Anyone not like the books?

[Bandit LOAF]

Relax, it was a JOKE. A "funny", if you will.

Where you get the "oppressed" or "whining" bit from is beyond me.

It's a cheap trick to get out of having a real point - implying that the authority is 'against' you and that's the only reason you aren't making any headway. If it's a joke, it's a dumb one that a lot of stupid people take too seriously in the same situation. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, though, and I'll apologize for judging you. Lets go back to an ordinary debate.

Um, no. When you see the exchange in it's entirety, it's clear that this line of discussion started when you asked me to prove a negative: (long snip)

Except that you've gone back and quoted all of this ignoring that I used facts to prove that there *is* a large surplus of fighters. I quoted Privateer, I pointed out the complement of the ISS stations compared to the carriers, I mentioned the fighter defenses that show up in the novels... asking you to counter this is *not* telling you to prove a negative in the sense you are claiming. *YOU* went off on that inane tangent because you had no actual evidence with which to argue your point.

So how does that dialogue with Hobbes make ANY sense at all? There's two carrier groups attacking ... and Hobbes says "two sabres against fralthra?" That makes no sense unless they are referring to the Fralthra when they say carrier. If indeed it WERE two heavy carriers, with a group of support ships (Fralthra, Ralatha, Kamekhs), why would the target just be *assumed* to be the Fralthra right from the get go? And why would destroying 2 Fralthra stop the attack -- there is still at least 2 carriers left, with over 100 fighters, plus all the other support ships. And how come it works out perfectly that there is supposed to be 2 carriers and we see 2 Fralthra?

I got an idea -- when they say carrier they are referring to a Fralthra, since it is really a light carrier when get right down to it. Hmmm, that works.

In the first two missions of the last series of SO1 you destroy *three* Fralthra. This has absolutely no side effect in terms of the story... five carrier groups are attacking before you fly these missions, five carrier groups are attacking afterwards.

The two Fralthra in the last mission are important because they're the portion of the carrier group (a carrier group in modern terms is the combined force of the fighter wing and the escort ships) that's physically attacking Olympus - they're *not* the carriers (which, of course, wouldn't fight in a line action).

(In reference to something you mentioned - no support ships show up in the last set of SO1 missions... just a whole mess of Fralthra.)

Well I didn't say that either -- I just think it's amusing that the implication is that the Kilrathi lost over a third of their heavy cruisers in a year in the Enigma Sector.

Wing Commander II takes place across three years (2665-2667). The novels also claim that the Confederation lost a similar percentage of their carrier fleet. It's almost like there was a war going on.

"I couldn't disagree more. The outcome of the games are different depending on how you played it -- what missions you did, who survived/died, what you said and ultimately what the endings were. The fan's place IS to determine all of this. And in the games/books, the universe isn't really fleshed out that well (and is often contradictory). So it's up to the imagination of the player to make sense of everything. So I would say the fan plays a very important role. I guess there are some people who really care about the "official" explanation for how Klingons grew mountain ranges on their heads right before Star Trek III, but I'm not one of them."

It's a fun claim that sounds nice because it's about freedom of expression and all that jazz, but it's ultimately pointless. As offensive as it sounds, the players actions absolutely don't matter to the next game or the ultimate history of the games. If Wing Commander 2 wants to assume you won WC1 at Venice instead of lost it at Hell's Kitchen, it's not up to you in the long run. If Prophecy wants to assume you 'chose' Rachel over Flint, it's pretty much decided from a "canon" standpoint.

Not that I'd expect you to actually read what I said at this point, but to repeat -- *whatever* the actual probabilities are, if the probability of destroying a cruiser with 20 bombers is P, then the odds of destroying 3 cruisers with 3 waves of 20 bombers is P*P*P. So if P is 1/2, then the odds of destroying 3 cruisers is 1/8. So, unless the odds of destroying a carrier with 60 bombers is, for some reason, incredibly lower than the odds of destroying a cruiser (with an equivalent attacking/defense force), there is much less risk in having 3 targets.

Okay, you're getting it: THE ODDS OF DESTROYING A CARRIER WITH 60 BOMBERS IS INCREDIBLY LOWER THAN THE ODDS OF DESTROYING A CRUISER. The carriers static defenses alone account for this. The Hakaga is a seething mass of neutron turrets, laser cannons, anti-torpedo gatling weapons and such... versus tin can cruisers with a few flak turrets. This is one of the reasons a carrier is so important.

Well, just up the thread you were talking about the importance of power projection, and how carrier-based fighters were so critical. Now, it's all about maintaining a massive garrison everywhere. Well which is it? You can't have it both ways. There are tradeoffs and if you have 100,000 fighters, it doesn't make sense to have only 1000-2500 be mobile. #1, it's a sucky strategy, and #2, it's a waste of resources to spend that much energy/metal/labor on fighters that will never used, instead of on capital ships.

We... do have it both ways. How do you not understand that? There are a limited number of carriers which are essential to the war effort because they allow for power projection. Both sides would like to build more carriers, but it was never a possibility during the war... carriers were generally lost as quickly as they could be constructed. This makes the few carriers that thare are precious.

There are plenty of fighters to defend the frontier. We see them throughout Privateer... and the games... and the novels... If {System X} does not build fighters to defend itself from Kilrathi raids it will never reach a position where it can build more carriers (according to the novel it takes ten years to build a heavy shipyard). The same situation exists on the other side of the lines - the Kilrathi must build fighters to maintain the status quo.

This is why the Hakagas are suddenly important. They are a {magically created} carrier force that Thrakhath managed to put together without having to affect the status quo in the colonies - he injected new blood into what was essentially a hot cold war.

It doesn't really surprise me that I have to explain this again as you don't seem all the interested in discussing what I actually said; but I consider the first three games canon, although I take SO1&2 fairly lightly. After that, the books and other games to the extent they don't contradict each other and the main games. Pretty fair I think. Fanfic universe? Haha, well I will enjoy my little "unofficial" universe where I actually get to make decisions in the game while you obsess over making sure you kill the third Dralthi in Delius B with a dumbfire in order to stay consistent with the Gospel of Forstchen.

I don't think I've ever played the games like that. I'm not some kind of monster insisting that games be looked at and not played.

On the other hand, I've never gone ranting at a message board because I couldn't believe the audacity of the next game/novel/etc. for daring to suggest that I'd killed the third Dralthi at Delius.

There's a huge difference between appreciating a fictional universe and believing that it has some sort of control over my actions.

LOL @ banning me. How cultish. Honestly if things are "getting ugly", it would appear to be more on LOAF's end than mine. Somewhere around the 40th post he started telling me what my own arguments REALLY were and asking me to prove negatives. Now he's saying I'm a whiner and my opinions are dumb. Looks like he is a sore loser.

That would be the end that replied to LeHah specifically saying that I wouldn't ban you? Yeah, I'm really out to get you.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

give it up Seamonkey. you made your point and it was disregarded.

you, my friend, have been shot down like a Kilrathi kitten against a Tiger's Claw Ace.

 

[Edfilho]

Yeah... that's generally the case in a debate. I guess there's a few reasons to do it anyway:

* The people *reading* the debate might not have made up their mind. Look how this thread started - the guy ranting about the novels actually introduced a bunch of people to the fact that there *are* novels. And there are a lot more lurkers than there are crazy argument people like you and I... I've come across my own stupid WC Movie debates repeated by other people simply because they watched me make a good case at some point -- and that feels good.

