its own power... a big part of the decision to send it home (along with two regular carriers) was because it simply wasn't needed. The Kilrathi were rushing forward without establishing a supply line... so as fighters were depleted they could return entire carriers to their space rather than risk them in further actions.

Easier to defend? A few lucky hits and the ship is crippled. 7-8 ships are much, MUCH easier to defend do to the nature of their being 7-8 of them. All other things being equal any sane commander would rather have multiple small ships as a means of reducing the risk involved. Cheaper? How the heck would you know? Judging by the fact it took so much effort just to build five of them, I'm guessing they're not very cheap at all.

One of the first things Thrakhath introduced regarding the Hakagas was their massive amount of anti-fighter defenses. Destroyers and cruisers are quick to build assembly line ships which don't have the anti-fighter weaponry of a carrier.

Yeah, and it makes no difference whatsoever to my argument that corvettes don't have hangar bays. You bring up the US Navy, but that is my whole point. On Earth -- with gravity -- you NEED a massive metal floating runway to carry fighters through the ocean. You CANNOT do it on cruiser or destroyer. In SPACE, you can, hence the Fralthra carrying 40 fighters. Yes, there are tradeoffs involved, but the fact that ships that are not dedicated carriers can carry a lot of fighters, does in fact DIMINISH, NOT ELIMINATE the importance of carriers in space. IMHO, the games seem to indicate the Kilrathi generally prefer to use heavy cruisers/light carriers on the front lines as a means of deploying fighters, using carriers more as mobile headquarters and resupply. This is something I think Forstchen missed, hence the obsession with the # of carriers on both sides at every engagement.

The implication in the Wing Commander games has always been that a flight deck is necessary for a 'true' fighter complement - regardless of physics, you need a flight deck (for whatever reason) to launch heavy fighters and bombers.

 

[Dundradal]

Midway was (essentially) two islands. One of them had three airstrips, the other had a seaplane base. Planes from Midway performed reconassance missions during the battle, but none were involved in the air strikes.

B-17s and dauntlesses from midway attacked the japanese carriers earlier in the day but were totally unsuccessful.

 

[Haesslich]

You know what's better than having 3 layers of armor protecting your 300 fighter super-carrier? Having 1 layer of armor, seperated by 10km of vacuum from the next. The seperate ships reduces risk, if something goes wrong with 1 or 2 the rest keep fighting. A few lucky hits on the Hakaga and you just lost 300 ships. Also I don't really understand why you think the Hakaga could take so many more hits ... not to mix science with WC but I would think once the layers of armor have been breached the next hit is goodbye. But whatever, I'm only willing to debate about a fictional object vs fictional object matchup to a point.

You point out some marginal advantages a Hakaga would have but it still doesn't look like a super-weapon to me.

Actually, that distance can be a liability, especially when you pit that cruiser against a real carrier. Here's a hypothetical example:

A Fraltha cruiser carries 40 fighters. A group of three Fralthra and their escort destroyers have been dispatched to a system to engage in an action against a Confederation dreadnought and her battle group. These ships enter the system after the leading destroyer clears the jump point, deploying a fighter screen from the first Fralthra.

After a quick patrol to confirm the immediate area is clear of Confederation fighters, the mission is launched. The Fralthra carry Drakhri, Sartha, and Jalkehi from what we've seen in game; we've never seen them with Grikath or Gothri fighter-bombers in the game. This means that the Kilrathi cruisers are short on striking power, and unless a Snakier or some other carrier shows up to launch bombers, they're unable to take on the Confederation cruisers or destroyers with just their fighters alone.

Thus, the whole Fralthra battlegroup moves into the system to attack, using their fighter screen to scramble the defenders' own and try to keep the enemy carrier's bombers from launching a strike on them in turn. In the meantime, the Confederation's Gilgamesh-class destroyers surge ahead to form a protective screen, engaging the enemy destroyers and cruisers should they penetrate, while the cruisers help deliver solid blows to the Ralatha. Should any enemy bombers or destroyers make it through this defensive barrier, the Fralthra are vulnerable; it only takes two torpedoes to destroy any one of the three ships, whose combined fighter complement equals that of the Confederation-class dreadnought.

There have been recorded instances of relatively minor damage which did not destroy the ship having crippled their ability to launch or land fighters - in the novel Freedom Flight, the cruiser Kraj'nishk took a missile to its launch bay, which rendered it unable to continue launching fighters. This was relatively minor damage, but it was enough to kill its effectiveness as a carrier. Normally, it took eight or so missiles against a fully-shielded Fralthi to kill it from the front; it only took one dumb-fire missile to kill its launch bay once the shields were bypassed.

We can also bring up the example of Gwynned B: the TCS Concordia, chased by several Fralthra, was unable to launch fighters and without an escort since its own, the TCS Beowulf, went down. While it's not stated that this was done by torpedoes, the ship was otherwise able to flee combat with great haste; another example of minor damage killing its abilty to launch craft.

While carriers would be as vulnerable to this sort of damage as a cruiser, the cruiser has fewer fighters with which to defend itself... and usually fewer anti-fighter guns given that its mission is capship escort and capship killing along with light patrols. In this situation, if even one Fralthra is damaged, then either it's not launching fighters... or those fighters aren't going home. If the Confederation battle group ambushes the cruisers one at a time (and remember that 10km in space isn't exactly all that much distance - you'd be best served going 10000km), then you've lost the launch platform for forty fighters. More targets to defend = bigger logistical issues. Would you, as a commander, want 120 fighters defending one target, or 40 fighters to defend each target, knowing that a strike of about 100 fighters and bombers is being launched at you?

This doesn't count the monetary cost of the refits and supporting those cruiser-carriers. One reason there weren't many carriers in the fleet was because they were both expensive, and needed a heavy investment in time to build. Cruisers, on the other hand, could be popped out far more quickly... but they lacked some guns and were supposed to be less costly when lost as compared to a carrier.

