Anyone not like the books?

[Bob McDob]

sea_monkey
But besides that, those kill numbers are stock variables, accumulated since the beginning of the war. 800 kills is a lot, but not so much over a course of 20 years (only about 40 a year). On the other hand the Tiger's Claw scoreboard reads under 200 (minus Bossman) when the game starts and somewhere from 900 to 1300+ a year later. That's 700 to 1100 kills in a year (by 7 pilots). That's a crapload.

Per my understanding, the Tiger's Claw is something of a special case, since it operates semi-independently and behind enemy lines.

If they had so many fighters sitting around, both sides would be building more carriers until the fighters were being deployed. It would be hugely inefficient to let so many fighters collect dust until they're obsolete. That is like a business that just keeps losing money building a massive widget inventory that no one ever buys. Makes no sense.

But that's what they were doing - and from the Confed perspective, so desperately that they were using transport hulls to ferry the ships around. Capital ships take time to build, and the assembly lines were already overtaxed. And you have to factor in the horrendous carrier losses and rate of attrition throughout the war.

I think the confusion comes from the assumption that since I criticized the books, I must be wrong, even though I said something that was pretty much true -- that destroyers and cruisers carrying fighters would lessen the importance of carriers, although obviously carriers would still be important. I think we agree on more than we disagree.

You're ignoring a crucial element - striking power. Carriers are larger and can carry more bombs, torpedoes and other weapons. They can also carry heavier striking power - Broadswords and Longbows (as opposed to the Strike Sabres carried on smaller ships like the Tarawa).

Also, I don't think we've seen any bombers stationed on destroyers - their flight wings, as LOAF mentioned, are comprised primarily of medium fighters, ostensibly for defensive and screening purposes (as befits the role of the destroyer).

The flight wing of a cruisers certainly isn't something to scoff about, and indeed it seems that by the time of Vukar Tag Confed was classifying the Waterloo as a carrier ... but they're less capable than fleet carriers (and, SO2 notwithstanding, generally do not seem to carry bomber wings).

Ship design is a manner of tradeoffs. Hey, why don't we make a cruiser-sized ship that acts like a carrier, but drops the offensive weapondry (which a carrier should never, ever have to use) in favor of more space for torpedo stockpiles and fighter wings? Presto, you have an escort carrier.

Bandit LOAF
(.... also, something no one has bothered to point out yet for some reason. With regards to the amazing Fralthra, Fleet Action claims that the Kilrathi have only twenty of them circa Fleet Action. Which sort of puts a damper on the 'overload them with Fralthras!' plan regardless.)

Are you sure about this? I looked at FA, and the quote seems to imply that those thirty heavy cruisers are part of the fleet attacking Earth.

Fleet Action, page 206
"Don't forget that the Kilrathi had a minimum of nineteen other
standard carriers and at least twenty heavy cruisers that carried thirty
fighters each. That comes to over three thousand seven hundred additional
strike craft."

[Bandit LOAF]

I don't know. Where's the indication there's *not* a Santa Claus? It's not possible to prove something doesn't exist.

Of course you can prove something doesn't exist - it's basic Freshman logic... the Law of Indirect Reasoning.

Well that is exactly the first question I started with. How can the Kilrathi lose the Vega Sector, the Sivar, and take over 1100 fighter casualties in a year or two, and still be fine? I concluded that they outnumber Confed significantly and hold more territory, so the edge of Vega is right next to the human homeworlds but the other end is not right by Kilrah.

Vega is directly between the Sol and Kilrah sectors, according to the map included with Prophecy.

Now that doesn't agree with the books, which is why I don't like the books all that much (among other reasons). You can TRY and pretend both the books and the games are true, but that leads to ridiculous explanation/spins for why we see the casualty numbers we do -- either Confed is somehow losing 1100 pilots a year in some corner of the galaxy we don't hear about, or it's no big deal because they have fighters just sitting around.

If they had so many fighters sitting around, both sides would be building more carriers until the fighters were being deployed. It would be hugely inefficient to let so many fighters collect dust until they're obsolete. That is like a business that just keeps losing money building a massive widget inventory that no one ever buys. Makes no sense.

Did you notice the increased militia and Confed patrols on your approach? The Confed is losing hundreds of ships a day to the war.
- Generic Bartender, Privateer

That tells you more about what Confed considers a Kilrathi carrier than anything else. In WC2, you see two Fralthra on a patrol one mission, and in the next cutscene Jazz says something about 2 carriers being in the system. In SO1, they say "five carrier groups" are attacking Ghorah Khar, 3 were in the first wave and two are left. When you get to the Nav point, what do you know, 2 Fralthra. To a certain extent, I'm willing to concede the limitations of the WC2 engine had something to do with that ... in my imagination there WAS a cat carrier present at that battle ... but as far as the game goes, the word carrier seems to apply to Fralthra as well.

I don't think that's what Jazz is referring to. You encounter two Fralthra in Tesla C, but the briefing ends with Major Edmonds informing you that "Roger, Maverick. We’re launching Broadswords to take care of those two Fralthra." Jazz and Doomsday both mention that there are 'two carriers' in the system afterwards (which then prompt the Concordia to retreat). If 'two carriers' referred to the Fralthra then the Concordia's desire to launch a strike against them and its desire to retreat from them wouldn't really mesh.

If the Hakaga is carrying so many bombers for offense then it will be less effective on defense. Regardless, having more smaller ships lowers the risk in the engagement. If you have one large Confed carrier with 120 fighters that takes 4 torpedoes to down, then in an attack of 60 bombers, 4 out of 60 have to complete their attack run to down it. Let's say the odds of that are 1/7. By contrast let's take 3 Waterloo cruisers with 40 fighters each. Lets be extremely generous and say the odds of 2 out of 20 bombers hitting a Waterloo are 1/2 (even though the % of hits is higher). The odds of all 3 cruisers being blown up is 1/8 (.5*.5*.5), still lower than the heavy carrier. It's just safer to have more ships.

I don't really understand where your math is coming from (well, I do - you made up the first number specifically so it'd be slightly smaller than the second...). Neither side ever seems to have any problem sending between two and four fighters to whack an opposing cruiser... whereas all the fiction (either in the novels or in Victory Streak) indicates that it takes a massive coordinated attack to destroy a carrier.

Well I'm not a big fan of the books in the first place, so that doesn't really bother me. Forstchen must not have played SO1.

I can't say whether or not he played Special Operations 1, but he was certainly familiar with its script and characters - most aspects of End Run and Fleet Action follow things that are entirely unique to SO1 (friendly Tolwyn, Bondarevsky, the Gettysburg, the Super-Ferret, etc.)

I always chalked that up to bad writing. Never played Prophecy and I thought WC4 was just okay. The Vesuvius bothered me for the same reasons.

So... it's not just the novels and the manuals you have a problem with - it's also various games. ?

[Bandit LOAF]

Are you sure about this? I looked at FA, and the quote seems to imply that those thirty heavy cruisers are part of the fleet attacking Earth.

They're discussing all the carriers the Kilrathi are known to have. Of the 19 carriers they mention, the Kilrathi left 10 in reserve.

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

That's a lot of dead Kilrathi aces.

But besides that, those kill numbers are stock variables, accumulated since the beginning of the war. 800 kills is a lot, but not so much over a course of 20 years (only about 40 a year). On the other hand the Tiger's Claw scoreboard reads under 200 (minus Bossman) when the game starts and somewhere from 900 to 1300+ a year later. That's 700 to 1100 kills in a year (by 7 pilots). That's a crapload.

'Stock numbers'? Those are the pilots which Blair personally encounters - as in Christopher Blair, hero of the Confederation, Cat-Killer, Heart of the Tiger, etc. The period from WC1 to SM2 is NOT twenty years - it's two years. These are all the pilots that Blair encounters over two years, each of which have at least eight kills to their credit. We're talking less than ten years for most, with Paladin having encountered Khajia and Baktosh only 'a few years ago' in both cases.

In other words, they're probably, as pilots, as good as anyone else in the squadrons Blair flies in; everyone who has a name is at least a solid flyer if not an ace themselves - and you'll note most of our missions throughout all three games took the Tiger's Claw behind enemy lines, which again means the opportunity for more kills. These were not, by any means, 'normal' missions we flew.

That seems to have been the responsibility of other carriers along the front.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

I don't know. Where's the indication there's *not* a Santa Claus? It's not possible to prove something doesn't exist.

There's a difference between proving a negative (impossible to do) and proving that something doesn't exist when either no evidence to support the claim - or there's contrary data which argues against its existence.

LOAF's already noted one of the quotes from the bartenders in Privateer - while it may be subject to hyperbole, the fact that Confed loses hundreds of fighters a year, and quite a few capital ships, is not in question - through WC1 to WC3, we've lost most of the Carrier fleet, and it gets to the point where Victory and other 'to be scrapped' obsolete carriers end up being front-line ships. SO2 saw the Sixth Fleet get annihilated in Deneb sector, and after that we've got the Battle of Earth documented where another half-dozen carriers were either destroyed in their dockyards or in battle. A few months, we lose the Concordia in a rearguard action over Vespus.

However, note that at no time do we seem to be short of fighters - production on them is fairly constant, and 'new' models keep showing up or get developed; WC1 introduces the Rapier, WC2 shows up the Crossbow and Morningstar, then WC3 throws out the Excalibur. Fighter production seems to be going along rather well - it's just the capship production that suffers, especially seeing that Confed didn't have enough to begin with... and then the Battle of Earth shatters a lot of the Inner Worlds as well as some of the shipyards and bases in Sol system.

We're also horribly short on trained pilots, but they still seem to come faster than capships, to judge by what we're flying off of by WC3. There does seem to be a significant base of fighters to work with, to judge by how quickly we got fighter replacements in the WC3 novel.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

Now that doesn't agree with the books, which is why I don't like the books all that much (among other reasons). You can TRY and pretend both the books and the games are true, but that leads to ridiculous explanation/spins for why we see the casualty numbers we do -- either Confed is somehow losing 1100 pilots a year in some corner of the galaxy we don't hear about, or it's no big deal because they have fighters just sitting around.

If they had so many fighters sitting around, both sides would be building more carriers until the fighters were being deployed. It would be hugely inefficient to let so many fighters collect dust until they're obsolete. That is like a business that just keeps losing money building a massive widget inventory that no one ever buys. Makes no sense.

See LOAF's quote in the thread. Confed's fighting on more fronts than just Vega, or just Enigma, or just Deneb - there's also the backwaters which Gemini Sector and then the Border Worlds represent. Between all of these light-years of space, there are literally hundreds of systems in which Confed is battling. When you lose a carrier, you lose many of the pilots that go with it... or all of them if there aren't any other friendly ships or bases nearby to give them a landing deck to jump out on.

It is noted that Confed did not have enough shipyards are the war's start, both in the novels and in the WCP documentation, and that it takes 'five years to build a carrier' after building the shipyard and training the people there, which takes another five years. Many of those fighters are already on the bases which you state should exist (and do) - home defense, system defense, and so on. Many of those fighters are second-line craft, which are obsolete compared to the current front-line equipment on the carriers, and more are sold as surplus or end up on the black market.

You've also got the problem of training crew to fight those carriers and to repair those fighters. That also takes time to get them up to speed.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

I think the confusion comes from the assumption that since I criticized the books, I must be wrong, even though I said something that was pretty much true -- that destroyers and cruisers carrying fighters would lessen the importance of carriers, although obviously carriers would still be important. I think we agree on more than we disagree.

