Confederation Fleet Tactics

ELTEE

ELTEE

Vice Admiral
I was looking through some old threads and came across the Gettysburg class (I think the Saga team created it.) Sounds like the majority of the Confed and Kilrathi fleets engaged themselves without carriers and starfighter support.

This got me thinking - what would typical tactics be? Were carriers and starfighters *that* rare during the Kilrathi war? If so, why? Did both sides just continue to place that much higher of a percentage of available resources into supercruisers and other capital ships?

Curious on everyone's opinions, etc.
 
Yes, I was searching for the model after the Release of the Prologue and know from there on that the Gettsburg are not in Saga. Starman01 give me last year the model and Kevin finish it for me :)
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The green will be in my Enigma 2666 mod as the TCS Austin and another ship *gg*
The blue ones are the TCS Franken, TCS Vicksburg and TCS Houston in the Last Line of Defence Mod.

Weapons are 4 x Tripple Heavy Neutron Gun Battery - later Heavy Anti Mater Battery
8 Dual Laser Turrets
Misslelauncher in Front
Dual Capship Missilelauncher

844m l, 450m w, 256m h
68.000 tons
2 Launch Tubes left/right
24 fighters - 8 x Hornet/Scimitar/Rapier - later 8 Ferret/Epee/Rapier. In Last Line - 12 Arrow/Hellcat and 3 Marine Shuttles.

In actuality, the Gettysburg class was not developed from previous battleship designs and might more appropriately be considered a "Super Cruiser" due to having been developed from the basic cruiser design. As first commissioned, the Gettysburg class battlecruisers were large and imposing vessels. Their primary role was to act as flagships and command and control vessels. Often they were assigned to carrier battle fleets as the command ship for the escort group.
The Battlecruisers were constructed in the mid Twenty-Six Forties as a solution to the Confederation's need for a large ship to fill the role originally performed by battleships but able to keep up with the carrier battle groups which were becoming the mainstay of the Confederation forces. The Gettysburg class is just slightly slower than a Bengal class carrier. The ships were built with extremely heavy shielding similar to battleships but sacrificed armor to be able to keep up with the carriers they were designed to escort.
In combat, these ships were greatly feared and many Kilrathi Fralthi cruisers and Ralari destroyers met their fate under the guns of these battleships. Famous ships of the class include the Vicksburg, the Austin, and the Houston. The TCS Austin, a Gettysburg-class ship, served as Vice Admiral Tolwyn's flagship during the defense of Firekka and the First Enigma Campaigns. It returned surviving pilots from the TCS Tiger's Claw home after the loss of that carrier.
Production of the battlecruiser class stopped in the late part of the Twenty-Six Fifties. The surviving members of the class were retired and put into mothball status. The official reason was that it would be too expensive to upgrade the class fully to modern standards but several senior fleet officers continue to push for the reactivation and upgrade of these battlecruisers. Upgrades would include replacing the neutron cannons with anti-matter cannons like was done with Waterloo class cruisers and the upgrading of the shields to modern standards. A possible upgrade is the replacement of the engines with more powerful engines. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that these upgrade will ever take place due to cost considerations.
 
Yeah, that's the one Deathsnake. Here is the Concordia supercruiser (did supercruisers supercede battlecruisers?)

EDIT - still can't figure out how to post pictures!
 
The Concordia from the movie are a Supercruiser - the Gettysburg is a Battlecruiser.
My Idea for the Battleships, we read in Action Stations and Fleet Actions (Bainbridge was talking to Tolwyn that a few Battleships still in the Navy) was the front of the Gettysburg and copy it to the back and a few engines - done is the Battleship ^^ I don't think that they had a hangarbay. The Gettysburg is also a mix - Front Battleship - Back Carrier :)
 
Right - totally get this. I know one is a 'battlecruiser' and one is a 'supercruiser.' I'm asking what the actual fleet composition was on a broader scale.
 
The Gettysburg comes from Freedom Flight, SM2 (TCS Austin) and Super Wing Commander. There is nothing in the way of information beyond little things like that the Austin is bigger than the Claw. In SM2 the Exeter model is used to represent the TCS Austin/Gettysburg-class. Everything else is what Saga has brewed up.

In the first years of the war, I think the role of fighters was slightly smaller because there wasn't that many fighter-carrying capships around (from what we see in AS, although we see tons of fighters). You would see more small fleet actions between DD and CA-size ships. However, I think the "fightering up" of the fleet was something that happened quickly. We know fighter actions were common during the 2640s (we have things like Tolwyn's action at McAuliffe, Svetlana's father contributing to the loss of his carrier, Custer's Carnival, etc).