Yes, you can station fighters on cruisers and destroyers - but at the same time, this means refitting the cruiser or destroyer to carry fighters and their support equipment, which means giving up some of the capabilities that a cruiser or fighter has... and increasing its expense should the craft be lost. When you've got dedicated fighter-support ships, then why should you build more carriers which carry fighters? Yes, we've seen them in game - the Austin and the Gettysburg were cruisers, and they did well in fighter support. However, the Tiger's Claw and the Concordia were the ships that were used for the serious assaults, given that they were a) capable of carry bombers, and b) had the ability to better support fighters.

That's one thing that most cruisers or destroyers just don't have the space to do - and I think that the only cruiser-class ship that ever carried bombers in game was the Cerberus from WC:SO, using the Black Devastators.

Light carriers were built before the war began, and apparently abandoned until the 'disposable' Escort Carrier concept made its return in the 2660's - it's probably due to the size of bombers and the torpedoes they had that made them less desirable than Concordia-class ships. The relatively low price of escort carrier construction due to the missing extras typically found on fleet carriers - lots of gun turrets and armor - were what made Confed begin construction of this class of ship again. By WC3, the class seems to have made a comeback if the Eagle's title of 'one of the newest and most modern escort carriers' is any indication.

Note it's also in Fleet Action that Thrakath notes that it's the Confederation's use of light and escort carriers in raids that began to make a difference on the front lines - carriers had to go back to base, and transports needed cruiser escorts, which meant fewer cruisers could go on raids of their own.

So ... what you're saying is that the presence of destroyers and cruisers which can carry fighters, diminishes but not eliminates the importance of carriers in WC? Gee that sound's familiar, I wonder who said that?

Actually, I'm saying that carriers do several jobs very well - they're able to carry heavy strike craft, they're already designed to do the job of carrying fighters without having to add more time and money to the construction of a cruiser or destroyer to give it carrier capacity - which also reduces its ability to act as an escort, since you don't want to lose the cruiser which has all that expensive equipment on it - and the carrier carries MORE fighters, which means that you've got a credible strike force when combining it with normal cruisers and destroyers, without having to spend more money than you absolutely needed to. The cruisers and destroyers are - and have to be - more expendable than the targets they're defending, and adding the extra expense by refitting one of these to carry a large number of fighters kinda goes against that idea.

Carriers are important due to their ability to be 'floating bases' - and carriers can't have just a few fighters if they're to be effective weapons. Sacrificing the cruiser's or destroyer's speed or weapons to make it a 'not-very-capable' carrier makes little sense in this respect, unless you're just using it on escort missions where you can't spare a full-sized carrier or don't have enough light/escort carriers to go around.

 

[sea_monkey]

But there's no evidence that Confed *does* have a higher kill-ratio (in WC1, at least - we know from the WCP Guide they did before Custer's Carnival and that that changed). Confed's ability to kill a thousand enemy fighters with ten ace pilots doesn't in any way counterindicate that the Kilrathi are doing the same thing.

Well, I presented the WC1 killboard. There is also a killboard in WC3 I believe which is quite high in number of kills. That's evidence from the game. It doesn't SAY explicitly anywhere in the game that the ratio is that high, but the action in the game definitely seems to imply it. On the contrary, there is NOTHING in the games that suggests Confed is completely getting its butt kicked by seven Kilrathi pilots on the other side of the galaxy, which is what you are implying.

With the exception of the Secret Missions, at least half of the WC games take place on the defensive. Where you are still outnumbered.

The problem with that assumption is that 1,300 fighters alone lack the most important ability of the carrier: power projection. Every planet/moon/star base/etc. in the Wing Commander universe has its supply of fighters - heck, the round starbases in WC2 carrrier four times the complement of a carrier. Without the ability to move those fighters from System A to System C those fighters are generally unimportant.

Losing 1300 fighters can only not be catastrophic if you have a surplus of fighters (well over 5000+), whether they are carrier or ground-based. If 7 pilots down 20-50% of your fighter fleet that's going to stretch your forces thin no matter where the fighters came from. Don't see your point here.

The fighters carried by cruisers and destroyers in the Wing Commander universe are light and medium units, though. The Exeter carried eighteen Rapier, the Tallahassee carried five Hellcats and the mighty Waterloo carried forty Ferrets and Epees. These are small recon and light strike units... they don't fulfill the same role as a carrier at all (not to mention that their limited numbers means that the vast majority of an escort ships fighter complement will be for point defense...).

I agree. Wouldn't you say though that this *diminishes, but not eliminates* the importance of carriers in WC? In WW2 a carrier was responsible for recon, point defense and air strikes, because a destroyer couldn't do ANY of that.

After a quick patrol to confirm the immediate area is clear of Confederation fighters, the mission is launched. The Fralthra carry Drakhri, Sartha, and Jalkehi from what we've seen in game; we've never seen them with Grikath or Gothri fighter-bombers in the game.

Sure we have, last mission in SO1 you have Fralthra carrying Gothri. That's just off the top of my head. Second that would imply every time you see a Grikath, Paktahn or Gothri that there is a Snakeir in the system, which is also shaky since we see a lot of Grikaths but no Snakeirs. I'll agree that a carrier might be better equipped to handle heavy bombers but that doesn't mean cruisers don't ever do it.

Would you, as a commander, want 120 fighters defending one target, or 40 fighters to defend each target, knowing that a strike of about 100 fighters and bombers is being launched at you?

Absolutely because that would mean the attacking force would be divided into three groups of 33 as well, or at least I wouldn't have to worry about losing 2 cruisers. Bottomline, 1 target = more risky than 3 targets.