Cruisers are mostly there to escort valuable ships which cannot risk close quarters combat with the enemy - carriers, transports, and so on, though cruisers do patrols of their own as well behind the lines in areas where a significant fighter presence is not expected. Cruisers can carry some fighters, but they're usually ineffective when there's either a heavy strike mission in place (as their fighters are not usually torpedo-capable, much less survivable with them) or when there's a lot of incoming strike craft involved. It doesn't take very much to smash a cruiser in game, because of their relatively puny fighter defenses - they're designed to kill capships and be expendable, which means they don't all need 50 anti-fighter laser turrets the way a carrier would.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

If the Hakaga is carrying so many bombers for offense then it will be less effective on defense. Regardless, having more smaller ships lowers the risk in the engagement. If you have one large Confed carrier with 120 fighters that takes 4 torpedoes to down, then in an attack of 60 bombers, 4 out of 60 have to complete their attack run to down it. Let's say the odds of that are 1/7. By contrast let's take 3 Waterloo cruisers with 40 fighters each. Lets be extremely generous and say the odds of 2 out of 20 bombers hitting a Waterloo are 1/2 (even though the % of hits is higher). The odds of all 3 cruisers being blown up is 1/8 (.5*.5*.5), still lower than the heavy carrier. It's just safer to have more ships.

If the Hakaga has two or three squadrons of fighters, Confed-sized squadrons that is, then that's still leaving room for about 252 or so lighter and nimbler craft to use in patrol, escort, or point-defense missions. You've still got 252 fighters defending ONE target rather than having to spread 252 fighters across seven or so cruisers, which already are far less protected due to their lack of armor and anti-fighter defenses as compared to a Hakaga. You'll also note the larger ships tend to carry larger shielding units than cruisers are capable of, since they're not expected to be fast - most of the time, anyways.

And as I've pointed out before, it only takes ONE missile or torp to do enough damage to stop fighter operations from a ship, which is far less than the four or so required to destroy it, if it has but one launch bay and is cruiser size or smaller.

You've also forgot one other crucial factor - if you lose one Waterloo, be it a mission-kill (stopping its fighter operations) or total destruction, there's no room to land extra ships on the other ships - space is already tight on one of those craft, to judge by the in-novel descriptions of their hangar bays. That means you're going to lose all the fighters that were launched off that ship, if not the pilots as well. One carrier's easier to defend, and it's a lot harder for a bomber to penetrate a fighter screen of 252 craft than it is for a bomber to go through 36 or so fighters, especially if the bomber has its own escorts to keep the enemy cruisers' fighter screen busy.

Confed's already tried throwing bombers at ships that were that heavily defended - in Fleet Action, they lost almost all of them in two strikes, over five hundred craft in all. This didn't even count the anti-fighter defenses on them.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

I always chalked that up to bad writing. Never played Prophecy and I thought WC4 was just okay. The Vesuvius bothered me for the same reasons.

So in other words, some WC games aren't WC either?

[sea_monkey]

Of course you can prove something doesn't exist - it's basic Freshman logic... the Law of Indirect Reasoning.

~~~, what?

There's a difference between proving a negative (impossible to do) and proving that something doesn't exist when either no evidence to support the claim - or there's contrary data which argues against its existence.

No there really isn't. The fact that no one has ever seen a unicorn doesn't mean there isn't one hiding behind a tree somewhere. Point is if you want to say there's a unicorn, it's your job to prove there is one.

'Stock numbers'? Those are the pilots which Blair personally encounters - as in Christopher Blair, hero of the Confederation, Cat-Killer, Heart of the Tiger, etc. The period from WC1 to SM2 is NOT twenty years - it's two years

You didn't understand what I said. The Tiger's Claw scoreboard goes from 200 to 1300 in one year, so that's 1100 kills in one year. The 800 kills by Kilrathi aces, however, have been accumulated since the beginning of the war, or about 40/year on average. Nothing spectacular there.

Fighter production seems to be going along rather well - it's just the capship production that suffers,

Assuming the quote from Privateer is correct, that Confed is in fact losing *hundreds* of ships a day, then that's a *minimum* of 36,425 a year. Which would imply that *at least* 36,425 ships/fighters are being produced a year. I guess I'm wondering then how come in the books Confed could only scramble a few hundred for Sirius and Earth then? (And these were mostly carrier-based as well.) I mean if fighters number on the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, I would hope SOME of this vast armada would be stationed in these systems.

Second, since the books are quite explicit on the number of carriers (we're talking around 10-25 on both sides), that implies that the total carrier fighter force of around 1000-2500 fighters turns over completely (gets eradicated) AT LEAST every 26 days. Or that the total carrier fighter force is less than 7% of total fighters.

Last, you are not addressing the fact that it makes no sense to building tens (hundreds?) of thousands of fighters which will never see action until they're obsolete, while you have a shortage of capital ships and/or pilots to carry/fly them. It's a waste of energy, resources, labor, and time. They would divert resources from making fighters to making capital ships.

In the course of trying to cover up a continuity hole, you're just pointing out another continuity hole. Your explanation for why it's no big deal to lose 1000 fighters in a year (by only 7 pilots) is basically that Confed and Kilrah are stupid.

Cruisers can carry some fighters, but they're usually ineffective when there's either a heavy strike mission in place (as their fighters are not usually torpedo-capable, much less survivable with them)

So, what you're saying is that destroyers/cruisers can take on some of the roles a carrier played in WW2, just generally not strike missions? Gee that sounds familiar again.

By the way, in addition to the fact that we see Fralthra being guarded by Gothri in SO1 (which strongly implies the Fralthra carried them), and that we see Grikaths all over the place with no carrier in sight, the Gettysburg in SO1 also is testing out the Crossbow bomber. So they can carry bombers just fine.

You've still got 252 fighters defending ONE target rather than having to spread 252 fighters across seven or so cruisers, which already are far less protected due to their lack of armor and anti-fighter defenses as compared to a Hakaga.

Sorry, dude, you still don't really understand risk/return. Seven Fralthra are easier to defend because they are each at least 7x more expendable than a Hakaga. It isn't at all critical that every one of them survive. That is the strength of having multiple targets, you can afford to lose them. One target is "easier" to defend because it's only one assignment and the probability of getting out of the engagement without taking a capital ship casualty is higher ... but much harder to defend as it is the sole target of the enemy and the odds of taking a total loss is much higher.

I don't really understand where your math is coming from (well, I do - you made up the first number specifically so it'd be slightly smaller than the second...). Neither side ever seems to have any problem sending between two and four fighters to whack an opposing cruiser... whereas all the fiction (either in the novels or in Victory Streak)

The numbers came out that way because I was extremely generous with the probabilities. If 10% of 20 bombers are needed to down a cruiser (with an equivalent amount of fighter coverage), but only 7% of 60 bombers are needed to down a heavy carrier, you would think the probability of destroying a carrier would be higher than a cruiser.

You've also forgot one other crucial factor - if you lose one Waterloo, be it a mission-kill (stopping its fighter operations) or total destruction, there's no room to land extra ships on the other ships

#1 -- not really an issue because in the past battle, you probably just lost 40 fighters anyway. Regardless it's no different if a carrier took a torpedo to the landing bay ... well it is different because now we're talking about 120 ships instead of 40.

#2 -- Who cares? Confed has tens of thousands of fighters just sitting around collecting dust according to you guys. Dump 'em overboard!

I don't think that's what Jazz is referring to. You encounter two Fralthra in Tesla C, but the briefing ends with Major Edmonds informing you that...

Maybe not, but there does seem to be a correlation between the number of "carriers" we hear about and Fralthra we see (SO1). Whereas we never see a Snakeir. Maybe the strike failed against the Fralthra in Tesla?

So in other words, some WC games aren't WC either?

The first three games I consider canon, minus SO1&2 which I take very lightly (a little too cartoonish for my taste). The next two games are pretty typical sequels -- more of everything except making sense. I pretty much ignore them, so I really don't care what happens in those games.

We don't see the Vesuvius fight a battle against 10 fleet carriers so I don't really see any evidence that the Vesuvius is somehow superior to an equivalent number of smaller ships.

[Colonel Sanders]

I feel like I'm watching Ping Pong.

[psych]

This thread still makes me sad

[BigsWickDagger]

Originally Posted by Colonel Sanders

I feel like I'm watching Ping Pong.

Or a long tennis match.

[Nappydman]

One thing that hasn't been brought up yet is the greater offensive potential of 7 Fralthra vs 1 Hakaga. There is a theoretically equal amount of striking power between the two forces, but 7 Fralthra is not only more defensible, but much more maneuverable on the offensive as well. For example, you can wait and hide out in one of the ever-present quasars/nebulas/whatever happens to cause interference that the WC universe has all over. Send out 3 of your 7 Fralthra to go out and make a bunch of noise and divert the system's defenders from the remaining 4 that can scoot on in to their objective. You can almost do this with the single Hakaga, by splitting its fighter force, but then the diversionary force is left without close support, and cannot rearm and refuel. The same objective can be accomplished, but at a higher cost in fighters. Not to mention if the Hakaga happens to go down in the strike, then the entire fighter complement is lost.

I think everyone is getting lost in dogma at the moment. sea_monkey is making some valid points, mainly that the Hakaga is not a doomsday superweapon that cannot be countered. And indeed, he has been proven right BY THE BOOKS WHICH HE HIMSELF ESCHEWS. After all, Earth was saved (bar just a few weapons of mass destruction) and the Hakagas were defeated and Confed won the war.
But, by pointing out this basic flaw in the books, everyone seems to feel the need to rip him apart for making the supposition that carriers aren't the be-all end-all of space warfare. Just because something is canon doesn't mean you have to assume he's wrong for having ideas that are as yet unproveable. Indeed, to follow canon and logic, all he's suggesting is that Confed won and the Kilrathi lost because Confed concentrated on small, fast, expendable vessels (escort carriers), and the Kilrathi built gigantic monstrosities that were too large to use. (Leaving out a certain Colonel Blair and a T-bomb, of course) The Kilrathi simply put too many of their eggs into one basket. The folly of this was also seen with the Behemoth.

[Bob McDob]

I think everyone is getting lost in dogma at the moment. sea_monkey is making some valid points, mainly that the Hakaga is not a doomsday superweapon that cannot be countered. And indeed, he has been proven right BY THE BOOKS WHICH HE HIMSELF ESCHEWS. After all, Earth was saved (bar just a few weapons of mass destruction) and the Hakagas were defeated and Confed won the war.

Is anyone here saying that? The debate is whether a squadron of cruisers is capable on taking on a supercarrier - not whether said supercarrier is "invincible".

[Bandit LOAF]

~~~, what?

Basic logic... like they'd teach in a basic logic class. Here's a good interweb tutorial about it. Logical reasoning is the basis for any sort of debate, boiled down into semi-mathematical equations. For proving that something doesn't exist:

Modus Tollens (MT) says that if p=>q is true and q is false (not true), then p must be false. MT is essentially equivalent to the Law of indirect Reasoning (below) and is the basis for proof by contradiction.

To roughly apply to your earlier 'example', if Santa Clause Exists (p) Reindeer must be able to fly (q). Since reindeer are not able to fly (~q), then Santa Clause does not exist (~p).

(I apologize in advance for disappointing LeHah with this news.)

No there really isn't. The fact that no one has ever seen a unicorn doesn't mean there isn't one hiding behind a tree somewhere. Point is if you want to say there's a unicorn, it's your job to prove there is one.

Given the original claim is your own (the facts in the books are not valid), it would seem to be ultimately up to you to provide any evidence - rather than to simply claim that since there's no evidence against you other than that which you disregard that you must be right.