* Argument is like a sword; it's a skill that needs to be sharpened with practice. Silly as the subject may be, debate is an intellectual pursuit that will be useful in more serious arguments. Plus... it's an enjoyable passtime. There's a rush behind making a good point, up until someone makes it personal. And sadly that sort of happened here.

You didn't think I argued with you for all those years at agwc to change your mind, did you ?

And boy, did we debate back then. This shennanigans here are even light, when compared to the epic battle waged by us, Delance, Gene Tang, Krisv, Crid...

Funny thing, you didn't show up as much in agwc and Crid posted like 10938728 posts a day, unlike he does here.

I like this kind of debate too. but this one is turning up to be annoying. Sea Monkey simply ignores 86% of the arguments (I just made up this figure, so it must be true!)

 

[Haesslich]

So, in your scenario ... the cruisers couldn't be fairly close together and thus capable of pooling defenders ... the carrier knows exactly where all the cruisers are ... the cruisers don't know where the attack is coming from ... and have no patrols out so they don't know what the target is. Well I'll concede in THAT case, the cruisers will probably lose.

Ok, what about THIS scenario: you have a carrier, I have 3 cruisers. Your fighters are all rubber-cemented to the flight deck ... the launch bays are all damaged ... the turret gunners got blasted the night before and are still drunk ... your carrier has a backup diesel engine that's leaking and now there is diesel everywhere ... and the cook served beans the night before and everyone in the engine room has been farting for days. I think I win that one.

The scenario was presented in this post. I believe the exact quote that applied is the following:

' 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'

10km between each cruiser is nothing to a fighter, given that we usually engage targets with guns starting about 4300m out, or 4.3km. You were the one who put the cruisers close together, not I. In that situation, with three cruisers whose complement equals one Confederation-class dreadnought, but minus the striking power (unless you've got Gothri or Grikath support either from the hangar deck of a Snakier or other full-sized carrier). The fighters CAN cluster around one ship if it's being attacked... or they can just let the enemy fighters and bombers attack them one at a time.

If they let the bombers attack one cruiser at a time, then the cruiser's defenses are likely to be overwhelmed. We've had example after example in the games where a cruiser was the target of a single wing pair and the cruiser was blown away, if the attackers were flying heavy fighters or bombers. This was ONE cruiser, with some fighter support. Granted, putting 40 fighters around that cruiser's going to mean that a single wing-pair won't kill it, but 40 fighters flying point defense against up to 120 fighters and bombers minus whatever number is needed for BARCAP is long odds for the defenders, especially when the cruiser's already got limited anti-fighter defenses. This doesn't even consider what damage can be done by a destroyer or another cruiser, given the anti-capship weapons both of them pack. Fighter defenses, at least for either one of them, tend to consist of 'other fighters'.

If the Fralthra under attack gets fighter support from the other two cruisers, then we're in better shape - then you've got the defenders outnumbered in critical areas (more fighters versus bombers, and you have enough fighters to keep the escorts busy). The problem here is that you've left your other two Fralthra with understrength defenses - whatever fighters they're keeping close, and their own guns are all the 'defense' that they can expect. If the Confederation's 'attack' was a feint, then that Concordia's battle group has at least one free run at a cruiser, and it only takes two torps to put it down, or one good hit on the landing bay to make sure the fighters don't have anywhere to go once fuel and missiles run low.

On the other hand, while you're risking a bit more by putting all 120 Confed fighters on that anonymous Confederation-class dreadnought, the defense there is a little easier to work out given that the enemy has only one target to go for, and a limited number of strike options. Situation #2 would not exist, and their escorts could concentrate on damaging the enemy cruisers that were the attacking fighters' transports. If they're going with what appears to be the 'standard' cruiser complement (heavy fighters without torps), then there's no threat. If you've emptied out one Fralthra's complement and somehow fit a squadron or two of bombers on there, then the defenders still have an easier task... and if the Fralthra didn't keep any fighters close by, the Confederation's bombers could still make runs, while the carrier's anti-fighter defenses provided support to the point-defense squadrons.

You know someone's losing when they resort to silly arguments like rubber cement.

Incidentally, you never did prove that 'every ship has a hangar', especially given that corvettes are generally too small for them, so they either land on/in the hangar bays of another ship, or can dock with the station or other ship - while there's no way to walk people off the ramp, the absence of gravity does apparently let people use docking tubes to get on and off ships, to judge by the novel Fleet Action.

There's also the infamous quote from the initial post:

2) Too carrier centric. #1 -- I always got the impression that the Kilrathi employed lots of heavy cruisers as their main force instead of carriers. You see lots of Fralthra around but few carriers. Thrakhath's flagship is a heavy cruiser.

Contrast this with your later statements:

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.

This turns to...

Those "carriers" are probably the Fralthra. Edmunds says three carrier groups attacked yesterday and two are attacking now. Then Hobbes says, "two fighters against Fralthra and their fighters?" The only way that makes sense if they were referring to a Fralthra as a carrier.

And ends up as...

So how does that dialogue with Hobbes make ANY sense at all? There's two carrier groups attacking ... and Hobbes says "two sabres against fralthra?" That makes no sense unless they are referring to the Fralthra when they say carrier. If indeed it WERE two heavy carriers, with a group of support ships (Fralthra, Ralatha, Kamekhs), why would the target just be *assumed* to be the Fralthra right from the get go? And why would destroying 2 Fralthra stop the attack -- there is still at least 2 carriers left, with over 100 fighters, plus all the other support ships. And how come it works out perfectly that there is supposed to be 2 carriers and we see 2 Fralthra?

I got an idea -- when they say carrier they are referring to a Fralthra, since it is really a light carrier when get right down to it. Hmmm, that works.

...

What happened to the Fralthra not being carriers? Doesn't this mean that, if you're putting a lot of fighters in each one, which is a light carrier, that you're also following a carrier-centric strategy?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Funny thing, you didn't show up as much in agwc and Crid posted like 10938728 posts a day, unlike he does here.

Well, back in the day agwc was Chris' territory... and I handled all the web stuff (Origin's Official Chat Zone and then later the WCHS board).

 

[LeHah]

We should call in Frosty on this one.

 

[Haesslich]

We should call in Frosty on this one.

But this thread makes him sad.

(Edit: I should amend my earlier post, given I just spotted a major typo - the attackers are outnumbered in scenario #2, not the defenders).

 

[sea_monkey]

It's a cheap trick to get out of having a real point - implying that the authority is 'against' you and that's the only reason you aren't making any headway. If it's a joke, it's a dumb one that a lot of stupid people take too seriously in the same situation.

I thought it was pretty funny if I do say so myself.

It's a fun claim that sounds nice because it's about freedom of expression and all that jazz, but it's ultimately pointless. As offensive as it sounds, the players actions absolutely don't matter to the next game or the ultimate history of the games. If Wing Commander 2 wants to assume you won WC1 at Venice instead of lost it at Hell's Kitchen, it's not up to you in the long run. If Prophecy wants to assume you 'chose' Rachel over Flint, it's pretty much decided from a "canon" standpoint.