If you have 60 bombers and 60 fighters approaching your carrier, that's 60 bombers that MUST be destroyed in the 30 seconds before they obtain a lock otherwise your carrier takes a torpedo. A little bit of bad luck and you've got a long walk home. With three ships, the probability is higher that you'll lose 1 of them, but much, much lower that you will lose all of them.

I hope you realize that your arguments (Hakaga can carry more bombers, Hakaga can take MAYBE a few more hits, Hakaga is a better command center) *might* indicate that one Hakaga > 7 Fralthra. But it doesn't indicate that Hakagas = so much greater than an equivalent # of heavy cruisers that they are super weapons.

Actually, I'm saying that carriers do several jobs very well - they're able to carry heavy strike craft, they're already designed to do the job of carrying fighters without having to add more time and money to the construction of a cruiser or destroyer to give it carrier capacity ...

You guys just don't wnat to concede this point, which isn't that big a deal. Bottomline, in the WC universe, other ships can take over roles the carrier was solely responsible for in WW2. They are important but not as important as in WW2. The # of fighters is more important than the # of carriers.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Well, I presented the WC1 killboard. There is also a killboard in WC3 I believe which is quite high in number of kills. That's evidence from the game. It doesn't SAY explicitly anywhere in the game that the ratio is that high, but the action in the game definitely seems to imply it. On the contrary, there is NOTHING in the games that suggests Confed is completely getting its butt kicked by seven Kilrathi pilots on the other side of the galaxy, which is what you are implying.

The killboard is completely one-sided, though - it's completely logically impossible ot determine anything from it. It's a single data point (well, not even that, since it's not representative of the entire Tiger's Claw). If I tell you that I have ten dollars you cannot determine how much money everyone (or anyone) else in the world has.

As for evidence of Kilrathi success: the aces in the original game account for 324 kills (Dakhath 86, Bhurak 64, Bakhtosh 75, Khajja 99). That's more than twice as many as the PlayerCharacter will 'score' on a winning run through the game. Then add Secret Missions 2: By my (rough) count there are 49 Drakhai encountered by Blair alone in SM2 - which accounts for at least 392 (8x49) kills. That's a *minimum of 792 kills by Kilrathi pilots encountered by Blair alone. Apply your knowledge of statistics to this data.

As for the more general theme of Kilrathi victories... for all the success the Tiger's Claw has had, how many other Bengals have we seen blown up -- two or three, at least.

Losing 1300 fighters can only not be catastrophic if you have a surplus of fighters (well over 5000+), whether they are carrier or ground-based. If 7 pilots down 20-50% of your fighter fleet that's going to stretch your forces thin no matter where the fighters came from. Don't see your point here.

... and where's the indication that there's *not* a large base of fighters? No major Confed victory in any of the early games seems to affect the Kilrathi... why the belief that they're suffering horrific losses? (Or that we aren't suffering equal losses?).

I agree. Wouldn't you say though that this *diminishes, but not eliminates* the importance of carriers in WC? In WW2 a carrier was responsible for recon, point defense and air strikes, because a destroyer couldn't do ANY of that.

... I'm not really following you here. There's an absolutely crucial role that *only* carriers can play (strike missions) - that's pretty much the definition of an importance.

Sure we have, last mission in SO1 you have Fralthra carrying Gothri. That's just off the top of my head. Second that would imply every time you see a Grikath, Paktahn or Gothri that there is a Snakeir in the system, which is also shaky since we see a lot of Grikaths but no Snakeirs. I'll agree that a carrier might be better equipped to handle heavy bombers but that doesn't mean cruisers don't ever do it.

Since Wing Commander II makes no provision for 'launching fighters' (as later games do), since Gothri are jump capable and since we know there are carrier groups in the system at the end of Special Operations One you may have trouble proving that the Fralthra launched them. As for Grikaths and such - we do know that Kilrathi carriers are present in WC2, even if Blair never actually encounters one... Jazz talks about having blown one up at one point (and of course Thrakhath sends Khasra after the Concordia with the one from the intro).

Absolutely because that would mean the attacking force would be divided into three groups of 33 as well, or at least I wouldn't have to worry about losing 2 cruisers. Bottomline, 1 target = more risky than 3 targets.

If you have 60 bombers and 60 fighters approaching your carrier, that's 60 bombers that MUST be destroyed in the 30 seconds before they obtain a lock otherwise your carrier takes a torpedo. A little bit of bad luck and you've got a long walk home. With three ships, the probability is higher that you'll lose 1 of them, but much, much lower that you will lose all of them.

I hope you realize that your arguments (Hakaga can carry more bombers, Hakaga can take MAYBE a few more hits, Hakaga is a better command center) *might* indicate that one Hakaga > 7 Fralthra. But it doesn't indicate that Hakagas = so much greater than an equivalent # of heavy cruisers that they are super weapons.

I don't think you're looking at this from all the defensive angles. Ignoring the vastly superior anti-fighter defenses in the ships themselves, the fact that they're a single target works to the advantage of a carrier fighter-wise. Consider that the single Hakaga can commit its entire complement to its own defense - 288 fighters. Your three (or seven or whatever) Fralthra must divide their entire force of fighters among three (or seven or whatever) defensive targets. It's a neat numerical trick to take a bunch of small complements to form a big one, but they don't function the same in terms of defense (for that reason) or for offense (since they're lighter units).

(.... also, something no one has bothered to point out yet for some reason. With regards to the amazing Fralthra, Fleet Action claims that the Kilrathi have only twenty of them circa Fleet Action. Which sort of puts a damper on the 'overload them with Fralthras!' plan regardless.)

To step back and discuss this once again from a theoretical point of view - isn't the "biggest carrier as the ultimate weapon" a theme that exists very distinctly in the game? Hence Confed working towards the Vesuvius and Midway in WCIV and Prophecy respectively? It just seems really strange to blame the novels for something that's such a basic cornerstone of the games.