You didn't understand what I said. The Tiger's Claw scoreboard goes from 200 to 1300 in one year, so that's 1100 kills in one year. The 800 kills by Kilrathi aces, however, have been accumulated since the beginning of the war, or about 40/year on average. Nothing spectacular there.

Sure, that makes sense - the ace killscores don't factor in any of the recent action in the Vega Sector. They can really only be compared to the available data which covers the same 'pre-WC1' period... the "pre game" Tiger's Claw killboard (which, unlike the '1300' number is not randomly generated). So, what's the damage? Every Kilrathi ace has a killscore 1.5 to 2 times as high as those of the Tiger's Claw aces. Apply your math.

Intro Killboard:
Iceman 28 43
Bossman 25 37
Paladin 42 34
Hunter 25 32
Knight 18 23
Angel 22 20
Spirit 11 14
Maniac 5 6

Assuming the quote from Privateer is correct, that Confed is in fact losing *hundreds* of ships a day, then that's a *minimum* of 36,425 a year. Which would imply that *at least* 36,425 ships/fighters are being produced a year. I guess I'm wondering then how come in the books Confed could only scramble a few hundred for Sirius and Earth then? (And these were mostly carrier-based as well.) I mean if fighters number on the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, I would hope SOME of this vast armada would be stationed in these systems.

Sure, we see home defense squadrons from Earth and various space stations (as well as training schools and civilian airfields) fighting in the Battle of Terra. We also see the carriers replenishing their supply of lost fighters from these sources.

That said, having 100,000 fighters spread over 400 systems isn't the same thing as being able to have 100,000 at any place whenever you want.

Why not?

LACK OF CARRIERS.

Second, since the books are quite explicit on the number of carriers (we're talking around 10-25 on both sides), that implies that the total carrier fighter force of around 1000-2500 fighters turns over completely (gets eradicated) AT LEAST every 26 days. Or that the total carrier fighter force is less than 7% of total fighters.

Sure, that makes sense. As I've stated all along, the vast majority of fighters will be serving with HD units, ISS units, destroyer half-squadrons, etc.

Last, you are not addressing the fact that it makes no sense to building tens (hundreds?) of thousands of fighters which will never see action until they're obsolete, while you have a shortage of capital ships and/or pilots to carry/fly them. It's a waste of energy, resources, labor, and time. They would divert resources from making fighters to making capital ships.

If you have ten carriers to defend 300 colonies and to conduct any offensive operations, it makes absolute sense to station fighters at bases on these colonies. Hell, we see this even in the few games you consider 'real' - Blair is part of an ISS outfit at the start of WC2. When your planet is a huge asset (shipyards, mines, civilians, etc.) that can be wiped out by an enemy destroyer squadron it absolutely stands to reason that units will be stationed to defend it.

World War II example: the Germans never bombed the United States - but the East Coast was criss-crossed with reserve fighter squadrons ready should such an attack ever be launched. Sure, these fighters were "wasted" in that they weren't on the front lines... but the fact that they were there to prevent any possible attack was equally important.

Wing Commander example: in Armada (yay) you have a single carrier... when it moves somewhere other colonies are left defenseless. So you build a fortress, which keeps a sqsuadron of fighters local to defend the base. It's just common sense.

So, what you're saying is that destroyers/cruisers can take on some of the roles a carrier played in WW2, just generally not strike missions? Gee that sounds familiar again.

By the way, in addition to the fact that we see Fralthra being guarded by Gothri in SO1 (which strongly implies the Fralthra carried them), and that we see Grikaths all over the place with no carrier in sight, the Gettysburg in SO1 also is testing out the Crossbow bomber. So they can carry bombers just fine.

The Gothri part doesn't hold water. Not only are we told that Gothri are jump capable, but we're told that there are carriers in the system in SO1. And we're told that the Fralthra are preparing to strike Olympus Station. To assume that because they're together in such a situation would be like assuming that any ship we've ever escorted to do anything in any WC game is our home base.

The Crossbow bomber part is a half truth - we're specifically told that the normal complement of the Gettysburg is Ferrets and Epees in the same dialogue. They just have a pair (or a single, in the losing endgame) of Crossbows that are being tested. (Presumably this is the *purpose* of the Crossbow - a bomber smaller than the Broadsword to be carried on escort carriers... but I digress.)

The numbers came out that way because I was extremely generous with the probabilities. If 10% of 20 bombers are needed to down a cruiser (with an equivalent amount of fighter coverage), but only 7% of 60 bombers are needed to down a heavy carrier, you would think the probability of destroying a carrier would be higher than a cruiser.

When has this ever been true, though? 10% of 20 bombers to destroy a cruiser is a hugely inflated number compared to anything we've ever seen or heard in Wing Commander.

Maybe not, but there does seem to be a correlation between the number of "carriers" we hear about and Fralthra we see (SO1). Whereas we never see a Snakeir. Maybe the strike failed against the Fralthra in Tesla?

Eh, not really - there's a clear distinction made between references to carriers and references to cruisers (which both show up in the SO1 dialogue). "A Rigakh cruiser made it past the defensive forces on the Ghorah Khar-Rarkath border..." versus "A huge Kilrathi fleet is moving insystem...five carrier groups...".

Snakeir are from SM2, not WC2 - there's no in-game WC2 carrier model.

The first three games I consider canon, minus SO1&2 which I take very lightly (a little too cartoonish for my taste). The next two games are pretty typical sequels -- more of everything except making sense. I pretty much ignore them, so I really don't care what happens in those games.

Surprisingly, I agree with you with regards to the importance of the later games... but not really with regards to what is and isn't 'canon'. It's a) not a fans place to determine this and b) not something that it makes sense to self determine. If you decide that everything you don't like isn't real, then you're going to just be further disappointed by future quality products.

(Seriously, though, weren't you just chastizing the novels for not taking SO1 seriously? And now it's too cartoonish? That seems like a bit of a contradiction.)

I feel like I'm watching Ping Pong.

You're certainly welcome to join the debate... failing that, internet disaffection isn't particularly interesting.

One thing that hasn't been brought up yet is the greater offensive potential of 7 Fralthra vs 1 Hakaga.

Sure - that's what Fralthra were designed to do... and it's the thing they're good at. You don't fight a carrier like a ship of the line. (Defensively, the Hakaga is better armed than seven Fralthra - that's worth noting.)

There is a theoretically equal amount of striking power between the two forces

No, there isn't - because cruisers don't carry bombers.

I think everyone is getting lost in dogma at the moment. sea_monkey is making some valid points, mainly that the Hakaga is not a doomsday superweapon that cannot be countered. And indeed, he has been proven right BY THE BOOKS WHICH HE HIMSELF ESCHEWS. After all, Earth was saved (bar just a few weapons of mass destruction) and the Hakagas were defeated and Confed won the war.

That's not his claim, though - he says that the books should be ignored because they do things like make carriers look 'too important'. His claim is that the Kilrathi would never have built the Hakagas in the first place, which is weird and wrong.

But, by pointing out this basic flaw in the books, everyone seems to feel the need to rip him apart for making the supposition that carriers aren't the be-all end-all of space warfare. Just because something is canon doesn't mean you have to assume he's wrong for having ideas that are as yet unproveable. Indeed, to follow canon and logic, all he's suggesting is that Confed won and the Kilrathi lost because Confed concentrated on small, fast, expendable vessels (escort carriers), and the Kilrathi built gigantic monstrosities that were too large to use. (Leaving out a certain Colonel Blair and a T-bomb, of course) The Kilrathi simply put too many of their eggs into one basket. The folly of this was also seen with the Behemoth.

Again, that would be a sensible claim to make - it's not what he's saying at all. The debate isn't "it's wrong that the Kilrathi did this" it's "it's impossible for the Kilrathi to have done this, the books can't have happened".

[Ijuin]

Issues of power vs. cost aside, a major part of the supercarrier approach is psychological. Seeing a massive vessel that is individually much more powerful than any other type in the fleet is very good for the owning sides morale, and equally bad for the opposing side's morale. It's like sending in a single tank with a company of infantry--sure, the one big vehicle has less total power than the many lesser units combined, but it strikes fear in the hearts of opponents, especially if they do not have something equally imposing on their own side.

One might equally ask why, instead of building the Behemoth, Confed did not build a whole fleet of smaller such ships which when firing together would be capable of destroying a planet. Certainly such an approach would have made it possible to keep the planet-killing ability even if a portion of the fleet was killed en route to its target, but there is a psychological difference between having a planet destroyed by a massive fleet, and having it annihilated in a single shot by one vessel.

As such, the power of the Hakaga does not come from it having more firepower than an equal financial/labor investment in lesser vessels would produce, but rather from the psychological value. Enemy forces will look at it and say "Damn, that's one big Motherf***er" and stare at it in fear and awe as a number of their own forces that would annihilate a regular carrier hardly affect it at all, despite the fact that a larger force still could have killed it as dead as any run-of-the-mill ship.

[LeHah]

Originally Posted by Bandit LOAF

(I apologize in advance for disappointing LeHah with this news.)

Just means I can stop sitting on my roof with a shotgun.

[Ijuin]

Originally Posted by Bandit LOAF

Sure, we see home defense squadrons from Earth and various space stations (as well as training schools and civilian airfields) fighting in the Battle of Terra. We also see the carriers replenishing their supply of lost fighters from these sources.

That said, having 100,000 fighters spread over 400 systems isn't the same thing as being able to have 100,000 at any place whenever you want.

Why not?

LACK OF CARRIERS.



Sure, that makes sense. As I've stated all along, the vast majority of fighters will be serving with HD units, ISS units, destroyer half-squadrons, etc.

Think about this: The United States of America has only a few hundred fighters aboard its ten Nimitz class carriers, yet has over ten thousand fighters located at stationary bases across the globe. The idea that only a small fraction of Confed's total fighters are aboard carriers is quite sensible in that context. Now, how long would it take for the United States to concentrate a large number of fighters in one place? Note that the USA has an advantage compared to Confed in this context--on Earth, the farthest reachable location is only two days' flight away, whereas it can take weeks to cross Confed space from one end to the other.

In sum, there are plenty of fighters to garrison each individual system--enough that any valuable system would normally be able to hold off at least one attacking carrier group without needing to call for Fleet support, but even jump-capable fighters can only go one or two systems away from their bases. It does you no good to have all your fighters in Perry system when the Kilrathi are hitting Blocade Point Charlie.

The Crossbow bomber part is a half truth - we're specifically told that the normal complement of the Gettysburg is Ferrets and Epees in the same dialogue. They just have a pair (or a single, in the losing endgame) of Crossbows that are being tested. (Presumably this is the *purpose* of the Crossbow - a bomber smaller than the Broadsword to be carried on escort carriers... but I digress.)

Four, I thought, since you also had two wingmen flying Crossbows when you go to take out the supply depot.

When has this ever been true, though? 10% of 20 bombers to destroy a cruiser is a hugely inflated number compared to anything we've ever seen or heard in Wing Commander.

10% of 20 bombers is two bombers, and I can believe that the ordnance from at least two bombers would be necessary to kill a cruiser. The "real" inflation here is the assumption that up to 90% of the bombers would be killed without scoring a torpedo hit--this would imply that the defenders have an unusually good anti-bomber defense.

[Bandit LOAF]

Four, I thought, since you also had two wingmen flying Crossbows when you go to take out the supply depot.

Err... I guess it should be *three* total (one for you, two for your wingmen).

10% of 20 bombers is two bombers, and I can believe that the ordnance from at least two bombers would be necessary to kill a cruiser. The "real" inflation here is the assumption that up to 90% of the bombers would be killed without scoring a torpedo hit--this would imply that the defenders have an unusually good anti-bomber defense.

