How did the kilrathi get a huge ship building advantage

[Dark_Raptor]

Even with the false treaty how did confed manage to make so few carriers. I think it was mentioned in a few books about it but it was never made clear on what happned. Compared to the number of kilrathi carriers. confed looks like it had the military power of some 3rd world country in space.Just after reading the message board its just 1 nagging question i have had about the wc universe

 

[Earthworm]

During the false peace, Confed suspened the building of new fleet carriers, because of the foreign minister. She was working for Kilrathi, and she pushed the Confed government to stop building new ships, and to disasemble the ones that are functioning. Before that, Confed sustained heavy losses in their fleet carriers.

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A good soldier is not the one who die for his country, it's the one who makes his enemy die for his.
Gen. Patton

 

[Penguin]

Quote from the KSaga Manual: '2668 - Terran fleets strike hard against Kilrathi forces on the front lines, eliminating 9 carriers under construction & crippling dozens of transports & 4 shipyards. Running low on combat ships, the Kilrathi military appears on the verge of retreating for supplies.'

Confed had also sustained some losses as well. Thrakhath mentions wiping out a fleet at the Deneb Sector at the end of SO2 IIRC. When the truce was offered humanity accepted it to put an end to the bloodshed. The Kilrathi secretly completed the fleet they had been working on in their secret shipyards. The civilian govt scrapped many ships (don't need a powerful military in peace time mentality) then many more ships were lost in the Battle of Terra. The Kilrathi fleet penetrated deep into the Confederation & nuked several cities on Earth - it makes sense that they also got numerous Confed shipyards - slowing down the rate of production.

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Politician: "New ministers must understand that we're still enjoying the HONEYMOON months."
Aide: "Why, what comes next?"
Politician: "The 'WE WANT A DIVORCE' years."
The Politician by David Fletcher.

 

[Earthworm]

That quote is about what happened in ER. Though IIRC, the Tarawa got 6 carriers.

Scratch that last sentence, I forgot there were more escort carriers making raids into Kilrathi space after the Tarawa.

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A good soldier is not the one who die for his country, it's the one who makes his enemy die for his.
Gen. Patton



[This message has been edited by Earthworm (edited February 02, 2000).]

 

[Earthworm]

I think that's the reason why they made the CVE class escort carriers. They remade transports that were half way done into light (expendable) carriers. They had about 45 fighters, though they still can't stand against a Kilrathi fleet carrier. And it's not like you can put a hangar on every ship. They could probably put in few fighters/bombers (the CVE's couldn't cary bombers though, the Broadswoard was to big, so they made a special variant of the Sabre. It was a two seater, and probably had more torps), but they wouldn't help much.

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A good soldier is not the one who die for his country, it's the one who makes his enemy die for his.
Gen. Patton

 

[Death's Head]

I agree with all said, plus it seems as though the Kilrathi were using newer ships while confed had to rely on older carriers, so the Confeds had to rely on better fighters to compensate I think.

 

[Dark_Raptor]

Well thanks for the responces it just allways nagged me that the terra industrial machine never kicked into full gear and pumped out fleet carriers like america did in ww2 once they ramped up production. I guess it comes from the 1 book where they mention that terra never built the number of shipyards to support fleet carrier production.

 

[Earthworm]

Well, in the first attack of the war, at McAulife, some fleet carriers were destroyed (4 IIRC, including the first Concordia). And Confed wasn't ready for a war. In AS the Confed government was pushing for budget cuts from the navy. They thought they could crush the Kilrathi if they would try anything. Technicaly they could, but the Cats surprised us, and realy screwd us.

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A good soldier is not the one who die for his country, it's the one who makes his enemy die for his.
Gen. Patton

 

[Death's Head]

42 fighters it had.
heavy carriers take years to build, and the large shipyard take years to build and train the workers.
even the midway class takes years and once they started completing they would get only about two finished a year.

 

[Death]

Actually, the Tarawa-class CVE had 45 fighters at the time of their introduction. Whether 15-ship squadrons were standard at that time, or a special adaptation for CVEs I'm not sure, but Bear specifically mentions there being 15-fighter squadrons, 1 of Ferrets, 1 of Rapiers, and 1 of Sabres, modified to serve as a fighter-bomber due to not having the space for Broadswords.

