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Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Blair claims that "regular deck fighters" can't jump, which is apparently true -- your average Ferret, Sabre, Rapier II squadron doesn't fly jump capable ships...
It's not true in the larger sense, though, and certainly Blair knows it -- long range versions of all these fighters *do* exist and are brought out when they're needed. (His specific exception to this rule of the Excalibur falls flat on its face, anyway... certainly the Morningstar jumps.)
My guess would be that there's a tradeoff in terms of maneuverability, munitions payloade, etc. for "jump capable" versions of fighters -- consider the limited weapons of the Arrow V in Armada (which is apparently jump capable).
I'm also going to bet that there's some severe limitations -- remember that the Rapier in the movie couldn't *practically* jump without a capital ship along calculating for it. I'd imagine that there's also a range limitation -- a light fighter with a jump drive strapped in can probably jump once before it refuels.
(Speaking of jump drives, exactly what did Grandpa Mack *do* with his Tarsus? Explore the Troy System?)
It's not true in the larger sense, though, and certainly Blair knows it -- long range versions of all these fighters *do* exist and are brought out when they're needed. (His specific exception to this rule of the Excalibur falls flat on its face, anyway... certainly the Morningstar jumps.)
My guess would be that there's a tradeoff in terms of maneuverability, munitions payloade, etc. for "jump capable" versions of fighters -- consider the limited weapons of the Arrow V in Armada (which is apparently jump capable).
I'm also going to bet that there's some severe limitations -- remember that the Rapier in the movie couldn't *practically* jump without a capital ship along calculating for it. I'd imagine that there's also a range limitation -- a light fighter with a jump drive strapped in can probably jump once before it refuels.
(Speaking of jump drives, exactly what did Grandpa Mack *do* with his Tarsus? Explore the Troy System?)
Delance
Victory, you say?
RogueBanshee said:
That is in fact a very good question. Maybe the shields of the Kilrathi capship were weaker/worn out, or type of locking system is different.
LOAF said:
The expression "regular deck fighters" seems to imply by exclusion that there are special jump capable fighters.
RogueBanshee
Rear Admiral
I still don't see why Blair was so shocked though.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Well, for exactly the reason he says -- it's not normal to see an ordinary squadron of carrier planes have jump drives.
I think there's some confusion here about torpedoes.
Torpedoes have always been of the 'shield penetrating' variety (exception - the Proton Torpedoes in Privateer). They're not always *used* this way in combat (ie, the scene in the movie where Paladin lies doggo and waits for the Kilrathi ship to drop its shields), but there was no point in the war where torpedoes were simply large Dumb Fires/Maces/etc.
For our purposes there are two major creation stories:
One - the development of the torpedo itself. Kilrathi slaves developed the original torpedo in 2634 based on a human concept. They premiered them at the McAuliffe Ambush and the Terran Confederation was producing copies based on captured technology three months later.
Two - the development of the 'WC2' torpedo. There was a major shift in shield technology between 2655 and 2664, which rendered capital ships practically immune to all previous fighter based weaponry. The Terran Confederation developed a new type of torpedo to counter these shields... Kilrathi spies soon brought the technology to their side.
RogueBanshee
Rear Admiral
Bandit LOAF said:
But he didn't know that it was just an ordinary squadron. For all he knew it could have been the BW equilivent of a Spec ops. squadron for use in missions where it's impratical to send a carrier. With all the jump-drive equipped fighters from the various outdated Confed models out there the existence of such a force was quite possible.
Bandit LOAF said:
Oh I always thought that the race that developed the torpedoes deveoped them before they were conquered by the Kilrathi.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
He clearly identified them as "regular deck fighters".
Nope, they were forced to develop and produce the weapons by the Kilrathi.
RogueBanshee
Rear Admiral
Bandit LOAF said:
How could he tell the difference?
