The fleet structure of Wing Commander

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papachulo10

Spaceman
Well... Out of all the major Science Fiction Universes I believe that Wing Commander has the most accurate fleet structure. In the Wing Commadner Universe the Fleets each have their own respective numbers. In example, the 2nd Fleet and so on and so forth. But the main similarites between the Wing Commander fleet structure and ours today is the dominance of the aircraft carrier (or spaceship). No other universe puts the dominance of the carrier forward. In Babylon 5 the aircraft carriers are the Omega class Destroyers. Not Aircraft carriers which is one of their functions. In Star Trek there aren't even any carriers only cursiers and "exploers." It seems that in many sci-fi universes they have taken a back step in fleet structure. When are people going to learn that you can't project power with destroyers, crusiers, or even the once mighty battleships. Carriers are the way and I am glad that Wing commander puts a predominance on them.
 
fleet structure

Agreed. What about Battlestar Galactica? They seemed to have somewhat of a fleet structure, even tho most of them were destroyed. But there was one episode where another battlestar ship came around. The two carrier/battleships seemed to coordinate fairly well, except for that other battlestar's commander, seemed a bit stubborn! Star Trek, always focused around cruisers and explorers or science vessels. They did have some shuttles they could carry, but who wants to go into a fight in a shuttle?! Thats like taking a knife to a gun fight! But even the enemies in Star Trek, their fleets didnt have any fighter craft or any carriers either. That would be an interesting twist if they developed carriers and wings of fighters in Star Trek! Have a wing of Delta Flyers (ST Voyager)!

RFBurns
 
Fighters don't have a point in space, they'd be slower, hard to manuever, carry lousy weapons, and be prime targets for the type of weapons we could easily construct as point-defense guns for larger ships.
 
Frost: you are wrong one could develope shields and TORPEDOES. This would make fighters have a point. And Capships could go faster but they would then not be able to manuver whereas fighters could manuver with ease due to inertia. So cap ships would have to go slower than fighters otherwise their mass would prevent them from evading obsticles (micro meteors, meteors, other ships).
 
You boys all need to calm down a wee bit. I can give you the 100% Bassman guarantee that Wing Commander is nothing what real space flight will be like, so its pointless to get worked up over it. It's a game. Enjoy it as such.
Bassman
 
Nonetheless, it is a valid point. After all, somebody earlier was saying that WC is more realistic than Star Trek in that aspect... but if they're both 100% unrealistic, then how can one be more realistic than the other? At this point in time, it's impossible to say what sort of combat ships we'll have in a few hundred years... especially when you consider that the entire world has agreed not to develop any space armaments.
 
The US and Russia in a 1973 peace treaty that Reagan tried to break and now Bush will stupidly try to now also.
 
This goes to the guy who said fighters sucked!

A long time ago (around the time of WWI) a man once said that the aircraft carrier would rule the seas one day. Everyone laughed at him and said, "The battleship and battlecruiser will remain the kings of the ocean forever!" When WWII came along the Bismark, Prince of Wales, and the Yamato, some of the most powerful battleships ever made fell victim to the carrier. THat silenced everyone!
 
Somebody remembers Midway,

Almost all the Japanesse carriers sunken by fighters launched from U.S. carriers. That's the carrier supremacy battling in the WWII front lines.
 
see the history of the world navy.
WC is on WW II time, were carriers being the more powerful ships are center of Battle groups.
Star Trek is on the discovery times(14/15th century).were ships were to explore new lands,no to fight long battles with many ships.
 
Dragon I would have put Star Trek TOS in the age of discovery and the newest ones (like the dominion wars) at the time of the 17th/18th centuries where single ships plowed the seas and vast armadas squared off and fought.

