Fighter inspiration
- Thread starter Highball
- Start date
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
I think, if you pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and re-read your previous post (and, for that matter, this one, too), you'll see that from my point of view, you're coming off as a total jerk.
I was simply telling Farbourne that the Zero was actually a pretty fast fighter for its time - then you step in, yelling that the Zero was five years later than the Swordfish, suggesting that I'm being manipulative by using the words "for its time", and I absolutely must not compare it with the Swordfish - and you end this offensive tirade with a request that I stop insulting you.
Now, the way you phrase your posts is irritating enough as it is, but the real cherry is the fact that I was at no point comparing the Zero to the Swordfish. Farbourne, I suppose, was doing this to some degree - but I was merely making an aside, which should be completely irrelevant to you. All that considered, I think my response was pretty appropriate. And yes, I do realise how ridiculous it is to say something like this to someone at a general forum - so again, I suggest you relax for a moment and think about how your posts are coming across. You might find that the problem isn't on my side of the screen.
Sigh
Right. Says the guy who told me: "Hey, I wasn't talking to you" in a general discussion thread.
Ever think you might be reading too much into what I'm saying? I wasn't yelling. We know this because if I was yelling, or actually really angry, it would be a lot more obvious than writing a few lines of text in italics or capitalizing one word for emphasis. To be fair, I might be reading too much into what you're saying, too, which is altogether possible. I took your "as Highball would have us believe" as a statement of exclusivity. Like there's some "us" that I'm not part of, or an outsider of some sort since I'm a new member.
I created this thread, thus nothing said in it is irrelevant to me. As far as comparisons go, look at it this way: I am saying the Swordfish reminds me of an Epee in the way that it's got a torpedo, and was designed to take on fighters of its day and boats. You say the Zero is a way better comparison, to which I come back by saying the Zero was not introduced until almost 5 years after the Swordfish, and was not designed to take on both fighters and boats. You are pitting the Zero against the Swordfish in the realm of whether or not it is similar enough to the Epee to be considered as an inspiration to the Epee. Fine, that's your right to have that opinion. All I am saying is that the Zero was released almost 5 years later, too late to be used in the same discussion as the Swordfish in the realm of possibility. That's all. To you, the line about the torpedo in WC2 may be a "throwaway" line, but that's to you. Maybe not to me. The Swordfish being a lighter class of fighter with a torpedo is the entire reason it reminds me of the Epee.
Disagree? That's fine. However, "The Swordfish is nothing like the Epee, as Highball would have us believe," sounds like I'm some snake oil salesman trying to dupe the poor, unsuspecting public into buying my particular brand of junk. Is that silly of me to feel slighted by? Perhaps, but that is how I feel about it. This is the most rational way I can think of to discuss this, so if this is yelling, I'd hate to see what I look like when I really am angry.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Nope, you can't fool me, I knew you before you read this thread
Seriously, though, folks, no World War II airplane is worth strangling each other over.
(Other than the P-61 Black Widow.)
Iceblade
Admiral
The Swordfish's primary role during the war was that of a Torpedo bomber not a fighter, even though it did manage to have some success without heavy losses. From a quick search, it would appear this bomber saw limited action against fighters. One more thing about this TB is that many aspects of its design were very old for its heyday.
The Epee on the other hand is a pure dogfighter that happened to be sophisticated enough (or at least capable enough in some way) to handle quick strike torpedo runs against light targets (weakly defended targets like listening posts mostly). And unlike the Swordfish, many aspects of this design are much more current for its time in the Kilrathi war, most notably the ITTS.
Besides light armor and the torpedo capacity, the only other significant similarity I see is the ease and effectiveness of placing these fighters on lighter capships (escort carriers for the Swordfish and Cruisers/Destroyers for the Epee.
Really, this is like trying to fit a cylinder into a slightly larger hexagonal hole. Doesn't quite fit.
The Epee on the other hand is a pure dogfighter that happened to be sophisticated enough (or at least capable enough in some way) to handle quick strike torpedo runs against light targets (weakly defended targets like listening posts mostly). And unlike the Swordfish, many aspects of this design are much more current for its time in the Kilrathi war, most notably the ITTS.