Which is true in the case of a Hakaga - but not for a Fralthra. We routinely attack and destroy them with four fighter wings in Wing Commander II.

[SabreAce]

Originally Posted by Bandit LOAF

Err... I guess it should be *three* total (one for you, two for your wingmen).

I believe it would be four, though, as Commodore Cain was sent to Olympus Station in a Crossbow (per the briefing Angel gives Blair, the first time Blair hears of the Crossbow's existence).

Angel: Yes. Confed High Command is already planning the court-martial for the Commander, who was released with his officers in a Crossbow bomber, and returned to Olympus Station two weeks ago.
Maverick: A Crossbow? I’ve never heard of that bomber.
Angel: It’s very new, an improvement on the Broadsword technology. The Gettysburg was testing the prototypes.

EDIT: Also, in the losing track of the Rigel system, Tolwyn mentions that a wing of Crossbows arrives at the Concordia with the survivors of the Gettysburg's destruction. Then, in the mission, there are 6 Crossbows (according to the CIC's guide). If there were only a couple Crossbows on the Gettysburg, where'd the rest of them come from?

[Bandit LOAF]

Zounds, you're right - I didn't think that through.

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by Bandit LOAF

Which is true in the case of a Hakaga - but not for a Fralthra. We routinely attack and destroy them with four fighter wings in Wing Commander II.

Shouldn't that be 'four fighters'? Though the last mission of SO1, which sea_monkey talked about here, had just you and your wingman take out the Fralthra and nine Gothri with just Sabres.

Killing carriers, on the other hand, seemed to require full wing-sized strikes and capship support, IIRC, unless you've stripped them of their fighter defenses.

Again, the main reason you have carriers is because they are effectively 'floating bases' and thus can provide support and transport for more fighters than cruisers can typically carry. They're never meant to go right into battle with the enemy capships - that's what cruisers and destroyers are for. They're also relatively easier to defend, given that it's a) one target to keep track of for the defending pilots, and b) unlike the cruisers that have been mentioned as possible staging points for fighters tend to have more anti-fighter defenses. They're awful against capships in direct combat, but they're never meant to fight like that - they're floating docks and transports for their strike craft. The Concordia and the Kilrathi Dreadnoughts are probably the main exceptions to this rule - they're equipped with heavy capship weapons or planetary-siege weapons on top of their fighter complements, and have enough armor to survive close combat.

There are cruisers which carry fighters - but they're useful only in a limited set of circumstances, and are too expensive to risk in the way you'd normally risk a normal cruiser or destroyer. They carry enough fighters to cover themselves and a few transports, but they don't usually pack the same sort of heavy firepower or staying power that a carrier is expected to; remember that, throughout the games, it's not the cruisers which are expected to do the deep strike missions. Most cruisers can't carry enough bombers to make it worth the effort, due to volume and storage limitations - you might be able to fit a bomber squadron onto the decks, but forget about carrying any escorts for the bombers.

As a practical matter, you'd better served using even a light carrier for the job - at the very least, it's already designed to carry fighters, so you've got space available for the bombers and their munitions. Remember that cruisers are supposed to be fast and well-armored and armed; that'll take up a lot of internal volume, which means that you're going to have fewer fighters or smaller ones on-ship.

[sea_monkey]

I think everyone is getting lost in dogma at the moment. sea_monkey is making some valid points, mainly that the Hakaga is not a doomsday superweapon that cannot be countered.

How dare you question the Church of Wing Commander?!?

Blair died for our sins you ungrateful asshole.

Per my understanding, the Tiger's Claw is something of a special case, since it operates semi-independently and behind enemy lines.

That's the thing though. It doesn't really matter. Unless Kilrah tens of thousands of fighters sitting around, losing 1000+ in a year by only seven pilots would be a devastating loss.

Given the original claim is your own (the facts in the books are not valid), it would seem to be ultimately up to you to provide any evidence - rather than to simply claim that since there's no evidence against you other than that which you disregard that you must be right.

First of all, the original claim on this mini-thread actually came from you when you asked me to prove that there WASN'T a massive number of excess fighters sitting around in both fleets (prove a negative), which is impossible and I pointed it out. That said now that I think about it, I would argue that the fact that you get chewed out when you eject -- even if it's a lot less than once a month -- would indicate fighters are a big deal.

Second, I'm not claiming the books are not "valid." I said I don't like parts of them, explained why, and was wondering if anyone had the same thoughts. I personally don't consider them "strictly cannon" but I could really give a shit if anyone else does or not. I actually like the basic idea behind escort carriers, Vukar Tag, the Hakaga, and the Battle of Earth. I just don't like a lot of the details (and the characters, for that matter.)

Last, no, you cannot prove a negative, and that's basic logic.

To roughly apply to your earlier 'example', if Santa Clause Exists (p) Reindeer must be able to fly (q). Since reindeer are not able to fly (~q), then Santa Clause does not exist (~p).

PROVE no reindeer can fly!

Surprisingly, I agree with you with regards to the importance of the later games... but not really with regards to what is and isn't 'canon'.

It's a) not a fans place to determine this and b) not something that it makes sense to self determine. If you decide that everything you don't like isn't real,

I couldn't disagree more. The outcome of the games are different depending on how you played it -- what missions you did, who survived/died, what you said and ultimately what the endings were. The fan's place IS to determine all of this. And in the games/books, the universe isn't really fleshed out that well (and is often contradictory). So it's up to the imagination of the player to make sense of everything. So I would say the fan plays a very important role. I guess there are some people who really care about the "official" explanation for how Klingons grew mountain ranges on their heads right before Star Trek III, but I'm not one of them.

then you're going to just be further disappointed by future quality products.

Doesn't look there's going to be too many more quality products. But I agree with this to a point -- but this is more a result of the direction Origin took than anything else. Had, after the Kilrathi War, Origin decided to take the Wing Commander series in a more "spinoff" direction like in Privateer -- sort of like Grand Theft Auto where the different plots of games don't affect each other -- it wouldn't be necessary to construct an "official" timeline to tell a story.

Sure, that makes sense - the ace killscores don't factor in any of the recent action in the Vega Sector. They can really only be compared to the available data which covers the same 'pre-WC1' period... the "pre game" Tiger's Claw killboard (which, unlike the '1300' number is not randomly generated). So, what's the damage? Every Kilrathi ace has a killscore 1.5 to 2 times as high as those of the Tiger's Claw aces. Apply your math.

Actually I believe the crewmembers on the Claw rattle off these guys' kill scores right before they die so I think it's safe to assume those are their current scores. Angel has a nose for detail, I trust her Regardless, they all die while the TC pilots go on to keep killing.

(Seriously, though, weren't you just chastizing the novels for not taking SO1 seriously? And now it's too cartoonish? That seems like a bit of a contradiction.)

I just thought it was funny that Forstchen has Kilrah down for 20 Fralthra when 7 of them were destroyed in SO1 alone, let alone WC2 and SO2.

That said, having 100,000 fighters spread over 400 systems isn't the same thing as being able to have 100,000 at any place whenever you want.

Why not?

LACK OF CARRIERS.

Ok, so your *theory* is that Confed and Kilrah are too stupid to divert resources (energy/metal/labor) from their fighter building facilities to capital ship building facilities, because they'd rather build up massive stockpiles of fighters that will never be used and never be there when you need them (Earth). Sorry, that doesn't work for me.

The Gothri part doesn't hold water. Not only are we told that Gothri are jump capable, but we're told that there are carriers in the system in SO1. And we're told that the Fralthra are preparing to strike Olympus Station. To assume that because they're together in such a situation would be like assuming that any ship we've ever escorted to do anything in any WC game is our home base.

Those "carriers" are probably the Fralthra. Edmunds says three carrier groups attacked yesterday and two are attacking now. Then Hobbes says, "two fighters against Fralthra and their fighters?" The only way that makes sense if they were referring to a Fralthra as a carrier.

That's not his claim, though - he says that the books should be ignored because they do things like make carriers look 'too important'. His claim is that the Kilrathi would never have built the Hakagas in the first place, which is weird and wrong.

That's not my claim either though -- I never said any of that. I said I don't like the books because of X,Y,Z, of which what you're saying is at best a gross exaggeration. I do like the idea of Hakagas, and they WERE in WC3 to an extent, so I would never say Kilrah wouldn't have built them. But because they were huge, ego-swelling ships, not because they were some sort of super-weapon that would be so much more effective than an equivalent number of smaller ships. Confed should NOT have been preoccupied with knocking these out at the Battle of Earth because that would be like, if some guys were breaking into your house, sneaking outside and blowing up their car while they were messing up your house. Pointless.

10% of 20 bombers is two bombers, and I can believe that the ordnance from at least two bombers would be necessary to kill a cruiser. The "real" inflation here is the assumption that up to 90% of the bombers would be killed without scoring a torpedo hit--this would imply that the defenders have an unusually good anti-bomber defense.

We're giving each cruiser it's 40 fighter complement to defend against a strike of 20 fighters and 20 bombers though. With one fighter free for each bomber and a 30 second lock time, I don't think that's unreasonable. Regardless the %s are just arbitrary numbers which I used to show that the odds of blowing up 3 ships is much less than 1 ship.

[Dundradal]

One thing I think you have not mentioned in all your arguments is the actual population of each side. Talking about a 1000 fighters when you have a population in the trillions is not the same thing as thinking about it in current terms, which I think you might be in without knowing.

Each side occupies probably thousands of planets and bases in hundreds of systems. The inner worlds of the confederation are most likely very overpopulated (just curious if we know the population of Earth LOAF?).

Kilrah is also the center of kilrathi culture, as such billions of kats are on that one rock alone, although they do not colonize as in depth as the confederation, they nonetheless still have a vast population.

Frathla are in the time of wc1 light carriers. It is probably safe to assume that the kilrathi have specifically designed heavy carriers, as has been mentioned before, just because we don't see them in all our encounters does not mean they don't exist. I would suggest evidence in AS as an example, but since your lack of faith in the books is the subject of the thread, I doubt such examples would help. The kats have other heavy carriers. There are many examples in the novels and the games...

[Bandit LOAF]

How dare you question the Church of Wing Commander?!?

Blair died for our sins you ungrateful asshole.

Help, help, I'm being oppressed.

Please. No one's treated you with anything but respect in this thread - even when you've started ranting about how in your amazing fanfic universe (consisting of WC1, WC2 and part of whichever manual supports your claim at the time) Confed discovered that you were right because they found space station debris. We've even treated it like a serious debate after you've completely ignored everyones responses over and over. Freaking ugh.

You know at the start of the thread how everyone was all "you should be mean to the kook" and I shot them down because I thought you were somehow serious? I even yelled at Chris, for crids sake. Okay, I'll admit it: I was wrong. I was really, really wrong.

First of all, the original claim on this mini-thread actually came from you when you asked me to prove that there WASN'T a massive number of excess fighters sitting around in both fleets (prove a negative), which is impossible and I pointed it out. That said now that I think about it, I would argue that the fact that you get chewed out when you eject -- even if it's a lot less than once a month -- would indicate fighters are a big deal.

The initial claim will always be the post of WHOEVER STARTED THE THREAD. This was *YOU*. In this particular case, your claim was a list of three points numbered one through... two. The burden of proof is *ON YOU* at *ALL TIMES*.

Second, I'm not claiming the books are not "valid." (...) I personally don't consider them "strictly cannon"

ZING ZING ZING ZING ZING ZING

Last, no, you cannot prove a negative, and that's basic logic.