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SubCrid Death
Official Net.Nazi, LOAF's Merry Guild

 

[Death's Head]

Really? Squad sizes keep changing I can never tell.
It has been a long time since I read end run.

 

[Earthworm]

Heavy/fleet carriers don't take years to build. Since the Midway was launched they are suposed to get 9 more Midway class, in 5 years. And in the novels like FA or ER, although it isn't thechnicaly said, they do imply that it takes maybe a year to build a fleet carrier.

Death, Tarawa class? Page 67 in ER, last paragraph on that page reads: "The CVE class had been a source of intense debate back in the Concordia's pilot ready room." IIRC, none of the escort carriers are refered to as Tarawa class.

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A good soldier is not the one who die for his country, it's the one who makes his enemy die for his.
Gen. Patton

 

[Death's Head]

How do you know they weren't all started at about the same time or two at a time and built in sequence?

I think by Tarawa class he meant meant ships like the Tarawa, not saying that that is THE class name but since we don't know what CVE-1 was, or whichever was first in the Tarawa line, why not use it?

I assumed the class was Tarawa too becuase that captain helped design them and he would likely get the first completed.

 

[Earthworm]

How do you know they weren't all started at about the same time or two at a time and built in sequence?

Somehow I doubt that Confed would build 10 new drydocks, and get enough people to work in them.

I think by Tarawa class he meant meant ships like the Tarawa, not saying that that is THE class name but since we don't know what CVE-1 was, or whichever was first in the Tarawa line, why not use it?

I think he mean that as the name of the class. Let's just wait for him to reply.

I assumed the class was Tarawa too becuase that captain helped design them and he would likely get the first completed.

But Tarawa is CVE8. And I doubt that the firts seven carriers of that class weren't used in the fleet.



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A good soldier is not the one who die for his country, it's the one who makes his enemy die for his.
Gen. Patton

 

[Bandit LOAF]

It is one of the following...
- Crete class light escort carrier
- Enigma class light escort carrier
- Iwo Jima class light escort carrier
- Khorsan class light escort carrier
- Normandy class light escort carrier
- Saipan class light escort carrier
- Wake class light escort carrier

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Long live the Confederation,
Ben "Bandit" Lesnick
( loaf@wcnews.com - 302228)

The Wing Commander CIC

"You go, LOAF! Get some!" -JPG

 

[Death]

While the Tarawa is designated CVE-8, that it's not CVE-1 doesn't automatically disqualify it from being the first of the class.

In any case, since most everyone's introduction to the class is the Tarawa, in End Run, I tend to use the name to refer to the ship class' name.

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SubCrid Death
Official Net.Nazi, LOAF's Merry Guild

 

[Death's Head]

It's entirely possible

Just becuase it was the 8th laid down doesn't mean it wasn't the first completed, "small" carrier like that could be built in a larger dock along with one or two others. It would save time

By sequence Earth, I meant you build a drydock with maybe two sections, one for each of two carriers, which are built simultaneously-not meaning that they are completed at the same time, necessarily.
As one is finished, the next is started.

So as CX-01 launches, CX-03 is laid down. Once each hull is completed, the ship can move out of dock for testing weapons, engines, shields and so on, while taking on various equipment like computer terminals and fighters, shuttles, crew accomodations and whatever else needed for a shakedown cruise.

This can be done quite rapidly if the hull is modularized and various components are assembled or "contracted" to smaller yards within the same system, and joined at a large facility or cluster of drydocks like Trojan 4.

 

[Earthworm]

I still doubt that Death's Head. A drydock for the Midway class would have to be much larger than any drydocks ever build by Confed. It would have to be at least 2 times as wide as a drydock for Vesuvius class, and about 200m longer. If they were to make it a drydock where they could build two Midways at once it would have to be two times that size. It takes time to build the drydock (no drydocks for building drydocks

) and than getting enough experienced people to work in them.

Just becuase it was the 8th laid down doesn't mean it wasn't the first completed, "small" carrier like that could be built in a larger dock along with one or two others. It would save time.

CVE's were modified from transports, while they were still in the drydocks for building transports. They didn't build any special facilities to "convert" them into carriers they just modified the already existing ships.

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A good soldier is not the one who die for his country, it's the one who makes his enemy die for his.
Gen. Patton