Oldest Carrier

[Sylvester]

What is the oldest active (in 2681) carrier in Confed that we know about.

 

[Ripper]

Why, the Ranger, of course.

 

[overmortal]

Or did you mean the oldest carrier by name?

 

[Viper61]

I seriously doubt that the Ranger was still an active carrier in Confed 12 years after the end of the war. Might be wrong about that but if I'm not, I would have to say that maybe some Concordia class carriers might still be around (design predating the Kilrathi War). If your talking actual carrier and not class I have no idea .

C-ya

 

[overmortal]

Let's just patiently wait on Loaf to inform us all.

 

[Ambassador]

Remember the doctrine:
NEVER touch a running system!

For that, I think the Ranger class prooved itself during the Kilrathi war.
For what I remember, the Ranger class CVE based upon transporter hulls with an oversized engine but weak defenses and an for it´s size excellent fighter complement. This is why it´s speciality was the hit&run tactics and allowed the confed to cripple kilrathi support lines and take out enemy fleet bases and shipyards behind the lines.

In the time after war there were always pirates and raiders, so I think, an CVE task force (1-2 destroyers, 1 CVE and maybe some corvettes) shuld be ideal to deal with ´em.

Fazit:
Oldest carrier? The Ranger class, I think! Old but proven and deadly
(first in kilrah...)

@Loaf:
... or is there any Bengal class I overlooked...?

 

[Haesslich]

Remember the doctrine:
NEVER touch a running system!

For that, I think the Ranger class prooved itself during the Kilrathi war.
For what I remember, the Ranger class CVE based upon transporter hulls with an oversized engine but weak defenses and an for it´s size excellent fighter complement. This is why it´s speciality was the hit&run tactics and allowed the confed to cripple kilrathi support lines and take out enemy fleet bases and shipyards behind the lines.

In the time after war there were always pirates and raiders, so I think, an CVE task force (1-2 destroyers, 1 CVE and maybe some corvettes) shuld be ideal to deal with ´em.

Fazit:
Oldest carrier? The Ranger class, I think! Old but proven and deadly
(first in kilrah...)

@Loaf:
... or is there any Bengal class I overlooked...?

The Ranger-class was a -light- carrier class, not a CVE like the Tarawa or her spiritual descendant, the TCS Eagle. The Rangers were pre-war light carriers, which meant they carried fewer fighters than the later heavy carriers could, but they were all Confed had for the early stages of the Kilrathi War.

Tarawa and her line carried 44 fighters, IIRC, less than the compliment of either a Bengal or Concordia-class. However, she did have a goodly amount of fighters, better combat speed than most ships of her time (she was as fast as a Gilgamesh-class destroyer, thanks to that engine mount). She was, above all, expendable: you could build a dozen of them for the cost of one normal fleet heavy carrier.

 

[Death]

Ranger class light (not escort) carriers would probably be the first on the figurative chopping block. Remember, the Victory was returned from inactive status (read: un-mothballed) for the war because Confed was so short of ships. Older hulls may be useful, but they also, in general, require more maintenance due to age.

Also, advances in equipment can easily leave older ships in the dust, figuratively speaking, and it may not be economical to refit older hulls (which require more maintenance, and not-infrequently more manpower due to lesser degrees of automation) with newer equipment.

Concordia class ships are the most likely old carriers to have survived to active duty in 2681, and not even many of them, with smaller escort carriers (like the class the TCS Eagle [WC3N] came from, built later in the war to take advantage of the lessons learned from the Tarawa-type CVEs) to fill in the gaps of coverage. The remaining ships of both classes would probably go into mothballs as more Midway class ships came online, since the Midway program's goal was to replace numerous older carriers with newer, fewer carriers having advanced capabilities to compensate for smaller quantities.

 

[Ambassador]

UUps! Sorry I was mistaken but another Question:

The Midway class should replace all the fleet carriers you said?

So the cruisers and destroyers have to fill the hole all the light carriers and escort carriers are leaving? Or what?!
I suppose there arn´t many Qstrikecruisers like the Cerberus out there, right?

 

[Haesslich]

UUps! Sorry I was mistaken but another Question:

The Midway class should replace all the fleet carriers you said?

So the cruisers and destroyers have to fill the hole all the light carriers and escort carriers are leaving? Or what?!
I suppose there arn´t many Qstrikecruisers like the Cerberus out there, right?

