New Poll Examines Extremely Versatile Warship (March 25, 2012)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
The new CIC poll asks what everyone's favorite Confed cruiser class ship is. While most of the action that we see in Wing Commander is carrier-based, cruisers vastly outnumber their larger fighter-carrying cousins and can hold their own in capship battles as well. Many cruisers carry their own fighter compliment, and they are often built to fill specialized needs of the fleet. We can predict which few might take an early lead: Waterloos and Tallahassees were prominent escorts throughout the series, and the Hades and Plunkett both awed players in Secret Ops. The Concordia class supercruiser from the WC Movie also has quite a few fans. Some of the lesser know ships were also important though. Freedom Flight notes that the TCS Austin from The Secret Missions 2 was a Gettysburg class cruiser, and the WC4 novel added a class of heavy cruisers that the TCS Achilles belonged to. Last, but not least, the TCS Manassas is a light cruiser that shows up in the WC Academy episode "Chain of Command." Vote for your favorite above!











The old poll asked what Wingnuts' favorite game conclusions were. Wing Commander 3 & 4 were overwhelming favorites, followed by WC2's final mission in a distant third place spot. The captured stellar accretion device from Secret Ops, which served as the series' cliff hanger for a decade until Wing Commander Arena arrived, got no love with just 1% of the vote.





What game had your favorite conclusion?




WC1 (strike at Vega Sector HQ)
7.00%
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WC2 (assault on K'Tithrak Mang)
12.62%
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WC3 (Temblor run on Kilrah)
33.19%
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WC4 (showdown at Earth)
33.88%
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WCP (closing the Wormhole Gate)
4.84%
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WCSO (Stellar Accretion Device under control)
1.04%
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P1 (Steltek Drone destroyed)
3.54%
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P2 (Lev Arris revealed)
3.89%
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Ended on March 25, 2012 | 1157 votes

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Original update published on March 25, 2012
 
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I just love the Plunkett for some reason, and it's a shame you hardly get to see any of it in Secret Ops. It has that cool 'big battleship' look while still looking like a unique spaceship rather than just a battleship in space.
 
I had to vote for the movie ship, even though yes, it does look like a battleship in space a la battle cruiser Yamato. Reason being that when I first saw it I was reminded so much of the Saratoga from space: above and beyond! That was a series that was wing commander in all but name... My second would have been the plunkett - I was happy to see a ship of the line again after prophecy had only the midway vs. the entire nephilim range of ships.
 
The Plunkett looks too much like an Earth Alliance Destroyer from Babylon 5 for my taste.

The Waterloo will always have my vote. A substantial fighter capability (including the capacity to carry advanced light bombers like the Crossbow), powerful AMG's that let it go toe to toe with it's Kilrathi equivalent, the Fralthra, and smooth, organic lines that look like no other sci-fi spacecraft I can think of... I always hoped we would get a chance in the games to fly off of a Waterloo, but other than the brief appearance in SO1, it was not to be.
 
Incidentally, I'm very amused by the tangle of class designations and ship names that have arisen in the WC universe.

The Concordia we see in the games was not a Concordia-class ship, but the movie Concordia WAS...but neither was a Concordia class carrier. However, the Lexington was a Concordia class carrier.

The Gettysburg was not a Gettysburg-class ship, but rather was a Waterloo-class. However, it has been suggested that one of the Concordia's (which was not a Concordia-class ship) was a Gettysburg class ship.

And the Victory used to be Ranger-class, but then someone decided it should be Yorktown-class, because "Yorktown class" is supposed to sound more like a light carrier, despite the fact that the original U.S.S. Ranger was a light carrier, and the U.S.S. Yorktown was the leading ship of a heavy carrier class. Yet the original famed H.M.S. Victory was anything but light, and was in fact a heavy ship-of-the-line.

At least Midway was a Midway class, and Cerberus was a Cerberus class.
 
H.M.S. Victory was anything but light, and was in fact a heavy ship-of-the-line.