Being that we're talking about fiction, I think it's silly to say "this is how it happened", because it didn't happen outside of anyone's imagination. Maybe some people can reconcile the issues between the games and the books, but I cannot so I ignore them, so in my imagination, they didn't happen. I posted here to see if anyone else saw the same issues, not to say "HEY FUCKERS, THE BOOKS DIDN'T HAPPEN OK?!?"

Also, the first three games are set up as well as they can be. Probably 99% of the WC players will want to finish on the winning path with all the games so it's no big deal. The only real issue is dead pilots in WC1 but that can easily be rationalized away.

Except that you've gone back and quoted all of this ignoring that I used facts to prove that there *is* a large surplus of fighters. I quoted Privateer, I pointed out the complement of the ISS stations compared to the carriers, I mentioned the fighter defenses that show up in the novels... asking you to counter this is *not* telling you to prove a negative in the sense you are claiming.

It wouldn't be, but that's not what happened. You asked me to prove a negative first (starting that line of discussion), then later mentioned those things.

In the first two missions of the last series of SO1 you destroy *three* Fralthra. This has absolutely no side effect in terms of the story... five carrier groups are attacking before you fly these missions, five carrier groups are attacking afterwards.

The two Fralthra in the last mission are important because they're the portion of the carrier group (a carrier group in modern terms is the combined force of the fighter wing and the escort ships) that's physically attacking Olympus - they're *not* the carriers (which, of course, wouldn't fight in a line action).

I don't see how any of that makes your point. As I remember, the first 2 Fralthra you see aren't considered part of the "five carrier groups" that attack, that quote comes later. The 3rd isn't in the Ghorah Khar system, or isn't part of the assault anyway, it's by Paladin. The conversation with Hobbes still makes no sense whatsoever, and it still makes no sense why the battle would be miraculously won after two cruisers were taken out, since you would still have the rest of the line ships and the carriers to deal with. The whole scenario DOES make perfect sense if the Fralthra are the "carriers."

At best you can hope for is a stalemate on this issue since we never see any carriers and it makes plenty of sense that they are referring to Fralthra the whole time.

We... do have it both ways. How do you not understand that? There are a limited number of carriers which are essential to the war effort because they allow for power projection. Both sides would like to build more carriers, but it was never a possibility during the war... carriers were generally lost as quickly as they could be constructed. This makes the few carriers that thare are precious.

There are plenty of fighters to defend the frontier. We see them throughout Privateer... and the games... and the novels... If {System X} does not build fighters to defend itself from Kilrathi raids it will never reach a position where it can build more carriers (according to the novel it takes ten years to build a heavy shipyard). The same situation exists on the other side of the lines - the Kilrathi must build fighters to maintain the status quo.

Sure they have garrisons. But you're implying that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of idle fighters sitting around while probably 2000-3000 get carried around. That's NOT consistent with the games or the books because you never see these hoards of fighters ANYWHERE. 400 fighters don't suddenly scramble from Gwynedd to save the Concordia. Or from Olympus Station. Or Blackmane. The Tarawa doesn't get crushed by a thousand fighters sitting at home on Kilrah. The best Earth/Sirius can do is scrape up a few hundred fighters total. Where's the jump capable fighters coming in from nearby homeworlds, or on transports, destroyers and whatnot in the weeks before these battles. They're just not there.

No doubt there are garrisons at these bases, and the bases could probably carry 400 fighters, but there's nothing to believe they are always near capacity or there is some inexhaustible amount of fighters which makes the 1000 kills in 1 year by 7 pilots on the Claw largely irrelevant.

Okay, you're getting it: THE ODDS OF DESTROYING A CARRIER WITH 60 BOMBERS IS INCREDIBLY LOWER THAN THE ODDS OF DESTROYING A CRUISER. The carriers static defenses alone account for this. The Hakaga is a seething mass of neutron turrets, laser cannons, anti-torpedo gatling weapons and such... versus tin can cruisers with a few flak turrets. This is one of the reasons a carrier is so important.

Nothing in the games or manuals imply this. The Snakeir is hardly any more difficult than a Fralthi. The carrier in WC3 isn't particularly hard either, and according to the manual, carries much less defensive weaponry. In WC2, the hard part of torpedo runs is the anti-matter cannons, which standard carriers do not have.

It wasn't the case in WW2 either.

 

[sea_monkey]

You know someone's losing when they resort to silly arguments like rubber cement.

Speaking of silly arguments, you do realize in these pure hypothetical "scenarios" you present, that you always stack the deck in your favor and then go "oh look you died"? That this isn't a particularly convincing form of argument? All I did is point out the ridiculousness of what you're doing.

If you send 120 craft against 1 cruiser, where the 3 cruisers are spread out and unable to help each other, then the other 2 will attack and destroy your carriers (with Gothri and Crossbows ). If they are bunched together, all 120 craft will be able to defend against your 120 craft. If you focus 60 bombers on one ship, that is a complete waste because while you will definitely kill that cruiser, you will have only a handful of bombers left for the 2nd and 3rd cruisers. The bombers attacking the 3rd cruiser will have had to survive 90 seconds of torpedo runs. No real advantage there.

Incidentally, you never did prove that 'every ship has a hangar', especially given that corvettes are generally too small for them, so they either land on/in the hangar bays of another ship, or can dock with the station or other ship - while there's no way to walk people off the ramp, the absence of gravity does apparently let people use docking tubes to get on and off ships, to judge by the novel Fleet Action.

No I didn't. Incidentelly, did you ever get around to pointing out how corvettes not being able to dock fighters made any kind of difference in my original argument at all? I would hope so, you sure wrote a lot about it.

What happened to the Fralthra not being carriers? Doesn't this mean that, if you're putting a lot of fighters in each one, which is a light carrier, that you're also following a carrier-centric strategy?

Actually if you ever took the time to actually READ what I originally said, before typing 8 pages on it, you might have noticed that what I said, and said repeatedly, was that destroyers and cruisers which carried fighters could and would assume roles previously held only by dedicated carriers -- diminishing but not eliminating the carrier's role. I pointed out the Fralthra as a specific example of this. When I say carrier I meant the dedicated carrier in the sense that is generally used on here and by Forstchen: about 100 fighters, no anti-matter weapons and not meant to duke it out with other capital ships. While the Fralthra could be considered a light carrier of sorts, it is not a dedicated carrier. Your argument is purely semantic.

You know you're losing when you're resorting to semantic arguments.

(But how about another hypothetical scenario: let's assume your fingers have been chopped off. You can't reply, so you have lost the debate. Do you see? There is no hope of winning.)

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I thought it was pretty funny if I do say so myself.

You're right up there with Major Dad.

He's a Major... and a dad!

Being that we're talking about fiction, I think it's silly to say "this is how it happened", because it didn't happen outside of anyone's imagination. Maybe some people can reconcile the issues between the games and the books, but I cannot so I ignore them, so in my imagination, they didn't happen. I posted here to see if anyone else saw the same issues, not to say "HEY FUCKERS, THE BOOKS DIDN'T HAPPEN OK?!?"

Also, the first three games are set up as well as they can be. Probably 99% of the WC players will want to finish on the winning path with all the games so it's no big deal. The only real issue is dead pilots in WC1 but that can easily be rationalized away.

