Dundradal
Frog Blast the Vent Core!
Hmm - I know of a few places in MA where we could do that
Very true the two of us are what 20 miles apart at most? (Woburn to Waltham)
Halcyon vs Devereaux
- Thread starter ELTEE
- Start date
Very true the two of us are what 20 miles apart at most? (Woburn to Waltham)
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
No, he's the Wing Commander - the Victory only has one Fighter Wing (36 FW) - and a small one, at that.
As for the rest - a squadron trip to the Intrepid seems appropriate. Lets work out a time we could go.
star_slayer
Spaceman
yea, I realized the idiocy of my syntax after I posted. Obviously we saw Angel die, so we got those details. I was thinking more about how she was captured, as that might be more indicative as to how she would fare in a fight. For all intensive purposes, being taken prisoner decided her fate. So what I wonder is, did she try to go down fighting but get caught? Did she give herself up as a strategic move? Or out of cowardice? Does Confed HQ even know what happened? She and her men were not interrogated, but they could have been, which could have been very detrimental to Confed. I believe in the "real world" spies on such clandestine missions are given cyanide capsules to swallow for such cases (not that they always swallow them, ie; the captured u2 pilot by the Soviets in the cold war). I always wondered what Thrakath and the Emporer really knew about the temblor bomb, if anything at all. Perhaps they knew a lot, but didn't really take it seriously? You'd think it'd be pretty easy to defend one stupid fault line that can tear the planet apart.
re: Halcyon, what I wonder is why did he (or anyone apparently, other than pilots) not escape the Claw as it was destroyed? Did the ship have no escape pods? Did the attack happen too fast? Did he decide to simply go down with the ship? In the game if you lose you're carrier you are stranded, so that could be an issue, but in the Claw's case the Austin was near by and could have launched a rescue. Obviously there are a lot of variables here, but the bottom line is that Halcyon did not survive even though there were possibly myriad ways he could have.
yea I know I'm nit-picking for details that probably don't exist. I can't help myself...
McGruff
Banned
5 seconds from decloak to annihilation. Maybe enough time to say "What the.....KILRATHI FIGHTERS OFF THE POR"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfAoVX_VWWs
star_slayer
Spaceman
~~~. somehow, I never really took that cinematic at face value. If the cats could nail the Claw that easily at that point in time, they'd annihilate the Confed fleet and be walking on Terra within a month.
on the other hand, I wouldn't put it past Thrakath to waste a few awesome resources on one lousy strike, just to take out one carrier and the "heart of the tiger". Like father (with the sivar), like son... I'm surpised the Emporer didn't eventually have his grandson killed as well. Guess he got soft in old age. It cost him...
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
I think this was as much of a test run as anything. The fact that it was the Tiger's Claw was a bonus for Thrakhath, and the intro is pretty self explanatory as to why they don't march on Earth within the month.
Also, I don't believe at least at that point that Strakha fighters are jump capable and there's nothing to indicate that the Kilrathi have at this point developed the tech enough to cloak capships.
ELTEE
Vice Admiral
So close, and yet so... wait, that line really doesn't work here...
For the Intrepid, I tend to be free most weekends unless on active duty, so I should be able to move my schedule around. Depending on how soon or not so soon people want to go, I might suggest waiting until spring. The crowds should still not be too heavy, but the weather will be warm enough to enjoy the fighters topside.
Of course, braving cold weather to be around that kind of hardware is my idea of a good time. I'm just sayin'...
I'll keep working on a venue for the screening - that would be pretty neat.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
All they needed to do was decloak, fire their torpedoes and fly away -- that shouldn't have taken any longer than we saw in the intro. The problem for the Kilrathi is that the Strakha aren't an invincible weapon as much as they are a temporary sucker punch. Were stealth fighter attacks to continue then word would quickly spread and the Confederation would develop tactics and then technologies to deal with them. Think of the Nazi jets introduced late in the air war -- initially a big surprise that cost the Army some bombers... but ultimately something American pilots learned to work around. We know Blair engaged and destroyed (check on this) some of the Strakha during that 'last patrol'...
We don't know for sure, but my bet is that the attack on the Tiger's Claw was probably less of a test and more of a necessity. Remember, the Tiger's Claw was barrelling down on his headquarters and preparing to knock him out of the Enigma Sector entirely. He called up a weapon he knew could stop it, at the risk of exposing the stealth technology before it was ready.