PROVE no reindeer can fly!

Oh, I'm sorry, I must have been asleep when you REWROTE THE BASIC CONCEPTS OF LOGIC.

I couldn't disagree more. The outcome of the games are different depending on how you played it -- what missions you did, who survived/died, what you said and ultimately what the endings were. The fan's place IS to determine all of this. And in the games/books, the universe isn't really fleshed out that well (and is often contradictory). So it's up to the imagination of the player to make sense of everything. So I would say the fan plays a very important role. I guess there are some people who really care about the "official" explanation for how Klingons grew mountain ranges on their heads right before Star Trek III, but I'm not one of them.

There is no official explanation for how Klingons grew ridges. There are, however, idiots out there who'll rant and rave about how they didn't grow ridges and everything after the original series never happened. They're you.

Actually I believe the crewmembers on the Claw rattle off these guys' kill scores right before they die so I think it's safe to assume those are their current scores. Angel has a nose for detail, I trust her Regardless, they all die while the TC pilots go on to keep killing.

We could compare them to the official killboard circa SM1 if you like, which is provided by WC SM1 SNES. The Kilrathi Aces still outscore the Tiger's Claw.

I just thought it was funny that Forstchen has Kilrah down for 20 Fralthra when 7 of them were destroyed in SO1 alone, let alone WC2 and SO2.

Right, because I'd forgotten that the novels take place before the games and that the number seven is larger than the number twenty. YOU, SIR, *WIN*.

(The novels all take place after those games. Fleet Action also specifically mentions the Concordia's history: In the seven years I've been in command of Concordia we've taken out eight carriers, a score of capital ships, countless fighters and bombers, and fought in nine major fleet actions. Of course, in your universe every ship destroys one other ship and is then destroyed itself.

[{QUOTE]Ok, so your *theory* is that Confed and Kilrah are too stupid to divert resources (energy/metal/labor) from their fighter building facilities to capital ship building facilities, because they'd rather build up massive stockpiles of fighters that will never be used and never be there when you need them (Earth). Sorry, that doesn't work for me.[/quote]

My 'theory' is that having resources spread across 300 star systems isn't the same thing as having them all in one place. And that without building fighters to defend your system in the first place you won't last long enough to build a carrier yard (10 years). It's almost like they established rules for an entire universe and then built their storylines off of those.

Those "carriers" are probably the Fralthra. Edmunds says three carrier groups attacked yesterday and two are attacking now. Then Hobbes says, "two fighters against Fralthra and their fighters?" The only way that makes sense if they were referring to a Fralthra as a carrier.

The carriers aren't the Fralthra. I'm pretty sure we went through this two threads ago. Distinct differencce between cruisers and carriers stated in the SO1 dialogue. The Fralthra are line ships that are directly launching the assault on the station - as in literally flying up next to the station to fire anti-matter guns.

We're giving each cruiser it's 40 fighter complement to defend against a strike of 20 fighters and 20 bombers though. With one fighter free for each bomber and a 30 second lock time, I don't think that's unreasonable. Regardless the %s are just arbitrary numbers which I used to show that the odds of blowing up 3 ships is much less than 1 ship.

Oh, I'm sorry for accusing you of making up numbers specifically to support your claim. I hadn't thought that those numbers might be arbitrary! (ZING!)

[LeHah]

This is turning ugly right quick.

To coin the old quote, "I smell an era of blood and prominent banning."

[Bandit LOAF]

I'm not going to ban someone for having a dumb opinion, but I'm not going to treat them with respect once they start whining about how oppressed they've been.

[LeHah]

I'm sure theres a mathmatical equasion of some type that could show the statistics in which a CZ Member (a) starts to whine (x) and then gets banned (n) because of an overwhelming amount of stupidity/whining/flaming/etc (y).

I can't do jack shit with math, so someone else take a stab at it.

[Haesslich]

You know, I had an intelligent post in response to all this, but then I saw the 'Church of Wing Commander' bit and decided to /dev/null it so I could respond in kind.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

We're giving each cruiser it's 40 fighter complement to defend against a strike of 20 fighters and 20 bombers though. With one fighter free for each bomber and a 30 second lock time, I don't think that's unreasonable. Regardless the %s are just arbitrary numbers which I used to show that the odds of blowing up 3 ships is much less than 1 ship.

You know, in the scenario which I'd originally set up, that one carrier COULD concentrate more forces than '20 fighters and 20 bombers' per cruiser - and indeed, it should do that, outside of what forces it has for its own defense screen. This way, you overwhelm the defenders with your numerically superior forces, take fewer losses in the process, and then move onto the next target. This is what the Kilrathi were doing at the Battle of Sirius Prime and the Battle of Earth.

As far as going after the carriers first - if they hadn't gone after them, the fighter and bomber wings off those ships, once they'd had a chance to land and rearm (which they were doing when the Craxtha got hit by Commodore Polowski's suicide mission using a whole destroyer squadron), then they'd have been able to pulverize the remaining fighter forces and then nuke Earth at leisure. Those ships are dangerous because of the reasons others have mentioned before, being floating bases which allow rearming and refueling of strike craft.

The death of Destroyer Squadron Three in battle against the Craxtha and her fighter defenses also illustrates one reason you don't want to put too many fighters on a destroyer or cruiser; they're designed for the mission of escort and direct capship combat, and such battles are often lethal. You lose that ship, and your short-ranged fighters aren't going to have a home to go to, should they survive.

On the other hand, your carrier was designed to NOT mix it up at close ranges, but instead to stay on the fringes and act as a support ship and transport for strike craft. Putting a cruiser out at that range is a waste of resources, given that you've either sacrificed weapons and armor to put fighters on that ship, or else you've got a piddling amount of fighter craft on it... and then you have to keep it out of the way anyhow, so that your fighters have a place to go home to once the battle's over.

[Edfilho]

I don't know why you people bother, the guy made up his mind and no amount of logic will sway him.

[Bandit LOAF]

Yeah... that's generally the case in a debate. I guess there's a few reasons to do it anyway:

* The people *reading* the debate might not have made up their mind. Look how this thread started - the guy ranting about the novels actually introduced a bunch of people to the fact that there *are* novels. And there are a lot more lurkers than there are crazy argument people like you and I... I've come across my own stupid WC Movie debates repeated by other people simply because they watched me make a good case at some point -- and that feels good.

* Argument is like a sword; it's a skill that needs to be sharpened with practice. Silly as the subject may be, debate is an intellectual pursuit that will be useful in more serious arguments. Plus... it's an enjoyable passtime. There's a rush behind making a good point, up until someone makes it personal. And sadly that sort of happened here.

You didn't think I argued with you for all those years at agwc to change your mind, did you ?

[sea_monkey]

Help, help, I'm being oppressed.

...

You know at the start of the thread how everyone was all "you should be mean to the kook" and I shot them down because I thought you were somehow serious? I even yelled at Chris, for crids sake. Okay, I'll admit it: I was wrong. I was really, really wrong.

Relax, it was a JOKE. A "funny", if you will.

Where you get the "oppressed" or "whining" bit from is beyond me.

The initial claim will always be the post of WHOEVER STARTED THE THREAD. This was *YOU*. In this particular case, your claim was a list of three points numbered one through... two. The burden of proof is *ON YOU* at *ALL TIMES*.

Um, no. When you see the exchange in it's entirety, it's clear that this line of discussion started when you asked me to prove a negative:

SM: Losing 1300 fighters can only not be catastrophic if you have a surplus of fighters (well over 5000+), whether they are carrier or ground-based.

LOAF: ... and where's the indication that there's *not* a large base of fighters?

SM: I don't know. Where's the indication there's *not* a Santa Claus? It's not possible to prove something doesn't exist.

LOAF: Of course you can prove something doesn't exist - it's basic Freshman logic... the Law of Indirect Reasoning.

Hesselich: There's a difference between proving a negative (impossible to do) and proving that something doesn't exist when either no evidence to support the claim - or there's contrary data which argues against its existence.

SM: No there really isn't. The fact that no one has ever seen a unicorn doesn't mean there isn't one hiding behind a tree somewhere. Point is if you want to say there's a unicorn, it's your job to prove there is one.

LOAF: Given the original claim is your own (the facts in the books are not valid), it would seem to be ultimately up to you to provide any evidence - rather than to simply claim that since there's no evidence against you other than that which you disregard that you must be right.

At the end there you just tried to pawn the whole "proving a negative" on me where in fact you were the one who did it.

SM: Last, no, you cannot prove a negative, and that's basic logic.

LOAF: Oh, I'm sorry, I must have been asleep when you REWROTE THE BASIC CONCEPTS OF LOGIC.

~~~. Ok. Well if you insist:

Logic: A Rough Guide -- http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~pinsky/logicguide.htm

(Under Logical Fallacies):

"Appeal to Ignorance (Proving a Negative): an argument that asserts a claim is true because no one can prove it is wrong; this shifts the burden of proof to the audience or opponent rather than the claimant"

Note the Appeal to Ignorance part.

The carriers aren't the Fralthra. I'm pretty sure we went through this two threads ago. Distinct differencce between cruisers and carriers stated in the SO1 dialogue. The Fralthra are line ships that are directly launching the assault on the station - as in literally flying up next to the station to fire anti-matter guns.

So how does that dialogue with Hobbes make ANY sense at all? There's two carrier groups attacking ... and Hobbes says "two sabres against fralthra?" That makes no sense unless they are referring to the Fralthra when they say carrier. If indeed it WERE two heavy carriers, with a group of support ships (Fralthra, Ralatha, Kamekhs), why would the target just be *assumed* to be the Fralthra right from the get go? And why would destroying 2 Fralthra stop the attack -- there is still at least 2 carriers left, with over 100 fighters, plus all the other support ships. And how come it works out perfectly that there is supposed to be 2 carriers and we see 2 Fralthra?

I got an idea -- when they say carrier they are referring to a Fralthra, since it is really a light carrier when get right down to it. Hmmm, that works.

Of course, in your universe every ship destroys one other ship and is then destroyed itself.

I didn't say that. Although if two classes of ships are roughly evenly matched that's what will happen about 50% of the time.

Right, because I'd forgotten that the novels take place before the games and that the number seven is larger than the number twenty. YOU, SIR, *WIN*.

Well I didn't say that either -- I just think it's amusing that the implication is that the Kilrathi lost over a third of their heavy cruisers in a year in the Enigma Sector.

There is no official explanation for how Klingons grew ridges. There are, however, idiots out there who'll rant and rave about how they didn't grow ridges and everything after the original series never happened. They're you.

Well, I didn't say that either ... but who's keeping track at this point.

I find it amusing that you didn't address the rest of my quote, because I really think that was the heart of our disagreement:

"I couldn't disagree more. The outcome of the games are different depending on how you played it -- what missions you did, who survived/died, what you said and ultimately what the endings were. The fan's place IS to determine all of this. And in the games/books, the universe isn't really fleshed out that well (and is often contradictory). So it's up to the imagination of the player to make sense of everything. So I would say the fan plays a very important role. I guess there are some people who really care about the "official" explanation for how Klingons grew mountain ranges on their heads right before Star Trek III, but I'm not one of them."

Oh, I'm sorry for accusing you of making up numbers specifically to support your claim. I hadn't thought that those numbers might be arbitrary! (ZING!)

Not that I'd expect you to actually read what I said at this point, but to repeat -- *whatever* the actual probabilities are, if the probability of destroying a cruiser with 20 bombers is P, then the odds of destroying 3 cruisers with 3 waves of 20 bombers is P*P*P. So if P is 1/2, then the odds of destroying 3 cruisers is 1/8. So, unless the odds of destroying a carrier with 60 bombers is, for some reason, incredibly lower than the odds of destroying a cruiser (with an equivalent attacking/defense force), there is much less risk in having 3 targets.

My 'theory' is that having resources spread across 300 star systems isn't the same thing as having them all in one place. And that without building fighters to defend your system in the first place you won't last long enough to build a carrier yard (10 years). It's almost like they established rules for an entire universe and then built their storylines off of those.

Well, just up the thread you were talking about the importance of power projection, and how carrier-based fighters were so critical. Now, it's all about maintaining a massive garrison everywhere. Well which is it? You can't have it both ways. There are tradeoffs and if you have 100,000 fighters, it doesn't make sense to have only 1000-2500 be mobile. #1, it's a sucky strategy, and #2, it's a waste of resources to spend that much energy/metal/labor on fighters that will never used, instead of on capital ships.

Please. No one's treated you with anything but respect in this thread - even when you've started ranting about how in your amazing fanfic universe (consisting of WC1, WC2 and part of whichever manual supports your claim at the time) Confed discovered that you were right because they found space station debris. We've even treated it like a serious debate after you've completely ignored everyones responses over and over. Freaking ugh.

It doesn't really surprise me that I have to explain this again as you don't seem all the interested in discussing what I actually said; but I consider the first three games canon, although I take SO1&2 fairly lightly. After that, the books and other games to the extent they don't contradict each other and the main games. Pretty fair I think. Fanfic universe? Haha, well I will enjoy my little "unofficial" universe where I actually get to make decisions in the game while you obsess over making sure you kill the third Dralthi in Delius B with a dumbfire in order to stay consistent with the Gospel of Forstchen.

There's too much to respond to "everyone", and most of it is redundant anyway.

This is turning ugly right quick.

To coin the old quote, "I smell an era of blood and prominent banning."