While carriers might have been rare (or at least small in number compared to the thousands of DDs and hundreds of CAs roaming the Milky Way), they were still the best means of projecting force in an area.

I imagine most of the war being fought in a similar manner to the War in the Pacific. Most of the engagements are between small naval forces, usually DDs and the occasional heavier ship. Think how many small fleet actions we read/see in the WC lore. The Movie related stuff is filled with ship-to-ship actions of DD and CA size ships. I see this as being the main way the war was fought. Corvettes, Destroyers, Cruisers in task groups engaging enemy task groups for control of areas.

Then you the carriers are jumping around from hot spot to hot spot, supporting assaults, raiding bases, defending others. Although, I see a difference when it comes to the heavier capships, because many of them will eventually mount decent fighter wings. So they become their own fighter support as well as mounting heavy anti-ship weaponry.

When it comes to number of carriers in service, I think that really depends on what date you are looking at. In the last 3 years of the war Confed suffers heavy carrier losses (I want to say 8 alone in 2666 according to ER). So that means in the early 2660s Confed had somewhere near 20 carriers. Now the galaxy is bigger than the Pacific, but given the make up of the US Navy during WWII the numbers make sense to me. Granted, I'd expect ConFleet to have something more along the lines of 30-40 carriers, but we know Confed starts the war at a disadvantage by not having the military infrastructure there to rapidly build large capships.

I have a bit more to say but I'm late for work now...so I'll finish up later on. This is a really interesting topic.

ELTEE said:
EDIT - still can't figure out how to post pictures!
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There is a button on the toolbar for linking to a picture....I'm not sure either how to upload a shot directly into a post though...help anyone?
 
We don't really know that much about the Gettysburg-class... and the fanon history that's floating around actually kind of contradicts the only time it's ever mentioned by that name.

The single mention of the Gettysburg-class ever is Freedom Flight, which calls the TCS Austin a Gettysburg-class *cruiser*. Note that this is actually a technical error--the author's intent was to have the ship be the same class as the *TCS Gettysburg*, not realizing that the Gettysburg was a Waterloo-class cruiser.

Everything else we assume about this "class" comes from roundabout references to the Austin herself. Specifically, that Super Wing Commander calls her 'larger than the Tiger's Claw' (the context being Jazz bragging about the size of hallways, not the specific tonnage of the ship) and that Secret Missions 2 uses an Exeter destroyer to represent her at one point.

(Note that Johnny's Universe Bible tries to square this away along with End Run's references to Gettysburg being a carrier by explaining that the class is the same as the Waterloo but modified to carry a full complement of fighters...)
 
You mean Jutland. In the Bible are the Carrier-Version of the Waterloo the Jutland-Class. The Saga Team was build for that name a new CVA Carrier. The Trafalgar in the Battle of Vukar Tag is in the novel a CVA.

In SM2 Jazz talk in the Bar a little bit from the Gettysburg. Its a Cruiser, larger and newer then the Tiger's Claw. To Bad that it was only a concept from Lynx. It was never planed for Saga :(
But I hunting the model and have it now :D

But I see the model years ago in another mod here at the CIC:
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But back to the Point: The Yorktown, Concordia, Lexington, Wake - all these ships have no armament to engage a capship or a heavy fighterwing. So the escorts do the job. And the Gettysburg was a try to mix a Carrier and a Battleship. The Confederation Class and the Vesuvius are later then the result of that mix. With a good armament and a full fighterwing such ships can do the job alone.
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Here are the TCS McKinley in the Mod : Operation Serpent. The escorts for this ship are not really need :)
 
I'm sorry, you're correct--the bible gives the carrier version sea names and the cruiser version land ones. It's just that in my head I always assume it's the solution that kind of makes sense... but the way it's written *doesn't* actually explain why the Gettysburg would have so many fighters and be referred to as a carrier. :)

I skimmed through Freedom Flight a bit today (everybody keeps one at work, right?) and there are some bits and pieces that might be useful to expanding the Gettysburg, including mention of the Austin's massive flight deck and the fact that she had a silver hull.

Jazz's mention of the ship's size is only in Super Wing Commander, not Secret Missions 2. That's why it's always stuck out to me--there have to be like three people here total who even played that game. :)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I'm sorry, you're correct--the bible gives the carrier version sea names and the cruiser version land ones. It's just that in my head I always assume it's the solution that kind of makes sense... but the way it's written *doesn't* actually explain why the Gettysburg would have so many fighters and be referred to as a carrier. :)
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It does seem to be one of those ret-cons that add something to the universe without solving the problem they wanted to solve, I guess. It's always seemed to me to be pretty clear that the Jutland, as referred to by the bible is essentially an altered Waterloo (we had some pretty loud discussions about that in Standoff). And the only reason to bother introducing this fact would be to explain what's up with the Gettysburg... which has a name that fits the Waterloo instead.