You guys just don't wnat to concede this point, which isn't that big a deal. Bottomline, in the WC universe, other ships can take over roles the carrier was solely responsible for in WW2. They are important but not as important as in WW2. The # of fighters is more important than the # of carriers.

Fighters exists in droves, though. Replacements are always readily available, and common starbases and HD squadrons have huge amounts of them just because they can. The important thing is moving those fighters from place to place (as it is in any war).

 

[Fenris Ulven]

The carriers are importan, without the fighters it isent good for nothing, but a fighter without a carrier is also not good for anything.

 

[Dundradal]

I would agree with LOAF in saying that confed most likely had a massive amount of spare fighters, the problems is moving them from place to place.
In ER it is mentioned that confed is rushing pilots out of the academies (as Bear mentions to Starlight and Doomsday about their pups). However, if you've played WC4 and do the Speradon missions, you get to see a cut scene of the fighter production factory which is producing bearcats at a pretty good rate.
Pilots not planes are the production bottleneck, they tend to take just a bit longer to produce and especially of good quality.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Exactly - exerienced pilots are precious on both sides... which is why Blair and company (or Baktosh and the Drakhai) score so many kills. There's plenty of home defense squadrons with rookie pilots out there...

 

[Dundradal]

And the kilrathi like to keep a lot of their high scoring aces with the home fleet as is mentioned in ER....I don't think confed has a similar thing, as they tend to move around for other reasons besides kill score

 

[sea_monkey]

As for evidence of Kilrathi success: the aces in the original game account for 324 kills (Dakhath 86, Bhurak 64, Bakhtosh 75, Khajja 99). That's more than twice as many as the PlayerCharacter will 'score' on a winning run through the game. Then add Secret Missions 2: By my (rough) count there are 49 Drakhai encountered by Blair alone in SM2 - which accounts for at least 392 (8x49) kills. That's a *minimum of 792 kills by Kilrathi pilots encountered by Blair alone. Apply your knowledge of statistics to this data.

That's a lot of dead Kilrathi aces.

But besides that, those kill numbers are stock variables, accumulated since the beginning of the war. 800 kills is a lot, but not so much over a course of 20 years (only about 40 a year). On the other hand the Tiger's Claw scoreboard reads under 200 (minus Bossman) when the game starts and somewhere from 900 to 1300+ a year later. That's 700 to 1100 kills in a year (by 7 pilots). That's a crapload.

... and where's the indication that there's *not* a large base of fighters?

I don't know. Where's the indication there's *not* a Santa Claus? It's not possible to prove something doesn't exist.

No major Confed victory in any of the early games seems to affect the Kilrathi... why the belief that they're suffering horrific losses? (Or that we aren't suffering equal losses?).

Well that is exactly the first question I started with. How can the Kilrathi lose the Vega Sector, the Sivar, and take over 1100 fighter casualties in a year or two, and still be fine? I concluded that they outnumber Confed significantly and hold more territory, so the edge of Vega is right next to the human homeworlds but the other end is not right by Kilrah.

Now that doesn't agree with the books, which is why I don't like the books all that much (among other reasons). You can TRY and pretend both the books and the games are true, but that leads to ridiculous explanation/spins for why we see the casualty numbers we do -- either Confed is somehow losing 1100 pilots a year in some corner of the galaxy we don't hear about, or it's no big deal because they have fighters just sitting around.

If they had so many fighters sitting around, both sides would be building more carriers until the fighters were being deployed. It would be hugely inefficient to let so many fighters collect dust until they're obsolete. That is like a business that just keeps losing money building a massive widget inventory that no one ever buys. Makes no sense.

... I'm not really following you here. There's an absolutely crucial role that *only* carriers can play (strike missions) - that's pretty much the definition of an importance.

I think the confusion comes from the assumption that since I criticized the books, I must be wrong, even though I said something that was pretty much true -- that destroyers and cruisers carrying fighters would lessen the importance of carriers, although obviously carriers would still be important. I think we agree on more than we disagree.

Since Wing Commander II makes no provision for 'launching fighters' (as later games do), since Gothri are jump capable and since we know there are carrier groups in the system at the end of Special Operations One you may have trouble proving that the Fralthra launched them. As for Grikaths and such - we do know that Kilrathi carriers are present in WC2, even if Blair never actually encounters one... Jazz talks about having blown one up at one point (and of course Thrakhath sends Khasra after the Concordia with the one from the intro).

That tells you more about what Confed considers a Kilrathi carrier than anything else. In WC2, you see two Fralthra on a patrol one mission, and in the next cutscene Jazz says something about 2 carriers being in the system. In SO1, they say "five carrier groups" are attacking Ghorah Khar, 3 were in the first wave and two are left. When you get to the Nav point, what do you know, 2 Fralthra. To a certain extent, I'm willing to concede the limitations of the WC2 engine had something to do with that ... in my imagination there WAS a cat carrier present at that battle ... but as far as the game goes, the word carrier seems to apply to Fralthra as well.

I don't think you're looking at this from all the defensive angles. Ignoring the vastly superior anti-fighter defenses in the ships themselves, the fact that they're a single target works to the advantage of a carrier fighter-wise. Consider that the single Hakaga can commit its entire complement to its own defense - 288 fighters. Your three (or seven or whatever) Fralthra must divide their entire force of fighters among three (or seven or whatever) defensive targets. It's a neat numerical trick to take a bunch of small complements to form a big one, but they don't function the same in terms of defense (for that reason) or for offense (since they're lighter units).

If the Hakaga is carrying so many bombers for offense then it will be less effective on defense. Regardless, having more smaller ships lowers the risk in the engagement. If you have one large Confed carrier with 120 fighters that takes 4 torpedoes to down, then in an attack of 60 bombers, 4 out of 60 have to complete their attack run to down it. Let's say the odds of that are 1/7. By contrast let's take 3 Waterloo cruisers with 40 fighters each. Lets be extremely generous and say the odds of 2 out of 20 bombers hitting a Waterloo are 1/2 (even though the % of hits is higher). The odds of all 3 cruisers being blown up is 1/8 (.5*.5*.5), still lower than the heavy carrier. It's just safer to have more ships.