No was about it HMS Victory is still in commission as the flagship of the Second Sea Lord in his role as Commander in Chief of the Home Command and he is the oldest commissioned warship in the world.

I know its a bit off topic but I think its really intresting
 
I think it was only fans that called the Victory a Ranger class ship. I don’t believe that was ever an official thing.
 
The Concordia we see in the games was not a Concordia-class ship, but the movie Concordia WAS...but neither was a Concordia class carrier. However, the Lexington was a Concordia class carrier.

The Gettysburg was not a Gettysburg-class ship, but rather was a Waterloo-class. However, it has been suggested that one of the Concordia's (which was not a Concordia-class ship) was a Gettysburg class ship.

I don't think any of the Concordias were Gettysburg-class. The first was the name ship of the Concordia class, which included the Lexington and Princeton. This was the ship featured in (and destroyed at the end of) Action Stations.

The TCS Concordia in the movie was a "Concordia-class Supercruiser"; we don't know what happened to it, save that it was still around in 2656 (mentioned in the Kilrathi Saga manual.)

Then the TCS Concordia from Wing Commander II was a Confederation-class dreadnaught.

And the Victory used to be Ranger-class, but then someone decided it should be Yorktown-class, because "Yorktown class" is supposed to sound more like a light carrier, despite the fact that the original U.S.S. Ranger was a light carrier, and the U.S.S. Yorktown was the leading ship of a heavy carrier class. Yet the original famed H.M.S. Victory was anything but light, and was in fact a heavy ship-of-the-line.

The Ranger-class thing wasn't anything from Origin, just something fans used.

Incidentally I'm both the person who came up with Ranger-class in the first place (as a fan pitching things for Johnny's aborted Joan's book) and the person who officially named it Yorktown-class (in an official capacity) so I can tell you that absolutely none of what you've worked out had anything to do with my thought process. :)

I suggested Ranger-class back in 1998 after the name was mentioned as a type of carrier in Action Stations; one that would be around when the Victory first put to space. I THOUGHT at the time that the Action Stations reference was explicitly to a light carrier, so that the Victory being such would match with whatever Dr. Forstchen was imagining. It wasn't until much later that I realized that wasn't the case; Action Stations' "Ranger class carrier" wasn't a light carrier at all. So when I had a chance to name the Victory's class something else, I did...

(I went with Yorktown-class as a nod to the fact that it's the same 3D model as the TCS Lexington... which was named after another Essex-class carrier turned museum ship, which was visited by the Wing Commander IV team.)

At least Midway was a Midway class, and Cerberus was a Cerberus class.

The Cerberus is actually a Hades-class ship.
 
And the Victory used to be Ranger-class, but then someone decided it should be Yorktown-class, because "Yorktown class" is supposed to sound more like a light carrier, despite the fact that the original U.S.S. Ranger was a light carrier, and the U.S.S. Yorktown was the leading ship of a heavy carrier class. Yet the original famed H.M.S. Victory was anything but light, and was in fact a heavy ship-of-the-line.

At least Midway was a Midway class, and Cerberus was a Cerberus class.

The Victory was never officially designated a 'Ranger-class' carrier. The description in the WC3 manual simply calls the ship class a 'Light Carrier'. Ranger was a fan designation that managed to gain some traction over the years. The class was officially named Yorktown in the Star*Soldier manual, which also confirmed the designations for the Sheffield class destroyer.
 
No was about it HMS Victory is still in commission as the flagship of the Second Sea Lord in his role as Commander in Chief of the Home Command and he is the oldest commissioned warship in the world.

True, but she's not afloat anymore (in drydock, I think?). The U.S.S. Constitution is the oldest comissioned warship still afloat.

The TCS Concordia in the movie was a "Concordia-class Supercruiser"; we don't know what happened to it, save that it was still around in 2656 (mentioned in the Kilrathi Saga manual.)

