Carrier Landing Styles

A

Antman

Spaceman
Ok, I have an interesting question.

The Carrier from WC1, the Bengal Strike Carrier TCS Tiger's Claw, had what I call a 'landing strip' type landing platform. In WC2, the Concordia Dreadnaught TCS Concordia also had a 'landing strip' type landing platform. But in WC3 and 4, on the Victory and Lexington, respectively, and the later Vesuvius, they use Tube within a Tube landing systems. Why? I was under the impression that the Ranger class was older then the Bengal, and the Lexington and the Vesuvius were both newer. Were they just trying something inbetween?
 
From the missions that you fly in on the Tiger's Claw, you launch from tubes and land on a single flight deck. As for the Confederation class, the airlock is the only place you would really need to land on, I suspect the rest of the landing strip is for lining up for the approach.

Plus you have to take into consideration that they changed the design of the ships for WC3.

Could the launch and recovery method for TCS Midway, be a kickback to the launch tube method of the Bengal. Do you think the tube/landing deck configuration is a tribute to Battlestar Galactica?
 
Personally I believe that having long flight decks on carriers is just a backup system, in case the ALS (Automatic Landing System) goes down or is wrecked in combat. Otherwise, using the ALS was standard operation procedure, preventing a large number of green jocks from smashing into the deck. Also, in Freedom Flight, we see how even experienced Aces (Hunter) can't really land all that well without ALS on a ship. Thus, pilots used the ALS out of common sense, instead of the hazardous actually landing on the carrier deck.

Lexington was based on the Concordia class fleet carrier plans, which also predated the Kilrathi War (Action Stations, the original TCS Concordia), so the tubular system might have been kept on due to effectiveness or the like. Or, because Confed had no time to redesign the plans for another system.

Having craft launch off a conventional flight deck has the disadvantages of the deck being easily fouled, and the long length needed, compared to electromagnetically launched launch tubes, which can be protected with shields, blast doors, and the like, and which are buried in the ship's hull. Hence, I believe a deck is only needed for landing.

And we see with the Lexington and Victory how the deck is embedded inside the ship, thus rendering obsolete the exposed launch decks of the Bengal and Confederation classes.
 
I began to write a long reply, but I realized I really don't have to anymore . . . go here and go to History of the Carrier :).

Though I do want to add a bit to it, my own personal opinions :). Rangers were brought about well before the Kilrathi War, and not used very often. Cheap, simple construction using a single flight deck/landing deck structure is ideal for this era fighters limited purposes. The Concordia-class is just an evolution of this thinking, 2 "bays" for double the fighter capacity/sorties.
The Bengal is a little of an enigma to me since it was first introduced in 2619, IIRC. As a strike carrier, my guess is the tube launch system was experimental at the time to try and sortie as many craft as possible for quick strikes and just happened to be a "before its time" idea.
I have no idea what the "landing strips" on the Confed and Waterloo classes are used for, though I get the impression that fighter-carrying capability were almost an afterthought for both, maybe a result of a carrier shortage.
The Lexingtons were just the result of knowledge gained through many years fighting the Kilrathi. 3 isolated bays so that if 1 is hit, the carrier is not out of action.
The Midways and Vesuvii just seem to be evolutionary steps up the ladder (combining good ideas from all previous carriers). Tube launch systems to get as many craft as possible out in the shortest amount of time (also lets you launch craft up until all tubes are destroyed - IIRC the Vesuvii-based fighters launch through tubes) and multiple landing bays on the Midways to ensure all the pilots can come back even if one is destroyed.

My biggest (latest ;) ) 'in universe' carrier quesiton would be why the seemingly solid Lexington concept seemed all but scrapped at the end of the Kilrathi War. My personal opinon would be the Lexingtons were pretty expensive to build and the 'war weary Confed economy' probably couldn't support their construction. I'd guess a few more were built after the Kilrathi War (no reason to let the capital sunk into the shipyards geared to make them go to waste) at least until the purpose of the design (and maybe the cost in building one) was replaced with the Midway class.

C-ya
 
I don't think the Lexington class was retired at all since it's far more advanced than the Concordia class. My guess is that at WCP times, the main bulk of the carrier forces consist of Lexington class carriers and few Concordias, which are either beeing slowly phased out or at least not beeing into production anymore, along with few Vesuvius carriers and the Midway class coming online.
 
Viper: That site says that phase shielding was developed early... It was, I beleive, developed during the time Blair was on Caernarvon, after WC1 and before WC2.
 
Antman said:
Viper: That site says that phase shielding was developed early... It was, I beleive, developed during the time Blair was on Caernarvon, after WC1 and before WC2.
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Read Action Stations, it came out when you were 11 years old.

I found this information about bays to all who is interested.

