How many docking bays on a Bengal? (and other questions)

Malcolm Reynolds

Rear Admiral
I am planning on building a model of the TCS Tiger's Claw. A few design questions: I am wondering how many landing bays are there on a Bengal? Is there an official statistic on this?

howiebengal25.jpg


In this image it appears that there are 13--6 on each side as well as a central one which in most images is labeled 07 on the runway part... So I am assuming that is not the Tigers Claw designation or whatever but the actual number of the landing bay.
The 07 can be best seen here:
wc_020.png

Of course in this image the side landing bays are arranged entirely differently:
wctactics06.jpg

...and of course in the actual game it's far too grainy and pixelated to tell. Which is why I'm asking everybody else what they think.
wc1bengal4.gif


So did fighters land in all of these bays or just in the central one? How big of a ship could fit inside the main hangar bay? Was there room enough for a Venture or a Drayman to fit inside there? And something I have always wondered: Why is there that huge open runway? It looks very cool but wouldn't it make more practical sense to have an enclose runway?One more question: Do some kind of force fields prevent the hangars from venting into the void or does everybody in the hangar have to wear a spacesuit. I'm betting there are force fields just because of how many people appear to be walking around without any environmental protection. Anyway let me know what you think if you have some idea! Thanks!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
A few comments. If the game cut scene is to be believed, you always land on the main deck, however, the launch sequence clearly has you being launched from a tube.

By all accounting the launch tubes seem to be in the green winglets near the back of the bengal.

In addition to the tubes, there are two green portrusions from the center of the ship that look like recovery bays for larger vehicles, like shuttles and the bonnie heather.


If carrier fighting in space is anything like carrier fighting on the ocean, you'd never want an enclosed flight deck just due to the danger of an explosive going off inside the deck. Force is amplified greatly when it gets to ricochet around inside an enclosed object. That's the entire principle behind a bunker buster shell. so having a mostly protected series of launch tubes (so a concordia doesn't happen to you every 15 minutes with the flight deck being out of comission) and a big open recovery deck which can still reclaim a fighter even while damaged seems downright practical.
 
I need a hangar too in the Bengal from my WC2 Remake.
clawh.png

By null at 2011-02-11

The Bay should be large enough for a Broadsword.

The Question is: how many Tubes are there? Some says in 12min the Claw can launch all fighters from 12 Tubes. Another one says only 2 Tubes.

My favorite is Howard Days Bengal.

Landing is on the main bay. But for what you need a landing deck in Space? Oo So in my opinion the best start/landing deck are on the Midway-class

The Drayman dock with the Tiger's Claw not land. I thing Venture do the same.
 
Well, first of all: I love to see Howard Day's Bengal once more. Great ship :)

The other thing: I don't know how much tubes the Claw has, either, but I think I have to warn you about sizes in the WC universe and why it is hard to find sizes according to what is available from the manuals or (even worse) ingame screenshots.

It is funny that you used the Broadsword, because it is a huge bomber.
In fact the Broadsword doesn't fit into the hangars of most carriers when you look at the size given and how big the flight deck of the Victory for example would be.

Some of the WC fighters (I won't say all of them because I didn't check that) even fail simple "compared-to-human" comparisons. Look at the cockpits: If the Raptor is 36 meters long, how big is its cockpit? We see a pilot sitting in that cockpit during the launch sequence in WC1. And either there are humans which are 4 meters tall aboard the claw or there is something wrong with the stats.
The Broadsword is as long as the Raptor is, so there is the same problem. (although the Broadsword really looks HUGE which is great because it looks good and it fits for a heavy bomber.)

Well, whatever: I love WC and don't want to start ranting. It is just that if you really want to build a model I suggest you find a way to use something that fits for that ship in itself. There is no way of building everything to scale. A Broadsword in 1:144 won't fit into the hangar of a Concordia in 1:144
And remember: You're not alone with that problem. In fact I think Howard or Scooby or one of the other modelers in the community could tell you quite a few stories about that^^

I'm looking forward to seeing some of your model, I love the Bengal. Please keep posting :)
 
Wow. Thanks so much for all of the feedback! I didn't expect to get so much, so quickly! It never occurred to me that fighters were being launched out of tubes ala Battlestar Galactica.
jraptor-20090204122008-Viper_Tube-original.jpg

Though when you think about it the Tiger's Claw is probably heavily inspired by the Galactica. I think the angle I like the most is that those docking bays launch tubes themselves and that the main hangar and runway is for recovering fighters and combat landings.

As far a my model goes, I want it to be as much like Howie's Bengal as possible. I am thinking about constructing it from cardboard and then modifying and printing off Howie's mesh to use as a skin/building guide.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XcBsmVgC3s&NR=1

There's a link to see the viper launch in action. I doubt the Claw has launch tubes as long as the Galactica.
 
