Escort vs Light Carrier.

Nob Akimoto

Rear Admiral
Strange thread title, but going through how they classified ships, it seemed like an interesting point of discussion.

Namely, the difference between an "escort" carrier and a "light" carrier.

While they make it clear that the new line of CVE's circa End Run were transport conversions(much like the British Tracker and subsequent US Bogue, Casablanca which were either merchant-man conversions or similar) it seems there's at least an intentional reference to a "light" fleet carrier that is actually more of a warship hull than a transport.

Example would be TCS Eagle from WC3N, and Victory(obviously not a new build, but still considered a "light" carrier)

Given the somewhat strange WW2 parallels in WC, would these light carriers be more something commissioned out of a cruiser conversion like the Independence or Saipan classes?

Also a semi-interesting point is that the CV*-xx designations only apply to "fleet" vessels rather than CVE's which seem to indiciate that CVE's themselves are considered to be auxillaries rather than primary combat vessels.
 
A light carrier seems to be a smaller version of a regular fleet carrier - smaller fighter wing, similar set of defensive armaments.

An escort carrier seems to be a smaller/cheaper version of a strike carrier - it's designed to engage in some limited ship-to-ship actions.
 
As far as I can tell, Escort carriers are intended to function with little to no destroyer escort, while light carriers get a whole mini-carrier-group. Notice how the Tawara is given one destroyer and one Venture-class corvette as its escort whereas the Victory gets two destroyers and a cruiser. Notice also that the Tawara had primary batteries (the quadruple heavy neutron turret in the bow) while the Victory lacked even a single AMG turret. Basically, Escort carriers are meant to operate on their own for when you only need to project a little bit of power, whereas Light carriers are basically scaled-down Fleet carriers (notice how the Concordia class is basically just a scaled-up version of the Ranger class).
 
Aren't Escort Carriers meant to do border patrol and other small time actions?
 
For CVE's: Why use a transport hull if they were meant to do direct ship engagements? The role they're described as having seems to be more along the role of an easy replenishment carrier(historic inteded role) and in many respects an amphibious assault support platform(while not intended for this role, the CVE's commissioned by the USN were often used for this purpose). Tarawa and Sevestapol were used for amphibious support roles rather than actual direct ship engagements. The only time I remember a ship of that sort engaging in any direct combat was Tarawa and co as part the Landriech fleet in FA.

Since unlike the historic naval equivilants, they don't seem to have many differences in propulsion(in fact CVE's might even be faster than your typical CVL given the fact that Bear was immensely impressed with the presense of a Gilgamesh propulsion system aboard Tarawa.)

One difference might be that while they have similar compliments, a CVL might be able to carry "full" bombers unlike CVE's.
 
For all its worth, in WC4 ConFleet had a series of light carriers even after they retired the Victory and her shitbox sisters. The WC4 novel referred to a TCS Kiev that was tasked for border patrol.

Also, when the Victory and her sisters were constructed way back in the day, I don't even know if they were called "light carriers" at that time. They were just called "Ranger-class carrier" from Action Stations novel. But think about this, around 2669, the Victory was designed almost 50 years before the Kilrathi War started. As time goes on, warships become more modern and heavier and compared to the modern contemporaries, the Victory definately was light compared to the other carriers in the fleet.

One example would be WW2. The US Navy's major carriers didn't gross more then about 33,000 tons and back then they were known as fleet carriers. If they were in the Navy now, they would be referred to as light carriers especially compared to the 95,000 ton monsters that are in service now.
 
The original CVE's were built on transport hulls, for, like the original British Escort Carriers, Confed had no time to build a seperate hull, and those merchant hulls were already available.

That saved a lot of time.

I'd guess that the propulsion upgrade was so the CVE could perform quick strike missions, and it was also in place for the whole "Expendable" concept of the CVE, to perform suicidal missions, or to hold off an enemy fleet while other, more valuable ships retreated.
 
In End Run, Commander Watanabe notes that the max speed they clocked the ship at was 247kps 'with scoops full open'. That's only 3kps below a Gilgamesh's max cruising speed with a similar configuration, and about 100 kps faster than any other carrier before it, with the exception of the Waterloo carrier conversion. Between this, their anti-torpedo capabilities, and their gun loadout, they do indeed seem more like a descendant of the Bengal-style strike carriers in terms of capability than of the Concordia-style fleet carriers.

Besides which, we know that the 'newest' generation of strike carriers (like the Eagle) had a 'similar configuration to the Victory', and 'sleek, modern lines', so I doubt these newer generation craft were built on Transport hulls the way the Tarawa and her sister ships were.
 
One thing I noticed in the novels, the light and escort carrier seemed to have been assumed to be the same. When the Tarawa and the Sevastopol attacked Vakur Tag, Thrakhath got the intel report that air support was from "two light carriers" even though we all know they are escort carriers. In Fleet Action, Baron Jukaga was admiring the Confed official who thought "of using light carriers for behind-the-lines" strikes. When the Enigma and Khorsan were lost, Tolwyn referred to how "both light carriers" were sent behind the lines. But the novels were written before we saw a true light carrier in the games, when the Victory was brought out in WC3.