(.... also, something no one has bothered to point out yet for some reason. With regards to the amazing Fralthra, Fleet Action claims that the Kilrathi have only twenty of them circa Fleet Action. Which sort of puts a damper on the 'overload them with Fralthras!' plan regardless.)

Well I'm not a big fan of the books in the first place, so that doesn't really bother me. Forstchen must not have played SO1.

To step back and discuss this once again from a theoretical point of view - isn't the "biggest carrier as the ultimate weapon" a theme that exists very distinctly in the game? Hence Confed working towards the Vesuvius and Midway in WCIV and Prophecy respectively? It just seems really strange to blame the novels for something that's such a basic cornerstone of the games.

I always chalked that up to bad writing. Never played Prophecy and I thought WC4 was just okay. The Vesuvius bothered me for the same reasons.

 

[Bob McDob]

sea_monkey
But besides that, those kill numbers are stock variables, accumulated since the beginning of the war. 800 kills is a lot, but not so much over a course of 20 years (only about 40 a year). On the other hand the Tiger's Claw scoreboard reads under 200 (minus Bossman) when the game starts and somewhere from 900 to 1300+ a year later. That's 700 to 1100 kills in a year (by 7 pilots). That's a crapload.

Per my understanding, the Tiger's Claw is something of a special case, since it operates semi-independently and behind enemy lines.

If they had so many fighters sitting around, both sides would be building more carriers until the fighters were being deployed. It would be hugely inefficient to let so many fighters collect dust until they're obsolete. That is like a business that just keeps losing money building a massive widget inventory that no one ever buys. Makes no sense.

But that's what they were doing - and from the Confed perspective, so desperately that they were using transport hulls to ferry the ships around. Capital ships take time to build, and the assembly lines were already overtaxed. And you have to factor in the horrendous carrier losses and rate of attrition throughout the war.

I think the confusion comes from the assumption that since I criticized the books, I must be wrong, even though I said something that was pretty much true -- that destroyers and cruisers carrying fighters would lessen the importance of carriers, although obviously carriers would still be important. I think we agree on more than we disagree.

You're ignoring a crucial element - striking power. Carriers are larger and can carry more bombs, torpedoes and other weapons. They can also carry heavier striking power - Broadswords and Longbows (as opposed to the Strike Sabres carried on smaller ships like the Tarawa).

Also, I don't think we've seen any bombers stationed on destroyers - their flight wings, as LOAF mentioned, are comprised primarily of medium fighters, ostensibly for defensive and screening purposes (as befits the role of the destroyer).

The flight wing of a cruisers certainly isn't something to scoff about, and indeed it seems that by the time of Vukar Tag Confed was classifying the Waterloo as a carrier ... but they're less capable than fleet carriers (and, SO2 notwithstanding, generally do not seem to carry bomber wings).

Ship design is a manner of tradeoffs. Hey, why don't we make a cruiser-sized ship that acts like a carrier, but drops the offensive weapondry (which a carrier should never, ever have to use) in favor of more space for torpedo stockpiles and fighter wings? Presto, you have an escort carrier.

Bandit LOAF
(.... also, something no one has bothered to point out yet for some reason. With regards to the amazing Fralthra, Fleet Action claims that the Kilrathi have only twenty of them circa Fleet Action. Which sort of puts a damper on the 'overload them with Fralthras!' plan regardless.)

Are you sure about this? I looked at FA, and the quote seems to imply that those thirty heavy cruisers are part of the fleet attacking Earth.

Fleet Action, page 206
"Don't forget that the Kilrathi had a minimum of nineteen other
standard carriers and at least twenty heavy cruisers that carried thirty
fighters each. That comes to over three thousand seven hundred additional
strike craft."

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I don't know. Where's the indication there's *not* a Santa Claus? It's not possible to prove something doesn't exist.

Of course you can prove something doesn't exist - it's basic Freshman logic... the Law of Indirect Reasoning.

Well that is exactly the first question I started with. How can the Kilrathi lose the Vega Sector, the Sivar, and take over 1100 fighter casualties in a year or two, and still be fine? I concluded that they outnumber Confed significantly and hold more territory, so the edge of Vega is right next to the human homeworlds but the other end is not right by Kilrah.

Vega is directly between the Sol and Kilrah sectors, according to the map included with Prophecy.

Now that doesn't agree with the books, which is why I don't like the books all that much (among other reasons). You can TRY and pretend both the books and the games are true, but that leads to ridiculous explanation/spins for why we see the casualty numbers we do -- either Confed is somehow losing 1100 pilots a year in some corner of the galaxy we don't hear about, or it's no big deal because they have fighters just sitting around.

If they had so many fighters sitting around, both sides would be building more carriers until the fighters were being deployed. It would be hugely inefficient to let so many fighters collect dust until they're obsolete. That is like a business that just keeps losing money building a massive widget inventory that no one ever buys. Makes no sense.

Did you notice the increased militia and Confed patrols on your approach? The Confed is losing hundreds of ships a day to the war.
- Generic Bartender, Privateer

That tells you more about what Confed considers a Kilrathi carrier than anything else. In WC2, you see two Fralthra on a patrol one mission, and in the next cutscene Jazz says something about 2 carriers being in the system. In SO1, they say "five carrier groups" are attacking Ghorah Khar, 3 were in the first wave and two are left. When you get to the Nav point, what do you know, 2 Fralthra. To a certain extent, I'm willing to concede the limitations of the WC2 engine had something to do with that ... in my imagination there WAS a cat carrier present at that battle ... but as far as the game goes, the word carrier seems to apply to Fralthra as well.

