What were Confed Battlewagons armed with?

We don't really have much data from that era - we know they had heavy plasma guns, as per the descriptions in Action Stations, for anti-capship work. Beyond that.... there's not much to go on.
 
I always thought "battlewagons" was simply a slang term for the heavier capital ships, like the Concordia.
 
I was completely unaware there were battlewagons in the WC universe. The only BWs I'm familiar with are the B5 ships...So I'm picturing the WC variety in the same vein (slightly smaller than a corvette?) but what I'm thinking contradicts what Shaggy has said...does anyone else have any more information of even just their size or roles in a fleet engagement?
 
Given that the Confederation fleet, at the start of the Kilrathi War, was a battleship-focused fleet, Shaggy's definition IS technically correct. It's just that most of those ships didn't have fighters, and most of the carriers were either the really old creaky Ranger-class ships like the Victory, or else a few newer carriers like the first TCS Concordia.
 
At the start of the war battlewagons and ships of the line were the primary delievers of destruction. Carriers were still on the fringes (used for scouting, small strikes, etc) the best way to look at this is to see what happened here (earth) during the 1920s-1940s and the replacement of the battlewagon by the carrier.

After the first attack on McAuliffe confed started to more apperciate their carriers (they had conducted wargames not to long before McAuliffe in which carrier planes were given a new shield penetrating weapon (torpedo) in which the carriers of one team destroyed the battlewagons of the other.

Only thing we know for sure about battlewagons is that they are fairly large and carry heavy plasma batteries.
 
And building on what Dundradal just said,
I looked through action stations last night and was only about to come up with a list of a few weapon systems on the Battleships. Mentioned are several missile batteries atleast three heavy plasma barreries, several smaller secondary batteries(no numbers given)and mine laying capablities. I am thinking the author might be using the capablities of modern battleships as a reference as they also mount three main batteries about a half dozen 5 inch secondary guns numerous point defense gattling guns. harpoon and tomahawk missiles and sometimes mines.
It also seems for the few names mentioned that your reference to early twentieth century naval histroy is a great one. Since for names the author seems to be following US and British traditions for naming. With States and Major cities like, North Carolina and Yorkshire.
Also Historically Shaggy is right you can't find "battlewagon" as an offical classification for any ship in history its slang for heavy ships usually battlecruiser and battleship class sometimes heavy cruisers can be included.
 
that works.

maybe it's the hours and hours of looney tunes I watched as a kid, but the word "battle-wagon" brings to mind images of a covered wagon with rifle-barrels sticking out of it all over the place.

God, I need to break away from the TV!
 
I use it because it is used by confed officers in AS. IINM I think that's the only thing they get called, I don't remember them ever getting called battleships, even when the kilrathi speak of theirs they refer to them as battlewagons.

Sanders, basically your description is right. Confed battlewagons appear to have been massive ships bristling with weapons of all calibers.
 
It should also be noted that CapShip missiles, like those on the Victory, were apparently early or pre-War era weapons systems, IIRC.
 
They were used allour during the war, but capship combat was only their secondary use. Primary they were planetary bombardement missiles.

I wonder what would supposedly happen to the battleships after their ineffectiveness was revealed. Did they upgrade their weapons to more modern ones, convert them to carriers(as with some battleships in WWII), did their attack tactics change(like now only attacking enemy ships with sufficient fighter cover), were they assigned to other roles(e.g. they were phased back from battleship to cruiser status and put in more defensive and escorting duties) or were they simply scrapped?
 
As several people have already pointed out, "battlewagon" is just slang. The actual 'class' of the ships in Action Stations is "Battleship". That's slightly confusing in and of itself, since 'battleship' is later used by the original Wing Commander to describe *any* line warship (destroyers, cruisers, etc.). At 50,000 tonnes the battleships of Action Stations are more than twice as large as the most powerful cruisers that show up in the games. Operationally they're more akin to the Gettysburg-class or Concordia-class cruisers/supercruisers which appear in Freedom Flight and the movie respectively (though they don't carry any fighters at all).

