Wing Commander RPG: Carrier Concept

Sylvester

Vice Admiral
I discussed most of these specifications with LOAF via AIM so they should seem pretty realistic. The sim is set in 2695.

Courageous Class Carrier

Hull Designation: CV (Fleet Carrier)
Manufacturer: Trojan IV Shipyards
Project Number: SV-63


Length: 1,755 Meters
Beam: 360 Meters
Draft: 150 Meters (200 - Bridge)
Mass: 210,400 Tonnes
Velocity Cruise/Flank: 75/100 kps
Y/P/R: 2.5/2.5/2.5
Acceleration: 28 kps/s
Shields: Phase - Equivalent to 4,500 cm (Double Redundancy)
Hull Armor: 2,200 cm
Bridge Armor: 2,700 cm
Engine Armor: 2,400 cm
Launcher Armor: 2,300 cm
Hanger Armor: 2,100 cm
Core Strength: 34,600 cm
Armament: 26 Dual Laser Turrets, 8 Anti Munition Gattling Mass Driver Mounts , 6 Dual IR Missile Turrets, 7 Dual Heavy Ion Turrets, 2 Munitions Launchers.
Fighters: 400
Crew: 2,600

Vessels: * Indicates Vessel is not completed. ~ Indicates Approximate Date

Hull Construction Began Construction Completed Commissioned Current Location
CV-90 Courageous 2689.109 2694.216 2694.241 Vega Sector HQ:Venice System
CV-91 Concordia 2689.155 2694.300 2694.335 Enigma Sector HQ: Enigma System
CV-92 Independence* 2690.100 2695.174 ~ 2695.208 Trojan IV Dockyard 3
CV-93 Liberty* 2690.120 ~ 2695.200 ~ 2695.236 Trojan IV Dockyard IV
CV-94 Invincible* 2691.253 ~ 2696.294 ~ 2696.321 Perry Naval Shipyards : Dock 2
CV-95 Ark Royal* 2691.259 ~ 2696.294 ~ 2696.321 Perry Naval Shipyards: Dock 1
CV-96 Unnamed* 2692.180 On Hold On Hold Tesla Naval Shipyards, Dock 4
CV-97 Unnamed* 2692.205 On Hold On Hold Tesla Naval Shipyards, Dock 5



When Bu-Ships was asked to review candidates for a new fleet carrier design in early 2686, they choose the two giants of carrier production, Sirius Prime Engineering and Trojan IV Shipyards. The requirements are for a vessel that had the scientific and intelligence divisions of the Midway class, tied with the offensive striking power of the Vesuvius class. The exact specs called for a vessel roughly the size of Midway but with slightly higher speed and more offensive weaponry in the form of more fighter craft.
Both design teams began preliminary work on the design later that year. The Sirius Team, still building their staple Midway class, choose for an upgrade of that design featuring more fighters and offensive staying power. Trojan IV opted for a different design, combining atheistic and configuration styles of their Vesuvius and also of Sirius own Confederation class design. The result was a very centralized and efficient carrier.
The Sirius team had designed their carrier to carry 450 fighters and a massive new shield system, but discovered early on that the standard Midway reactor was not capable of generating enough power to operate all the systems efficiently (One of the reasons why mounting a captured Nephilim Plasma Cannon to the Midway was ultimately unsuccessful because the power drain from the weapon overtaxed the reactor so much that it could only be used once.) The team was forced to design a totally new reactor, as modifying the old one became unfeasible.
Trojan IV was able to link two of its GE-94 Reactors, which power the Vesuvius class, into a system with more than enough power to spare to run the ship. The modifications were very cost effective and saved the company from having to design a new one for the new carrier. The Trojan specs were slightly smaller, 400 fighters, but the vessel benefited from higher top speed, a result of re-using the very powerful, yet efficient engines on the Vesuvius class, giving the ship a top speed of 105 kps, 15 kps faster than the Sirius design.
Both companies submitted their designs to Confed in late 2687. The Sirius design was known as SV-58 while the Trojan design was SV-63. After doing 7 months of testing and looking over the designs, Confed HQ declared the Trojan IV team the winner in mid 2688. The main reason being that even though the Sirius design had more offensive power, the redesign of the Reactor made the vessel very expensive. The go-ahead for building was given in late 2688. The SV-63 hull was officially relabeled the Courageous class.

