Ground Combat

Bob McDob

Bob McDob

Better Health Through Less Flavor
Was thinking recently about Wing Commander ground combat and what we know about it, so I decided to gather some information from End Run and some other sources and consolidate in in this thread. Going to update it with TCH info soon.

  • Confed uses large, mech-like "walkers" which "could traverse any terrain and carried as much armament as a light corvette". They are carried by heavy weapons landers (source: End Run, page 125).
  • During planetary assaults, the marines traverse to the surface in landing craft "damned near the size of a Broadsword? (i.e., around 36 meters long) and "capable of carrying up to a hundred men, two M-77 like ground assault vehicles, an array of medium caliber weapons, with a full battery of ground bombardment missiles slung to the undercarriage". The ground bombardment missiles are enough to "rip the [iTarawa[/i] apart a dozen times over" (End Run, p. 167).
  • In 2667, the standard infantry weapon is the M-47 semiautomatic laser rifle, though by this point it's been mostly supplanted by nonstandard equipment, including: thirty-kilo neutron miniguns capable of firing 1000RPM and mass driver scatterguns that fire five hundred flecchettes in a single burst. The sniper scoped Stenson Drakon hunting rifle ("capable of dropping a twenty ton Vegan sabre tooth from a mile away") is also popular (End run, p. 170).
  • In WCIV, during the Circe mission thread, the warring forces use hovertanks.
  • The Kilrathi use giant ... drill tank ... things on Repleetah (Wing Commander Academy Episode 4: Word of Honor). They also use conventional tanks (End Run, p. 126)
 
Then why by the time of Prophecy are the Confed Marines using 20th century Calico 9mm carbines?
 
This is actually a subject that I picked up interest in quite some time ago. Using some of those tidbits, there are a few things you can guess about combat.

Look at the terrain of Repleetah and if you look up some information about the battle, they have been there a LONG time. This along with the fact that the Kilrathi often resorted to wiping out planets(and experimented in biological agents) suggests that actual ground combat takes place in a World War I style.

Given, this is all based off 'if if ifs', but using what little information there is you can get a picture of an accidental description of how ground warfare would have to take place.

For example, the trenches in the Animated bit don't actually seem deep enough to provide protection against a missile hit from a fighter. I'd suspect they would use portable shield generators.

I even went into a bit for awhile thinking that all the pilots were actually marines. It made a bit more sense for Blair to be on the Kilrathi ship in the movie, it was also supported by the marine who joined the Tiger's Claw in the Animated series. The idea that all the pilots were, in fact, marines was shot full of holes when I heard someone say Blair was actually the gunner on the transport.
 
I wouldn't say the kilrathi often resorted to wiping out planets. They did use bio-weapons and strotnium-90 thermonukes late in the war, but I forget if it's FA or HOTT that talks about how there was an unsaid truce between the two sides about destroying a planet's biosphere. It was something they just didn't do.
 
It was Fleet Action. And the reason that it gives is because (I believe this is the case anyway) the two sides wanted to use each others territory after the war. And just like us, the Cat's couldn't use a ruined world to help them.

So they didn't destroy our planets because they wanted them eventually, and probably the inhabitants as slaves. The Terrans probably felt the same way....and I don't think there is a Kilrathi eqivilant of the Green Peace Movement...so their populace would care less about killing the econ of a whole world.

Plus, the way Kat's controlled news, they would probably never find out.

That being said, speaking about Repleetah, it was supposedly a site where both Confederation and Kilrathi had established scientific outposts, I believe. And it would make sense that these research stations would be doing some research with bio weapons.

Even the US which codemns their use has stockpiles sitting around.

Plus, To develop any kind of a counter to a bio weapon you need a sample of it.
 
Dingo said:
The idea that all the pilots were, in fact, marines was shot full of holes when I heard someone say Blair was actually the gunner on the transport.
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Are you talking about the animated series with this line, or the movie? Because I don't recall seeing any guns on the ship they used in the movie.
 
Jacob said:
Are you talking about the animated series with this line, or the movie? Because I don't recall seeing any guns on the ship they used in the movie.
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The novel. It also explains what two fighter jocks were doing in the midst of a boarding operation.
 
