Death's Head
Spaceman
Since we have once again gotten into a stimulating discussing of Kilrathi ship lengths and sizes, I thought it would be fun to reopen discussion. First, when WC3 first came out, some expert speculated that the Kilrathi Dreadnought size just sounded too bogus. I'm sure most of us are now aware that the Manuals KS, and Victory Streak claim the length is 22km. What I never really understood was how the Kilrathi were able to build such as ship, let alone perhaps several, maybe a full eight and four. That's 12 for we apes. What puzzled me was the scenes in WC3 that showed the 'nought dwarfing carriers and cruisers but not nearly to the level it was supposed to according to "cannon sources". If you decide to play for fun once in a while and happen to go down the losing track, you will see the 'nought a few times. The first time is when a sizable fleet raids the Locanda system, second when you encounter the ship itself in proxima and third, when the Victory valiantly rams one of the monsters. according to the "scaling" visible through the game, the length of 2.2 km seems far more realistic, if not precise. I have gone through great lengths reading what I have on hand and scaling the ship according to the Excalibur I flew inside it's shields. As the scaling worked for the Victory almost EXACTLY, the same applied to the 'nought. I have been told this is impossible b/c of this reason or that reason but mostly people have said aw the game will crash. Well I can say that one nine attempts it never did. If the game didn't crash during the trench run I don't know what will crash it, except when you enter locanda and listen to Rollins carry on about the war and you enter the lift.
Then I decided that wasn't good enough, so I read into the novels a bit(I own them all). After I read Heart of the tiger I recall Blair being tractored in by a CARRIER. In WC3 Blair is tractored in by a Dreadnought. Being the military wizard I think I am I analized the definition of Dreadnought. Well the most important requirement for a ship to be a dreadnought is that it needs to have a main armament of Heavy calibur guns or turrets of the same size. Seing as how all battleships are dreadnoughts but not all dreadnoughts are battleships, I read into fleet action to see if there was something on the development of these "carriers". Sure enough in the first few pages, a new type of carrier under construction that had the several key traits, one the multiple heavy batteries of the same calibur being the primary armament, two, heavy armour plating in redundant fashion, and three, high power secondary batteries to deal with fighters and bombers. Sounded like a dreadnought possibility to me. The high number of fighters in this new carrier meant that the ship had to be huge, the size of about twice the current strike carrier was mentioned. By the time of WC3 the Bhanktara class of carriers began to appear. This ship was 920 meters long. Wow the dreadnought was unofficially 2200 meters! Hmm 1840 meters-2200 meters sounds pretty damned close to me. Ships that size, "short" distances such as those are insignificant, especially with those long arms and the unusually stretched nature of the dreadnought dwarfs the previous classes of ships. For those who say dwarfing requires a huge difference, well in mythology a dwarf is about a meter tall, and the avg man is almost two meters tall. Sounds like a huge difference to me.
Then we have the mass issue, KS tells us that dreadnought is 290,000 tons well of course most of the interior is empty that point has been well established but does it need be? all ships are mostly hollow! Let's compare something a little off topic, the Galaxy class of vessels-USS Enterprise is roughly 400,000 tones minimal-some argue the mass could be as much as 4,500,000 tons. Now that ship is not really heavily armored, but it does have heavy engines. Now we look back at dreadnought and we know it has a double or even triple hull, each heavily armoured. A ship that large with so much armour plating cannot be 22km long and be only 290,000 tones, for comparison E-D is only 641 meters long! Compared with other ships of WC, the mass becomes even more important, Vesuvius is about 1600 meters and 200,000 tons roughly, I don't remember the exact mass, but the Midway is 220,000 tons and about 1800 meters long and change. So the mass of 290,000 tones and the length of 2,200 meters seems very realistic indeed. IMHO, ships of that size are verging on the line of impracticality. A ship of this size can do only so much more than a ship half it's size. Now if we look at a length of 22,000 meters, and here comes the Vesuvius, 1600 meters, how does that ship "put the fear of god in the Kilrathi"?