... and he got *very* lucky. It's worth noting that he apparently *didn't* continue a campaign of quietly sinking prize targets with the limited number of Strakha he had available -- they must have been saved for some more valuable purpose (as much as we love blowing things up, those precious invisible ships were probably put to a lot better use in covert and reconaissance roles).
star_slayer
Spaceman
but what could Confed have done to stop stealth fighters? The argument that the cats want to keep their stealth technology under wraps makes some strategic sense (not to mention taking Blair out of action for a bit). But eventually the Strakha became widespread, and afaik, there were no special tricks to dealing with them. There is no "cloak detecting" technology (maybe at the time nobody knew this and the cats were hedging their bets?). You simply have to wait for them to decloak, and until that happens, they can run circles around you and lock onto what ever cap ship they please. You have no way of knowing where they will uncloak to fire, so it'd be very difficult to stop them from launching a bunch of torpedoes. Granted, you could take all this into account in your defense strategy, but if a carrier comes up against a squad of stealth bombers it's pretty much screwed. For whatever reason though, the Kilrathi never regularly employed Strakha's as bombers like they did with the Claw, even when everybody knew about them.
I suppose the universe could be withholding info here, or it could just be more of those ever famous WC "gaps in the timeline". I've always felt the WC2 intro could just be the ending of a longer engagement, where many more stealth fighters were involved and lost, rather than there being a few super bombers that took out Confed's top carrier in a few seconds. This would imply that a stealth bomber attack would be very resource intensive even as a secret, and thus a bad risk if you don't have that element of surprise.
McGruff
Banned
All we know is that there is no fighter mounted cloak detecting technology until we see it in WC4.
ELTEE
Vice Admiral
I think there are several plausible explanations to most of your queries. You could argue that war is little more than a contest between countermeasures. Technology is constantly evolving as are the means to supercede or defeat it.
Remember that we actually don't encounter Kilrathi stealth fighters very often. The Kilrathi are unable to employ the weapons immediately after the destruction of the Claw as a result of the loss of their base of operations.
It takes them years to make up for the lost research and technology. When they do, encounters with stealth fighters remain exceedingly rare in the WC universe. I don't think many pilots ever end up confronting them during the Kilrathi War - it just so happens that you play Blair and are always ending up in the middle of mega drama. Remember, too, that WCIII takes place almost immediately after WCII, so there is little time between 'acts' for the cats to fill space with invisible ships.
There could be a few explanations for this rarity. First, the resources required to produce such a craft are probably great, especially initially (perhaps pilot training is longer as well.) Second, and even more obvious, the Kilrathi must be cautious about when, where, and how they deploy their stealth fighters. Presumably, they would be worried that the more direct exposure the Confederation had to the tactics and technology, the faster a countermeasure could be created. Think of it as a trade-off, where Stealth initially has a high degree of effectiveness, but slowly loses its advantage. Go for important targets / sectors first!
I think that helps to explain why we dont see the Kilrathi use Strakha more often as bombers. It is difficult to tell what effect carrying a large torpedo would have on such a small fighter, but it is safe to assume that it would reduce the maneuverability of a light ship already burdened with cloak hardware. I would suspect that it wouldn't take Confed many iced carriers to anticipate the attack pattern and figure out how to thwart the Strakha's bite. When the stealth fighters are kept in the recon / harrassment role however, they retain their maneuverability, the element of surprise, and the ability to remain unpredictable.
Death
gh0d (Administrator)
Not entirely true. In Fleet Action, Hunter uses a Sabre with the latest updated sensor package, with a "superburst" (my term) that could basically burn through the kat cloak, though it required at least a guess as to where the cloaked ship was located.
(Or at least that's my recollection, it's been a while.)
This actually raises a question for me. Just follow my chain of thought for a moment:
So Blair is on patrol and sees a strakha and chases it (while its mates destroy the claw) - Ok, so why did he see that strakha? did it decloak to lure him away? or was it like the skipper missile, it had to decloak to see where it was going, after all if you're cloaked and can decloak and fire and recloak that quick, theres no reason to lure away the patrols!
So the cloak is like that on the skipper missile, the strakha must decloak to see where its going and get target locks. But the armada shoklar (roughly the same time) and the excalibur (shroud) and arrow and dragon (cloak) technologies allow you to target correctly outside.
So shroud is a sensor cloak - thats fine, its just like a f114 now, reduces the sensor signal til its not discernable easily above background. But the full cloak requires you to bend the light, so we cant SEE the ship, so obviously you cannot see whats outside either.