I don't think that's what Jazz is referring to. You encounter two Fralthra in Tesla C, but the briefing ends with Major Edmonds informing you that "Roger, Maverick. We’re launching Broadswords to take care of those two Fralthra." Jazz and Doomsday both mention that there are 'two carriers' in the system afterwards (which then prompt the Concordia to retreat). If 'two carriers' referred to the Fralthra then the Concordia's desire to launch a strike against them and its desire to retreat from them wouldn't really mesh.

If the Hakaga is carrying so many bombers for offense then it will be less effective on defense. Regardless, having more smaller ships lowers the risk in the engagement. If you have one large Confed carrier with 120 fighters that takes 4 torpedoes to down, then in an attack of 60 bombers, 4 out of 60 have to complete their attack run to down it. Let's say the odds of that are 1/7. By contrast let's take 3 Waterloo cruisers with 40 fighters each. Lets be extremely generous and say the odds of 2 out of 20 bombers hitting a Waterloo are 1/2 (even though the % of hits is higher). The odds of all 3 cruisers being blown up is 1/8 (.5*.5*.5), still lower than the heavy carrier. It's just safer to have more ships.

I don't really understand where your math is coming from (well, I do - you made up the first number specifically so it'd be slightly smaller than the second...). Neither side ever seems to have any problem sending between two and four fighters to whack an opposing cruiser... whereas all the fiction (either in the novels or in Victory Streak) indicates that it takes a massive coordinated attack to destroy a carrier.

Well I'm not a big fan of the books in the first place, so that doesn't really bother me. Forstchen must not have played SO1.

I can't say whether or not he played Special Operations 1, but he was certainly familiar with its script and characters - most aspects of End Run and Fleet Action follow things that are entirely unique to SO1 (friendly Tolwyn, Bondarevsky, the Gettysburg, the Super-Ferret, etc.)

I always chalked that up to bad writing. Never played Prophecy and I thought WC4 was just okay. The Vesuvius bothered me for the same reasons.

So... it's not just the novels and the manuals you have a problem with - it's also various games. ?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Are you sure about this? I looked at FA, and the quote seems to imply that those thirty heavy cruisers are part of the fleet attacking Earth.

They're discussing all the carriers the Kilrathi are known to have. Of the 19 carriers they mention, the Kilrathi left 10 in reserve.

 

[Haesslich]

That's a lot of dead Kilrathi aces.

But besides that, those kill numbers are stock variables, accumulated since the beginning of the war. 800 kills is a lot, but not so much over a course of 20 years (only about 40 a year). On the other hand the Tiger's Claw scoreboard reads under 200 (minus Bossman) when the game starts and somewhere from 900 to 1300+ a year later. That's 700 to 1100 kills in a year (by 7 pilots). That's a crapload.

'Stock numbers'? Those are the pilots which Blair personally encounters - as in Christopher Blair, hero of the Confederation, Cat-Killer, Heart of the Tiger, etc. The period from WC1 to SM2 is NOT twenty years - it's two years. These are all the pilots that Blair encounters over two years, each of which have at least eight kills to their credit. We're talking less than ten years for most, with Paladin having encountered Khajia and Baktosh only 'a few years ago' in both cases.

In other words, they're probably, as pilots, as good as anyone else in the squadrons Blair flies in; everyone who has a name is at least a solid flyer if not an ace themselves - and you'll note most of our missions throughout all three games took the Tiger's Claw behind enemy lines, which again means the opportunity for more kills. These were not, by any means, 'normal' missions we flew.

That seems to have been the responsibility of other carriers along the front.

I don't know. Where's the indication there's *not* a Santa Claus? It's not possible to prove something doesn't exist.

There's a difference between proving a negative (impossible to do) and proving that something doesn't exist when either no evidence to support the claim - or there's contrary data which argues against its existence.

LOAF's already noted one of the quotes from the bartenders in Privateer - while it may be subject to hyperbole, the fact that Confed loses hundreds of fighters a year, and quite a few capital ships, is not in question - through WC1 to WC3, we've lost most of the Carrier fleet, and it gets to the point where Victory and other 'to be scrapped' obsolete carriers end up being front-line ships. SO2 saw the Sixth Fleet get annihilated in Deneb sector, and after that we've got the Battle of Earth documented where another half-dozen carriers were either destroyed in their dockyards or in battle. A few months, we lose the Concordia in a rearguard action over Vespus.

However, note that at no time do we seem to be short of fighters - production on them is fairly constant, and 'new' models keep showing up or get developed; WC1 introduces the Rapier, WC2 shows up the Crossbow and Morningstar, then WC3 throws out the Excalibur. Fighter production seems to be going along rather well - it's just the capship production that suffers, especially seeing that Confed didn't have enough to begin with... and then the Battle of Earth shatters a lot of the Inner Worlds as well as some of the shipyards and bases in Sol system.

We're also horribly short on trained pilots, but they still seem to come faster than capships, to judge by what we're flying off of by WC3. There does seem to be a significant base of fighters to work with, to judge by how quickly we got fighter replacements in the WC3 novel.

Now that doesn't agree with the books, which is why I don't like the books all that much (among other reasons). You can TRY and pretend both the books and the games are true, but that leads to ridiculous explanation/spins for why we see the casualty numbers we do -- either Confed is somehow losing 1100 pilots a year in some corner of the galaxy we don't hear about, or it's no big deal because they have fighters just sitting around.

If they had so many fighters sitting around, both sides would be building more carriers until the fighters were being deployed. It would be hugely inefficient to let so many fighters collect dust until they're obsolete. That is like a business that just keeps losing money building a massive widget inventory that no one ever buys. Makes no sense.

See LOAF's quote in the thread. Confed's fighting on more fronts than just Vega, or just Enigma, or just Deneb - there's also the backwaters which Gemini Sector and then the Border Worlds represent. Between all of these light-years of space, there are literally hundreds of systems in which Confed is battling. When you lose a carrier, you lose many of the pilots that go with it... or all of them if there aren't any other friendly ships or bases nearby to give them a landing deck to jump out on.