The Midway class is intended to replace the hordes of light and heavy fleet carriers which currently are being decomissioned, after decades of battling the Kilrathi. There are also Vesuvius-class supercarriers floating about, along with the probable escort carriers of the Eagle-type built near the war's end. Cerberus is a prototype for a future class of strike cruisers, which means she's not in full production yet.

Remember, those old Kilrathi-war ships, especially the ones like Victory, were in mothballs BEFORE being dragged out onto the front lines. Now that there's new production, those and the heavily-damaged ships are going to be the first to go, along with any other really old ships from pre-War or early-War construction.

 

[Quarto]

Well, considering that there hasn't been any great leap forward in Confed carrier technology (that we know of, at least) analogous to the appearance of nuclear carriers, the Eagle-type CVEs are still a very modern design. We don't know if new ships of this type are still being built (it seems unlikely), but existing Eagle-type CVEs should probably be able to serve effectively during the '80s at least. So, a new CVE class is not urgently needed. Plus, we don't know whether CVEs still play a large role in post-war Confed fleet doctrine. Remember, the main proponent of the CVEs went crazy and hung himself .

 

[Haesslich]

Well, considering that there hasn't been any great leap forward in Confed carrier technology (that we know of, at least) analogous to the appearance of nuclear carriers, the Eagle-type CVEs are still a very modern design. We don't know if new ships of this type are still being built (it seems unlikely), but existing Eagle-type CVEs should probably be able to serve effectively during the '80s at least. So, a new CVE class is not urgently needed. Plus, we don't know whether CVEs still play a large role in post-war Confed fleet doctrine. Remember, the main proponent of the CVEs went crazy and hung himself .

The real reason CVEs came into being was because Confed carrier production was falling behind - they apparently didn't have the yards to build light carriers to do escort duty, not after the Battle of Terra, and heavy carriers are slow to build -and- crew... plus they're expensive. The escort-type carrier, made to be small, light, and cheap, seems to have been a really useful stopgap measure. On top of doing the escort duty for convoys that light carriers would have done, they're also 'expendable' enough to throw into situations like holding actions where you needed to preserve heavier ships which Confed had to hoard after the near-annihilation of several Inner Worlds and the damage done to the Lunar shipyards.

Given that the war-time pressures are no longer present, I'd expect them to keep the CVEs they have, maybe build a few light carriers for convoy escort duty, and then concentrate on replacing their oldest and most damaged heavy or light fleet carriers with these newer vessels.

 

[psych]

Lunar shipyards? What Lunar shipyards? I managed to teleport myself to the WC universe and tried looking at the moon, but all I saw was one big smoking hole in the ground

I do think CVEs exist after the Kilrathi War, the Shrike and Panther's bio refers to them existing.

As for the Kilrathi War was concerned, I think the CVLs (light carriers) and CVEs (escort carriers) had the same wartime role. Only the CVLs were shitboxes built over 50 years back that were pulled from mothballs, while the CVEs were just recently built-half-assed contractions.

During End Run, the Tarawa and her sisters were frequently referred to as light carriers, and the Victory was referred to as an escort carrier. Even the Victory Streak's Recon-In-Force groups, the raider missions that just screams "escort carrier!", the main component was a light carrier. So the point is, CVEs and CVLs are different classes of warships with nearly the same wartime roles.

So . . . why didn't they bring back the Ranger-class carriers in service when they could have brought in CVEs in 2667? Simple, the CVEs were more effective. The CVEs were faster and had more fighters, plus cheaper to build. The Ranger-class warships were . . . the crappiest of the crap. They weren't fast and they couldn't carry as many fighters as the newest CVEs in spite of their 720 meter size (remember that they were built before the Kilrathi War, and only to hold scout fighters then, not a multi-purpose air wing). The Victory was last on the list for recieving new equipment, which means logically that every other carrier had more priority.

As for the Eagle-type CVEs being larger then the Victory, that may be true, but size doesn't always mean length (even though it would be around it's range in length). It can have more tonnage for example. But that doesn't mean it's going to be as big as say, a corvette. Also, this might sound unorthodox, but there might be a good reason why they made the Eagles as long as they were. It could be a good attempt by Confed to make the CVEs bigger then they normally appear, to sucker the Kats into thinking it's a new class of light or medium carrier. Intelligence is all about fooling the enemy in every way possible, and this theory is something that just screams of military cunning.