ChrisReid
Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
RogueBanshee said:
Why is this such a hang-up? Ships in Wing Commander have identifying markers on them that indicate where they fly off. If a ship indicates it's part of a certain carrier's regular contingent and it's not normally a jump capable ship, then he'd be surprised. But there's a million plausible explanations. The fact is that he did, so there's no reason to try to debunk it.
RogueBanshee
Rear Admiral
ChrisReid said:
I was just curious.
As for the markings 1: It would be hard to make them out during a dogfight or at range 2: A lot of BW fighters use the markings of the Confed ship they were assigned to before they were retired and 3: Even if they used Intrepid's markings then how would Blair know what specific design models were assigned to the Intrepid?
AD said:
That makes sense.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I don't understand where you're going with this. The entire point of the sequence before anyone started quoting it in the context of this thread was that he identified the fighters as being a "deck" type that couldn't normally jump. There's a million possible reasons for this -- from knowing that the Border Worlds just doesn't have special jump capable fighters to knowing that jump capable fighters don't exist/operate in those numbers to knowing that there aren't jump capable variants of the fighters in question to being able to physically look at a fighter and tell if it's jump capable or not...
I just don't understand why it's an issue *here* -- you were the person who brought up the quote, and your complaint is entirely internal... it has nothing to do with fighters in the movie jumping.
I just don't understand why it's an issue *here* -- you were the person who brought up the quote, and your complaint is entirely internal... it has nothing to do with fighters in the movie jumping.
RogueBanshee
Rear Admiral
Bandit LOAF said:
The thing is if jump capable fighters are so rare then why did the Claw have so many of them in the movie.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
This entire argument is a joke. You're looking at a passage in the WCIV novel that is specifically written to *avoid* this issue and pretending it's somehow offended by the Wing Commander movie.
That alone is crazy: the movie simply follows the trend established by many other sources. The novels introduce jump capable Ferrets, Sabres... Super Wing Commander introduces jump capable Rapier IIs and Hornets... Wing Commander Armada introduces jump capable Arrows, Phantoms, Banshees, Wraiths and Gladii... Wing Commander II introduces jump capable Morningstars.
The movie having a jump capable fighter is not some shocking new problem. If anything, the movie is the first instance where they try to *downplay* the abilities of a regular fighter with a jump drive, giving it a very limited amount of fuel and a short life support period... heck, the novel says that because the fighter has no NAVCOM Angel couldn't have jumped Charybdis at all without Blair leading the way.
Then add to that the fact that the Wing 4 novelization is clearly worded to avoid *specifically this argument* in the first place, throwing out the weird "deck fighters" clarification... and then on top of that the fact that you're suggesting that a licensed novelization is somehow more right than a movie written and directed by the series' creator... there's just so many layers of nonsense here.
... and then you're consciously avoiding the most obvious fact, which is that one of the ships in question was Maniac's Hellcat, which Blair should certainly know doesn't jump. Stop harping on this, it's not getting anywhere.
That alone is crazy: the movie simply follows the trend established by many other sources. The novels introduce jump capable Ferrets, Sabres... Super Wing Commander introduces jump capable Rapier IIs and Hornets... Wing Commander Armada introduces jump capable Arrows, Phantoms, Banshees, Wraiths and Gladii... Wing Commander II introduces jump capable Morningstars.
The movie having a jump capable fighter is not some shocking new problem. If anything, the movie is the first instance where they try to *downplay* the abilities of a regular fighter with a jump drive, giving it a very limited amount of fuel and a short life support period... heck, the novel says that because the fighter has no NAVCOM Angel couldn't have jumped Charybdis at all without Blair leading the way.
Then add to that the fact that the Wing 4 novelization is clearly worded to avoid *specifically this argument* in the first place, throwing out the weird "deck fighters" clarification... and then on top of that the fact that you're suggesting that a licensed novelization is somehow more right than a movie written and directed by the series' creator... there's just so many layers of nonsense here.
... and then you're consciously avoiding the most obvious fact, which is that one of the ships in question was Maniac's Hellcat, which Blair should certainly know doesn't jump. Stop harping on this, it's not getting anywhere.