I also seem to recall SO1 actually referring to the Gettysburg as a Waterloo (and of course, it does *show* it as a Waterlooo, which should count for something). All in all, it seems to be just the books that decided to go their own way and give us a headache :).
 
Can't be because the Waterloo is smaller then the Claw. The Gettysburg is bigger then the Claw I think we have here the same problem as the Manassas light Cruiser from WCA: We didn't see the hull. In SM2 we see a Exeter as a Placeholder.

We should use this model until we see (in the distant future) a officiall Remake of Wing Commander and perhaps we see there an Gettysburg.
From the shipname can it be that the TCS Gettysburg is destroyed and one of the Waterloo continued to use the name Gettysburg again. We see it with the Concordia (3) and Lexington (2) :) And the Gettysburg Class has TCS Austin. Fanstory says Housten and Vicksburg. Thats three Battles of the Civilwar in USA. The Waterloo have names of european land, the Jutland sea battles.

The Lexington Class (Armada, WC3 Novel) have the Names of Presidents ( Lincoln, Washington, Kennedy, Bradshaw) Blair want to serve after the Concordia on the Washington in the Rapiersquadron.
 
Deathsnake said:
Can't be because the Waterloo is smaller then the Claw. The Gettysburg is bigger then the Claw I think we have here the same problem as the Manassas light Cruiser from WCA: We didn't see the hull. In SM2 we see a Exeter as a Placeholder.
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Well, yeah, of course - I was talking about the TCS Gettysburg from SO1, not the Gettysburg class from SM2.

With the Gettysburg class, incidentally, I don't see how we can realistically suppose that this class has a Civil War battles naming scheme. The only ship we know of the Gettysburg class is the TCS Austin, and Austin is *not* a famous Civil War battle. As far as I know, there has never been any Battle of Austin, not just in the Confederate War of Independence but indeed in any war. The use of the name in SM2 of course is simply a reference to Origin's home city (just like the Concordia in WC2). As far as in-universe explanations go, though... about all we could really claim is that the Gettysburg class includes two ships named after American locations (not even cities - Gettysburg is hardly that :) ), and even this claim relies on the baseless assumption that there was in fact a Gettysburg class ship named the TCS Gettysburg - which is not actually a given.
 
Ok. This point goes to you ;)
Then perhaps I need the help from the community:
In Enigma are 2 of those : The Austin and ??
And in Last Line the TCS Franken and ?? and ??

In the Last Line Thread then pls some Shipnames what we can use. My first ideas was the Austerlitz (Enigma) and the Vicksburg and Housten (LLoD)
 
The Lexington Class (Armada, WC3 Novel) have the Names of Presidents ( Lincoln, Washington, Kennedy, Bradshaw) Blair want to serve after the Concordia on the Washington in the Rapiersquadron.
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There's no Lexington class in the WC3 novel. The only ship we know is the TCS Lexington in Armada... which was named after a battle and not a president. The others are just ships that are all named after presidents which some fan decided must be the same class as the ship from Armada for no real reason. In reality we don't even know that they're even all carriers.

The TCS Washington can't be a new type of heavy carrier for 2668/9 because... the only reference we have to it is that Doomsday might be tranferred to command Rapiers there in 2656. (He specifies as "Rapier wing commander" which would be a strange type-specific ing for a carrier... it honestly sounds more like the Rapier-loaded-down Exeter we see in Secret Missions 1...)

The TCS Kennedy and the TCS Lincoln are just names listed on the 'CGM Competition' article in Victory Streak. All we know is they're home to at least a squadron of fighters... which could easily be a much more common cruiser or a base instead of a heavy carrier (especially since some of the names on that list include... a known cruiser and bases.) (Which honestly seems more likely, given the same article's note tha the *Victory* couldn't attend the competition because it was needed on the front lines...)

... then the TCS Bradshaw is the one that's most likely a (new?) carrier--it's the ship Blair /wants/ to transfer to in WC3 per the Kilrathi Saga manual. But there's still a problem with including it in the scheme: there's no President Bradshaw! It's named after Origin's Patrick Bradshaw. :)

(The WC3 novel does mention two other carriers, the TCS Hermes and Invincible... but if you match the up to the game's fleet cutscene, they really have to be Yorktowns like Victory herself. Or if you stretch it as as never intended, similarly-designed Concordias...)