Doesn't necessarily make for a good backstory, though - especially when you're leading to another game where you have to essentially be written into the same position (losing the war!). They took drastic measures to make that work in WC2 and in WC3 they pretty much ignored everything else alltogether... I prefer the middle ground, with someone establishing a 'history' with which to base future products on (this, incidentally, is what 'canon' means...)

It wouldn't be, but that's not what happened. You asked me to prove a negative first (starting that line of discussion), then later mentioned those things.

No, I didn't - you're just avoiding the point which I reiterated: given the evidence I have already quoted, is there anything that counterindicates the existence of a large fighter force.

I don't see how any of that makes your point. As I remember, the first 2 Fralthra you see aren't considered part of the "five carrier groups" that attack, that quote comes later. The 3rd isn't in the Ghorah Khar system, or isn't part of the assault anyway, it's by Paladin. The conversation with Hobbes still makes no sense whatsoever, and it still makes no sense why the battle would be miraculously won after two cruisers were taken out, since you would still have the rest of the line ships and the carriers to deal with. The whole scenario DOES make perfect sense if the Fralthra are the "carriers."

At best you can hope for is a stalemate on this issue since we never see any carriers and it makes plenty of sense that they are referring to Fralthra the whole time.

Lets look at the Ghorah Khar series (2) again. All quotations taken from the game.

In Mission A Blair and Hobbes fly off to "nail that strike fleet". They encounter two Fralthra and (presumably) destroy them. They return to Olympus, where Paladin tells them that that wasn't the entire attack force - the Kilrathi have "five carrier groups". You take off to escort Paladin out-system, but find that there's a Fralthra attacking the base. You blow it up and the join Paladin. (The Fralthra is at Olympus, not in the Sharm System w/ Paladin). Ghorah Khar C is the zany plot with Jukaga and Thrakhath, and is generally unrelated to the actual fleet action. You/Blair return to Ghorah Khar where you learn that "three of those five Kilrathi carrier groups attacked yesterday" (while Blair was with Paladin).

The five carrier groups are *not* the Fralthra - because whacking three Fralthra (or one, if you want to insist that the first two don't count) doesn't reduce their numbers. You are *never* told that you're going to engage the final two carriers - it's specifically described as the "next assault wave". (Destroying the Kilrathi offensive capability forces them to retreat - it doesn't destroy their remaining two carriers).

Sure they have garrisons. But you're implying that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of idle fighters sitting around while probably 2000-3000 get carried around. That's NOT consistent with the games or the books because you never see these hoards of fighters ANYWHERE. 400 fighters don't suddenly scramble from Gwynedd to save the Concordia. Or from Olympus Station. Or Blackmane. The Tarawa doesn't get crushed by a thousand fighters sitting at home on Kilrah. The best Earth/Sirius can do is scrape up a few hundred fighters total. Where's the jump capable fighters coming in from nearby homeworlds, or on transports, destroyers and whatnot in the weeks before these battles. They're just not there.

No doubt there are garrisons at these bases, and the bases could probably carry 400 fighters, but there's nothing to believe they are always near capacity or there is some inexhaustible amount of fighters which makes the 1000 kills in 1 year by 7 pilots on the Claw largely irrelevant.

Yeah, that'd go over well. Say, a huge Kilrathi fleet that we don't think we can stop has broken through our lines and is dispatching line squadrons to wipe out individual planets. You colonial garrisons on the planets they're attacking don't really need your fighter squadrons for anything, do you?

(Olympus' garrison wipes out three Kilrathi carrier groups... that's pretty impressive. )

Nothing in the games or manuals imply this. The Snakeir is hardly any more difficult than a Fralthi. The carrier in WC3 isn't particularly hard either, and according to the manual, carries much less defensive weaponry. In WC2, the hard part of torpedo runs is the anti-matter cannons, which standard carriers do not have.

It wasn't the case in WW2 either.

Victory Streak's 'tactical situations' section describes a large multi-wing attack (eleven fighters) on an enemy light carrier and escorts, versus a two plane raid on a pair of cruisers.

(Capships being 'fictionally' harder than they are in the actual game is nothing new - from the coordinated attack on the Rathtak in Claw Marks to Halcyon's descriptions of how nigh-impossible it is to blow up a Fralthi the implication has always been that in the 'WC universe' capships aren't the easy targets they are to the gamer.)

 

[Haesslich]

Speaking of silly arguments, you do realize in these pure hypothetical "scenarios" you present, that you always stack the deck in your favor and then go "oh look you died"? That this isn't a particularly convincing form of argument? All I did is point out the ridiculousness of what you're doing.

If you send 120 craft against 1 cruiser, where the 3 cruisers are spread out and unable to help each other, then the other 2 will attack and destroy your carriers (with Gothri and Crossbows ). If they are bunched together, all 120 craft will be able to defend against your 120 craft. If you focus 60 bombers on one ship, that is a complete waste because while you will definitely kill that cruiser, you will have only a handful of bombers left for the 2nd and 3rd cruisers. The bombers attacking the 3rd cruiser will have had to survive 90 seconds of torpedo runs. No real advantage there.

The hypothetical scenarios in question actually take your original statements into account - that it 'makes more sense to have fighters based on cruisers than on carriers, since 3 cruisers are less risky than one big target'. You're also the one who set up the '10km of vacuum' between them, which in Wing Commander terms (assuming you've played the game) is about 30 or so seconds of flight time in a Broadsword if you want to nestle up beside the ship (320kps) or 20 seconds or so in a Sabre. Coincidentally, this is also about the time one needs to lock on a torpedo. The game stacked the deck, not I. I'm using game-based stats for all this, and inferences based on the games and novels which both come from the original source material.

10km isn't very far at all - you've got the ships clustered closely together, which makes it easier to support one another in the case of a battle... but it also means you've got three targets very conveniently placed to one another. If I launch a torpedo run at the cruiser, then the destroyers have an easier time going after the other two cruiser-carriers if most of the fighters have moved to the first one's defense minus whatever fighters they keep for a defensive screen. We see no proof that Gothri are part of a normal Fralthra's complement, just as we see no proof that the Crossbow is a normal part of the Waterloo-class ship's fighter complement; in fact, for the latter we are told that the Crossbow is new and they have them to test it out. The Crossbow's also about two thirds the size of the Broadsword, about the size of a Sabre or Rapier.

Also, where'd you get the 'sixty bomber' figure from? We've never seen any sign in the games that the Concordia or other carriers HAD sixty bombers to throw into action at any given time. Or, for that matter, where do you get the the idea that only a handful would survive the bombing run on the cruiser? We killed cruisers with Gothri support by ourselves, with just a wingman, in the games; their anti-fighter defenses are their flak cannons and other fighters. If you're using Fleet Action as the source for this figure, the main reason that the Confederation lost most of its bombers during the attacks on the Hakagas was the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy, combined with heavy anti-fighter defenses.