Construction began in mid 2689. Two vessels were started in the twin carrier docks, SV-63-1 Courageous and SV-64-2 Concordia. After 4 years of hard work, but without mishap, the first hull SV-63-01, Courageous, was launched for preliminary testing. Escorted by the Cruiser TCS Lesnick, Courageous left the yards and performed maneuvering and jump testing, all of which proved successful. After returning to dock and having the remainder of her systems installed, she was commissioned into service on August 9th, 2694 as TCS Courageous, registry CV-90. Her sister hull SV-63-2, Concordia underwent a similar process and was commissioned on December 1st 2694 as TCS Concordia CV-91.
Another four hulls, being built under license by other shipyards will be completed in the next 2 years. Hull SV-63-3 Independence and Hull SV-63-4 Liberty will be completed in late 2695 and Hull SV-63-5 Invincible and Hull SV-63-6 Ark Royal will be completed in late 2696. Another two hulls, SV-63-7 and SV-63-8 are on standby. If Confed sees fit to commission them, the two hulls will be completed in 2697.


Tell me what you think. I'll post a sketch of it when I'm finished with it.
 
Here's a sketch.
 

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My only question is why. Why would a peacetime Confed (which barely allowed the Midway class be built) want a carrier between the Vesuvius and the Midway? Have a situation where you need the offensive firepower? Send in a Vesuvius carrier group (or a Midway battle group). Need an 'on-station' presense in a few peaceful systems? Send in a Midway carrier. I'm having trouble figuring out the niche this carrier would fit in, since we have a carrier with a huge offensive potential and one with a cost effective, large presence.
IMHO, the thing the Confederation is missing is a smaller fast carrier to put out the 'brushfires' that the tasking of a Midway or Vesuvius would be overkill for and a Hades cruiser is too weak to handle.

C-ya
 
Its not between, its after. This design in built in 2695, thats 14 years post WCP and Confed is at war during this timeline. Its meant to begin to replace the Vesuvius class (Since they are about 20 years old at the time) in much the same way the Nimitz class carriers are replacing older ships such as Kitty Hawk and Constellation.
 
I missed who Confed is at war with and the 'between' is the operational gap between the Vesuvius and the Midway your trying to fill.
Not to mention this is a "have your cake . . ." design.

C-ya
 
The war just begins when these carriers enter service. Look at it this way, the US isn't in any major conflict or war that require us to build new carriers, but we do it anyway. Why? Because the old equipment degrades and becomes obsolete, and there fore needs to be replaced. The USS Nimitz replaced the USS Midway in service, these carriers had about 30 years of service difference between them. Same theory, Courageous was slated to replace the TCS McKinley until hostiles erupt. The decomms are put on hold then. Like the US during WWII, which didn't decomm any carriers, and ended up with over 30 fleet carriers in service by 1945.
 
Also, I discussed these specs with LOAF via AIM, he said they were realistic and fit as an evolution and replacement for the Vesuvius. He told me that Confed comes up with a new carrier design every 15-20 years, so this is realistic to replace the Vesuvius.
 
I can conceed that the Vesuvius design is aging, but what I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around is why and how. Why would Confed want another Vesuvius carrier? Why do they want to go head to head with other capships with a carrier any longer? Plus, the Midway crammed their scientific and support abilities in the hull at the expense of less fighter craft and pretty weak defense. The Vesuvius has its power projection at the cost of tons of capital and resources. But yet your cramming both of these advantages with what trade-off exactly? None?
Sylvester said:
Also, I discussed these specs with LOAF via AIM, he said they were realistic and fit as an evolution and replacement for the Vesuvius.
Thank you for spelling this out better, I was confused by it earlier :rolleyes:

C-ya
 
This ship doesn't carry as many weapons as Vesuvius, its offensive capabilites parallel Midway, except for more fighters.
 
Your cramming the Midway capabilities into a design thats smaller than the midway and giving it the offensive fighter projection of a Vesuvius.

C-ya
 
So, uh, how many Dragons and Super Excaliburs do you plan to put on this carrier?
 
No super ships. This vessel, while being shorter than Midway in length, is much taller and therefore holds more volume. I'm assuming that if they continue the evolution of tech thats on Midway, these facilities will become smaller and more efficent.
 
Couple questions.. You say that your RPG design is supposed to replace the Vesuvius carriers.. Isn't that what the Midways (of which the oldest is 14 years old) were for?

Also, what source states that the Nephilim War would last 14 or more years?
 
1.) Its not the Nephilm war

2.) What most people don't understand is that the Midways didn't replace the Vesuvius. The Vesuvius is a superior carrier to Midway in every respect except for the intelligence division. Midway was designed as a cheaper alternative to the Vesuvius. For all we know, they are still in production during WCP.
 
seems to me that confed might not have the resources and money to build this class of carrier after they built the Midway class and (might have) Vesuvius class at the same time. why would the Midway and Vesuvius classes be out of date anyways? they can be upgraded so that they are state-of-the-art once again.
 
