The Annotated Warbirds

I thought it would be fun to take a look at Wing Commander III's magnificent Warbirds 2669 poster with some 'behind the screens' notes where they came to me. Do you have fond memories of Warbirds, or anything else fun to note with the pages? Let us known on the forums!

• Warbirds is Wing Commander III's "feelie," the traditional 'extra' included with Origin games. Wing Commander games typically had paper feelies compared to the physical runes and coins and the like included with the Ultima series.
• The foldout was included with the original PC release of Wing Commander III as well as the Macintosh and 3DO ports. It was not included with the PlayStation or the Kilrathi Saga versions.
• The full color version seen here was included with the premiere edition of Wing Commander III. Most other releases include a greyscale version (with colored highlights for each faction in purple or orange).
• The European 3DO releases of Wing Commander III includes a redesigned version of Warbirds which has been updated to fit in the region's smaller jewel case-style 3DO packaging. It is in full color rather than grayscale.
• Warbirds was localized into French and German.
• "Warbirds" is an odd choice for a name; a warbird typically refers to a historically preserved aircraft and not an active duty craft
• The 'sword and stars' logo seen here is the Terran Confederation's 'combined forces' logo. It is intended to represent the different forces allied together against the Kilrathi rather than just one particular armed force.
• I love the references to spaceships as planes: "military aircraft," "airspeed," "aerodynamic," etc.
• I decided to follow up on the claim that it takes 8,000 man years to produce a spacecraft in the 27th century. The F-35 is said to have taken 23,000 man years of development, so we are already ahead of this complexity!

• We were already familiar with the Arrow when Wing Commander III released because it had first appeared in Armada. We also saw it in most of the pre-release screenshots for the game, so it was no surprise!
• The addition of a 'manufacturer' section to the specifications was extremely cool at the time. They refer to the artists that worked on the ships; here "Douglas Aerospace" is master Wing Commander ship builder Chris Douglas. (The Wing Commander I blueprints also listed a manufacturer, Origin Aerospace, for all the ships.)
• Chris Douglas used "Douglas Astrospace" in his work on Privateer; it's a funnier name than aerospace!
• The seven hour life support system is exactly the kind of immersive detail Chris Roberts pushes for in his world building. It's a "fact" that doesn't matter to the gameplay and which doesn't need to be simulated… but knowing it makes you feel like you're part of a real world instead of a game.
• The lengths listed here do not make actual sense; we see these ships in live action cutscenes and they're nowhere near as long as said here. They are correct relative to one another and also to the ships in Wing Commander I (which also has inaccurate lengths)… but they're closer to feet than meters!

• The guns for the Hellcat seem to be listed incorrectly; this was not a balance change, they're simply copied from the Arrow listing.
• The Roman numerals added to the Hellcat and Thunderbolt (and Dralthi) are great for implying story, as is the mention that this is the best Hellcat yet. What were the Hellcat I through IV and the Thunderbot I through VI? We may never know!

• I always thought it was neat that the Excalibur (and the Strakha) were positioned with their nominal class instead of as 'special' ships at the end of the poster.
• The Vega Sector mention is a reference to where the original Wing Commander took place.

• The Thunderbolt is listed as McCall Industries here (after artist Dean McCall) but the Wing Commander IV version will revert to Douglas Aerospace.

• The claim that the Kilrathi discovered aerodynamic principles 'relatively late' doesn't seem to square with other material (including Voices of War) that says the Kilrathi have had spacecraft roughly as long as humans.
• The logo seen here is intended to be the one that refers to the entire empire rather than one specific clan.
• "TCN pilots" is a good reminder that the Terran Confederation Space Force is part of the navy rather than a distinct armed force.

• Despite the listing all of the Kilrathi ships on this poster are seen to jump at some point in Wing Commander III.

• While we consider Dralthi a universal thing today, it was actually pretty neat to see a 'Dralthi IV' after Wing Commander II didn't feature one at all. Going with IV instead of III implied so much backstory!

• How crazy was it the first time you saw a Strakha that didn't look like a slice of toast? Bold decision to totally reimagine the ship for Wing Commander III.
• The fact about a lone Strakha being known to eliminate four Hellcats in ten minutes is so odd. Is this a common, specific occurrence?!