If I recall correctly, there were a total of two hundred and fifty bombers and fighters on that run, with some of their strike craft held in reserve for a second wave if necessary. Lone Wolf's strike group, going up against one carrier, had thirty bombers with it, and there were five enemy carriers. If we assume each group was about the same size, then you've got about a hundred and fifty bombers in total, with the bulk of the point-defense fighters (judging by later statements in the books) held back. There were eighty bombers left after Sirius, sent in with just eighty escorts. This, combined with the 'fifty strike craft on the Saratoga', which did not make it to Sirius due to fuel pump issues, suggests that four Concordia-class carriers and one Confed-class dreadnought had about 230 bombers between them, or about three or four squadrons of bombers on each ship (36-48 craft). We're still making an assumption that this is a normal fighter complement, with 48-60 heavy, medium, and light fighter squadrons to go with the bomber squadrons. This does, however, seem to be fairly safe as assumptions go, given the missions that these carriers draw. Given the Confederation-class' greater fighter capacity, you could probably tack on one more squadron of each onto its decks, to get a total of 72 fighters and 48 strike craft.

If we're going to use assumptions and say that the tactically 'safe' thing to do when fighting is to keep half your fighter squadrons for CAP duty, then the theoretical Confederation-class in the initial example could send thirty-six bombers if it was being cautious, or all forty-eight if it wanted a full-on strike mission. They could be accompanied by anything between an equal number of fighters (36-48) which would leave half the wing behind to defend the ship, or they could detach 60 fighters and leave one squadron on capship defense.

Conversely, if the Kilrathi are prone to being as protective of their cruiser-carriers as we are of our capships, then they've got an interesting choice - the 'safe' thing to do (given that the enemy also has a destroyer and capship escort, if we're talking a full battle group) is to send only half their fighter detachments off to support their fellow cruiser, which means forty more fighters would reinforce the defenders and give them a minor advantage. If you're assuming that the Gothri or maybe Grikath were launched off the Fralthra's deck and were not sent in to escort the Fralthra on its strike mission against an enemy Battle Group, then you've lost one flight deck and the forty fighters it carried, given that bombers in WC2 seem to require extra support as far as supplies and storage goes.

Standard carrier tactics mean that the carrier stays at extreme range, sending the fighters and maybe one or two destroyers ahead to accompany the strike, while it stays behind its own destroyer and cruiser screen. The Fralthra, should they want to strike at the Confed-class, will need to launch their own fighters at them, and detail off some capship support to keep the destroyers busy by the Confederation-class, where there's at least a chance to put a shot in on the enemy carrier. They shouldn't be closing in to engage with their own AMGs, since that would mean putting the cruiser at risk, and thus losing all those pilots based off her should that ship go down.

You're in a pickle here, still, defensively speaking - if you're assuming that all the Fralthra are carrying 'standard' loadouts, there will not be Grikath or Gothri. If you are assuming that one of them does have bombers, then you've lost half of your fighter strength. The Fralthra are still weak in anti-fighter weapon loadouts, which means they're more dependent on their fighters and shields for protection than an equivalent-sized carrier is. If you send all of your escorts away to overwhelm the enemy strike, then you risk attack by any capships escorting that strike in, or even just a detachment of bombers since you've effectively given away all your protection to the first cruiser. If you keep any fighters back, then the first cruiser's defenses are still likely to get overwhelmed and more enemy bombers will survive the strike.

The games show that cruisers go down fairly easily, even Fralthra. Carriers, however, have always seemed to require either surprise or overwhelming strength to take down.

(continued on another post)

 

[Haesslich]

Pt. 2

No I didn't. Incidentelly, did you ever get around to pointing out how corvettes not being able to dock fighters made any kind of difference in my original argument at all? I would hope so, you sure wrote a lot about it.

This was your 'point 2)' in your initial post.

#2 -- in space carriers aren't as big a deal. In WW2 you needed a carrier to transport aircraft from point A to B through the Pacific. So they were the limiting factor in any engagement. In space, *every ship* has a hangar since there are no transporter beams like in Star Trek. So every ship can carry a fighter or two. The big issue in WC is the # of fighters in an engagement.

There's also this:

Because dude, they're in SPACE. You can't park the ship offshore, and have everybody walk off a ramp. You need some way to transfer people, fuel, munitions and repair materials back and forth. A docking bay and a ladder won't cut it. So every ship has to be able to "open up" some way to allow stuff to transfer.

You stated that 'every ship had a hangar, and thus every ship should have a fighter'. This is an invalid statement, and I've brought up examples to show why, while you've kept repeating that 'cruisers and destroyers carry fighters, thus cruisers and destroyers are more efficient fighter-carrying platforms'. You've never proven that every ship had a hangar, or that every ship needed a fighter on it. Yes, cruisers and destroyers do carry fighters, and cruisers carry enough fighters to provide themselves with a light fighter screen. Waterloo-class cruisers have enough fighters to act as escorts to convoys and transports, and the Kilrathi are forced to use their own cruisers in this fashion due to Confed raiding before the False Armistice.

But since when does this prove that cruisers are more efficient fighter platforms, or that every ship needs a fighter, even if it just straps one onto the top of the hull? Or, for that matter, that every ship has a hangar?

The TCS Coventry, a destroyer in the WC3 time period, carried a half-squadron of fighters and was one of the newest destroyer designs. The TCS Gwenhyvar launched 5 Rapiers at you in the Jotunheim mission, and four more Rapiers were later sent at you in Firekka. We're not talking a very useful number of fighters here, less than a squadron at best. Cruisers reconfigured as light carriers fare better, but again are limited in utility due to their fighter complements; we've seen deciated light carriers carry bombers, but Fralthra and Waterloo-class ships don't apparently carry bombers under normal circumstances. Later cruisers don't even make a pretense of carrying that many fighters.

Yet, in each game, carriers keep coming back; the reasons given for their existence are varied, though 'economy, fighter capacity, and their design being dedicated to the mission of fighter support' seems to echo in each time period. Otherwise we probably WOULD see more cruisers with fighters, if this wasn't the case. You've yet to prove that this isn't true, which is why the burden of it's been on you throughout the whole thread. I'm presenting arguments which are supported by inferences based on the stuff we've seen in both games and novels.

Actually if you ever took the time to actually READ what I originally said, before typing 8 pages on it, you might have noticed that what I said, and said repeatedly, was that destroyers and cruisers which carried fighters could and would assume roles previously held only by dedicated carriers -- diminishing but not eliminating the carrier's role. I pointed out the Fralthra as a specific example of this. When I say carrier I meant the dedicated carrier in the sense that is generally used on here and by Forstchen: about 100 fighters, no anti-matter weapons and not meant to duke it out with other capital ships. While the Fralthra could be considered a light carrier of sorts, it is not a dedicated carrier. Your argument is purely semantic.

Where does striking power come into semantics? 'A carrier always has heavy strike craft, while a cruiser does not usually carry them or is incapable of carrying them' is not a semantic argument. You've called Fralthra carriers, as I pointed out, after stating that Fralthra were not carriers. That's not semantics - that's a change in position.

It's also been pointed out that Fralthra were not usually associated with Gothri, unless it was stated that carriers were in the system. Examples of Kilrathi carriers exist in the games (look at the Snakier) and have been pointed out. It's also been stated that those Gothri do not have to be part of a ship's fighter complement to be seen with it; while Gothri are seen with Fralthra in SO1, they're also seen with Kamekh-class corvettes in SO2 in the Canewdon system, and we also see Sabres with a Fralthra at Ayer's Rock. Does this mean that Kamekh-class corvettes also carry jump-capable Gothri, or that Fralthra normally keep Confederation Sabre-class heavy fighters as part of their standard complement?