If carrier fighting in space is anything like carrier fighting on the ocean, you'd never want an enclosed flight deck just due to the danger of an explosive going off inside the deck. Force is amplified greatly when it gets to ricochet around inside an enclosed object. That's the entire principle behind a bunker buster shell. so having a mostly protected series of launch tubes (so a concordia doesn't happen to you every 15 minutes with the flight deck being out of comission) and a big open recovery deck which can still reclaim a fighter even while damaged seems downright practical.

This is exactly what happened to Kido Butai at Midway. IJN carriers were built with fully enclosed hangar decks. When American SBDs began their 5 minute attack, the Japanese planes were fully fueled and armed in the hangars. This helped make the damage much worse.

Part of this comes from the Royal Navy in that they built their carriers with the rough North Atlantic in mind. The IJN took a lot from the RN during the interwar years. The USN carriers (except for Lexington and Saratoga CV-2 and CV-3) had hangars that had openings so material can be quickly thrown overboard in case of emergency.
 
Malcolm Reynolds said:
In this image it appears that there are 13--6 on each side as well as a central one which in most images is labeled 07 on the runway part... So I am assuming that is not the Tigers Claw designation or whatever but the actual number of the landing bay.
.

The 07 on the landing deck of the Tiger's Claw is indeed her registry number. Numerous reference materials (Claw Marks, the Secret Missions insert cards) refer to the carrier as CV-07. By the way, welcome to the forums!
 
Hey thanks for the welcome! I've been lurking on this website on and off for years, I figured I should actually contribute something!

I have the day off so I've started working on the Bengal model already...I'll post some pics when I get the chance. One question: Is there a way to post pics onto a thread from my computer directly instead of having to use a link from the internet?
 
When I was about 10 I built a crude model of the Tiger's Claw. I recently dug it out of my old stuff and was inspired to create a new way better one. It looks pretty crummy now, but here it is anyway. Don't worry, my new Bengal will be way better.:cool:
 

Attachments

  • Bengal.jpg
    Bengal.jpg
    44.1 KB · Views: 195
Oh, if only it were so simple. :) Unfortunately the Tiger's Claw has been re-imagined so many times that there are a whole mess of different takeoff/landing scenarios seen:

- In the PC version of Wing Commander I you launch from tubes in the wings and land on the large central deck. There's not enough to detail to tell how many tubes there are... but you run past a sign that reads "TUBES 6-9" during takeoff (which suggests to me at least twelve, with six in each wing to be symmetrical).

- In the SNES version of Wing Commander I your fighter is raised on an elevator and takes off from the large central deck. Recovery is the same as the PC version.

- In Super Wing Commander your fighter take off and lands from the two larger 'side' bays.

- In the Wing Commander movie fighters take off and land (two abreast) on the larger central bay.

- On Wing Commander Academy fighters take off from two places: the two 'side bays' *and* smaller tubes in the wings... and at one point we get to see that there are *18* total (nine per wing): https://www.wcnews.com/loaf/ninehangars.jpg

If I were building a Tiger's Claw model that incorporated all of this somehow, I would have:

- 18 fighter-width tubes in the wings (nine per).
- 2 larger launch/recovery bays on the sides of the ship.
- 1 central launch/recover bay (with two catapults for launching fighters)

Whew!

Do some kind of force fields prevent the hangars from venting into the void or does everybody in the hangar have to wear a spacesuit. I'm betting there are force fields just because of how many people appear to be walking around without any environmental protection.

Yes, there is a shield--they call it a "magnetic airshield" (I believe there are also armored doors which can be shut, though we don't see those on later carriers).

Was there room enough for a Venture or a Drayman to fit inside there?

We see that there's a special bay where a smaller transport can dock. It's amidships in the movie version (the Diligent is stored there in the film). I think there's some talk of the supply and fuel Draymen (Draymans?) docking in WC1.

Well, I hope that didn't scare you away--welcome to the boards!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks LOAF! And no, you didn't scare me away at all, I was looking for ideas/details to incorporate into my model and I want to be as detailed as possible. So far I've been using Howard Day's Bengal Mesh to cut out separate parts of the model, get them the right scale and sort of papercraft-ize them. I've edited and rescaled a few parts. I figure I'll start from the runway and hangar and build my way back.

I've attached the mesh that I'm using right now. If anybody knows where I can find a better or more manageable one please let me know!

Also, I've attached the skin I'm going to use for the floor of the main hangar bay. It's the same one that Howie created but I've added a few ships in there. Thanks for the feedback and keep it coming!
 

Attachments

  • Bengal Start.jpg
    Bengal Start.jpg
    585.4 KB · Views: 205
  • Docking Bay.jpg
    Docking Bay.jpg
    29.1 KB · Views: 202
Back
Top