Tarawa's flight deck

Marc

Marc

Commodore
I'm not satisfied with any of the WakeIsland class launch deck i've seen so far (I think i saw one on the Standoff site and the other was mine... from like two months ago) and since I don't like to bitch and complain and then sit on my but and not do anything about it, I did something about it.

Anyway, I read End Run... again and Fleet Action... again
I then loaded up my Tarawa model and pretty mutch gutted the interior.

So this is what I've got 'sofar- I made some makeshift fighter for the benefit of scale comparison. I'm looking for some feedback- anything and everything is welcomed.

Hell, feal free to make wise-craks at it- because those are the hard truth with a funny twist at the end :)
 
This looks good. My understanding is that Standoff went with the 'back' bay because they had to use the same landing pattern as Special Ops.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
This looks good. My understanding is that Standoff went with the 'back' bay because they had to use the same landing pattern as Special Ops.
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Hummm... I'm not sure I understand wich ship you're talking about, but in Standoff's Prologue, the ship you fly from is a Gilgamesh, wich does have (in Standoff) launch tubes and 'back' bays. But the Tarawa you'll fly from in Episode 2 has a fly-through bay, similar to the one pictured here... except it doesn't have pillars and numbered parking spots.
 
I guess I was looking at the new one wrong -- I was thinking it removed the 'back' entrance.
 
Looks good. And it seems that the landing bay uses most space of the lower side of the ship, and thus looking like having only thin walls. Looks like it was put on as an afterthought, just as it should be. Only those 'pillars' look out of place.

As for the landing bay, IIRC it was never stated in End Run whether it was fly-through or enclosed, just that it was narrow.
 
Lynx said:
As for the landing bay, IIRC it was never stated in End Run whether it was fly-through or enclosed, just that it was narrow.
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Bingo! there it is! that's the peice of the puzzle that I can't figure out... is it a fly-through or a one opening launch bay? If the Confederation class is any indication, the fly-through desing has been around for a while- so it could be on this ship. BUT, then there's the Confederation dreadnought with it's launch bays facing forward only, add the Waterloo to it too... is the WakeIsland class in line with these?
I can't decide.
But on my first take on the ship, I filled the back side with as mutch engines as I could fit on it (to imply speed)
These are the views from the back- outside and inside, the inside one still has the old Tarawa 'star' form my frist take on the model.
 
My reasoning for a closed by has always been twofold: Jason didn't have room to abort his landing approach in End Run... and from the "real" side of things, no one had come up with 'fly through' bays yet (when End Run was published).
 
I always thought it was a fly through. On Jason's first landing he came in from the back of the ship. If it was a closed bay, everyone would have to launch from the back, which just doesnt make sense.

LOAF - I always figured that the reason he couldnt abort was that he was already too close, and he would smash into the engines if he pulled away.
 
LOAF, Marc: Interesting opinions... I think that Marc's rendering makes sense.

Standoff's Tarawa back entrance wasn't put there due to engine restriction or whatever, since we had to script the launching/landing parts ourselves. I might be wrong, but I believe Eder modeled it this way because he imagined it to be this way, it was a simple design choice.

Anyway, for comparaison here's what Standoff's Tarawa's back entrance looks like.

shot158.png
 
I always thought it was a fly through. On Jason's first landing he came in from the back of the ship. If it was a closed bay, everyone would have to launch from the back, which just doesnt make sense.
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I'm not following you hear. He "cleared the forward bow" during the landing -- that's coming in from the front.

They describe the far bulkhead with the flag painted on it a number of times, which I've always thought was the 'back' wall.
 
very cool marc! That is exactly how i imagined her bay there too! :)

and in so far as 'launching backwards doesn't make sense'. why not? the ship is traveling forward, your ship would be traveling the opposite direction...would make it less of a worry on launch, your engines fail, you just drift with no worries about getting rammed. landing now, landing might be a problem if the ships got her engines going.

sorry i haven't replied in a while mate.
 
It'd also make more sense to have a flythrough bay for carrier that small for starting and landing operations. This way ships, could land on the backside while others are launched at the front without having to delay a start when another fighter needs to land. It isn't implied anywhere, but on the other hand I don't remebember that any starts had to be canceled in order to allow a ship to land in End Run, so it's a possibility.
 
It'd also make more sense to have a flythrough bay for carrier that small for starting and lanf´ding operations.
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Yes, that does make sense -- but Bear specifically complains about the Tarawa's "single launch and recovery deck" *not* making sense. :)
 
yeah...except that at the end of the book, a kiralthi matches vectors with the ship and shoots rounds into a wall. there is no fly through bay. even if it 'makes sense' for there to be one. :)

Brad Mick
 
Yeah, I remenber this pic, that's the one that got me all fired up to make my own model in the first place. That's some damn good texturing on the back.

But look at that narrow entrance to the flight deck... that same shape seems to continue further on inside, making the flight deck seem tiny on this already small ship. That's what made me question it in the first place. Now granted there should be a small opening, but to be able to store 40+ fighters inside means that most of this ship should be an empty shell, and even then it would be a tight fit
 
I think Brad found the clincher here -- p.289 describes the Kilrathi firing through to the bay's aft wall.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Yes, that does make sense -- but Bear specifically complains about the Tarawa's "single launch and recovery deck" *not* making sense. :)
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That's a matter of how you understand the terms here...On most WC ships (discounting the ones with tube launching systems) launch and recovery area are the same. On the Concordia(the dreadnought) both bays are used for both launching and recovering, and on the single deck ships like Victory and so on, the whole area is referenced to as flight deck, even ther are distcinctive areas there(ship are usually laucnhed at the font, and recovered at the back) He could have even meant with that comment that he doesn't like to have both areas in one judging fom the words.

yeah...except that at the end of the book, a kiralthi matches vectors with the ship and shoots rounds into a wall. there is no fly through bay. even if it 'makes sense' for there to be one.
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The Kilrathi fighter was probably shootingat an angle and hit the hangars side walls, too.

EDIT: Is aft wall reallysaid there? It's been a pretty long time since I actually read it.
 
That's a matter of how you understand the terms here...On most WC ships (discounting the ones with tube launching systems) launch and recovery area are the same. On the Concordia(the dreadnought) both bays are used for both launching and recovering, and on the single deck ships like Victory and so on, the whole area is referenced to as flight deck, even ther are distcinctive areas there(ship are usually laucnhed at the font, and recovered at the back) He could have even meant with that comment that he doesn't like to have both areas in one judging fom the words.
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The problem with citing the Victory as the influence for the Tarawa is that it didn't exist yet when the novel was written - no WC game had had fighters that launched to the rear before (and clearly fighters *land* from ahead of the Tarawa... that's described several times.)

The Kilrathi fighter was probably shootingat an angle and hit the hangars side walls, too.
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The novel specifically sites the "aft wall of the hangar deck". That section also describes how the pseudo-bridge has a window looking over the flight deck -- the fellow doing the nice 3D model could probably work that in.
 
Well to keep with Standoff's idea, could it be said that the later models of the Wake Island class had a rear launch bay installed precisely because of Bear's recommindations from the Tarawa?
 
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