~~~ @ banning me. How cultish. Honestly if things are "getting ugly", it would appear to be more on LOAF's end than mine. Somewhere around the 40th post he started telling me what my own arguments REALLY were and asking me to prove negatives. Now he's saying I'm a whiner and my opinions are dumb. Looks like he is a sore loser.

[sea_monkey]

You know, in the scenario which I'd originally set up, that one carrier COULD concentrate more forces than '20 fighters and 20 bombers' per cruiser - and indeed, it should do that, outside of what forces it has for its own defense screen. This way, you overwhelm the defenders with your numerically superior forces, take fewer losses in the process, and then move onto the next target. This is what the Kilrathi were doing at the Battle of Sirius Prime and the Battle of Earth.

So, in your scenario ... the cruisers couldn't be fairly close together and thus capable of pooling defenders ... the carrier knows exactly where all the cruisers are ... the cruisers don't know where the attack is coming from ... and have no patrols out so they don't know what the target is. Well I'll concede in THAT case, the cruisers will probably lose.

Ok, what about THIS scenario: you have a carrier, I have 3 cruisers. Your fighters are all rubber-cemented to the flight deck ... the launch bays are all damaged ... the turret gunners got blasted the night before and are still drunk ... your carrier has a backup diesel engine that's leaking and now there is diesel everywhere ... and the cook served beans the night before and everyone in the engine room has been farting for days. I think I win that one.

[LeHah]

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

~~~ @ banning me. How cultish. Honestly if things are "getting ugly", it would appear to be more on LOAF's end than mine. Somewhere around the 40th post he started telling me what my own arguments REALLY were and asking me to prove negatives. Now he's saying I'm a whiner and my opinions are dumb. Looks like he is a sore loser.

I said all that - not LOAF - so don't bring him into it. I take credit for making an asshole comment - but thats only because I expect people to do the same.

[Bandit LOAF]

Relax, it was a JOKE. A "funny", if you will.

Where you get the "oppressed" or "whining" bit from is beyond me.

It's a cheap trick to get out of having a real point - implying that the authority is 'against' you and that's the only reason you aren't making any headway. If it's a joke, it's a dumb one that a lot of stupid people take too seriously in the same situation. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, though, and I'll apologize for judging you. Lets go back to an ordinary debate.

Um, no. When you see the exchange in it's entirety, it's clear that this line of discussion started when you asked me to prove a negative: (long snip)

Except that you've gone back and quoted all of this ignoring that I used facts to prove that there *is* a large surplus of fighters. I quoted Privateer, I pointed out the complement of the ISS stations compared to the carriers, I mentioned the fighter defenses that show up in the novels... asking you to counter this is *not* telling you to prove a negative in the sense you are claiming. *YOU* went off on that inane tangent because you had no actual evidence with which to argue your point.

So how does that dialogue with Hobbes make ANY sense at all? There's two carrier groups attacking ... and Hobbes says "two sabres against fralthra?" That makes no sense unless they are referring to the Fralthra when they say carrier. If indeed it WERE two heavy carriers, with a group of support ships (Fralthra, Ralatha, Kamekhs), why would the target just be *assumed* to be the Fralthra right from the get go? And why would destroying 2 Fralthra stop the attack -- there is still at least 2 carriers left, with over 100 fighters, plus all the other support ships. And how come it works out perfectly that there is supposed to be 2 carriers and we see 2 Fralthra?

I got an idea -- when they say carrier they are referring to a Fralthra, since it is really a light carrier when get right down to it. Hmmm, that works.

In the first two missions of the last series of SO1 you destroy *three* Fralthra. This has absolutely no side effect in terms of the story... five carrier groups are attacking before you fly these missions, five carrier groups are attacking afterwards.

The two Fralthra in the last mission are important because they're the portion of the carrier group (a carrier group in modern terms is the combined force of the fighter wing and the escort ships) that's physically attacking Olympus - they're *not* the carriers (which, of course, wouldn't fight in a line action).

(In reference to something you mentioned - no support ships show up in the last set of SO1 missions... just a whole mess of Fralthra.)

Well I didn't say that either -- I just think it's amusing that the implication is that the Kilrathi lost over a third of their heavy cruisers in a year in the Enigma Sector.

Wing Commander II takes place across three years (2665-2667). The novels also claim that the Confederation lost a similar percentage of their carrier fleet. It's almost like there was a war going on.

"I couldn't disagree more. The outcome of the games are different depending on how you played it -- what missions you did, who survived/died, what you said and ultimately what the endings were. The fan's place IS to determine all of this. And in the games/books, the universe isn't really fleshed out that well (and is often contradictory). So it's up to the imagination of the player to make sense of everything. So I would say the fan plays a very important role. I guess there are some people who really care about the "official" explanation for how Klingons grew mountain ranges on their heads right before Star Trek III, but I'm not one of them."

It's a fun claim that sounds nice because it's about freedom of expression and all that jazz, but it's ultimately pointless. As offensive as it sounds, the players actions absolutely don't matter to the next game or the ultimate history of the games. If Wing Commander 2 wants to assume you won WC1 at Venice instead of lost it at Hell's Kitchen, it's not up to you in the long run. If Prophecy wants to assume you 'chose' Rachel over Flint, it's pretty much decided from a "canon" standpoint.

Not that I'd expect you to actually read what I said at this point, but to repeat -- *whatever* the actual probabilities are, if the probability of destroying a cruiser with 20 bombers is P, then the odds of destroying 3 cruisers with 3 waves of 20 bombers is P*P*P. So if P is 1/2, then the odds of destroying 3 cruisers is 1/8. So, unless the odds of destroying a carrier with 60 bombers is, for some reason, incredibly lower than the odds of destroying a cruiser (with an equivalent attacking/defense force), there is much less risk in having 3 targets.

Okay, you're getting it: THE ODDS OF DESTROYING A CARRIER WITH 60 BOMBERS IS INCREDIBLY LOWER THAN THE ODDS OF DESTROYING A CRUISER. The carriers static defenses alone account for this. The Hakaga is a seething mass of neutron turrets, laser cannons, anti-torpedo gatling weapons and such... versus tin can cruisers with a few flak turrets. This is one of the reasons a carrier is so important.

Well, just up the thread you were talking about the importance of power projection, and how carrier-based fighters were so critical. Now, it's all about maintaining a massive garrison everywhere. Well which is it? You can't have it both ways. There are tradeoffs and if you have 100,000 fighters, it doesn't make sense to have only 1000-2500 be mobile. #1, it's a sucky strategy, and #2, it's a waste of resources to spend that much energy/metal/labor on fighters that will never used, instead of on capital ships.

We... do have it both ways. How do you not understand that? There are a limited number of carriers which are essential to the war effort because they allow for power projection. Both sides would like to build more carriers, but it was never a possibility during the war... carriers were generally lost as quickly as they could be constructed. This makes the few carriers that thare are precious.

There are plenty of fighters to defend the frontier. We see them throughout Privateer... and the games... and the novels... If {System X} does not build fighters to defend itself from Kilrathi raids it will never reach a position where it can build more carriers (according to the novel it takes ten years to build a heavy shipyard). The same situation exists on the other side of the lines - the Kilrathi must build fighters to maintain the status quo.

This is why the Hakagas are suddenly important. They are a {magically created} carrier force that Thrakhath managed to put together without having to affect the status quo in the colonies - he injected new blood into what was essentially a hot cold war.

It doesn't really surprise me that I have to explain this again as you don't seem all the interested in discussing what I actually said; but I consider the first three games canon, although I take SO1&2 fairly lightly. After that, the books and other games to the extent they don't contradict each other and the main games. Pretty fair I think. Fanfic universe? Haha, well I will enjoy my little "unofficial" universe where I actually get to make decisions in the game while you obsess over making sure you kill the third Dralthi in Delius B with a dumbfire in order to stay consistent with the Gospel of Forstchen.

I don't think I've ever played the games like that. I'm not some kind of monster insisting that games be looked at and not played.

On the other hand, I've never gone ranting at a message board because I couldn't believe the audacity of the next game/novel/etc. for daring to suggest that I'd killed the third Dralthi at Delius.

There's a huge difference between appreciating a fictional universe and believing that it has some sort of control over my actions.

~~~ @ banning me. How cultish. Honestly if things are "getting ugly", it would appear to be more on LOAF's end than mine. Somewhere around the 40th post he started telling me what my own arguments REALLY were and asking me to prove negatives. Now he's saying I'm a whiner and my opinions are dumb. Looks like he is a sore loser.

That would be the end that replied to LeHah specifically saying that I wouldn't ban you? Yeah, I'm really out to get you.

[Colonel Sanders]

give it up Seamonkey. you made your point and it was disregarded.

you, my friend, have been shot down like a Kilrathi kitten against a Tiger's Claw Ace.

[Edfilho]

Originally Posted by Bandit LOAF

Yeah... that's generally the case in a debate. I guess there's a few reasons to do it anyway:

* The people *reading* the debate might not have made up their mind. Look how this thread started - the guy ranting about the novels actually introduced a bunch of people to the fact that there *are* novels. And there are a lot more lurkers than there are crazy argument people like you and I... I've come across my own stupid WC Movie debates repeated by other people simply because they watched me make a good case at some point -- and that feels good.

* Argument is like a sword; it's a skill that needs to be sharpened with practice. Silly as the subject may be, debate is an intellectual pursuit that will be useful in more serious arguments. Plus... it's an enjoyable passtime. There's a rush behind making a good point, up until someone makes it personal. And sadly that sort of happened here.

You didn't think I argued with you for all those years at agwc to change your mind, did you ?

And boy, did we debate back then. This shennanigans here are even light, when compared to the epic battle waged by us, Delance, Gene Tang, Krisv, Crid...