We have seen Drakhri and Sartha in systems where there is no Kilrathi presence (Gwynedd) in association with a Fralthra. We've never seen Fralthra with Grikath or Gothri in systems where there are no other Kilrathi carriers, and we also know the Gothri is jump-capable. We've also aware that even dedicated light and escort carriers had problems carrying 36-meter long Broadsword bombers, and have a fighter capacity comparable to cruisers.

The only light carrier we've seen with the ability to carry bombers was the pre-War Ranger-class, on the Confed side. The Kilrathi, by the WC3 period, had dreadnoughts which surpassed the Hakaga-class supercarriers in every respect, and were effective terror weapons due to their shielding and large guns. It was less a carrier and more a siege weapon.

You know you're losing when you're resorting to semantic arguments.

(But how about another hypothetical scenario: let's assume your fingers have been chopped off. You can't reply, so you have lost the debate. Do you see? There is no hope of winning.)

And this relates to Wing Commander how? The burden of proof has always been on you, and you've yet to give us examples in game which conclusively state your case. That case was:

• Confed was outmatched at every turn: the Kilrathi were more prepared for a war, and thus had more capship yards in place. Check Fleet Action for details on this statement, specifically after Adm. Tolwyn returns to Earth. The loss of the Claw was significant due to the fact that they were on a strike mission to K'tithrak Mang, and because Confed had lost some ability to project power; it was not because there weren't enough fighters to go around - it was more that a whole 'base' had been lost in action and at that time Confed fleet strength was relatively low.
• Too Carrier-Centric: your initial statement was that there were many Fralthra (of which there were twenty at the time of Fleet Action) and that Thrakath's flagship was a heavy cruiser; the Kha'ifra, as seen in cutscenes and the pictures LOAF has produced is not a cruiser design, and seems to be a carrier or possibly a dreadnought to judge by the open launch bay at the front of the craft. Where's your evidence concerning this? You haven't proven anything here either.
• 'In WW2 you needed a carrier to transport aircraft from point A to B through the Pacific. So they were the limiting factor in any engagement. In space, *every ship* has a hangar since there are no transporter beams like in Star Trek. So every ship can carry a fighter or two' - where's the proof every ship has a hangar? Or that it can or needs to carry a fighter? Theoretically, you could just strap a fighter on top of every transport that you had out there, or any ship that needs a fighter escort (they talk about it in End Run). But do they need them, or should they have them? Where's your proof that this works, in the games? You've presented arguments which you haven't even argued successfully - since when is it desirable to lose a ship at all, and that it's easier to defend three targets? Remember that the problem was not apparently fighter production, so much as capship production and then pilots to fly those fighters. The Fralthra have also been demonstrated to be significantly less well-protected than even Snakier carriers in terms of anti-fighter defenses.

Now prove it. You've already stated that you don't even consider most of the games canon, which is rather like telling a lawmaker that the laws he passed aren't valid because you don't consider it that way. It's a rather futile defense in court, and doesn't fly much better here.

 

[HammerHead]

Sorry for the long post but plz bear withe me

Wow!
How have I missed this thread?!

I just spent 3 hour catching up and what I understood, base on your recent remark sea_monky –

Actually if you ever took the time to actually READ what I originally said, before typing 8 pages on it, you might have noticed that what I said, and said repeatedly, was that destroyers and cruisers which carried fighters could and would assume roles previously held only by dedicated carriers -- diminishing but not eliminating the carrier's role. I pointed out the Fralthra as a specific example of this. When I say carrier I meant the dedicated carrier in the sense that is generally used on here and by Forstchen: about 100 fighters, no anti-matter weapons and not meant to duke it out with other capital ships. While the Fralthra could be considered a light carrier of sorts, it is not a dedicated carrier. Your argument is purely semantic.

Is that the entire argument is whether fighter carrying cruisers and destroyer can replace dedicated carriers or not.

My short answer is: NO! Sorry sea_monky, I'm with LOAF and the guys on this one.

But I should probably explain why not… so…
I noticed that every one said they don’t want to talk about numbers (and ended up talking all about them) and I say

LET TALK NUMBERS! Cold hard fact numbers:
(for those who are unfamiliar with the metric system – 1 meter is roughly 1 yard - 1.094 yards to be exact)

And for simplicity – lets be a little abstract.

POINT 1.
The basic thing you need to remember about dedicated carrier is that the idea behind her is to easily and effectively service fighters. The big question is what is hiding behind the expression "easily and effectively".
Lets take a NUMERICAL example – a fighter complement of 12 Raptor class heavy fighters and 24 Hornet light fighters. (I've chosen them specifically since I have accurate data on their dimensions – as I'm doing some 3D modeling and took the time to pick the data ). This is a total of 36 fighters, it's definitely within a cruisers capability, and is an effective strike force (for 2654 and even later).
A Raptor is a monstrosity 36 meters long, 31 meter wide and 17.2 meter high, so an "easy and effective" parking deck space for it will be 40 meters by 20 meters. A hornet is smaller but is still 20 meters long and roughly that wide (her height doesn't mater as she's lower then the Raptor) so it need 20 by 20 meters of deck parking space.
Lets say our flight deck is 250 meter long, and since we need taxing space it'll have to be 250m by 35m (or even 40m) – because of the Raptor.
Now – if we do the math, that’s 27,950 meter of deck space.
It'll also have to be at least 20m high (if not 25) again, because of the Raptor –
So now its 559,000 cubic meters of deck volume – that's 559 CUBIC KILOMETERS!!! (that’s 350 cubic Miles)
Now – I haven't taken into account the following things:
*Runway
*Landing bay
*Storage rooms – for weapons and spare parts – and you'll probably want more then one, to spread the load.
*Briefing room for your 40 pilots (36 for the plane + 10% "spare heads" – practically "spare head" ratio can get to 30 and even 50% - they unable you to keep your fighters up while giving returning pilots time to rest)
*Living quarters for your 40 pilots.
*For every pilot you have 5 supporting personnel (repairman, arming-man, flight control officers, lunch and recovery officers etc.) in real life it more then 5:1 but alas – that would be living quarters for 200 additional support personnel.

The Ranger class light carriers are 720m long ships SPECIFICALLY designed to accommodate ALL these things (and a few more I forgot) –
So how are you going to squeeze ALL these on a 500-550m long cruiser which is already packed to her gills with weapons, armor, cap-ship ammo, and 500 or so crew members?
Cruiser flight decks are usually cramped and unsuited for fast regular operation (that's why the Waterloo carries only light fighters)

POINT 2
Cruisers are supposed to hack and slash with enemy ships up close and personal – with grave danger of heavy or even terminal damage. Once you start using them as carriers you get into a dilemma – get close for a fire fight ant risk stranding your pilots after your ship took unrepairable damage to its flight deck or have been destroyed, or staying away, thus loosing the advantages of the cruiser's heavy weapons and armor (practically becoming a dedicated carrier).
Either way you look at it – you just created a hybrid ship – that is not good enough from either roll…

POINT 3
You offer to substitute one Hakaga super carrier with 7 Fralthra cruisers – lets look at it from a mathematical point of view:

Let's say and attack is lunched on a system and tactical analysis suggests that 300 fighters are needed.
Troops will be sent ONLY after the system has been secured.

