Does the Vesuvius even have rear firing catapaults? Otherwise they need to loop around or fly out the back under their own power. Unless the Vesuvius is carrying war vintage Longbows the only jump capable craft in its arsenal are Excaliburs and Lances.
We've seen the Vesuvius do a full 180 - it takes a matter of seconds (and we've also been able to fly around it ourselves; this also takes seconds).
There are also plenty of other jump capable fighters that are likely still in service -- Morningstars, Crossbows, Wraiths, Phantoms, Banshees, Gladii, some Arrows and Thunderbolts... but failing all that, I'm not sure why limiting the possibilities to the two most advanced fighters and the most advanced fighter-bomber would be somehow especially restrictive. Oh no, we can't fly *Hellcats*, we're stuck using our overwhelming number of completely invisible fighters that can destroy capital ships with a single bomb and that are also flown by genetically engineer superhuman pilots.
Given the way WC uses terminology I assume you mean two Flights of F-107s. In which case the ground crews would royally suck if they couldn't get them spaceborne before Blair would have had the opportunity to place his Flash Pack.
If you actual mean Wings, then I'm going to love your rationalization for why they didn't swamp our heroes with over a hundred super fighters and flashpack them earlier. Especially with F-107s having both jump engines and effectively infinite fuel.
I do not mean two flights; Tolwyn puts the two remaining *wings* of Lances aboard Vesuvius under Seether, ordering him to use them to begin the attacks as soon as war is declared (an event the Border Worlders managed to stop, incidentally, by *destroying the Vesuvius*). I don't really think I'm responsible for rationalizations, though -- at best, citations (and it's straight from the novel).
Sabotaging the efforts to prevent war by Nuking the Vesuvius somehow helps? Remember the Maine? It's a good analogy, you just refuse to acknowledge the implications of such a action.
Sinking a major vessel like that and effectively proving beyond a doubt that the Raiders were Border World Militia by neutralizing doubts about the possessing the technology, unless he can present his evidence would only serve to secure war from a already bloodthirsy Senate.
See, here's the absolute trout-in-the-face problem with your argument: EXCEPT THAT IT DIDN'T. Blair *does* destroy the Vesuvius and he does go to the Senate and he does stop the war and he does prevent the gen-select genocide. In fact, we can even find out what happens when he doesn't -- go play that penultimate mission again and see if you can manage to get to Earth in your "F-107" without blowing up the Vesuvius.
(And no, I can not, for the life of me, figure the connection between the Maine and the concept of destroying the Vesuvius being like a pre-emptive strike on North Korea.)
No, my presumption is he doesn't want to needlessly provoke a legal body that from the newscast at the beginning of the game was already about ready to order the annihilation of the Union of Border Worlds. Tolwyn was having to seriously placate them just to get two weeks for a investigation. You're the one who presumes murdering on the order of 8,000 of the Confederation's finest would simply be blown off.
Well, then, that's a bad presumption on your part... because this is exactly what 'he' does. But it stretches credibility, I think, for anyone to honestly have played Wing Commander IV and continue to claim they "presume" no one wants to destroy the Vesuvius.
You fail to distinguish between a battlefield promotion and actually being legally commisioned. Admiral Wilford can make Blair a Captain by a battlefield promotion, but it would require the legal body of the Union of the Border Worlds to make him a legally commisioned officer, let alone Captain in the Border World Militia. That has plenty of history and there is absolutely no reason to believe it would be changed for some arbitrary reason.
There's no legal body -- we're talking about a "nation" which came into existence three days before Blair defected.
Why does the concept of the Officer of the Deck give you so much trouble? You might want to watch Master & Commander and pay attention to the whole business about Officer of the Deck. If you don't like that I could bring up some other Age of the Sail stuff because it is the same basic principle whether it's a sub or surface ship. Or do you think there are multiple shifts of Captains montoring things 24/7? That the Captain no longer needs sleep and has nothing better to do then act perpetually as Officer of the Deck?