The use of the name in SM2 of course is simply a reference to Origin's home city (just like the Concordia in WC2).
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It's also worth noting that despite the more famous obvious connotation, the Waterloo class is /also/ named after Origin's home. "Waterloo" was the original name of the city and it kind of survives through the culture there.

As far as in-universe explanations go, though... about all we could really claim is that the Gettysburg class includes two ships named after American locations (not even cities - Gettysburg is hardly that ), and even this claim relies on the baseless assumption that there was in fact a Gettysburg class ship named the TCS Gettysburg - which is not actually a given.
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I'd give Gettysburg-the-location a little more credit. It's not some massive metroplex, but it's sort of... I guess you'd say the shared iconic example of town of that type. Everyone in this area knows Gettysburg. (It's also where President Eisenhower lived after leaving the White House.)

In the Last Line Thread then pls some Shipnames what we can use. My first ideas was the Austerlitz (Enigma) and the Vicksburg and Housten (LLoD)
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I'm not sure what the reference to "Housten" is. Vicksburg is certainly a good parallel for any ship named Gettysburg... that battle ended the same day as Gettysburg and was equally important (probably more important) for turning the tide of the war.
 
Ahh--well there's no battle of Houston, it's just a city in Texas (like Austin it's named after a major figure in the Texas revolution.)

Actually, choosing an American Civil War battle name for a WC ship can be surprisingly difficult. The two sides had different names for many of the more important battles--the Union would name the battle after the nearest water, the Confederacy after the nearest town. So to one side the battle was "Antietam" and the other it was "Sharpsburg." Typically today we refer to the Union names where there was a difference historically...

... but Wing Commander makes that problematic by having a TCS Manassas. Manassas was the *Confederate* name for the battle of Bull Run and so is... well, an odd name for a ship to say the least.
 
Speaking of the Devil ^^ We have no right information about the Class. Only a short pic from WCA. The same source I have for the Gettysburg also have this (its Fanstory - but better than nothing) ^^

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conv...cles/Confederation_Manassas_Light_Cruiser.htm
and here the other:
http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conversions/Rifts-WC-Vehicles/

from some stats it used for a tabletop game :) Some infos are strange (Wolfshound destroyed in the Battle of Earth) but some are really nice and infos we don't have in all the other sources. I think thats the good point for a community: adding more infos and ships to fill some holes in the storyline of the Books and Games :)
 
In general, it can be safely assumed that naming conventions make relatively little sense if you try and straightjacket them into being based on what the class names are. This is because the primary naming convention actually used was, as LOAF has pointed out, things which were near Origin's location. This is not a sensible or likely convention for a 27th-century navy to be using. One thing I was always slightly disappointed by in the WCP map is that they missed the opportunity to include a Concordia system, in which some kind of battle could have been fought for the carrier to be named after.

Partially this can be circumvented by assuming the existence of "blocks" of ships each of which have their own internal naming convention - or, alternatively, different shipyards using different naming conventions (very common with WW2 destroyers). For example, the Royal Navy's Broadsword-class (Type 22) frigates were HMS Broadsword, Brilliant, Brazen, Battleaxe, Boxer, Beaver and Brave, and then, after a slight redesign following the Falklands War, HMS London, Sheffield, Coventry, Cornwall, Cumberland, Campbelltown and Chatham.

So my guess is that the TCS Gettysburg was laid down as a Waterloo-class but then expanded into a larger carrier-class vessel shortly after McAuliffe when the TCN realised it was going to need more carriers than projections had previously called for. Another ship of the same class was then built at whichever shipyard it is that was clearly run by a descendent of Sam Houston who was very proud of his family history or something. After the Firekkan and First Engima campaigns there was a redesign of these ships based on lessons learned and also not starting with a part-completed Waterloo hull to produce the TCS Jutland which eventually became to regarded as the name ship of an entirely new class.

And, clearly, the TCS Bradshaw is named after William Bradshaw, who must have died in some particularly heroic manner shortly before the start of WC3, explaining a) why there will never be a sequel to Standoff and b) why there are no Hakagas in WC3. ;)
 
Ilanin said:
And, clearly, the TCS Bradshaw is named after William Bradshaw, who must have died in some particularly heroic manner shortly before the start of WC3, explaining a) why there will never be a sequel to Standoff and b) why there are no Hakagas in WC3. ;)
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That's some interesting logic you have there. :cool:

I think the remaining Hakagas, after they came online, were held near Kilrah. First, the First Fleet needed to be restocked with heavy ships and pilots, and the need of Emperor Joor'rad / Thrakhath to have a strong military presence close to Kilrah to prevent the other clans from toppling their hold on the throne.

They were then either destroyed with Kilrah or broken up following the treaty stipulations.
 
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