My notes say that the only weapons referenced in the novel are three forward plasma batteries, missile launchers (when the Yorkshire is fighting a pair of Gamorgin-class ships) and mines (when the North Carolina jumps out of the McAuliffe System). The Kilrathi Zulu-class battleships are said to have particle and laser cannon batteries which they use for ground support.

There's no name for the specific class of Terran Confederation battleships - five specific ships are named in the course of the game (TCS Belarus, TCS Gibraltar, TCS Malta, TCS North Carolina and TCS Yorkshire). Three separate classes of Kilrathi battleship are mentioned (Gamorgin-class, Yar-class and Zulu-class). One individual ship is mentioned - KIS Kitagki.
 
I wonder what would supposedly happen to the battleships after their ineffectiveness was revealed. Did they upgrade their weapons to more modern ones, convert them to carriers(as with some battleships in WWII), did their attack tactics change(like now only attacking enemy ships with sufficient fighter cover), were they assigned to other roles(e.g. they were phased back from battleship to cruiser status and put in more defensive and escorting duties) or were they simply scrapped?[/QUOTE]

Okay this is just an educated guess but i would think Confed went with a change of tactics, similar to WWII. Once it was realized that cruisers and destroyers could give you the bombardment strenght of battleships for less cost plus be able to provide support and defense of the carriers i am thinking Confed gave up the pure battleship class. The Confederation-class dreadnaught was proably the best shot at a heavy hitting capital ship like a battleship and it was used more as a carrier than as a battleship. Another example of designs going away from heavy guns and towards fighter carriers is that the Waterloo-class heavy cruiser carried 40 fighters and was used sometimes(and it seemed to me more often) as a pocket carrier (task force flagship) rather than a pocket battleship.
After the war however i think ship designers looked again at the concept of the all big gun capital ship in the Plunkett-class crusier. Which has the same triple plasma batteries and newer triple particle batteries as the AC battleships. Also althought i have not seen a tonnage listed for the Plunkett i would think that at 1200meters its size and hitting power are close to a pre/early war battleship. But the fact that a ship listed as a cruiser has similar power to a earlier battleship is not suprising as all ships evolve and get more powerful during a war they also tend to get bigger.
So anyway that is my guess about the idea of what happened to battleships during the Kilrathi wars. Feel free to expound and critic it. i am sure i left some gaping wholes in my theory
 
I hated the plunkett class boats. Those tiny little bars connecting the three sections of ship were a definate weak point...one lucky shot with a decently powerful weapon and you can blast the ship into two pieces!
 
I would immagine that the surviving Confed battleships would continue to serve in some capacity or another. A few could have been refit to serve on the front lines, but most would probably provide a secondary support role. In WWII, updated dreadnoughts escorted troop transports and served in MacArthur/Kinkaid's 7th Fleet, where they even saw a minor fleet action in Surigao Straits.
Old Confed battleships could also serve as planetary and shipyard blockships. Confed could also export them to other services (the various Border Worlds militias, Landreich, etc...).

I would guess though that any surviving battleships would have been paid off by the late 50's or 60's.
 
Colonel Sanders said:
Those tiny little bars connecting the three sections of ship were a definate weak point.
Click to expand...

While I understand your lack of optimism for their design, every ship had its use - otherwise ConFleet wouldn't have made them ;)
 
Iceman16 said:
and every ship has flaws
Click to expand...

And every ship has a use. Obviously, transports aren't made for fighting and dreadnaughts are incorrectly used if they're moving parts and foodstuffs from point A to point B.
 
I didn't mean to start a ship roles argument- didn't we just havea topic about that? I'm not saying the Plunkett wasn't useful, but it did have a glaring weakness...oh well. :) Not many threats left out there right now it would seem.
 
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