Funny thing, you didn't show up as much in agwc and Crid posted like 10938728 posts a day, unlike he does here.

I like this kind of debate too. but this one is turning up to be annoying. Sea Monkey simply ignores 86% of the arguments (I just made up this figure, so it must be true!)

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

So, in your scenario ... the cruisers couldn't be fairly close together and thus capable of pooling defenders ... the carrier knows exactly where all the cruisers are ... the cruisers don't know where the attack is coming from ... and have no patrols out so they don't know what the target is. Well I'll concede in THAT case, the cruisers will probably lose.

Ok, what about THIS scenario: you have a carrier, I have 3 cruisers. Your fighters are all rubber-cemented to the flight deck ... the launch bays are all damaged ... the turret gunners got blasted the night before and are still drunk ... your carrier has a backup diesel engine that's leaking and now there is diesel everywhere ... and the cook served beans the night before and everyone in the engine room has been farting for days. I think I win that one.

The scenario was presented in this post. I believe the exact quote that applied is the following:

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

' Having 1 layer of armor, seperated by 10km of vacuum from the next. The seperate ships reduces risk, if something goes wrong with 1 or 2 the rest keep fighting'

10km between each cruiser is nothing to a fighter, given that we usually engage targets with guns starting about 4300m out, or 4.3km. You were the one who put the cruisers close together, not I. In that situation, with three cruisers whose complement equals one Confederation-class dreadnought, but minus the striking power (unless you've got Gothri or Grikath support either from the hangar deck of a Snakier or other full-sized carrier). The fighters CAN cluster around one ship if it's being attacked... or they can just let the enemy fighters and bombers attack them one at a time.

If they let the bombers attack one cruiser at a time, then the cruiser's defenses are likely to be overwhelmed. We've had example after example in the games where a cruiser was the target of a single wing pair and the cruiser was blown away, if the attackers were flying heavy fighters or bombers. This was ONE cruiser, with some fighter support. Granted, putting 40 fighters around that cruiser's going to mean that a single wing-pair won't kill it, but 40 fighters flying point defense against up to 120 fighters and bombers minus whatever number is needed for BARCAP is long odds for the defenders, especially when the cruiser's already got limited anti-fighter defenses. This doesn't even consider what damage can be done by a destroyer or another cruiser, given the anti-capship weapons both of them pack. Fighter defenses, at least for either one of them, tend to consist of 'other fighters'.

If the Fralthra under attack gets fighter support from the other two cruisers, then we're in better shape - then you've got the defenders outnumbered in critical areas (more fighters versus bombers, and you have enough fighters to keep the escorts busy). The problem here is that you've left your other two Fralthra with understrength defenses - whatever fighters they're keeping close, and their own guns are all the 'defense' that they can expect. If the Confederation's 'attack' was a feint, then that Concordia's battle group has at least one free run at a cruiser, and it only takes two torps to put it down, or one good hit on the landing bay to make sure the fighters don't have anywhere to go once fuel and missiles run low.

On the other hand, while you're risking a bit more by putting all 120 Confed fighters on that anonymous Confederation-class dreadnought, the defense there is a little easier to work out given that the enemy has only one target to go for, and a limited number of strike options. Situation #2 would not exist, and their escorts could concentrate on damaging the enemy cruisers that were the attacking fighters' transports. If they're going with what appears to be the 'standard' cruiser complement (heavy fighters without torps), then there's no threat. If you've emptied out one Fralthra's complement and somehow fit a squadron or two of bombers on there, then the defenders still have an easier task... and if the Fralthra didn't keep any fighters close by, the Confederation's bombers could still make runs, while the carrier's anti-fighter defenses provided support to the point-defense squadrons.

You know someone's losing when they resort to silly arguments like rubber cement.

Incidentally, you never did prove that 'every ship has a hangar', especially given that corvettes are generally too small for them, so they either land on/in the hangar bays of another ship, or can dock with the station or other ship - while there's no way to walk people off the ramp, the absence of gravity does apparently let people use docking tubes to get on and off ships, to judge by the novel Fleet Action.

There's also the infamous quote from the initial post:

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

2) Too carrier centric. #1 -- I always got the impression that the Kilrathi employed lots of heavy cruisers as their main force instead of carriers. You see lots of Fralthra around but few carriers. Thrakhath's flagship is a heavy cruiser.

Contrast this with your later statements:

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

That tells you more about what Confed considers a Kilrathi carrier than anything else. In WC2, you see two Fralthra on a patrol one mission, and in the next cutscene Jazz says something about 2 carriers being in the system. In SO1, they say "five carrier groups" are attacking Ghorah Khar, 3 were in the first wave and two are left. When you get to the Nav point, what do you know, 2 Fralthra. To a certain extent, I'm willing to concede the limitations of the WC2 engine had something to do with that ... in my imagination there WAS a cat carrier present at that battle ... but as far as the game goes, the word carrier seems to apply to Fralthra as well.

This turns to...

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

Those "carriers" are probably the Fralthra. Edmunds says three carrier groups attacked yesterday and two are attacking now. Then Hobbes says, "two fighters against Fralthra and their fighters?" The only way that makes sense if they were referring to a Fralthra as a carrier.

And ends up as...

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

So how does that dialogue with Hobbes make ANY sense at all? There's two carrier groups attacking ... and Hobbes says "two sabres against fralthra?" That makes no sense unless they are referring to the Fralthra when they say carrier. If indeed it WERE two heavy carriers, with a group of support ships (Fralthra, Ralatha, Kamekhs), why would the target just be *assumed* to be the Fralthra right from the get go? And why would destroying 2 Fralthra stop the attack -- there is still at least 2 carriers left, with over 100 fighters, plus all the other support ships. And how come it works out perfectly that there is supposed to be 2 carriers and we see 2 Fralthra?

I got an idea -- when they say carrier they are referring to a Fralthra, since it is really a light carrier when get right down to it. Hmmm, that works.

...

What happened to the Fralthra not being carriers? Doesn't this mean that, if you're putting a lot of fighters in each one, which is a light carrier, that you're also following a carrier-centric strategy?

[Bandit LOAF]

Funny thing, you didn't show up as much in agwc and Crid posted like 10938728 posts a day, unlike he does here.

Well, back in the day agwc was Chris' territory... and I handled all the web stuff (Origin's Official Chat Zone and then later the WCHS board).

[LeHah]

We should call in Frosty on this one.

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by LeHah

We should call in Frosty on this one.

But this thread makes him sad.

(Edit: I should amend my earlier post, given I just spotted a major typo - the attackers are outnumbered in scenario #2, not the defenders).

[sea_monkey]

It's a cheap trick to get out of having a real point - implying that the authority is 'against' you and that's the only reason you aren't making any headway. If it's a joke, it's a dumb one that a lot of stupid people take too seriously in the same situation.

I thought it was pretty funny if I do say so myself.

It's a fun claim that sounds nice because it's about freedom of expression and all that jazz, but it's ultimately pointless. As offensive as it sounds, the players actions absolutely don't matter to the next game or the ultimate history of the games. If Wing Commander 2 wants to assume you won WC1 at Venice instead of lost it at Hell's Kitchen, it's not up to you in the long run. If Prophecy wants to assume you 'chose' Rachel over Flint, it's pretty much decided from a "canon" standpoint.

Being that we're talking about fiction, I think it's silly to say "this is how it happened", because it didn't happen outside of anyone's imagination. Maybe some people can reconcile the issues between the games and the books, but I cannot so I ignore them, so in my imagination, they didn't happen. I posted here to see if anyone else saw the same issues, not to say "HEY FUCKERS, THE BOOKS DIDN'T HAPPEN OK?!?"

Also, the first three games are set up as well as they can be. Probably 99% of the WC players will want to finish on the winning path with all the games so it's no big deal. The only real issue is dead pilots in WC1 but that can easily be rationalized away.

Except that you've gone back and quoted all of this ignoring that I used facts to prove that there *is* a large surplus of fighters. I quoted Privateer, I pointed out the complement of the ISS stations compared to the carriers, I mentioned the fighter defenses that show up in the novels... asking you to counter this is *not* telling you to prove a negative in the sense you are claiming.

It wouldn't be, but that's not what happened. You asked me to prove a negative first (starting that line of discussion), then later mentioned those things.

In the first two missions of the last series of SO1 you destroy *three* Fralthra. This has absolutely no side effect in terms of the story... five carrier groups are attacking before you fly these missions, five carrier groups are attacking afterwards.

The two Fralthra in the last mission are important because they're the portion of the carrier group (a carrier group in modern terms is the combined force of the fighter wing and the escort ships) that's physically attacking Olympus - they're *not* the carriers (which, of course, wouldn't fight in a line action).

I don't see how any of that makes your point. As I remember, the first 2 Fralthra you see aren't considered part of the "five carrier groups" that attack, that quote comes later. The 3rd isn't in the Ghorah Khar system, or isn't part of the assault anyway, it's by Paladin. The conversation with Hobbes still makes no sense whatsoever, and it still makes no sense why the battle would be miraculously won after two cruisers were taken out, since you would still have the rest of the line ships and the carriers to deal with. The whole scenario DOES make perfect sense if the Fralthra are the "carriers."

At best you can hope for is a stalemate on this issue since we never see any carriers and it makes plenty of sense that they are referring to Fralthra the whole time.

We... do have it both ways. How do you not understand that? There are a limited number of carriers which are essential to the war effort because they allow for power projection. Both sides would like to build more carriers, but it was never a possibility during the war... carriers were generally lost as quickly as they could be constructed. This makes the few carriers that thare are precious.

There are plenty of fighters to defend the frontier. We see them throughout Privateer... and the games... and the novels... If {System X} does not build fighters to defend itself from Kilrathi raids it will never reach a position where it can build more carriers (according to the novel it takes ten years to build a heavy shipyard). The same situation exists on the other side of the lines - the Kilrathi must build fighters to maintain the status quo.

Sure they have garrisons. But you're implying that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of idle fighters sitting around while probably 2000-3000 get carried around. That's NOT consistent with the games or the books because you never see these hoards of fighters ANYWHERE. 400 fighters don't suddenly scramble from Gwynedd to save the Concordia. Or from Olympus Station. Or Blackmane. The Tarawa doesn't get crushed by a thousand fighters sitting at home on Kilrah. The best Earth/Sirius can do is scrape up a few hundred fighters total. Where's the jump capable fighters coming in from nearby homeworlds, or on transports, destroyers and whatnot in the weeks before these battles. They're just not there.

No doubt there are garrisons at these bases, and the bases could probably carry 400 fighters, but there's nothing to believe they are always near capacity or there is some inexhaustible amount of fighters which makes the 1000 kills in 1 year by 7 pilots on the Claw largely irrelevant.

Okay, you're getting it: THE ODDS OF DESTROYING A CARRIER WITH 60 BOMBERS IS INCREDIBLY LOWER THAN THE ODDS OF DESTROYING A CRUISER. The carriers static defenses alone account for this. The Hakaga is a seething mass of neutron turrets, laser cannons, anti-torpedo gatling weapons and such... versus tin can cruisers with a few flak turrets. This is one of the reasons a carrier is so important.

Nothing in the games or manuals imply this. The Snakeir is hardly any more difficult than a Fralthi. The carrier in WC3 isn't particularly hard either, and according to the manual, carries much less defensive weaponry. In WC2, the hard part of torpedo runs is the anti-matter cannons, which standard carriers do not have.

It wasn't the case in WW2 either.

[sea_monkey]

You know someone's losing when they resort to silly arguments like rubber cement.