1 Hakaga is dispatched. With her 300 fighters, escort ships and supply line.
Escort ships will include and approximate of :
4 Cruisers.
6 Destroyers.
3 Frigates
2 Scout Corvettes
1 EW Corvette
1 Mine Sweeper.
---------------------
18 ships total

The supply line will be about 6 transports for supplies (3 for the Hakaga and 3 for the other ships) with 2 destroyers for escort
---------------------
Totaling at 26 capital ships and 300 fighters – all in all, a full fledge carrier battle group.

Now – your offer – a 7 Cruisers squadron:

7 Cruiser/Carriers – with a total of 280 fighters
7 Destroyers – each cruiser with her dedicated escort.
2 regular Cruisers – as mainstay support
-------------------
16 so far…

since you have such a large force (dispersed on a relatively large patch of space) and not a small force centered around a central ship, you'll need a picket squadron:

4 Destroyers
4 Frigates
-------------------
24…

such a large force need better recon capabilities –
4 Scout Corvettes
-------------------
28…

The same goes for electronic warfare and mine sweeping
3 EW Corvette
3 Mine Sweeper
-------------------
34…


The supply line will have to be large – 1 transport for each Cruiser/Carriers (as the need supplies both for the ship and it's fighter wing. 2 additional ones for the close escorts. 2 transports for the picket force, and 2 more for the Corvettes and Mine sweepers (and I'm pulling it thin!)
That’s 13 transports… flying into enemy space, minimum escorts should include 3-4 destroyer and an escort carrier.
That's 17 ships convoy.
---------------------
Totaling at 51 capital ships and 280 fighters (and "change" fighters one escorting ships – all in all, a Cruiser based group with 300 fighters.

(You still want to talk numbers???)

The hole idea is to achieve the maximum goal by delivering the necessary force (in our case – 300 fighters) with the minimal number of ships in order to ENSURE MINIMUM CASUALTIES!!!

Also remember the more ships you have the more "noise" you make – Ion trails, Infra-Red emission, radar reflections, comm. chatter etc.


POINT 4
To answer your question why is the Hakaga a super weapon I'll use a little analogy:

You need to destroy a big block a concrete (lets say 5x5x5 meters) you have basically 2 options:
Take a sledge hammer and start bashing it to gravel, which could take some time.
Or, take a big massive Jackhammer, drill through to it's dead center, and place some Dynamite (or C4, or ESK-5, or whatever explosive compound you wish) and blow it up.

For 34 years Confed and the Kilrathi have been bashing each other to gravel with fleet carriers (2634-2668) and once the Kilrathi realized Confed was winning the bashing contest, the pick up the Hakaga – the resident Jackhammer – and drilled right into Confed's core. Only Jukaga stoped his people from activating their Dynamite.

That is why the Hakaga is a super weapon – because it was the Jackhammer in a world of sledge hammers.

To quote one of the famous
"You still want to talk number huh? Do you, PUNK?!"

 

[Nemesis]

Wing Commander has major continuity issues throughout the entire series so I figure everyone has to pick and choose what they like to some extent. . . . I consider the WC3, WC2, WC1 & SMs1&2, and *lightly* S01&2 canon in that order because to me they make the most sense like that. After that, stuff like the books, Privateer, Academy, Armada, the manuals, as far as they don't contradict each other and the "main" games. . . .You can either go to extreme lengths to rationalize every inconsistency, however ridiculous -- or you can say, "okay, the manual creators made a mistake. I'll pretend they didn't say that." . . . I think that's the big difference here between me and some of you guys. I would rather pick and choose elements of all the materials that make the most consistent and enjoyable universe rather than try to force contradictory elements (written by different people with entirely different ideas about the games) together in the same universe. . . .So it's up to the imagination of the player to make sense of everything. . . .Doesn't look there's going to be too many more quality products. But I agree with this [that I will “be further disappointed by future quality products”] to a point -- but this is more a result of the direction Origin took than anything else. . . .Maybe some people can reconcile the issues between the games and the books, but I cannot so I ignore them, so in my imagination, they didn't happen. I posted here to see if anyone else saw the same issues . . .

But if your view truly is that each person is free to envision WC as he or she believes works best, then how can there be any “issues” that you would care to know if anyone else sees? Why would you care to know what others think? Why would you care if they agreed with you or not? I’m just not clear on what you’re looking to get out of this thread.

Also, you appear to misunderstand our efforts to reconcile inconsistencies among the sources. It is not simply or only to try to weave a consistent time line and history for WC (as well as have a lot of fun doing that), but essentially to keep WC a “living” story. We see it as dynamic, with a great potential. And that strikes me as the real difference with the views you present. You seem to value WC as only a static and effectively dead concept.

 

[Edfilho]

Math is not subjective

So now its 559,000 cubic meters of deck volume – that's 559 CUBIC KILOMETERS!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO It's not!!!!! A cubic Kilometer is a cube of one kilometer each side, and a kilometer is 1000 meters, so, 1000m x 1000m x1000m = 1,000,000,000 cubic meters, or 10^12 cubic meters. 559,000 cubic meters is exactly... 559,000 cubic meters, or 0,000559 cubic Km. thank you.

 

[HammerHead]

Uhh...
*scratch my head*
Uhh...

Your right...


sorry,

my silly mistake....

oh well....

It's still 559,000 cubic meters

I still dare you, or any one for that matter, to sqeeze it on a full-fledged, packed-to-the-gills, heavy cruiser.

 

[Edfilho]

Uhh...
It's still 559,000 cubic meters

I still dare you, or any one for that matter, to sqeeze it on a full-fledged, packed-to-the-gills, heavy cruiser.

Ah, I agree with that part.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Just wanted to let the debate in general know that I'm off to Boston for three days - so if I haven't replied before tuesday, it's not because I've moved on (G)

 

[sea_monkey]

Is that the entire argument is whether fighter carrying cruisers and destroyer can replace dedicated carriers or not.

No, absolutely not, but you would think so if you read Hesselich's posts.

I said destroyers and cruisers that could carry fighters would reduce the importance of the carrier, not eliminate it or make it insignificant. Obviously they are important. But not as much as in WW2 where the carrier was the only ship that could carry fighters.

Really, this is pretty much common sense and impossible to argue, but a few posters are arguing that I'm wrong, because "carriers are important" -- totally irrelevant to my post.

For 34 years Confed and the Kilrathi have been bashing each other to gravel with fleet carriers (2634-2668) and once the Kilrathi realized Confed was winning the bashing contest, the pick up the Hakaga – the resident Jackhammer – and drilled right into Confed's core. Only Jukaga stoped his people from activating their Dynamite.

That was another issue. Why are Hakagas so superior to other smaller units that they represent a "jackhammer"? It's not even clear that a Hakaga would beat 7-8 Fralthra in a fight, let alone win overwhelmingly. Bottomline, a Hakaga is a big, heavily armored bus for ships. That's nice, but hardly a superweapon. The fighters are the real weapons, and they could be carried by smaller ships as well (destroyers, cruisers, standard carriers), which would probably be actually easier to defend due to the sheer number of them.

since you have such a large force (dispersed on a relatively large patch of space) and not a small force centered around a central ship, you'll need a picket squadron: such a large force need better recon capabilities – The same goes for electronic warfare and mine sweeping

Umm, why? You're doing a Hesselich here. The cruisers need more escorts than a Hakaga ... because you say so.