But back to WC I personally see WC as being around the 1950's/60's before the cruise missle and extra long range fighters ruled but also after carriers had been around for a while. WC1-3 could be WWII and WCIV could be 1950s and the Nephilim in P and SO could very well be the equivilent of the Soviets during the Cold war, but this time the Cold war became hot. The Kilrathi share alot with the Japanese, both are honor bound societies with a rigid class structure and the Emperor is actually a GodEmperor (this is the Japanese of the Pre 1945 era). The societies are also filled with unswerving devotion (just look at some of the pre-Custers Carnaval kilrathi Kamakazi attacks). Finally both side dealt a huge quick blow to their opponants in the opening phases of the war, (McAlluff vs Pearl Harbor) forcing their opponants to use different tactics to survive, for the US it was to rely on aircraft carriers, for Confed it was to use the Bengals to act as independant ships rather than have them opporate with whole fleets. Think about how rarely we see fleet action in WCI. Well thats all for now. BTW perhaps the Pilgrim Wars could be the Naval Equivelent of WWI?
 
Napoleon true, but before the BB start to take the place on the navys.
In WC III manual, The Kilrathi /Japanese link it in there and I think the same, both cultures are very alike. I dont know about the way Pilgrim Wars were, but sounds like a good point.
The Kilrathi did use Heavy starships before but turn to the fighter mostly because it was a way to fight close and personal, the way they like.
The story about the Kilrathi would be welcome from us all, since the race motivation goals are still a bit lacking.
 
I Like the Race Motivation reasons given in WC4.123106, I think that fits quite well.

BTW The Japanese/Americans still used Big Ships and so did confed/the Kilrathi they just played less of a role. And to update my previously posted Ides, I feel that the Midway Carriers and partially the Vesuvii were equivialant to the US supercarriers, limited numbers large complements of advanced fighters, and still following the "Eggs in a Basket" theory
 
Well, its a pity that that line of game was exclued by Origin/EA.If they did it would sell a lot more copies.
I agree with the Cold war,But it still could be Cruiser Battle groups in WC near places that had fighter cover(like planets, Bases and the like) without a carriers our with a Light carrier for fighter cover to the battle group.
The ConFed Navy try that in the beging of the war by seending a invasion force without fighter cover(or a very small one) and the Tiger had to cover the escape (cluster carnival).But after that I dont think that any major battles or invasion would happen without a least a carrier in the task force.
 
Originally posted by Napoleon
I feel that the Midway Carriers and partially the Vesuvii were equivialant to the US supercarriers...
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that there was only one Vesuvius. :)

Also, my point concerning sapce-fighters is simply this: they offer no competitive advantage. Why would I build a fighter to carry 2 torpedos (which would severely hinder it's manuevering capability) when I could just make a really big ship that carried 200?
 
Also a big problem is that in space (in reality) weapons have an effective unlimited range limited only by their speed and the range of the target (in other words, how much time the target has to reach). Computers in the future would be able to target and fire with almost 100% hit rate, not the crappy little random shots shown in most games. That would make effective fighter approaches almost suicidal and would make physical weapons mostly ineffective since they could easily be shot down unless they had some way to prevent being locked on to. Energy weapons would be far more effective and there is not a problem of dodging them at close range at all (close range being 300,000 km)and can not be "shot down".
 
High-refire projectile weapons and high-output lasers/plasma hurling weapons (both of which are within our ability to construct even today) would be the weapons of the battle, not torps ;)

And as for accuracy, we're dead on already as it is ;) The MiG31 Foxbat has a computer-controlled gun system. In about half a second they can unleash a few hundred bullets into any fighter within the gun's range (which is long), close enough and not miss.
 
That argument is lame, Frosty :). Why build jetfighters that carry one or two Exocets when you could just build cruisers and destroyers with tons of cruise missiles?
...Because fighters are cheaper, and one or two Exocets will do just fine. The same goes for WC.

Vondoom, how exactly do you plan to detect such a small object at such a long range? (I don't know much about physics, so it may be that this isn't a problem at all, but I figure it's worth asking)
 
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