Concordia design flaw

frostytheplebe

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
Disclaimer: This is not about the rumored flaws with the PTC

The Concordia's flight deck layout seems quite different from that of most of the Carriers we get to fly off of. Perhaps this was a flawed design? It seems like the Concordia has flight operation problems quite often, between the deck being bombed, damaged in a fight and unable to launch fighters, etc. The question is, how does it keep getting damaged during fights? The flight desk is completely enclosed, and the design itself makes it look more like a closet on the back of the ship. If any ship should have flight ops problems, it should be the Bengal class. Most of the flight deck is pretty well exposed to open space.
 
The flight ramps exposed on the claw are not that dangerous, you can armor them and possibly shut them, like we see in the movie.

And ofcourse the cats probably figured out where the launch areas are and go right for them. And each time they cannot launch fighters, you never know exactly what is jammed(I never seen a thrashed cat fighter lying around on the flight deck)
 
Err -- the 'design flaw' highlighted here is that saboteurs who are already aboard the ship can place bombs on key systems. :) Of the three times we see the Concordia's launch capacity, at least two are because of internal bombs (Jazz bombs the flight deck at Gwynedd D, Minx bombs it as she's escaping in Special Operations 2--and given the proximity and the apparent intent, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the damage suffered at Gwynedd B wasn't also sabotage).
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Err -- the 'design flaw' highlighted here is that saboteurs who are already aboard the ship can place bombs on key systems. :) Of the three times we see the Concordia's launch capacity, at least two are because of internal bombs (Jazz bombs the flight deck at Gwynedd D, Minx bombs it as she's escaping in Special Operations 2--and given the proximity and the apparent intent, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the damage suffered at Gwynedd B wasn't also sabotage).
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What about when you first come across her? And then when Shadow dies?
 
Those are two of the three times I mentioned.

The flight deck is damaged without any explanation when you first meet the Concordia (Gwynedd B). When Shadow dies (Gwynedd D), it was a bomb set by Jazz -- there's a cutscene where you see the bomb counting down and exploding.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Those are two of the three times I mentioned.

The flight deck is damaged without any explanation when you first meet the Concordia (Gwynedd B). When Shadow dies (Gwynedd D), it was a bomb set by Jazz -- there's a cutscene where you see the bomb counting down and exploding.
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Thats right, I forgot about the bomb. My bad.
 
Depends on the method. Each system has its own flaws that are inherit in the very nature of the design.

Launch tubes can be covered at teh end, but need to be opened to launch fighters, so the tubes can be prone to jamning, cloging, etc... damage means fighters can't launch normally... especially if lots of fighters share just a few tubes and get shot out something like bullets in an ozzi. Fighters could launch through teh "recovery bays" but the small size of the bay would mean the fighter would almost instantly be a sitting duck for anywhere from 3 to 40 seconds while it got up to speed.

Exposed runways (WC1 Tiger's Claw) can just as easily be damaged if the catapult is damaged... fighters would still be able to launch, but without the catapult they would expend a far greater amount of time + fuel to "get up to speed", leaving them sitting targets.

Enclosed "flight bays" (Tiger Claw in WC-movie, WC3's TCS Victory) may have had a few catapults for "emergency launch" (for when the ship is being surprise-attacked and whatnot), but cut its gravity and the massive "flight deck hanger" instantly becomes a death-trap with countless objects of various size and mass and pointiness and explosiveness randomly bumping into each other. If the "flight bay" is unshielded a breach in its massive door can be equally as dangerous (and messy).

In the TV series, Space: Above and Beyond, each fighter apparently has its own launch tube. There would appear to be enough of them that if a few are damaged the rest are still usable for launching, and when doing recovery if your normal tube is damaged they just send you to a tube that would have been used for reserved someone else (dead pilots don't need a tube since their's no ship to land in it). Additionally any kind of computer error or pilot error or damage/debris would cause problems with launching/landing. Biggest flaw to this design is that its very high construction and very high maintenance/repair.
 
The truth is that canonically-speaking nearly every ship launches fighters via catapult, including the Lexington. I know you can play the game and inch your Hellcat back and forth along the deck instead of rocketing off into space, but it's well documented that she conducts fighter launches via catapult.-

One point to clarify: many of you are conflating the selling point of a 3D engine ("fly through bays!") with something relevant to the living, breathing world. Colonel Blair wouldn't know what you were talking about -- since he flies through *all* the bays, even when they're 10-pixel-wide bitmaps to us. :)

Moreover, we're being far too holistic about this. We should tear off the band-aid and admit that there's probably no reasonable way to judge launch procedures based on appearance alone -- since the folks behind the world have absolutely no qualms about changing that appearance regularly. To the point, visually speaking:

Wing Commander (PC): The Tiger's Claw launches fighters through multiple tubes and recovers them from a separate forward recovery deck.

The Secret Missions (SNES): The Tiger's Claw launches and recovers fighters from the same forward deck.

Super Wing Commander (3DO): The Tiger's Claw launches fighters through multiple tubes and recovers them from a separate side recovery deck.

Wing Commander Academy (TV): The Tiger's Claw launches fighters from multiple tubes and recovers them from a separate side recovery deck, except sometimes they also launch from the side deck.

Wing Commander (Movie): The Tiger's Claw launches and recovers fighters from the same forward deck.

So... what does that all mean?

- The Tiger's Claw has launch tubes and a recovery deck, which can also be used to launch fighters.
- The Tiger's Claw has launch tubes in the 'wings', a central launch recovery deck and two side launch/recovery decks.
- Nobody knows.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
- The Tiger's Claw has launch tubes and a recovery deck, which can also be used to launch fighters.
- The Tiger's Claw has launch tubes in the 'wings', a central launch recovery deck and two side launch/recovery decks.
- Nobody knows.
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You know, out off all the carriers we fly off, it seems the TC is the biggest Enigma of the bunch.
 
frostytheplebe said:
You know, out off all the carriers we fly off, it seems the TC is the biggest Enigma of the bunch.
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Wrong - quite the opposite, in fact. The Tiger's Claw is the one ship we know the most about. You assume other ships are less complicated... but we really just don't know anything about them.
 
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