Fine so the skipper is a full cloak and the ... theres no way to reconcile this, even if we only include full cloaks such as the strakha and the dragon. the pilots SHOULD not be able to see out if the technology is the same as the skipper, and if it isnt then why make the skipper without the same cloak tech? - after all if its important enough to hide, then hide it properly!
So Blair is on patrol and sees a strakha and chases it (while its mates destroy the claw) - Ok, so why did he see that strakha? did it decloak to lure him away? or was it like the skipper missile, it had to decloak to see where it was going, after all if you're cloaked and can decloak and fire and recloak that quick, theres no reason to lure away the patrols!
So the cloak is like that on the skipper missile, the strakha must decloak to see where its going and get target locks. But the armada shoklar (roughly the same time) and the excalibur (shroud) and arrow and dragon (cloak) technologies allow you to target correctly outside.
So shroud is a sensor cloak - thats fine, its just like a f114 now, reduces the sensor signal til its not discernable easily above background. But the full cloak requires you to bend the light, so we cant SEE the ship, so obviously you cannot see whats outside either.
Fine so the skipper is a full cloak and the ... theres no way to reconcile this, even if we only include full cloaks such as the strakha and the dragon. the pilots SHOULD not be able to see out if the technology is the same as the skipper, and if it isnt then why make the skipper without the same cloak tech? - after all if its important enough to hide, then hide it properly!
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Speaking as someone who has logged more than a few hours in Shok'lars and Lances--
You can 'see out' of a full cloak - this is what makes it such a tremendous breakthrough (the first one-way visual cloaks were developed in the 2640s and known to the Confederation). The problem is energy usage, particularly on fighters with standard ion drives (Shok'lars, Strakhas) - the amount of time you can hold the cloak is limited.
Why not build Skippers with 'two way' cloaks? Two reasons:
- Full cloaking devices were extremely rare and extremely valuable up through the very last days of the war. Remember that Hunter was impressed that the Kilrathi deployed a *single* Strakha to the Landreich in Fleet Action. With that level of rarity it seems unlikely that the Kilrathi would be willing to attach them to expendible munitions (compare one single Strakha to track Admiral Tolwyn's escort carrier fleet's movements versus multiple Skippers used for a single anti-shipping strike in an unimportant system in WC3.)
- To be truly undetectable a cloaked ship can not use active sensors. Eyes are fine, tachyons and whatnot can be detected (this is also stated in Fleet Action). Unlike a Strakha or a Shok'lar, a Skipper doesn't have any eyes...
You can 'see out' of a full cloak - this is what makes it such a tremendous breakthrough (the first one-way visual cloaks were developed in the 2640s and known to the Confederation). The problem is energy usage, particularly on fighters with standard ion drives (Shok'lars, Strakhas) - the amount of time you can hold the cloak is limited.
Why not build Skippers with 'two way' cloaks? Two reasons:
- Full cloaking devices were extremely rare and extremely valuable up through the very last days of the war. Remember that Hunter was impressed that the Kilrathi deployed a *single* Strakha to the Landreich in Fleet Action. With that level of rarity it seems unlikely that the Kilrathi would be willing to attach them to expendible munitions (compare one single Strakha to track Admiral Tolwyn's escort carrier fleet's movements versus multiple Skippers used for a single anti-shipping strike in an unimportant system in WC3.)
- To be truly undetectable a cloaked ship can not use active sensors. Eyes are fine, tachyons and whatnot can be detected (this is also stated in Fleet Action). Unlike a Strakha or a Shok'lar, a Skipper doesn't have any eyes...
Hmm, there was a certain element of physicist logic here namely meaning that in order to stop something being seen, you must deflect the EM spectrum meaning you cant see out either. Still, thanks for the WC response here - worth while asking i figured! is the skipper a fully invisible (visually invisible) missile or just something you cannot track with scanners?
namely meaning that in order to stop something being seen, you must deflect the EM spectrum meaning you cant see out either. Still, thanks for the WC response here - worth while asking i figured! is the skipper a fully invisible (visually invisible) missile or just something you cannot track with scanners?
Mekt-Hakkikt
Mpanty's bane
Well, both in the movie and the game the missile cloaks visually.
ELTEE
Vice Admiral
This said of a game where handwavium like "inertial dampeners" explains why fighters turn like airplanes in spite of a lack of an atmosphere to push against, or how tachyons travel slower than light...
They're pushing against dark matter, obviously.