Bigger and Bigger and Bigger!!!! I think it would be great if Confed paid the price for putting all its eggs into one basket. WHile these monster carriers (Vesuvius, Midway, and the like) have massive abitily in power projection, what about keeping these ships in a fleet, one gets knocked out and your out like 4 equivalent Concordia class carriers. It would also be harder to project across a border than smaller carriers.

Plus for telling a story, it is usually better to have the heroes at a disadvantage, makes for a prolonged stuggle or campaign, instead of one gigantic mop-up operation.

Not saying the carrier is a bad idea, just not my style.
 
Several points:

1) The Concordia-class carriers of WC4 were from the beginning of the Kilrathi war - which meant the design itself was about 40+ years old at that point and still considered quite battle-worthy. The Rangers were far older than that, only about 60 or so years into their service were they being mothballed, then being too small for the heavier fighters and too underpowered and underprotected for most other purposes.

2) If the Vesuvius-class supercarriers just came into service about 20 or so years into the timeframe, why is the class being retired then? Each of them was horrendously expensive to construct, at least in the WC4-WCP period, given their armor and fighter-capacity. The frame type's quite good, and I suspect they'd still want to get their money's worth out of each Vesuvius-class ship... which means the Mount St. Helens, the Eisen, and her sisters are still going to see some use despite the deployment of the Midway-class megacarriers.

3) If there's no war that involves massive amounts of fighters being required at a point of space, then why build a Vesuvius-style supercarrier at all? Why not either build one or two more Midways to form task forces around, or else build a few light or escort carriers to do patrols where you don't need the superships? If there IS a war, especially against an enemy as devastating as the Nephilim with their ship-killer and fleet-killer guns, why do you want to, in the words of another poster, 'put all your eggs in one basket'? One ship with four wings against a Leviathan or Tiamat is four wings plus the ship wasted. Four smaller, faster carriers MIGHT have a chance at surviving, at least long enough to unleash their fighters at this target before spreading out.

4) If you need scientific services, why not just send a science ship with a small escort, unless it's a truly important or dangerous matter which the Midway and her sister ships were designed for in the first place?
 
Haesslich said:
If there IS a war, especially against an enemy as devastating as the Nephilim with their ship-killer and fleet-killer guns, why do you want to, in the words of another poster, 'put all your eggs in one basket'? One ship with four wings against a Leviathan or Tiamat is four wings plus the ship wasted. Four smaller, faster carriers MIGHT have a chance at surviving, at least long enough to unleash their fighters at this target before spreading out.
The 'eggs in one basket' was one of the knocks against the Midway class to begin with, its a matter of current Confed operational doctorine. Also, the Vesuvius is at least as fast (if not faster) and more manueverable than any carrier we've seen in a game. :)

C-ya
 
Viper61 said:
The 'eggs in one basket' was one of the knocks against the Midway class to begin with, its a matter of current Confed operational doctorine. Also, the Vesuvius is at least as fast (if not faster) and more manueverable than any carrier we've seen in a game. :)

C-ya

They're easier and less costly to maintain than the equivalent number of smaller, Kilrathi-War era ships - which is the main advantage that was put forward for them and that design. You've combined three fleet carriers, a science vessel, a Marine transport, and a munitions ship all in one easier-to-defend, cheaper to maintain vessel. Of course, the fleet and ship-killing Nephilim weapons have shown us the problem with this philosophy... though the science and intel sections on the Midway did help defeat the bugs during the first major engagement with them.

Beyond that, the Vesuvius is EXPENSIVE - which is one reason to construct only a limited number of them. We've already lost one, according to the SO fiction, which is a horrendous loss in terms of resources and personnel; I'm not so sure Confed would spring for more 'all-in-one' concepts after the Nephilim war's been concluded, or even if it's ongoing. As I recall, the escort carrier's main advantage was that, for the cost of one fleet carrier, you could put a half-dozen of the escort carriers out there in a half-dozen systems and bring them together if you needed more punch... or you could just send the fleet carrier over. I suspect the same philosophy exists in the Confederation now - a larger number of escort carriers and quick-strike cruisers carrying fighters with a smaller number of heavy fleet carriers like the Midway-class megacarriers or the Vesuvius-class supercarriers for when the heavy end of the hammer needs to be dropped on someone, such as a major fleet engagement. To complement that you have frigates, cruisers, and destroyers which all can carry a few fighters if needed or else do ship-killing solo so your carriers are left unharassed by the enemy's capships.
 
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