Malta and Coral Sea class

L

Lynx

Spaceman
I read somewhere of a Malta battleship and a Coral Sea heavy carrier class. Since I don't have the Novel, I'd like to ask if anyone knows of any canon stats like armament, speed and other stuff. And are any details of their basic shape known?
 
Ok! Let's do some brain spinning. ;)

As a pre WC1 carrier I'd assume it has few armaments, probably 4-8 Laser batteries maximal with some mass driver PV batteries, but not too much, since the threat of torpedo attacks wasn't existing when this class entered service. And it is probably not very well shielded and armored, since at this time, carriers weren't as important as later in the war, because the huge battleships did the cap ship killing jobs.

BTW aren't there any commission/decommision dates for this class too?
 
Yeah but if you look at Action Stations you have to realize that the fleet was basically the same as the US Fleet at the beginning of WWII. There wasn't a focus on carriers, and torpedoes didn't even exist.

So while it might have been the heaviest ship AT THE TIME, that dosen't make it a heavy ship compared to say, the Ranger class.
 
Jason_Ryock said:
Yeah but if you look at Action Stations you have to realize that the fleet was basically the same as the US Fleet at the beginning of WWII. There wasn't a focus on carriers, and torpedoes didn't even exist.

So while it might have been the heaviest ship AT THE TIME, that dosen't make it a heavy ship compared to say, the Ranger class.
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According to Action Stations, one of the ships in Task Force 23, which hit the Facin Sector on the limited strike that Confed had authorized was an 'old Ranger-class carrier' (p.40). This gels well with Captain Eisen's comments in WC3 about how the Rangers were a pre-War ship that should've been retired, but was brought out of mothballs because of the dearth of ships following the Battle of Terra and the damage done at the end of the False Armistice.

So it's probably heavier than even a Ranger-class, given that they were both out at the same time.. and the Ranger-class was -old-, even then.
 
Thanks for the page number reference, I'm so sick of, "IIRC in End Run...blah blah blah".

Your right about that, but the Ranger was old in WC3. I don't think the "modern" carriers in Action Stations would hold anything next to the "modern" carriers in WC3-4.

That's just my personal opinion, based on the Evidence we see in Action Stations about the fleet not really being a carrier fleet.
 
Jason_Ryock said:
Thanks for the page number reference, I'm so sick of, "IIRC in End Run...blah blah blah".

Your right about that, but the Ranger was old in WC3. I don't think the "modern" carriers in Action Stations would hold anything next to the "modern" carriers in WC3-4.

That's just my personal opinion, based on the Evidence we see in Action Stations about the fleet not really being a carrier fleet.
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The TCN fleet wasn't focused around carriers as being primary strike platforms, due to the lack of torpedo technology and the supposed invulnerability of a ship with shields against any fighter-based weapons. They were mostly used to carry small craft that would distract enemy fighters, against ships which couldn't protect themselves the way a battleship could, or to take on bases or planetary targets from range, ones which you didn't expect heavy shields to be around.

However, this being said, the Rangers and other carriers in Action Stations were still OLD - except the new Concordia, which was blown away at the end. Remember that Confed was cutting the military budget something fierce, especially since there hadn't been a major war in decades.

Remember that the 'modern' carriers of WC3 aren't very modern - they were mostly old vessels who were scrapyard-bound prior to the disastrous events of the previous eighteen-to-twenty months. In the reconquest of Enigma, the Kilrathi wiped out half of Confed's fleet carrier strength - six ships destroyed in a matter of months. This left six carriers to defend several sectors, as the Trafalgar and one or two other vessels were in dry-dock for serious repairs after the Battle of Vukar Tag and the Enigma campaign, along with a few new carriers due to come online before the Armistice shut down all production.

This meant that they were only able to scramble three fleet carriers for the battles in Sirius and Warsaw, losing Moskva in the process, before having Verdun, Leyte Gulf, and Lexington go up in Earth orbit. This left only Concordia and Saratoga intact, as the Arc Royal was threatening to blow with internal fires the way Lady Lex did by the end, IIRC. The fates of the under-construction carriers is uncertain, though I thought they were lost in the docks when Luna's bases were smashed.

(Edit: Had to add Saratoga to the list, and update where Verdun was lost with Admiral Bjorgensson).
 
Jason_Ryock said:
Thanks for the page number reference, I'm so sick of, "IIRC in End Run...blah blah blah".
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Well, you know, WC books don't have an index, so exact references are often difficult to find :p.

Your right about that, but the Ranger was old in WC3. I don't think the "modern" carriers in Action Stations would hold anything next to the "modern" carriers in WC3-4.
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That depends. The most recent carrier design in Action Stations was the Concordia-class, which still formed the backbone of the Confed carrier fleet in WC3/4. Of course, whether the Concordia-class was considered 'modern' in WC3/4 is a more questionable matter.

About the carriers in Action Stations... I remember when I first read AS, I found it rather odd that Confed would have anything heavier than Rangers, considering the limited utility of carrier-borne fighters. However, it all makes good sense, since fighters were the primary weapon for planetary strikes. So, large carriers would be used against planets, while smaller carriers were used for reconnaisance and counter-reconnaisance.
 
In WC3, Eisen claims to have been helmsman on the Victory on its maiden voyage. That would place the launching of the Victory sometime in the 2030s.

Based on that, it appears that right after the beginning of the war, Confed rushed to completion as many of its under-construction carriers as possible, including several Ranger class carriers, and the Victory was one of them.
 
In WC3, Eisen claims to have been helmsman on the Victory on its maiden voyage. That would place the launching of the Victory sometime in the 2030s.
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That would make Eisen very, very old. :) Missing sixes aside, I seem to recall that you can cross-reference several references about Eisen's early years to determin that the Victory entered service specifically in 2634. I don't know how it goes off hand, but it has to do with when Captain Dominguez was two classes ahead of him at the Academy and then when they served together at Venice or somesuch.

Based on that, it appears that right after the beginning of the war, Confed rushed to completion as many of its under-construction carriers as possible, including several Ranger class carriers, and the Victory was one of them.
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This seems like a good time to reference... this: http://www.hamtwoslices.net/loaf/fleetcarriers.html

(Although it actually has absolutely no information about the topic at hand, but I made it a few days ago and it's sort of neat.)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
That would make Eisen very, very old. :) Missing sixes aside, I seem to recall that you can cross-reference several references about Eisen's early years to determin that the Victory entered service specifically in 2634. I don't know how it goes off hand, but it has to do with when Captain Dominguez was two classes ahead of him at the Academy and then when they served together at Venice or somesuch.
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He served with Dominguez during the Venice Offensive, according to the WC4 novel, several decades prior to the events of that game.
 
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