Concordia vs Hakaga

[Guest]

Is there any plans to have a one on one slugfest between the mighty Concordia and a Kilrathi Hakaga dreadnought in any of the missions in chapter 4-5. That would be an awesome display of fireworks to see our favourite carrier chew through a kilthrathi dreadnought with its 8 antimatter batteries

 

[Quarto]

Well... no. It would be something of a waste, to send the Concordia against a super-carrier - the enemy would concentrate all their bombers on the Concordia, and the ship would never even get a chance to fire off a single shot.

 

[Guest]

~~~ thats true. But Cap ship fights were so much fun to watch in Wing Commander 3 and 4 that I couldn't stop myself asking that question. All the same though I'm quite sure the Concordia was heavily torpedoed regardless of its position during the battle of Earth and with no real time to repair it afterwards its small wonder why it crashed into Vespus a few months later from just one torpedo hit.

 

[Dundradal]

Hakagas are not dreadnaughts...they are not designed for ship to ship engagements. They are designed to use their fighters for power projection. Even if they were somehow to get within gun range of each other, I wouldn't be surprised if a Hakaga could take at least 1 PTC shot and keep going if not maybe more. Remember that a Hakaga slugged off torpedo strikes like gnats during the Sirius strikes.

 

[Crazy J]

Last I heard the Concordia-class wasn't well armed, it was more equipped for point-defense than for a straight up fight. A Hakaga carrier, not only capable of carrying considerably more fighters than any Confed carrier to that point, was also far better armored and presumably armed. I don't remember what kind of firepower they were supposed to pack, but if two torpedoes can drop a fleet carrier and these are 'only' crippled by four torpedoes that is a massive upgrade in terms of armor.

In theory, a Concordia could survive the engagement, but this takes into account other factors aside from armor and weapons stats. This takes into account pilot and crew skill. And it would probably be done over a series of several strikes, sort of like how the Lucifer destroyer in Freespace was ultimately taken down. One bee sting at a time. If a Concordia carrier with excellent fighter pilots was to bide its time, taking down their fighters wing by wing and squadron by squadron (assuming they weren't given replacement fighters) they might be able to launch a quick strike with some torpedo bombers and heavy fighters. But I think that such an engagement would be the exception rather than rule.

 

[Dyret]

Last I heard the Concordia-class wasn't well armed, it was more equipped for point-defense than for a straight up fight. A Hakaga carrier, not only capable of carrying considerably more fighters than any Confed carrier to that point, was also far better armored and presumably armed. I don't remember what kind of firepower they were supposed to pack, but if two torpedoes can drop a fleet carrier and these are 'only' crippled by four torpedoes that is a massive upgrade in terms of armor.

In theory, a Concordia could survive the engagement, but this takes into account other factors aside from armor and weapons stats. This takes into account pilot and crew skill. And it would probably be done over a series of several strikes, sort of like how the Lucifer destroyer in Freespace was ultimately taken down. One bee sting at a time. If a Concordia carrier with excellent fighter pilots was to bide its time, taking down their fighters wing by wing and squadron by squadron (assuming they weren't given replacement fighters) they might be able to launch a quick strike with some torpedo bombers and heavy fighters. But I think that such an engagement would be the exception rather than rule.

Were talking about the Confederation class dreadnaught Concordia.

 

[Crazy J]

Well, had I known that...

In that case, disregard my last post and i'll say that if the PTC would work right then the Hakaga would be royally screwed. Remember Goddard?

 

[Spien]

Unless Blair is flying off of the Concordia I think a Hakaga's fighter compliment would make short work of it.

 

[Quarto]

In that case, disregard my last post and i'll say that if the PTC would work right then the Hakaga would be royally screwed. Remember Goddard?

The Concordia's gun isn't quite the same as the one that hit Goddard, though. Additionally, it carries with it a risk of the Concordia exploding .

 

[Tigerhawk]

Yeah, the difference in ships certainly does make a difference...

...on that type of memory, though, anyone remember WC2 where you're flying the Ferrets from Caenarvon to take out the screen of fighters around a destroyer (at least I think it was a destroyer...) After the fighters were through, you could sit back and watch the carrier Concordia rip that Kilrathi capship to shreds with its antimatter guns. THAT was fun to watch...though I also did find it rather horrifying that, after playing through the game four times and playing it my fifth time around, watching the Concordia get taken out while you could do nothing but sit there.

It goes both ways. But the carrier Concordia could certainly watch after herself decently enough, being a Fleet carrier and all.

 

[Dundradal]

Your post made me think of the beating the Concordia took in her lifetime...not sure if LOAF or anyone else has this stat marked down but I wonder how many torp hits she took in her career. She never seemed to get a full refit while in service only field refits to keep her on the line...

 

[cpwdakilr]

she only took one hit to go down on vespus didn't she?

BLOODY HELL, those field refits must have been a real bodge job

 