The problem 'gives me so much trouble' (?!) is that we're talking about Wing Commander and not Master & Commander. Now, it's a magnificent film with a fantastic soundtrack and a joke about weevils that is, admittedly, second to none... but it has absolutely nothing to say about how the Union of Border Worlds organizes their newly-formed spaceship navy. There is, to the best of my knowledge, no secret fount of Wing Commander canon that applies here. (A quick text search of the Wing IV script and novel finds one reference to the term -- Blair inner monologging about how he'd served watch as officer of the deck in the past. No elaborate treatise about how the power structure on the Intrepid works.)
But I'm going back through the thread and it doesn't make any sense in the first place. Blair is the captain of the Intrepid, assigned by Eisen (in front of Admiral Wilford) and we have absolutely no idea who the Officer of the Deck is while he's flying (although a good bet would be Garibaldi). Admiral Wilford is the commander of a larger fleet of ships and was responsible for ordering all of those ships (including the Intrepid, the MSH, several frigates, two escort carriers and the Princeton) to attack the Vesuvius. He's not specifically captaining the Intrepid (and of course in the game it's Eisen who suggests hitting the Vesuvius' weak points with torpedoes or the flash points... destroying Vesuvius isn't something Blair suddenly decided to do).
If you want to argue rank structure the manuals consistantly shows the grades mirror modern demarcation so I fail to see the point of trying to make an issue of it.
There are some notable differences -- including swapping Lieutenant General and Major General... the addition of a British-style five-star 'Marshal'... and the various 'futuristic' enlisted ranks (spaceman, spacehand, etc.).
1) Seniority comes in when grade is the same and deals with the issue of who is in charge in such a situation. As the word implies the one who has been in the grade the longest wins. aka Eisen has Seniority over Blair despite Colonel and Captain, both O6, being equivalent.
We don't really know how long Eisen has been a Captain, do we? He's been around for longer than Blair... but Blair holds the unusual distinction of having been a Colonel for almost his entire career (2655-2673).
2) What does a 3 star Admiral, by Confed Navy charts, have to do with captaining a ship when Blair has been battlefield promoted to the position of CO? He is the Captain unless he is relieved, regardless of who he delegates control of the Bridge.
I'm not sure what this question means. Lets clarify: when they were Terran Confederation officers, Eisen, Blair and Wilford were all the same grade: O-6. Eisen and Wilford were Navy Captains and Blair was a Space Force Colonel. Wilford has two years on Eisen in terms of seniority.
In the Union of Border Worlds Navy, Wilford is a Vice Admiral, easily outranking Blair and Eisen who both retain their Confederation ranks (Colonel and Captain, respectively). In terms of seniority, Eisen has... what, 24 hours on Blair?
(And then it's all switched up again when they return to the Confederation - Admiral Eisen, Brigadier General Blair... and Captain Wilford. Maybe he took the blame for the Vesuvius decision?)
3) You have throughout this failed to establish either why the Intrepid needs to remain in system, or even should have jumped to the Sol system given the circumstances which you acknowledge are not favorable to the survival of the ship. Needlessly putting one's ship in danger for no purpose is a mark against the commander, particularly when they're the Captain of a ship.
Did you play Wing Commander IV? This is a thing that happens in Wing Commander IV.
Vice Admiral Wilford has ordered the Intrepid to prevent the Vesuvius from reaching Earth; in order to engage the Vesuvius it must remain in the same star system - that's enough of a reason.
I'm reasonably certain that military operations don't necessarily begin with the war planners briefing each individual commander on *why* his particular orders matter in the overall scheme of things - although Blair does know that Vesuvius will be used--within hours--as a base for launching attacks that will kill immediately some billions of people (whether this knowledge affects his dedication to following orders can be left up to you, the reader! My bet: it does).
Now, as the Captain of the ship Blair can certainly order the Intrepid to turn tail and run, living to fight another day... you are absolutely right that he can do this and need only worry that he will be quickly replaced as her captain. But that technicality *doesn't matter* - there's no way Blair is going to ignore his orders, there's no way he's going to abandon the other elements engaged in the battle and there's no way he's going to leave the Vesuvius ready to kill ten worlds NO MATTER WHETHER OR NOT HE TECHNICALLY CAN DO THESE THINGS.