Besides light armor and the torpedo capacity, the only other significant similarity I see is the ease and effectiveness of placing these fighters on lighter capships (escort carriers for the Swordfish and Cruisers/Destroyers for the Epee.
Really, this is like trying to fit a cylinder into a slightly larger hexagonal hole. Doesn't quite fit.
Lorien
Rear Admiral
Have you got a source for the Swordfish being a fighter? Everything I've read indicates that it was designed for a Torpedo Bomber & Spotting role. Sure, it had some ability to deal with fighters on the way in, but you wouldn't send it up alone against other fighters. The were chopped to pieces during the Channel Dash, for instance.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I think the problem is that if we were any other community this wouldn't even be a discussion--Wing Commander II's offhand reference to the Epee's "single torpedo" would have been written off as a bizarre 'continuity error' years ago. Instead knowing about the Epee-with-a-torpedo has become the secret club handshake for hardcore fans... which, in turn, has been distilled nito *the* fact about the Epee that serious fans remember. Which leads to a discussion that annoys Quarto where the Epee (a pure interceptor every time we fly it and 99% of the time it's referenced) is being assosciated with a famous light torpedo bomber.
But I digress!
Wing Commander is certainly the Pacific War in space, but it's a very broad analogy-there aren't necessarily shot-for-shot analogues for every individual fighter.
The Broadsword is the Flying Fortress, the Scimitar and Rapier II are pre-war American fighters and their more effective replacements, the Excalibur and Bloodfang are jets... but even all of that is problematic. The B-17 isn't a carrier-based bomber, the Scimitar represents a wider group of fighters (is it a Buffalo or a Wildcat?), jets weren't really all that important in the Pacific and so on.
But I digress!
Wing Commander is certainly the Pacific War in space, but it's a very broad analogy-there aren't necessarily shot-for-shot analogues for every individual fighter.
The Broadsword is the Flying Fortress, the Scimitar and Rapier II are pre-war American fighters and their more effective replacements, the Excalibur and Bloodfang are jets... but even all of that is problematic. The B-17 isn't a carrier-based bomber, the Scimitar represents a wider group of fighters (is it a Buffalo or a Wildcat?), jets weren't really all that important in the Pacific and so on.
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
All this talk of the Japanese Zero in this thread so far ignores the fact that it's most closely associated with Wing Commander's Dralthi... especially obvious in the movie.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
It's another one that's most likely intended but still problematic. The Dralthi is the emblematic Kilrathi fighter like the Zero is for the Japanese... but you never really get the sense that it's *superior* in the same way as the Zero.
(If you're thinking of the Pegasus/Pearl Harbor scene then it's actually in the role of a Val dive-bomber rather than a Zero.)
Edit to add: the movie actually originally had Krants as dive-bombers and Dralthi as fighters... but they weren't rendered in the finished film. They show up in the Handbook, though!
Prometheus
Spaceman
I think this whole WWII thing is going to far. Sure, Wing Commander was inspired by WWII (especially the pacific theatre). It was also inspired by the movie Top Gun.
But claiming it's "WWII in space", with the implication that everything, like every fighter model, has to have their counterpart in real history goes a little too far for my taste...
As far as I see, the only true parallel is the technology over numbers / numbers over technology mentalities of the Confederation and the Kilrathi being somewhat similar to the US and Japanese in WWII. Maybe some of the "honor stuff" from the Kilrathi as well. But that's it. Then again, maybe I'd have to be American to see the deeper connection.
But claiming it's "WWII in space", with the implication that everything, like every fighter model, has to have their counterpart in real history goes a little too far for my taste...
As far as I see, the only true parallel is the technology over numbers / numbers over technology mentalities of the Confederation and the Kilrathi being somewhat similar to the US and Japanese in WWII. Maybe some of the "honor stuff" from the Kilrathi as well. But that's it. Then again, maybe I'd have to be American to see the deeper connection.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Wing Commander I's narrative structure is loosely based around the Pacific War, and specifically the "island hopping" strategy (with star systems as islands). You start the game defending human colonies under attack by the Kilrathi and then as you win you move up to recapturing former Confederation bases and then getting closed and closer to striking the Kilrathi headquarters.