And even then, the Victory was referred more then one time in the WC3 novel as a battered little escort carrier. The fact that Eisen even said it himself, that she was the last on the line to recieve new equipment, implies that even the other escort/light carriers in the fleet have a higher priority status.
 
Psych's pretty much right that they do seem a bit interchangable, though at least in End Run, besides the Kilrathi side, Confed seemed to consistently refer to Tarawa and the other jeep carriers as escorts or CVE's, while Banbridge describes a "a new light carrier coming online" when offering Bear a command.(I know that's more than likely referring to another CVE, but it might be a higher prestiege command of an actual carrier.)

"escort" might simply refer to the role they're commissioned for, something akin to being put on auxillary status.

Since there's no ASW in WC there's no other distinction between an escort and a light besides what frame they're based on.

(Could be later CVE's like Enigma, Khorsan were built from keel up as a refinement to the Jeep carriers of the first gen CVE's, and were sufficiently different enough to be referred to as "Light carriers" rather than "escort carriers". Not really likely though.)
 
What is the Intrepid? Because it can defeat a confed cruiser on its own on the Ella system. Even after taking a confed destroyer and frigate.

Too bad it was nearly destroyer by a Frigate and escorts on the beginning of the game. Maybe they were really good escorts.
 
Maybe when the character refer to the carriers as "light", they are not really using a classification system (CVE=Escort, CV?=Light etc.) but just using the adjective "light" as a descriptive device. Because even though the CVE is not NAMED a LIGHT CARRIER, it can be described as a lite carrier, as opposed to a heavy one.
 
Nob Akimoto said:
. . . Banbridge describes a "a new light carrier coming online" when offering Bear a command . . .
On a side note, I'd assumed these where Eagle-class carriers when I read it, though it maybe a little early for their introduction.

C-ya
 
Delance said:
What is the Intrepid? Because it can defeat a confed cruiser on its own on the Ella system. Even after taking a confed destroyer and frigate.

Too bad it was nearly destroyer by a Frigate and escorts on the beginning of the game. Maybe they were really good escorts.

The Intrepid was a Durango-class heavy destroyer, the Border Worlds turned it into a half-baked light carrier.

Delance said:
On a side note, I'd assumed these where Eagle-class carriers when I read it, though it maybe a little early for their introduction.

You know, I always thought the TCS Kiev was one of the Eagle-type carriers. It was a light carrier and it was still in service even after Tolwyn cut the Fleet and sent the Victory and the rest of the "40-series CVs" to the mothballs.
 
psych said:
The Intrepid was a Durango-class heavy destroyer, the Border Worlds turned it into a half-baked light carrier.

A half-baked light carrier that can kick some butt. And that second quote isn't from me, but from Viper61
 
I think the main virtue of the escort carriers were that they were cheap to build. They didn't have to be powerful, or survivable, or particularly well-suited for any mission; their main advantage (to Confed) is that you could build tons of them cheaply and quickly. Similar to their role in WW2, actually, which they were obviously modeled after. I suppose Forstchen was some sort of escort carrier fanboy.

If the fighters are doing most of the fighting, it makes sense that you'd use a cheap, minimalistic carrier to carry them to the front. Fleet Action talks about how Confed was on the verge of winning the war with its new jeep carrier strategy, because they were just outproducing the Kilrathi on every front. One could argue that this is how the United States wins its wars: through the application of raw economic power.
 
I thought Confed was gonna win through Escort Carriers cuz they kept attacking Kilrathi Shipyards and Depots, rendering the Kilrathi unsupplied and in need of repair.

Just my 2 rubles.
 
In 1937 the total warmaking capability of the United States made up 41.7% of the world's capability to produce things for war...1945, US accounted for 50% of world GDP.

Difference in WC is that Confed, unlike the US didn't have a decided economic advantage. Remember production of US carrier forces post 1943 was an immense advantage over the IJN. Even had the US lost Midway with a theoritical 6-2 CV advantage in late 1942, by Mid-1943, the USN would again have numeric superiority against the IJN with the commissioning of the 5 Essex class carriers.(Namely Essex, Bunker Hill, Lexington, Yorktown, Intrepid) in addition to the 7 Indy class CVL's.

Confed was up against a completely different economic reality, they had 8 operational carriers at the time of Operation Back Lash with maybe that number of carriers under construction, while the Kilrathi had at least enough shipyard berths for 9 additional carrier construction(probably a lot more) 10 carriers simply for homeguard defense and only god knows what other advantages.

The CVE in WC seems actually closer to the role of a submarine...
 
Well, CVEs were built for escorting convoys against submarines. . .and since it's hard to have a sub in space. . .*shrug*
 
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