And my last topic and something that may be open to debate. . . I think CVEs got their asses kicked after the Battle of Eath. Admiral Hancock was, quoted by the Armada manual, as the guy who was the unofficial leader of the behind-the-lines strikes. Armada had the Lexington deploy after the Battle of Earth. The Armada manual also referred to six Salthis torping a Confederation carrier (besides the Lexington, Confed would be hard pressed to deploy another of their precious fleet carriers behind enemy lines). False Colors said Bonderevsky gave up the Tarawa to take command of DesRon-67, and heard Tarawa was crippled in a clash with the Kats. This might mean the CVEs were once again, being deployed in behind the lines raids. But this time . . . they were stopped cold (most likely by the Kats reserve carriers and their new light carriers). And as the WC3 manual had said, many Recon-In-Force groups never came back.

 

[Haesslich]

And my last topic and something that may be open to debate. . . I think CVEs got their asses kicked after the Battle of Eath. Admiral Hancock was, quoted by the Armada manual, as the guy who was the unofficial leader of the behind-the-lines strikes. Armada had the Lexington deploy after the Battle of Earth. The Armada manual also referred to six Salthis torping a Confederation carrier (besides the Lexington, Confed would be hard pressed to deploy another of their precious fleet carriers behind enemy lines). False Colors said Bonderevsky gave up the Tarawa to take command of DesRon-67, and heard Tarawa was crippled in a clash with the Kats. This might mean the CVEs were once again, being deployed in behind the lines raids. But this time . . . they were stopped cold (most likely by the Kats reserve carriers and their new light carriers). And as the WC3 manual had said, many Recon-In-Force groups never came back.

Note that CVEs are expendable, and in End Run, Bondarevsky notes they don't have the same punch a full-sized fleet carrier does to get them out of tough situations. Not as many fighters, not as many guns, and not nearly enough armor to survive an engagement which would hurt something like the Wolfhound or Gettysburg, but easily splash Normany or Tarawa.

Their primary mission, as noted in that same novel, is to provide escort for convoys that dont' need full-sized carriers, to deliver ships, and to be expendable as needed. Most RIF groups weren't probably expected to come back - all they had to deal severe damage to the enemy before going down, or send word back to Confed about jump points into Kilrah, or similar.

 

[Ripper]

Actually, I meant the USS Ranger, CV-1.

 

[Hornet]

I'd think ships like the Victory would still be in service but on active duty, most likely acting as training vessels for the Academy (maybe even a Bengal in that role).

 

[Sylvester]

Actually, I meant the USS Ranger, CV-1.

That is not right
USS Langey CV-1 Built 1924
USS Lexington CV-2 Built 1928
USS Saratoga CV-3 Built 1928
USS Ranger CV-4 Built 1931
USS Yorktown CV-5 Built 1933
USS Enterprise CV-6 Built 1933




As for bengals, they couid still be in active service in 2681 since they were built first in 2644 and the Ranger in 2579.

 

[Chris Blair]

I think the oldest Carrier is the TCS Victory. Though she wasn't in active service after the war, according to the Wing Commander Encyclopedia, it was made a flying muesum after the war, so its the oldest carrier, just not active service. Now if you say active service, I believe it is the TCS Liberty, a Concordia class carrier, go look it up in the Encyclopedia.

 

[Haesslich]

I'd think ships like the Victory would still be in service but on active duty, most likely acting as training vessels for the Academy (maybe even a Bengal in that role).

According to the WC4 novel, TCS Victory is currently a floating museum. Most of her contemporaries were destroyed during the war, mothballed and put into holding areas, or just scrapped at War's end during the period leading up to the Border Worlds Conflict, during the great Reduction In Force.

Between the post-Kilrathi War reductions and the ten years since which have apparently included new shipbuilding (the Plunketts and Murphy class ships are apparently fairly common now), I'd expect most of those old vessels to be retired and either broken up for scrap or else destroyed in the course of battle.

 

[psych]

I think the oldest Carrier is the TCS Victory. Though she wasn't in active service after the war, according to the Wing Commander Encyclopedia, it was made a flying muesum after the war, so its the oldest carrier, just not active service. Now if you say active service, I believe it is the TCS Liberty, a Concordia class carrier, go look it up in the Encyclopedia.

The Liberty was broken up for scrap.