My mistake...I had gotten confused and thought the movie Concordia was a "Gettysburg class Supercruiser". So where did the "Gettysburg class cruiser" come from?

Incidentally I'm both the person who came up with Ranger-class in the first place...

Interesting. I hadn't known that...I just remembered reading on a thread somewhere that "Ranger" had been proposed but never canonized (is that the right word? canonated? canonified? Or maybe just "canned"? :) ), and that it had been changed to "Yorktown" and made official in S*S due to some issue with light versus heavy. Which I found ironic because of the historical Ranger and Yorktown being light and heavy, respectively.

The Cerberus is actually a Hades-class ship.

This is an especially interesting comment. Don't we *know* that the Cerberus is the lead ship of it's design? (I.e. there never was a TCS Hades)? If so, it means that Confed doesn't follow the US Navy convention of naming a class for a lead ship (or at least, it doesn't always), in which case a lot of assumptions fans have made over the years may be wrong (i.e. there may never have been a TCS Confederation, as the lead ship of the Confederation class, or a TCS Bengal, or a TCS Waterloo...)
 
This is an especially interesting comment. Don't we *know* that the Cerberus is the lead ship of it's design? (I.e. there never was a TCS Hades)? If so, it means that Confed doesn't follow the US Navy convention of naming a class for a lead ship (or at least, it doesn't always), in which case a lot of assumptions fans have made over the years may be wrong (i.e. there may never have been a TCS Confederation, as the lead ship of the Confederation class, or a TCS Bengal, or a TCS Waterloo...)

Well it may be the case that there is a TCS Hades, but the Cerberus was finished first due to construction difficulties or other consequences that befell the Hades. This has happened a few times in the US Navy - for example look at the Lexington class carriers. Lexington was CV-2 and Saratoga was CV-3, but Saratoga was commissioned about a month before Lexington in 1927.
 
It could also be that the TCS Hades was a prototype/testing vessel for the class, but was it was not the first truly commissioned ship of its class.
 
True, but she's not afloat anymore (in drydock, I think?). The U.S.S. Constitution is the oldest comissioned warship still afloat.

Yes you are right she is in drydock although I do belive she is infact sea worthy I see in my previous post I said "he" instead of "she" must of been in killrathi mode!
 
By the way I have to say I love the Plunkett its just the big guns just make it seem like it can kill lots just wish we got to see more of it
 
I went with the Plunkett, even though I think she has a poor structural layout. I mean really, thin connecting tubes on a ship that has guns for going toe-to-toe? ;) I like the Plunkett's turrets. They are what I picture on the Texas-class BBs mentioned in AS and S*S. Just big ass kicking guns ready to make the fur fly!

True, but she's not afloat anymore (in drydock, I think?). The U.S.S. Constitution is the oldest comissioned warship still afloat.

She is still afloat. There's a damn hotel in the way now, but I still give Old Ironsides masts a looking over every day on the way to work. :D
 
It's the Victory that Farbourne is pointing out isn't still afloat, though I think she may have been made seaworthy by the restorations performed for the Trafalgar bicentenary.

HMS Victory does have another feature that surely has to be a record - surely the only warship to be damaged by enemy action in three different centuries - at first and second Ushant and Cape St. Vincent in the 18th, Trafalgar in the 19th, and by German air attacks in the 20th.
 
This is an especially interesting comment. Don't we *know* that the Cerberus is the lead ship of it's design? (I.e. there never was a TCS Hades)?
In the case of the Cerberus, I believe we actually know that there was a TCS Hades - I think this was mentioned in the SO fiction somewhere, or possibly in one of the design documents for SO (in which case, of course, it's not really canon, as it's unpublished). The TCS Hades was a testbed, though, and the Cerberus was indeed the first Hades-class ship to enter service.
 
I had to vote for the Waterloo. It had such a beautiful design, powerful specs, and was a great accompaniment to the Concordia and Gilgamesh of WC2. Incidentally, WC2 is my absolute favorite of the series so I'm completely, unabashedly biased :)
 
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