Wing Commander III borrows the end of the war pretty directly--with the Confederation developing its equivalent of the atomic bomb and dropping it on Kilrah, with some of the same moral questions touched on in the process.
The movie takes a lot of World War II imagery--the intro scene, especially, is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Wing Commander III borrows the end of the war pretty directly--with the Confederation developing its equivalent of the atomic bomb and dropping it on Kilrah, with some of the same moral questions touched on in the process.
The movie takes a lot of World War II imagery--the intro scene, especially, is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
While it is mainly a plot device to explain the dire situation out of which Confed uses WMDs to bring down the Kilrathi, it realy differs there from WW2. Both the temblor bomb and Behemoth more or less are deus ex machina solutions to win the war while the US/Allies had clearly won the pacific theater and limited the Japanese capabilities to wage war mainly to their home isles (with the Chinese and Korean front collapsing with the entry of the USSR). While the Kilrathi are clearly the ones winning and far away from beeing cornered into their home system.
And just for the hack of it, Id say the Epee is the Nieuport 17 of Wing Commander. Decent front gun, agile but a bit fragile.
frostytheplebe
Seventh Part of the Seal
I disagree, while the Germans were researching the Abomb, the allies used it first to get the Japanese to surrender rather then have to fight them on their own land until we'd pretty much completely laid waste to their country.
Prometheus
Spaceman
Oh well, to my knowledge both of these points have been pretty much debunked after the war had ended.
1. The Germans were hopelessly behind in the development of the abomb, and they didn't really pursue the issue very strongly or intelligently. They were lacking several basics, both in terms of scientific knowledge, as well as the material ressources needed. This was actually discovered while the American abomb was still in development (although it was already nearing completion IIRC, maybe testing had already started). Yes, the initial motivation was to develop the abomb before the Germans finish theirs, but that was based on the assumption the Germans actually were close to developing their own, which later turned out to be false.
2. The thing with the Japanese is more complicated and I think there's still some controversy around it. But the Japanese were at least extremely close to surrendering, even without the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it even appears they already tried to surrender, but it failed due to communication failures. Weren't there something about the Russians not forwarding the messages because it was in their interest that the war continues? (At that point Germany already had surrendered, so all that was still going on was centered on Japan)
I've read a book about this whole thing a while ago, and its not some conspiracy theory stuff. If you're interested I can dig it out and post information on the book. It concentrated a lot on the scientists that were involved in the development of the abomb.
Prometheus
Spaceman
I would have edited my last post to include information of the book, but it's too late for that, so here is it in a seperate post:
The book ist called
"Heller als tausend Sonnen: Das Schicksal der Atomforscher" by Robert Jungk
It was originally released 1956 by the "Alfred Scherz Verlag" in Bern (Switzerland) and Stuttgart (Germany).
It has later been reissued by the Heyne Verlag and there is also an English version of the book, released by Mariner Books, called
"Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists". (Translated by James Cleugh.)
It is quite old, but it seems you can still get it on sites like Amazon. (or the original German version)
It's a very interesting read, especially as it's directly based on interviews with many of the scientists who worked on the a-bomb, while most of them still were alive, only a couple of years after the events occured, and it also tries to somewhat recreate the creative environments these people were in, and also touching on the moral issues as they came up, without being overly preachy, and even contain some quite humorous little anecdotes.
The book ist called
"Heller als tausend Sonnen: Das Schicksal der Atomforscher" by Robert Jungk
It was originally released 1956 by the "Alfred Scherz Verlag" in Bern (Switzerland) and Stuttgart (Germany).
It has later been reissued by the Heyne Verlag and there is also an English version of the book, released by Mariner Books, called
"Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists". (Translated by James Cleugh.)
