Cruiser Confusion

Bob and I analyzed the various references to the Border Worlds fleet the other night... the Intrepid's battlegroup did include 'half a dozen cutters', distinct from corvettes.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Bob and I analyzed the various references to the Border Worlds fleet the other night... the Intrepid's battlegroup did include 'half a dozen cutters', distinct from corvettes.
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But are cutters meant for anti-capship work or anti-fighter? The corvettes seemed to be designed for anti-capship stuff, at least to judge by how we've seen them used in WC, through the short story in End Run and the WC3 Corvette or WCP's Barracuda.
 
Haesslich said:
But are cutters meant for anti-capship work or anti-fighter? The corvettes seemed to be designed for anti-capship stuff, at least to judge by how we've seen them used in WC, through the short story in End Run and the WC3 Corvette or WCP's Barracuda.
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From the 'UBW vs FRLN' thread, LOAF's post mentions that the ships in question are "old revenue cutters." This sounds a lot like a customs boat to me, so my guess on it would be light, extremely fast, and geared against civilian spacecraft. Probably lighter weapons like laser cannons, so they can disable smugglers and land a boarding party. Though, knowing the Border Worlds, there is no telling what they are armed with now.
 
They are probably jack of all trade vessels pressed into whatever is needed from them. Ships smaller than frigates seem to often be patrol craft for confed held sections of space (ex. johnny green)
 
Dundradal said:
They are probably jack of all trade vessels pressed into whatever is needed from them. Ships smaller than frigates seem to often be patrol craft for confed held sections of space (ex. johnny green)
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TCS Johnny Green was a corvette, however - designed for light anti-capship work, the way a fighter-bomber or a destroyer is (and they refer to Corvettes in this fashion in the novel).

Cutters, however, traditionally are lightly armed fast boats used for patrol, however. But would they be more anti-fighter, to distinguish them from corvettes, which are anti-capship?
 
It seems to be like anti-crime/anti-smuggler more then anything. So it's dead meat when up against a fighter or a capship, it's not built for that kind of work.
 
psych said:
It seems to be like anti-crime/anti-smuggler more then anything. So it's dead meat when up against a fighter or a capship, it's not built for that kind of work.
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If smugglers are using ships like Talons, Orions, Galaxies, or Centurions, however, I'd want at least a ship that has enough turrets and guns to take on one of those. Maybe something like the Kamekhs of Privateer?
 
The Border Worlds could've fought the war against Confed more intelligently. The Kilrathi disarmed with the treaty of Torgo, why didn't the Border Worlds buy/steal one or two H'Varkanns from them, the Kilrathi had to disband them anyway. These Dreadnoughts are 22 kms long! Along with a stock of super polymers, of course.

Confed wouldn't have stood a chance. They would've needed Blair to launch a T-Bomb strike on the Border Worlds capital in Orestes.

And when the Border Worlds were done with Confed (after two months or so), they could've dealt with rival 'junk-empire' Landreich.
 
Fruitcake said:
The Border Worlds could've fought the war against Confed more intelligently. The Kilrathi disarmed with the treaty of Torgo, why didn't the Border Worlds buy/steal one or two H'Varkanns from them, the Kilrathi had to disband them anyway. These Dreadnoughts are 22 kms long! Along with a stock of super polymers, of course.

Confed wouldn't have stood a chance. They would've needed Blair to launch a T-Bomb strike on the Border Worlds capital in Orestes.

And when the Border Worlds were done with Confed (after two months or so), they could've dealt with rival 'junk-empire' Landreich.
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Last I looked, the majority of the Kilrathi fleet was destroyed in orbit around Kilrah - that included almost all of the Hvar'kann-class ships. It's why the Vorghath was lucky to make it clear of Kilrah orbit as things went 'boom'. There's also the problem of trying to negotatiate with the Confederation, who would probably be the ones who had any surplus Kilrathi ships anyways and who you happen to be fighting....

T-Bombs were limited in usefulness to very tectonically unable worlds, so outside of causing a few earthquakes, you wouldn't have had seen as much damage on Orestes as was done on Kilrah - a simple orbital strike would've been much easier.
 
Ok, the sentence "X could've fought the war against Y more intelligently" is hereby forbidden. :)

The explanation above is pretty cool, because it shows that even in the Real World (c) there is a lot of confusion between shipclasses. That only makes the WCU more realistic, because it is alsof confusing, eheheh.

Another thing, I always figured that any kind of escort something would be actually fast - like a Hornet is an escort fighter because it can go faster than the drayman and intercept the attackers. Nice to know that I was wrong. :p
 
The other point to keep in mind is that the Border Worlders weren't trying to fight a war against Confed. They were trying to *prevent* a war. Everything that they put up against Confed was what they could scrape up on virtually no notice (WC4 was compressed into 2 odd weeks) for a fight they didn't want and hadn't been expecting.

ETA: I don't think Fruitcake's post was entirely serious, but what the hell.

Best, Raptor
 
Bandit LOAF said:
The "Achilles or Agamemnon" class is a good opportunity for someone who wants to invent a fanboy ubership - they're supposed to be "the fleets heaviest cruisers" -- which means you can, arguably, set up a ship that's bigger and more powerful than the Concordia and Gettysburg-class ships.

All we know about the ships is that there are only two of them in the fleet and that they carry a crew of 330.
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Hmm, I've been playing around with a 3d model of a cruiser for my own purposes but if someone wants to put together the statistics on it then let me know. I was just trying to improve my modelling techniques on a bigger capship. I'm not personally a big believer in fanboy creations but what the heck, might be interesting.
 
Maj.Striker said:
Hmm, I've been playing around with a 3d model of a cruiser for my own purposes but if someone wants to put together the statistics on it then let me know. I was just trying to improve my modelling techniques on a bigger capship. I'm not personally a big believer in fanboy creations but what the heck, might be interesting.
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The most 'realistic' loadout I can think of would be a Tallahassee with a flight deck. Anti-capship weapons, coupled with Arrows and Hellcats, would make for a nasty surprise. Think of it as a WCIV-era Waterloo.
 
Notice that the Plunckett-class Cruisers of the 70s and 80s didn't have any AMGs. Also, the Cerberus carried a heavy plasma gun and tachyon guns instead of AMGs. Perhaps Confed was retitring the Anti-Matter Gun (although you do see them on Vesuvius-class Carriers). You may want to think of making Plasma, Particle and Tachyon weapons the centerpiece guns on your cruiser model. I would really be interested in what you come up with.

I noticed that the WC Saga team came up with a really cool light cruiser model, the Savannah-class. Appearantly this is a cruiser class commissioned after the battle of Earth. Are there any canon sources for this ship?
 
Did you use the search button? Apparently not . . .

(the intention was to make it the light cruiser class of the FLRS Xenophon in the False Colors novel . . .)
 
Here's a shot of what I have so far...

cruiser.jpg
 
psych said:
Did you use the search button? Apparently not . . .

(the intention was to make it the light cruiser class of the FLRS Xenophon in the False Colors novel . . .)
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Psych, the Savannah question was an afterthought. My post was really about the cruiser model that Maj.Striker was presenting. I was also asking about the feasability of making a new cruisers heavy armament plasma or particle based like the Plunckett-class
 
I thought it looked familiar too, aside from the star trek-ish nacelles, and I just put my finger on it. It really has the feel of an SG-1 replicator ship. It has that hard kind of lego block feel, nondescript black color, and imposing look.
 
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