Lets say our flight deck is 250 meter long, and since we need taxing space it'll have to be 250m by 35m (or even 40m) – because of the Raptor.

The hangar in the cruisers and destroyers in WC3 is a tiny little hole in the back. A runway really isn't needed, you could really just push the ship overboard. It's not like it is going to fall into the ocean and sink.

But if your view truly is that each person is free to envision WC as he or she believes works best, then how can there be any “issues” that you would care to know if anyone else sees? Why would you care to know what others think? Why would you care if they agreed with you or not? I’m just not clear on what you’re looking to get out of this thread.

Why post *anything*? I saw some issues and was wondering if anyone else saw the same things, and what they thought of it. I saw one post on here by a guy who thought the reason why Hobbes defected was because of the Behemoth and the destruction of Kilrah -- which I had come to as well. That was interesting to read.

Also, you appear to misunderstand our efforts to reconcile inconsistencies among the sources. It is not simply or only to try to weave a consistent time line and history for WC (as well as have a lot of fun doing that), but essentially to keep WC a “living” story. We see it as dynamic, with a great potential. And that strikes me as the real difference with the views you present. You seem to value WC as only a static and effectively dead concept.

I don't really follow you here, as I don't see the connection between living/dead and resolving inconsistencies? What am I doing if not trying to resolve inconsistencies.

 

[sea_monkey]

They (the 2 Fralthra, while the 3rd is under attack) shouldn't be closing in to engage with their own AMGs, since that would mean putting the cruiser at risk, and thus losing all those pilots based off her should that ship go down.

Ummmmmm .... this also puts *your carrier* at risk of losing all those 120 pilots based over it should I be successful. Highly likely if you've focused the majority of your fighters onto one of my ships, leaving 2 Fralthra and their 80 fighters free to smash your carrier.

Sorry dude, but you are that guy in Starcraft or other strategy games that just turtles up and goes for the most powerful unit in the game right away ... the guy that gets killed all of the time. There are risk/return issues that you just aren't seeing.

The hypothetical scenarios in question actually take your original statements into account - that it 'makes more sense to have fighters based on cruisers than on carriers, since 3 cruisers are less risky than one big target'. ... The game stacked the deck, not I. I'm using game-based stats for all this, and inferences based on the games and novels which both come from the original source material.

In one of your little scenarios, you had my cruisers being spread out so far that they couldn't help each other. So your carrier's 120 fighters could go from cruiser to cruiser and overwhelm each ones 40 fighter complement one at a time. The implication, of course, is that my cruisers will sit there with their thumbs up their asses while you do this. I'm sure you thought that this would be a fairly reasonable scenario, but it makes about as much sense as my scenario where your fighters are rubber-cemented to the flight deck. It's ridiculous.

.

And this relates to Wing Commander how? The burden of proof has always been on you, and you've yet to give us examples in game which conclusively state your case. That case was:

Just because you ignore what I say doesn't it mean it wasn't there. But for a review:

Confed was outmatched at every turn: the Kilrathi were more prepared for a war, and thus had more capship yards in place.

You totally missed the point here. I said in the games, it definitely seems as though Confed is significantly outnumbered. The books indicate that this is not the case, it's about 1.5:1. Your response is ... the Kilrathi have more shipyards so they have more ships? What? So you AGREE with me? Interesting.

Too Carrier-Centric: your initial statement was that there were many Fralthra (of which there were twenty at the time of Fleet Action) and that Thrakath's flagship was a heavy cruiser; the Kha'ifra, as seen in cutscenes and the pictures LOAF has produced is not a cruiser design, and seems to be a carrier or possibly a dreadnought to judge by the open launch bay at the front of the craft. Where's your evidence concerning this? You haven't proven anything here either.

Why do you keep quoting the books back to me as if that has some effect on my argument? That is like quoting the Bible to an atheist.

I said that, in the games, the Kilrathi seem to use cruiser/carriers (Fralthra/Fralthi) as more of a front-line force than carriers. The evidence is the GAMES, where you don't see a carrier in WC1, SM1, WC2, SO1, or SO2. You only see carriers deep behind enemy lines in WC3 (Ariel, Freja), or when the whole fleet is assembled (SM2).

Your evidence to the contrary is ... well the books say differently! LOL.

'In WW2 you needed a carrier to transport aircraft from point A to B through the Pacific. So they were the limiting factor in any engagement. In space, *every ship* has a hangar since there are no transporter beams like in Star Trek. So every ship can carry a fighter or two' - where's the proof every ship has a hangar?

Every ship might not have a hangar, but most do. Cruisers, destroyers and transports can all carry or dock fighters. In WW2, only carriers could carry fighters. So, in WC, carriers are less important. End of story.

Whenever you try to argue this point you just go off on a tangent about some totally unrelated point, like how important carriers are for strike missions, which has nothing to do with my point.

Now prove it. You've already stated that you don't even consider most of the games canon,

Yawn. No I didn't.

But since when does this prove that cruisers are more efficient fighter platforms

It doesn't. And the reason why it doesn't, is because I never said that -- which you would understand if you were actually reading my posts.

Or, for that matter, where do you get the the idea that only a handful would survive the bombing run on the cruiser?

Totally a matter of interpretation, as the books make it seem very hard to destroy capships in general, while the games make it fairly easy for 1 fighter to do. Any argument on this subject is OPINION, not right or wrong. Which I'm game for -- and what I was expecting on this thread -- but not what you are doing.

I was referring specifically however to your suggestion that it would be more efficient to focus all your bombers onto the first cruiser, then the 2nd, then the 3rd. When the truth is, your bombers will crush the first cruiser, but they will take losses and damage. The depleted force will then have to go on another 30 second torpedo run -- with fighters STILL shooting at them. If any survive the 2nd cruiser, they have a third run, having taken heavier losses and more damage ... 30 seconds with fighters STILL shooting at them.

In reality it'd be much more effective to split your forces evenly among the cruisers.

Where does striking power come into semantics?

It doesn't. The semantics comes into play when you say that my argument:

1) Kilrathi seem to use Fralthra (cruiser/carriers) more than dedicated carriers (as opposed to Confed)

2) Confed seems to often refer to Fralthra as carriers

... is a contradiction. It's a semantic argument because *whatever* the word is people use to describe the Fralthra (cruiser, heavy cruiser, cruiser/carrier, light carrier, dreadnought, etc), it is NOT a ship that carries about 100 fighters and has no anti-matter guns -- which is what I was referring to (and I think that was perfectly clear) when I said carrier in (1).

Your argument therefore is over nothing but the meaning of words and how I used them. Semantics.

but Fralthra and Waterloo-class ships don't apparently carry bombers under normal circumstances.

I said they CAN (correct), you said they CAN'T (incorrect). Not that they "usually don't."

The games show that cruisers go down fairly easily, even Fralthra. Carriers, however, have always seemed to require either surprise or overwhelming strength to take down.

Actually the games show that cruisers are harder to take down, because of the anti-matter cannons in WC3 and presumably WC2. In WC1 the difference is insignificant.

I'll get to Loaf's post (the best of the bunch) later.