"Air Shields: To reduce the amount of time required to launch and recover fighters, carriers leave their hangar bays open to space. To reduce the amount of time required to ready and repair fighters, all carriers keep their hangar bays pressurized, to create a "shirtsleeves" working enviroment. This seemingly-impossible combination works because of air shields. These shields use state control fields to align the magnetic axes of all the air molecules near the hangar bay door, sophisticated electromagnetic field generators then trap the air, pushing it back into the ship."

As for carriers, I was under the impression ConFleet used most of their resources to build Vesuvius-class supercarriers after the Kilrathi War. I remember Captain Johnny mentioned some 8 Vesuvii in service around WCP. Those monsters required the material needed for at least 2-3 standard carriers. But they did make several carriers, like rebuilding the Lexington and making the Princeton.
 
I think they use magnetic fields to retain the atomosphere, in False Colors they talk about this quite a bit when they are repairing the karga. They also mention that the Karga has huge doors at both ends of the hangar bays which can be closed during battle to give extra protection to flight operations.
 
The fact? The WC3/4 engine couldn't handle the complicated design of the Concordia and other ships, so they made the ships more "boxed" like.

And the Ranger class remains my favorite.
 
LeHah said:
The fact? The WC3/4 engine couldn't handle the complicated design of the Concordia and other ships, so they made the ships more "boxed" like.
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That explaination is no fun ;).

Psych said:
As for carriers, I was under the impression ConFleet used most of their resources to build Vesuvius-class supercarriers after the Kilrathi War. I remember Captain Johnny mentioned some 8 Vesuvii in service around WCP. Those monsters required the material needed for at least 2-3 standard carriers. But they did make several carriers, like rebuilding the Lexington and making the Princeton.
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This was my impression also. I can't see a peacetime Confed economy authorizing the funds to build the equivalent of more than 17 fleet carriers (the Vesuvii, Princeton, and Lady Lex + some Lexington-class. 17 is about what Confed fought the Kilrathi with for years), plus authorizing the funds to develop a whole new line of carriers (Midway- though the introduction of these would mean the retirement of the two Concordia-class ships left, if they were stil around). Maybe a few were built, but I'm beginning to think the Lexington-class was just a casualty of politics. Maybe if the Vesuvii hadn't been introduced, the Lexington-class would have been the premiere carriers at the time of WCP.

Antman said:
That site says that phase shielding was developed early... It was, I beleive, developed during the time Blair was on Caernarvon, after WC1 and before WC2.
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Phase shielding was developed well before the Kilrathi War, ala the previously mentioned Action Stations.

C-ya
 
That site says that phase shielding was developed early... It was, I beleive, developed during the time Blair was on Caernarvon, after WC1 and before WC2.
Click to expand...

Psych didn't say that; Antman did.
 
Hmm... I remember reading somewhere about the 'new' phase shields. If they had them pre-war, why wouldn't they be on capital ships in WC1?
 
Antman said:
Hmm... I remember reading somewhere about the 'new' phase shields. If they had them pre-war, why wouldn't they be on capital ships in WC1?
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They do have them in WC1, but the shield/weapon dominance 'seesaw' we see in all of WC is leaning toward the weapons at this time.

C-ya
 
Antman said:
Hmm... I remember reading somewhere about the 'new' phase shields. If they had them pre-war, why wouldn't they be on capital ships in WC1?
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Because as the war goes on, Confed and Kilrathi will always make new weapons to counter the current shielding. WC2 simply had the newer versions that required torpedoes to penetrate too.

Maybe you should focus on doing your homework rather then making 20 RPG forums...
 
Dundradal said:
I think they use magnetic fields to retain the atomosphere, in False Colors they talk about this quite a bit when they are repairing the karga. They also mention that the Karga has huge doors at both ends of the hangar bays which can be closed during battle to give extra protection to flight operations.
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that the Kilrathi never developed magnetic atmospheric shields. In fact, I thought that Bear mentioned in False Colors that one of the disadvantages the Kilrathi had during the war was the lack of airshields. Also, didn't Hobbes... "remove" the crew of his ship by opening the hangar door, while they were all in it, the only way he survived was by wearing a spacesuit?

From what I read and can tell, the Kilrathi don't have airshields. That's why I had a problem with Fleet Action and it's ignorance of what was already written. I could be wrong, of course. Haven't read False Colors and End Run in a while now.
 
It didn't work. The bay's air ran out slowly, and then the Confed troopship docked with it, hence stopping the transfer of air into space.

They also didn't have ejection seats.
 
Expendable said:
They also didn't have ejection seats.
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Thrakhath bailed out of a fighter at least twice, though that may have been a custom modification for the Prince's fighter.

IIRC, the reason for no ejection seats in the Dralthis in SM2 was a conflict between human and Kilrathi technology.
 
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