It is noted that Confed did not have enough shipyards are the war's start, both in the novels and in the WCP documentation, and that it takes 'five years to build a carrier' after building the shipyard and training the people there, which takes another five years. Many of those fighters are already on the bases which you state should exist (and do) - home defense, system defense, and so on. Many of those fighters are second-line craft, which are obsolete compared to the current front-line equipment on the carriers, and more are sold as surplus or end up on the black market.

You've also got the problem of training crew to fight those carriers and to repair those fighters. That also takes time to get them up to speed.

I think the confusion comes from the assumption that since I criticized the books, I must be wrong, even though I said something that was pretty much true -- that destroyers and cruisers carrying fighters would lessen the importance of carriers, although obviously carriers would still be important. I think we agree on more than we disagree.

Cruisers are mostly there to escort valuable ships which cannot risk close quarters combat with the enemy - carriers, transports, and so on, though cruisers do patrols of their own as well behind the lines in areas where a significant fighter presence is not expected. Cruisers can carry some fighters, but they're usually ineffective when there's either a heavy strike mission in place (as their fighters are not usually torpedo-capable, much less survivable with them) or when there's a lot of incoming strike craft involved. It doesn't take very much to smash a cruiser in game, because of their relatively puny fighter defenses - they're designed to kill capships and be expendable, which means they don't all need 50 anti-fighter laser turrets the way a carrier would.

If the Hakaga is carrying so many bombers for offense then it will be less effective on defense. Regardless, having more smaller ships lowers the risk in the engagement. If you have one large Confed carrier with 120 fighters that takes 4 torpedoes to down, then in an attack of 60 bombers, 4 out of 60 have to complete their attack run to down it. Let's say the odds of that are 1/7. By contrast let's take 3 Waterloo cruisers with 40 fighters each. Lets be extremely generous and say the odds of 2 out of 20 bombers hitting a Waterloo are 1/2 (even though the % of hits is higher). The odds of all 3 cruisers being blown up is 1/8 (.5*.5*.5), still lower than the heavy carrier. It's just safer to have more ships.

If the Hakaga has two or three squadrons of fighters, Confed-sized squadrons that is, then that's still leaving room for about 252 or so lighter and nimbler craft to use in patrol, escort, or point-defense missions. You've still got 252 fighters defending ONE target rather than having to spread 252 fighters across seven or so cruisers, which already are far less protected due to their lack of armor and anti-fighter defenses as compared to a Hakaga. You'll also note the larger ships tend to carry larger shielding units than cruisers are capable of, since they're not expected to be fast - most of the time, anyways.

And as I've pointed out before, it only takes ONE missile or torp to do enough damage to stop fighter operations from a ship, which is far less than the four or so required to destroy it, if it has but one launch bay and is cruiser size or smaller.

You've also forgot one other crucial factor - if you lose one Waterloo, be it a mission-kill (stopping its fighter operations) or total destruction, there's no room to land extra ships on the other ships - space is already tight on one of those craft, to judge by the in-novel descriptions of their hangar bays. That means you're going to lose all the fighters that were launched off that ship, if not the pilots as well. One carrier's easier to defend, and it's a lot harder for a bomber to penetrate a fighter screen of 252 craft than it is for a bomber to go through 36 or so fighters, especially if the bomber has its own escorts to keep the enemy cruisers' fighter screen busy.

Confed's already tried throwing bombers at ships that were that heavily defended - in Fleet Action, they lost almost all of them in two strikes, over five hundred craft in all. This didn't even count the anti-fighter defenses on them.

I always chalked that up to bad writing. Never played Prophecy and I thought WC4 was just okay. The Vesuvius bothered me for the same reasons.

So in other words, some WC games aren't WC either?

 

[sea_monkey]

Of course you can prove something doesn't exist - it's basic Freshman logic... the Law of Indirect Reasoning.

LOL, what?

There's a difference between proving a negative (impossible to do) and proving that something doesn't exist when either no evidence to support the claim - or there's contrary data which argues against its existence.

No there really isn't. The fact that no one has ever seen a unicorn doesn't mean there isn't one hiding behind a tree somewhere. Point is if you want to say there's a unicorn, it's your job to prove there is one.

'Stock numbers'? Those are the pilots which Blair personally encounters - as in Christopher Blair, hero of the Confederation, Cat-Killer, Heart of the Tiger, etc. The period from WC1 to SM2 is NOT twenty years - it's two years

You didn't understand what I said. The Tiger's Claw scoreboard goes from 200 to 1300 in one year, so that's 1100 kills in one year. The 800 kills by Kilrathi aces, however, have been accumulated since the beginning of the war, or about 40/year on average. Nothing spectacular there.

Fighter production seems to be going along rather well - it's just the capship production that suffers,

Assuming the quote from Privateer is correct, that Confed is in fact losing *hundreds* of ships a day, then that's a *minimum* of 36,425 a year. Which would imply that *at least* 36,425 ships/fighters are being produced a year. I guess I'm wondering then how come in the books Confed could only scramble a few hundred for Sirius and Earth then? (And these were mostly carrier-based as well.) I mean if fighters number on the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, I would hope SOME of this vast armada would be stationed in these systems.

Second, since the books are quite explicit on the number of carriers (we're talking around 10-25 on both sides), that implies that the total carrier fighter force of around 1000-2500 fighters turns over completely (gets eradicated) AT LEAST every 26 days. Or that the total carrier fighter force is less than 7% of total fighters.

Last, you are not addressing the fact that it makes no sense to building tens (hundreds?) of thousands of fighters which will never see action until they're obsolete, while you have a shortage of capital ships and/or pilots to carry/fly them. It's a waste of energy, resources, labor, and time. They would divert resources from making fighters to making capital ships.

