Elite Carrier Wing

Oh what would you choose?

  • Ferret

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Saber

    Votes: 3 10.0%
  • Crossbow

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Broadsword

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rapier

    Votes: 7 23.3%
  • Longbow

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Thunderbolt

    Votes: 17 56.7%

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .

Ierocis

Spaceman
So you're a wing commander and have your rookies and regulars sorted out fine. Now your elites get the pick of fighters/bombers. What do you make your elite squadron it out of? (wc1-wc3 tech only)
 
In WC it seems that the better pilot you are, the more elite of the squadron you are assigned to. So are you under the opinion that the idea behind the Army Rangers and Navy Seals is "stupid"?

C-ya
 
For major strikes (IE: taking out a Dreadnaught), as that's mostly what types you have there (excluding rapiers or ferrets), elites, or just older guys, are better.

But for run of the mill crap, patrols or little strikes, mix the plebes and the vets up.
 
Personally I'd always try to give vets ships that are
a) nimble
b) pack an extremely well punch for their size
They can be low on missiles and armor/shields however.
As such the perfect ship would probably be the Wasp.

Isn't WC1-WC3 however of course. The WC1 Rapier is pretty close to that definition I'd say. For WC3 it would more be the Excalibur (if you ignore its supership status)
 
My vote goes to the Rapier since it is an all around good craft with speed, sheilds, and firepower suitable for the elite. Especially since the confeds are shorthanded in almost all aspects. If you are an elite pilot you usually have a ton of hours in the Rapier and you can survive most fights in it but some rookies might not fare as well in an older craft like the Rapier making it clear to have the best cost/success ratio by putting your best in a dated yet effective fighter.
 
The more logical thing to do, is cycle back pilots with x amount of experience back to the rear and put them in as instructors.

Certainly you deprive some frontline fighting for a short while, but it should balance out with a lower attrition rate amongst the newer pilots.(WW2 policy of flight hours being cycled back, it wound up having big dividends for the US.)

If that's not possible, the best thing to do would be to split the groups as evenly as possible. It is afterall a numbers game.

Having 12 fighters left in just your elites after a battle isn't as productive as having 24 left by splitting the elite up into other squadrons out of 3. The more kids survive, the better your carrier wing is in the long run.
 
The Crossbow is a master's ship. To keep yourself alive in it, you have to be damned good at allocating ordinance (and, by that, I mean not only missiles, but the juice in your gun's slow-to-recharge capacitors), a precise shot, a quick thinker, and a good judge of enemy behavior (That sartha's gonna turn left . . . oops . . he turned right, and I started turning left . . . now I'll just start back in the other dir-BOOM)

I can survive in one (usually), but I'd still prefer a broadsword for that job. Or a Ferret modified to lug a torp :D
 
Many people have argued that the Rangers take many of the core fighting soldiers out of the regular units, which decreases their overall will to fight. This makes a lot of sense, considering that something like 90% of the fighting is done by 10% of a unit.

Also, you wouldn't use special forces to assault a tank column; that's just stupid. Special forces aren't Rambos, they have specific talents that can be used to augment and enhance the performance of regular forces, but aren't a replacement for the normal troops.

The closest thing we have to special forces in the WC series are the Black Lance, which were a highly elite group with special equipment. The elite squadrons that you usually fly with in the WC games are more along the lines of just the best group of pilots on board, and aren't really meant to be elite units designated only for specific special missions. Otherwise, you'd spend most of your time sitting in Pilot Country, waiting to get called up while everyone else flew off and did the drudge work.

*edit*

I also forgot to mention those various special missions you get sent on in the various WC expansions. I think this is most obvious in WCSO, when you're working with a small special ops squadron, but there other instances, like whenever Paladin shows up post-WC1 in his Free Trader. Not exactly relevant to the question about a wing commander sorting out his newbies and veterans, though.
 
There's plenty of special forces groups in WC - WC3's Cover Ops unit or WC2's Special Operations division, for instance.
 
Even Special Operations is a unit with limited scope. Fighter pilots should generally be considered "Elite", with the amount of training they need to fly.
I could understand an elite fighter wing, on a smaller carrier, if you wanted to have a ship choices you have a selection.
The only fighters in WC (WC2-WCP) would be either the Dragon (I know blah blah), or the Vampire from Special missions (or whatever the expansion is called)
You would need to have versatility, if you did not, "Elite" is pretty much moot.
Remember, right now Special Forces units are more in use cause a great deal of our strike missions are tactical in nature, small forces actively accomplishing smaller goals to accomplish a larger one.
WC, is a strategic war, more akin to WW2 than modern day, even the Rangers, and special teams were troopers with addition training.
Hell the SEALS were frogmen back then, and Rangers were airborn troopers.
 
Another note, Re: elite squadrons. The CCG divides Kilrathi squadrons into regular and, of course, Drakhai. It divides Confed squadrons into regular and "Elite" - so you'd have Thunderbolt VII and Thunderbolt VII Elite squadrons.
 
WC4 had "ace" fighters too, but I it's not really the same thing. :)

Didn't the Midway had 2 elite and 1 normal squadron?

I think that the Claw initially had two "normal" and just one "elite" squadron, the Raptor one, and then gained another for the Rapier. I'm not sure if they were really elite, but people were happy to join not so happy to leave. Was it a matter of prestige, or extra armor and survivability?
 
The Midway had a Light fighter Squadron (for Rookies), a Medium Fighter Squadron (for vets) and a Heavy Squadron (for the best pilots). This is not the official naming of these squadrons, of course. Nothing indicates that the Wolves were a separate ELITE special squadron like the Deltas or SEALS. Maybe it was just the better pilots bunched in one wing.
 
I think that the Claw initially had two "normal" and just one "elite" squadron, the Raptor one, and then gained another for the Rapier. I'm not sure if they were really elite, but people were happy to join not so happy to leave. Was it a matter of prestige, or extra armor and survivability?

The 'Claw had lots of squadrons (in WC1 alone, the Yellowjackets are mentioned)... they were divided by ship class, not by status (as everyone pretty much flew every ship at some point).
 
I wouldn't think that skill would neccessarily determine what kind of fighter you would fly (except, possibly, from a financial standpoint). If anything, why not put the rookies in the ships that are more likely to survive a beating? Let the pilots who have proven their metle use the ships which require skill to survive in. Makes sense, don't you think?
 
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