It is quite old, but it seems you can still get it on sites like Amazon. (or the original German version)
It's a very interesting read, especially as it's directly based on interviews with many of the scientists who worked on the a-bomb, while most of them still were alive, only a couple of years after the events occured, and it also tries to somewhat recreate the creative environments these people were in, and also touching on the moral issues as they came up, without being overly preachy, and even contain some quite humorous little anecdotes.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
You are correct about the state of the German atomic project(s) at the end of the war, but the American project was founded on what was then a very real fear that Germany could build a bomb quickly. It's a little hard to imagine the situation in retrospect, but in 1940 Germany was the most likely candidate to succesfully produce a weapon.
First of all, building an atomic bomb wasn't really a question of theoretical physics at the time. The fact that it could be done was figured out many years before the war and was essentially common knowledge to anyone with an understanding of more advanced physics at the time. The bigger problem, which was a massive one, was engineering--how do you actually build the bomb, how to you produce the materials required and so on.
Then you have to understand that pre-war Germany was the center of the physics world. If you were a noted physicist in the 1920s, you went to Germany. Think of it like Silicon Valley for computers or Hollywood for movies... but with more prestige. Germany and the cutting edge of physics were synonymous. Then, of course, Hitler turned Germany into an engineering powerhouse, with a massive production capacity to support his war goals.
A great many scientists saw the writing on the wall and they left Germany for England and the United States, bringing with them a firm belief that German was in the best position to build the bomb. German universities had the best theoretical science work and the fear that the new war industry could be applied to the engineering rpoblems was intense. (Germany also made a number of suspicious but possibly benign moves early on to buy up and confiscate mass quantities of uranium in conquered territories... which was a red flag to foreign observers.)
The American Manhattan Project that ended up building the bomb owes its roots to one of the scientists who fled Europe after Hitler came to power, Leo Szilard. He set himself to proving to President Roosevelt (personally!) that the United States needed to develop the bomb to counter a German weapon. Not to bomb Germany first, but to prevent anyone from claiming an advantage. The United States studied the issue and ended up deciding it was a legitimate threat and that massive resources needed to be devoted to the project...
The German effort fell apart for lots of reasons, but not necessarily scientific knowledge (one team, resource-strapped as it was, was very close to starting their first reactor). There were two competing projects that fought with each other over resources, the war used more and more resources as it went worse for German... and unlike the United States, the military infrastructure wasn't there to use the bombs as a weapon (German military doctrine favored light and medium bombers instead of anything like a Superfortress, for example). More importantly, Hitler just wasn't interested. The bomb projects didn't have a great spokesman, like Doctor Oppenheimer was for rockets, who was able to capture Hitler's imagination... and in a dictatorship, getting the massive portion of industry needed to refine Uranium in the 1940s was impossible without the top man's support.
More importantly, the United States didn't believe that the German effort could be as bad as it was, given the advantages they started the war with. A special operation, Alsos, followed Allied troops into Germany to study the situation and gather any valuable research and material... and they just didn't believe how little there was. (More amusingly, the Germans didn't believe the US had gotten anywhere, either. Dr. Heisenberg's team surrendered expecting to be given good treatment by promising to tell the Allies the 'secret of the bomb'... instead the scientists were locked up in England where there conversations were recorded for weeks just to establish they were really as far behind as it seemed. There was genuine surprise when the bombing of Hiroshima was announced on the radio...)
it's something that is debated to this day and it probably isn't clearly one way or the other.
One side argues that the decision was made to prevent American deaths in an invasion of Japan and the other says that it had a lot more to do with stopping the Soviets than it did with ending the war. Japan's back was certainly broken... but it was in similar shape a month earlier at Okinawa and inflicted massive losses on the US with suicidal. A two-part invasion of the home islands was planned and there's little question that it would have been costly... but the figures thrown around for *how* costly by those defending the bomb were actually decided well after the war. Russia was a huge issue in Europe had just entered the war against Japan with the Red Army was on the march into Japanese terriroties in mainland Asia... but this was also something the US had been actively lobbying for for years.
The fact is, though, nothing in the historical record says one way or another. Everything you find (minutes of the targeting committee, memos on the subject, etc.) simply treats the fact that the bomb will be dropped on Japan as an inevitability. Maybe that's what it was--billions of dollars and an impossibly huge effort built a bomb and maybe no one considered it wouldn't be used.