McGruff said:
Then why by the time of Prophecy are the Confed Marines using 20th century Calico 9mm carbines?
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While I don't remember any reference to this weapon in any of the books, it would make sense on a practical level. Mass driver technology is nothing more than an advanced partile weapon, and there is mention of marines using mass drivers during ground assaults in End Run (on Vakar Tag?). It's possible Marines may carry them as secondary weapon to their laser rifle; having a laser weapon and a particle weapon would make sense, depending on the enemies/technology they were going up against. A pistol like that would no doubt be easy to maintnence, easy to clean, and inexpensive to manufature as well. It's possible they may carry them for symbolic reasons as well.
 
Umm a carbine is a rifle, I guess it was just easier to use a couple of plastic prop guns that are lying about than make new ones.

Jim
 
Infantry weapons are also mentioned in TPOF when they attack the ground compound to "rescue" the confed hostage.

Confed officers still seem to carry on ancient traditions as well. Tolwyn had his sword broken at the hilt in FA during his court martial and I want to say Duke Grecko also had some kind of cerimonial weapon...
 
Yes, he orginally loses the arm as a result of the kilrathi bombardment against the dug in troops.

In FA when the kilrathi ambassador detonates the bomb in his chest Duke had left the room just before that and was down the hall when it went off, however a beam (or a support of some kind) feel on his plastilimb which destroyed it but also saved his life.
 
McGruff said:
Then why by the time of Prophecy are the Confed Marines using 20th century Calico 9mm carbines?
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It's not uncommon for Sci-fi movies to get modern weapons and use props to make the look sci-fi. The original Star Wars did it.
 
Jason_Ryock said:
That being said, speaking about Repleetah, it was supposedly a site where both Confederation and Kilrathi had established scientific outposts, I believe. And it would make sense that these research stations would be doing some research with bio weapons.
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It may "make sense", but it's nothing but pure fan speculation. The only mention of the science outposts was that they existed, and the Kilrathi attacked the terran scientists with bioweapons. Anything else is the rhetorical equivalent of randomly throwing shit at a wall, and seeing what sticks.
 
Delance said:
It's not uncommon for Sci-fi movies to get modern weapons and use props to make the look sci-fi. The original Star Wars did it.
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That's right, I forgot about Han Solo's world war one Broomhandle Mauser "blaster" :)
 
it's also probably worthy of mention that ground/planetary seem to always start with a mass bombardment of heavy weapons...Vukar Tag sounds like it was leveled by anti-matter strikes shortly before the commandos landed.

In concern with Repleetah, I forget where it is mentioned but the terrans made an overture to the kilrathi saying that they should stay out of the war and have both sides continue with research, jointly if possible. I think soon after that the kats sent out the bioweapons, which then resulted in the rush of troops to the planet.
 
I thought the terran scientists made that peace overture and were torn to pieces in good Kilrathi tradition, which started the whole mess on Repleetah.

As for bombardment, they hit the moon of Kilrah with anti-matter weapons, and also Munro during the Fleet Action assault. Another point of note is how landing ships carry racks of bombardment missiles, presumably with anti-matter warheads.
 
We don't know a lot of the regular army ground forces of confed. On the game, specially WC4 and WCP, we get to see Marines and their combat gear. They appear to wear light gear to board ships, not heavy ground combat.
 
Expendable said:
I thought the terran scientists made that peace overture and were torn to pieces in good Kilrathi tradition, which started the whole mess on Repleetah.

As for bombardment, they hit the moon of Kilrah with anti-matter weapons, and also Munro during the Fleet Action assault. Another point of note is how landing ships carry racks of bombardment missiles, presumably with anti-matter warheads.
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That is what I was saying early...

On tarawa raid they use that wonderful missile that splits into 50 submutions and goes after radars which mount AM warheads. The yield of such warheads are hard to assertain as they are only about the size of an arm if IIRC. Although I think ER talks about how the moon is lighting up from all the strikes.

The yield of most heavy weapons seems limited, besides just being told they mount AM, fusion, or proton warheads. I'm going to throw it out there and say that I'm no physicist but I know AM goes boom real big hypothetical. It just seems like with the amount of heavy weapons (I'm going to assume most weapons used in such situations are at least in the kiloton range) thrown around during assaults it just seems like there really shouldn't be anything left on the planets to take. They throw so many strikes in you'd figure they'd blast right to the core of the planet or moon...

just some thoughts...
 
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