In the course of trying to cover up a continuity hole, you're just pointing out another continuity hole. Your explanation for why it's no big deal to lose 1000 fighters in a year (by only 7 pilots) is basically that Confed and Kilrah are stupid.

Cruisers can carry some fighters, but they're usually ineffective when there's either a heavy strike mission in place (as their fighters are not usually torpedo-capable, much less survivable with them)

So, what you're saying is that destroyers/cruisers can take on some of the roles a carrier played in WW2, just generally not strike missions? Gee that sounds familiar again.

By the way, in addition to the fact that we see Fralthra being guarded by Gothri in SO1 (which strongly implies the Fralthra carried them), and that we see Grikaths all over the place with no carrier in sight, the Gettysburg in SO1 also is testing out the Crossbow bomber. So they can carry bombers just fine.

You've still got 252 fighters defending ONE target rather than having to spread 252 fighters across seven or so cruisers, which already are far less protected due to their lack of armor and anti-fighter defenses as compared to a Hakaga.

Sorry, dude, you still don't really understand risk/return. Seven Fralthra are easier to defend because they are each at least 7x more expendable than a Hakaga. It isn't at all critical that every one of them survive. That is the strength of having multiple targets, you can afford to lose them. One target is "easier" to defend because it's only one assignment and the probability of getting out of the engagement without taking a capital ship casualty is higher ... but much harder to defend as it is the sole target of the enemy and the odds of taking a total loss is much higher.

I don't really understand where your math is coming from (well, I do - you made up the first number specifically so it'd be slightly smaller than the second...). Neither side ever seems to have any problem sending between two and four fighters to whack an opposing cruiser... whereas all the fiction (either in the novels or in Victory Streak)

The numbers came out that way because I was extremely generous with the probabilities. If 10% of 20 bombers are needed to down a cruiser (with an equivalent amount of fighter coverage), but only 7% of 60 bombers are needed to down a heavy carrier, you would think the probability of destroying a carrier would be higher than a cruiser.

You've also forgot one other crucial factor - if you lose one Waterloo, be it a mission-kill (stopping its fighter operations) or total destruction, there's no room to land extra ships on the other ships

#1 -- not really an issue because in the past battle, you probably just lost 40 fighters anyway. Regardless it's no different if a carrier took a torpedo to the landing bay ... well it is different because now we're talking about 120 ships instead of 40.

#2 -- Who cares? Confed has tens of thousands of fighters just sitting around collecting dust according to you guys. Dump 'em overboard!

I don't think that's what Jazz is referring to. You encounter two Fralthra in Tesla C, but the briefing ends with Major Edmonds informing you that...

Maybe not, but there does seem to be a correlation between the number of "carriers" we hear about and Fralthra we see (SO1). Whereas we never see a Snakeir. Maybe the strike failed against the Fralthra in Tesla?

So in other words, some WC games aren't WC either?

The first three games I consider canon, minus SO1&2 which I take very lightly (a little too cartoonish for my taste). The next two games are pretty typical sequels -- more of everything except making sense. I pretty much ignore them, so I really don't care what happens in those games.

We don't see the Vesuvius fight a battle against 10 fleet carriers so I don't really see any evidence that the Vesuvius is somehow superior to an equivalent number of smaller ships.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

I feel like I'm watching Ping Pong.

 

[psych]

This thread still makes me sad

 

[BigsWickDagger]

I feel like I'm watching Ping Pong.

Or a long tennis match.

 

[Nappydman]

One thing that hasn't been brought up yet is the greater offensive potential of 7 Fralthra vs 1 Hakaga. There is a theoretically equal amount of striking power between the two forces, but 7 Fralthra is not only more defensible, but much more maneuverable on the offensive as well. For example, you can wait and hide out in one of the ever-present quasars/nebulas/whatever happens to cause interference that the WC universe has all over. Send out 3 of your 7 Fralthra to go out and make a bunch of noise and divert the system's defenders from the remaining 4 that can scoot on in to their objective. You can almost do this with the single Hakaga, by splitting its fighter force, but then the diversionary force is left without close support, and cannot rearm and refuel. The same objective can be accomplished, but at a higher cost in fighters. Not to mention if the Hakaga happens to go down in the strike, then the entire fighter complement is lost.

I think everyone is getting lost in dogma at the moment. sea_monkey is making some valid points, mainly that the Hakaga is not a doomsday superweapon that cannot be countered. And indeed, he has been proven right BY THE BOOKS WHICH HE HIMSELF ESCHEWS. After all, Earth was saved (bar just a few weapons of mass destruction) and the Hakagas were defeated and Confed won the war.
But, by pointing out this basic flaw in the books, everyone seems to feel the need to rip him apart for making the supposition that carriers aren't the be-all end-all of space warfare. Just because something is canon doesn't mean you have to assume he's wrong for having ideas that are as yet unproveable. Indeed, to follow canon and logic, all he's suggesting is that Confed won and the Kilrathi lost because Confed concentrated on small, fast, expendable vessels (escort carriers), and the Kilrathi built gigantic monstrosities that were too large to use. (Leaving out a certain Colonel Blair and a T-bomb, of course) The Kilrathi simply put too many of their eggs into one basket. The folly of this was also seen with the Behemoth.

 

[Bob McDob]

I think everyone is getting lost in dogma at the moment. sea_monkey is making some valid points, mainly that the Hakaga is not a doomsday superweapon that cannot be countered. And indeed, he has been proven right BY THE BOOKS WHICH HE HIMSELF ESCHEWS. After all, Earth was saved (bar just a few weapons of mass destruction) and the Hakagas were defeated and Confed won the war.

Is anyone here saying that? The debate is whether a squadron of cruisers is capable on taking on a supercarrier - not whether said supercarrier is "invincible".