BTW, I calculated the length of the Behemoth to be 6km. Someone said to me that's impossible the behemoth is 9 times as long as the Victory! Well hmm according to my math.. .the Victory is 720 meters, 720 times 9 and man, thats 6380 odd meters according to my in the head approach give or take a hundred. In the time of WCP, the Tiamat was about two miles long and the ONLY ship that even compared to it was the Behemoth, must have forgotten to mention the two kilometer dreadnought. Don't argue that the ships were scrapped becuase the Behemoth got slagged, remember?
It must be they forgot to mention the 'nought just as easily as they added a zero the the end of it's length.
Let the fireworks begin!
Then I decided that wasn't good enough, so I read into the novels a bit(I own them all). After I read Heart of the tiger I recall Blair being tractored in by a CARRIER. In WC3 Blair is tractored in by a Dreadnought. Being the military wizard I think I am I analized the definition of Dreadnought. Well the most important requirement for a ship to be a dreadnought is that it needs to have a main armament of Heavy calibur guns or turrets of the same size. Seing as how all battleships are dreadnoughts but not all dreadnoughts are battleships, I read into fleet action to see if there was something on the development of these "carriers". Sure enough in the first few pages, a new type of carrier under construction that had the several key traits, one the multiple heavy batteries of the same calibur being the primary armament, two, heavy armour plating in redundant fashion, and three, high power secondary batteries to deal with fighters and bombers. Sounded like a dreadnought possibility to me. The high number of fighters in this new carrier meant that the ship had to be huge, the size of about twice the current strike carrier was mentioned. By the time of WC3 the Bhanktara class of carriers began to appear. This ship was 920 meters long. Wow the dreadnought was unofficially 2200 meters! Hmm 1840 meters-2200 meters sounds pretty damned close to me. Ships that size, "short" distances such as those are insignificant, especially with those long arms and the unusually stretched nature of the dreadnought dwarfs the previous classes of ships. For those who say dwarfing requires a huge difference, well in mythology a dwarf is about a meter tall, and the avg man is almost two meters tall. Sounds like a huge difference to me.
Then we have the mass issue, KS tells us that dreadnought is 290,000 tons well of course most of the interior is empty that point has been well established but does it need be? all ships are mostly hollow! Let's compare something a little off topic, the Galaxy class of vessels-USS Enterprise is roughly 400,000 tones minimal-some argue the mass could be as much as 4,500,000 tons. Now that ship is not really heavily armored, but it does have heavy engines. Now we look back at dreadnought and we know it has a double or even triple hull, each heavily armoured. A ship that large with so much armour plating cannot be 22km long and be only 290,000 tones, for comparison E-D is only 641 meters long! Compared with other ships of WC, the mass becomes even more important, Vesuvius is about 1600 meters and 200,000 tons roughly, I don't remember the exact mass, but the Midway is 220,000 tons and about 1800 meters long and change. So the mass of 290,000 tones and the length of 2,200 meters seems very realistic indeed. IMHO, ships of that size are verging on the line of impracticality. A ship of this size can do only so much more than a ship half it's size. Now if we look at a length of 22,000 meters, and here comes the Vesuvius, 1600 meters, how does that ship "put the fear of god in the Kilrathi"?
BTW, I calculated the length of the Behemoth to be 6km. Someone said to me that's impossible the behemoth is 9 times as long as the Victory! Well hmm according to my math.. .the Victory is 720 meters, 720 times 9 and man, thats 6380 odd meters according to my in the head approach give or take a hundred. In the time of WCP, the Tiamat was about two miles long and the ONLY ship that even compared to it was the Behemoth, must have forgotten to mention the two kilometer dreadnought. Don't argue that the ships were scrapped becuase the Behemoth got slagged, remember?
It must be they forgot to mention the 'nought just as easily as they added a zero the the end of it's length.
Let the fireworks begin!
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