[Unregistered]

the concordia gun is a lot less powerfull then the one that hit goddard, but it could target ships, and the sivar weapon could not. and, as angel mentioned to tolwyn in that cutscene before they destroy the kamekh, they were not at full power, so they might short-circuit the powerplant.

a direct confrontation, in the favor of the concordia using its PTC, would depend on the effect of the shot, if one shot was not enough to take a hakaga down, the concordia(with drained recources) would be forced to retreat or need a miracle to win.

A tactical view, one would make several strikes, to "defang the beast", and move the concordia in to finish the massive ship off in a single shot.

 

[Quarto]

she only took one hit to go down on vespus didn't she?

We don't know anything about what happened at Vespus.

 

[Mjr. Whoopass]

If the Concordia isn't powerful enough to take on the Hakaga, maybe you could give it more support ships to defeat the Hakaga with superior numbers?... or maybe have a reason for why the Hakaga is low on fighters so it's unable to launch the massive bomber strike that could cripple the Concordia before it had a chance to fire a single shot?

 

[ChrisReid]

she only took one hit to go down on vespus didn't she?

BLOODY HELL, those field refits must have been a real bodge job

We don't know enough about the Vespus battle to really say, and the whole point of bringing up the 'field refits' was to emphasize the point about the Concordia soaking up so much damage over the years. Beyond not knowing whether so-called 'field refits' were really the extent of the work done on the Concordia, the fact that the ship was able to continue for so long throughout numerous major battles would indicate that these repairs did an amazing job.

 

[Dundradal]

We don't know enough about the Vespus battle to really say, and the whole point of bringing up the 'field refits' was to emphasize the point about the Concordia soaking up so much damage over the years. Beyond not knowing whether so-called 'field refits' were really the extent of the work done on the Concordia, the fact that the ship was able to continue for so long throughout numerous major battles would indicate that these repairs did an amazing job.

Exactly what I was getting at...reading that post just reminded me of Bear's comments in ER after they jump out of Vukar to link up with the fleet. He notices the Concordia has a few more battle scars and has been quite a long time without a true refit.

It's pretty amazing to consider the amount of abuse the Concordia absorbed and the amount of time she was on the front. It seems like the only time they would have had the time to do a refit on her was during the armistice, although I doubt Jamison and Jukaga would have allowed such a servicing to take place without a fit.

 

[Redaxe]

I don't quite see how the foreign secretary Jamison has so much authority over the military. In long drawn out wars of attrition the military generals usually take over full command of almost everything as its usually unwise to leave civilians in control of a war economy and equally unwise to leave the military in control of a recession economy ie. Tolwyn.

I read somewhere that the Concordia took an unlucky torpedo to the engines but I can't validate the source or where its information from. However if you torpedo the launch deck of a carrier it would be pretty much screwed with a massive internal blast- same if you do the engine whilst its in orbit over a planet.

 

[Crazy J]

I'm surprised they stopped making the Confederation-class; all they had to do was slightly redesign the keel without the PTC, and you'd still have a perfectly fine ship; 120 fighters (more than any other carrier aside from Vesuvius, Midway, and Hakaga), more anti-matter guns than most cruisers, all that armor... without having to worry about the PTC, they could have had more room for either additional fighters, more supplies, or extra engines to increase speed. Alas, I think I will never understand government politics.

 

[Quarto]

I'm surprised they stopped making the Confederation-class; all they had to do was slightly redesign the keel without the PTC, and you'd still have a perfectly fine ship; 120 fighters (more than any other carrier aside from Vesuvius, Midway, and Hakaga), more anti-matter guns than most cruisers, all that armor... without having to worry about the PTC, they could have had more room for either additional fighters, more supplies, or extra engines to increase speed. Alas, I think I will never understand government politics.

The reason is simple. You don't want to ever put your carrier into capship combat. Even if it's something as heavily armed as the Confederation-class, there's still a risk that the ship will sustain enough damage to take it out of action for a few months - in which case, you lose the support of its entire fighter wing, which would obviously have been far more useful and destructive than any amount of AMGs. In other words, even if the Concordia can take out any Kilrathi destroyer or cruiser that tries its luck... it's just not worth the risk, especially if the Concordia's fighters can take the same cruiser/destroyer out of action without it even getting near the carrier.

Considering that, is it really worth wasting money on heavy armour and AMGs for a carrier? It's really far more effective to instead build an ordinary (and cheaper) fleet carrier, and spend the left-over money on new fighters or a destroyer or something.


Oh, and also, the PTC was the keel. So, you're really talking about "redesigning" a car engine by cutting out the actual engine .