Speaking of silly arguments, you do realize in these pure hypothetical "scenarios" you present, that you always stack the deck in your favor and then go "oh look you died"? That this isn't a particularly convincing form of argument? All I did is point out the ridiculousness of what you're doing.

If you send 120 craft against 1 cruiser, where the 3 cruisers are spread out and unable to help each other, then the other 2 will attack and destroy your carriers (with Gothri and Crossbows ). If they are bunched together, all 120 craft will be able to defend against your 120 craft. If you focus 60 bombers on one ship, that is a complete waste because while you will definitely kill that cruiser, you will have only a handful of bombers left for the 2nd and 3rd cruisers. The bombers attacking the 3rd cruiser will have had to survive 90 seconds of torpedo runs. No real advantage there.

Incidentally, you never did prove that 'every ship has a hangar', especially given that corvettes are generally too small for them, so they either land on/in the hangar bays of another ship, or can dock with the station or other ship - while there's no way to walk people off the ramp, the absence of gravity does apparently let people use docking tubes to get on and off ships, to judge by the novel Fleet Action.

No I didn't. Incidentelly, did you ever get around to pointing out how corvettes not being able to dock fighters made any kind of difference in my original argument at all? I would hope so, you sure wrote a lot about it.

What happened to the Fralthra not being carriers? Doesn't this mean that, if you're putting a lot of fighters in each one, which is a light carrier, that you're also following a carrier-centric strategy?

Actually if you ever took the time to actually READ what I originally said, before typing 8 pages on it, you might have noticed that what I said, and said repeatedly, was that destroyers and cruisers which carried fighters could and would assume roles previously held only by dedicated carriers -- diminishing but not eliminating the carrier's role. I pointed out the Fralthra as a specific example of this. When I say carrier I meant the dedicated carrier in the sense that is generally used on here and by Forstchen: about 100 fighters, no anti-matter weapons and not meant to duke it out with other capital ships. While the Fralthra could be considered a light carrier of sorts, it is not a dedicated carrier. Your argument is purely semantic.

You know you're losing when you're resorting to semantic arguments.

(But how about another hypothetical scenario: let's assume your fingers have been chopped off. You can't reply, so you have lost the debate. Do you see? There is no hope of winning.)

[Bandit LOAF]

I thought it was pretty funny if I do say so myself.

You're right up there with Major Dad.

He's a Major... and a dad!

Being that we're talking about fiction, I think it's silly to say "this is how it happened", because it didn't happen outside of anyone's imagination. Maybe some people can reconcile the issues between the games and the books, but I cannot so I ignore them, so in my imagination, they didn't happen. I posted here to see if anyone else saw the same issues, not to say "HEY FUCKERS, THE BOOKS DIDN'T HAPPEN OK?!?"

Also, the first three games are set up as well as they can be. Probably 99% of the WC players will want to finish on the winning path with all the games so it's no big deal. The only real issue is dead pilots in WC1 but that can easily be rationalized away.

Doesn't necessarily make for a good backstory, though - especially when you're leading to another game where you have to essentially be written into the same position (losing the war!). They took drastic measures to make that work in WC2 and in WC3 they pretty much ignored everything else alltogether... I prefer the middle ground, with someone establishing a 'history' with which to base future products on (this, incidentally, is what 'canon' means...)

It wouldn't be, but that's not what happened. You asked me to prove a negative first (starting that line of discussion), then later mentioned those things.

No, I didn't - you're just avoiding the point which I reiterated: given the evidence I have already quoted, is there anything that counterindicates the existence of a large fighter force.

I don't see how any of that makes your point. As I remember, the first 2 Fralthra you see aren't considered part of the "five carrier groups" that attack, that quote comes later. The 3rd isn't in the Ghorah Khar system, or isn't part of the assault anyway, it's by Paladin. The conversation with Hobbes still makes no sense whatsoever, and it still makes no sense why the battle would be miraculously won after two cruisers were taken out, since you would still have the rest of the line ships and the carriers to deal with. The whole scenario DOES make perfect sense if the Fralthra are the "carriers."

At best you can hope for is a stalemate on this issue since we never see any carriers and it makes plenty of sense that they are referring to Fralthra the whole time.

Lets look at the Ghorah Khar series (2) again. All quotations taken from the game.

In Mission A Blair and Hobbes fly off to "nail that strike fleet". They encounter two Fralthra and (presumably) destroy them. They return to Olympus, where Paladin tells them that that wasn't the entire attack force - the Kilrathi have "five carrier groups". You take off to escort Paladin out-system, but find that there's a Fralthra attacking the base. You blow it up and the join Paladin. (The Fralthra is at Olympus, not in the Sharm System w/ Paladin). Ghorah Khar C is the zany plot with Jukaga and Thrakhath, and is generally unrelated to the actual fleet action. You/Blair return to Ghorah Khar where you learn that "three of those five Kilrathi carrier groups attacked yesterday" (while Blair was with Paladin).

The five carrier groups are *not* the Fralthra - because whacking three Fralthra (or one, if you want to insist that the first two don't count) doesn't reduce their numbers. You are *never* told that you're going to engage the final two carriers - it's specifically described as the "next assault wave". (Destroying the Kilrathi offensive capability forces them to retreat - it doesn't destroy their remaining two carriers).

Sure they have garrisons. But you're implying that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of idle fighters sitting around while probably 2000-3000 get carried around. That's NOT consistent with the games or the books because you never see these hoards of fighters ANYWHERE. 400 fighters don't suddenly scramble from Gwynedd to save the Concordia. Or from Olympus Station. Or Blackmane. The Tarawa doesn't get crushed by a thousand fighters sitting at home on Kilrah. The best Earth/Sirius can do is scrape up a few hundred fighters total. Where's the jump capable fighters coming in from nearby homeworlds, or on transports, destroyers and whatnot in the weeks before these battles. They're just not there.

No doubt there are garrisons at these bases, and the bases could probably carry 400 fighters, but there's nothing to believe they are always near capacity or there is some inexhaustible amount of fighters which makes the 1000 kills in 1 year by 7 pilots on the Claw largely irrelevant.

Yeah, that'd go over well. Say, a huge Kilrathi fleet that we don't think we can stop has broken through our lines and is dispatching line squadrons to wipe out individual planets. You colonial garrisons on the planets they're attacking don't really need your fighter squadrons for anything, do you?

(Olympus' garrison wipes out three Kilrathi carrier groups... that's pretty impressive. )

Nothing in the games or manuals imply this. The Snakeir is hardly any more difficult than a Fralthi. The carrier in WC3 isn't particularly hard either, and according to the manual, carries much less defensive weaponry. In WC2, the hard part of torpedo runs is the anti-matter cannons, which standard carriers do not have.

It wasn't the case in WW2 either.

Victory Streak's 'tactical situations' section describes a large multi-wing attack (eleven fighters) on an enemy light carrier and escorts, versus a two plane raid on a pair of cruisers.

(Capships being 'fictionally' harder than they are in the actual game is nothing new - from the coordinated attack on the Rathtak in Claw Marks to Halcyon's descriptions of how nigh-impossible it is to blow up a Fralthi the implication has always been that in the 'WC universe' capships aren't the easy targets they are to the gamer.)

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

Speaking of silly arguments, you do realize in these pure hypothetical "scenarios" you present, that you always stack the deck in your favor and then go "oh look you died"? That this isn't a particularly convincing form of argument? All I did is point out the ridiculousness of what you're doing.

If you send 120 craft against 1 cruiser, where the 3 cruisers are spread out and unable to help each other, then the other 2 will attack and destroy your carriers (with Gothri and Crossbows ). If they are bunched together, all 120 craft will be able to defend against your 120 craft. If you focus 60 bombers on one ship, that is a complete waste because while you will definitely kill that cruiser, you will have only a handful of bombers left for the 2nd and 3rd cruisers. The bombers attacking the 3rd cruiser will have had to survive 90 seconds of torpedo runs. No real advantage there.

The hypothetical scenarios in question actually take your original statements into account - that it 'makes more sense to have fighters based on cruisers than on carriers, since 3 cruisers are less risky than one big target'. You're also the one who set up the '10km of vacuum' between them, which in Wing Commander terms (assuming you've played the game) is about 30 or so seconds of flight time in a Broadsword if you want to nestle up beside the ship (320kps) or 20 seconds or so in a Sabre. Coincidentally, this is also about the time one needs to lock on a torpedo. The game stacked the deck, not I. I'm using game-based stats for all this, and inferences based on the games and novels which both come from the original source material.

10km isn't very far at all - you've got the ships clustered closely together, which makes it easier to support one another in the case of a battle... but it also means you've got three targets very conveniently placed to one another. If I launch a torpedo run at the cruiser, then the destroyers have an easier time going after the other two cruiser-carriers if most of the fighters have moved to the first one's defense minus whatever fighters they keep for a defensive screen. We see no proof that Gothri are part of a normal Fralthra's complement, just as we see no proof that the Crossbow is a normal part of the Waterloo-class ship's fighter complement; in fact, for the latter we are told that the Crossbow is new and they have them to test it out. The Crossbow's also about two thirds the size of the Broadsword, about the size of a Sabre or Rapier.

Also, where'd you get the 'sixty bomber' figure from? We've never seen any sign in the games that the Concordia or other carriers HAD sixty bombers to throw into action at any given time. Or, for that matter, where do you get the the idea that only a handful would survive the bombing run on the cruiser? We killed cruisers with Gothri support by ourselves, with just a wingman, in the games; their anti-fighter defenses are their flak cannons and other fighters. If you're using Fleet Action as the source for this figure, the main reason that the Confederation lost most of its bombers during the attacks on the Hakagas was the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy, combined with heavy anti-fighter defenses.

If I recall correctly, there were a total of two hundred and fifty bombers and fighters on that run, with some of their strike craft held in reserve for a second wave if necessary. Lone Wolf's strike group, going up against one carrier, had thirty bombers with it, and there were five enemy carriers. If we assume each group was about the same size, then you've got about a hundred and fifty bombers in total, with the bulk of the point-defense fighters (judging by later statements in the books) held back. There were eighty bombers left after Sirius, sent in with just eighty escorts. This, combined with the 'fifty strike craft on the Saratoga', which did not make it to Sirius due to fuel pump issues, suggests that four Concordia-class carriers and one Confed-class dreadnought had about 230 bombers between them, or about three or four squadrons of bombers on each ship (36-48 craft). We're still making an assumption that this is a normal fighter complement, with 48-60 heavy, medium, and light fighter squadrons to go with the bomber squadrons. This does, however, seem to be fairly safe as assumptions go, given the missions that these carriers draw. Given the Confederation-class' greater fighter capacity, you could probably tack on one more squadron of each onto its decks, to get a total of 72 fighters and 48 strike craft.

If we're going to use assumptions and say that the tactically 'safe' thing to do when fighting is to keep half your fighter squadrons for CAP duty, then the theoretical Confederation-class in the initial example could send thirty-six bombers if it was being cautious, or all forty-eight if it wanted a full-on strike mission. They could be accompanied by anything between an equal number of fighters (36-48) which would leave half the wing behind to defend the ship, or they could detach 60 fighters and leave one squadron on capship defense.

Conversely, if the Kilrathi are prone to being as protective of their cruiser-carriers as we are of our capships, then they've got an interesting choice - the 'safe' thing to do (given that the enemy also has a destroyer and capship escort, if we're talking a full battle group) is to send only half their fighter detachments off to support their fellow cruiser, which means forty more fighters would reinforce the defenders and give them a minor advantage. If you're assuming that the Gothri or maybe Grikath were launched off the Fralthra's deck and were not sent in to escort the Fralthra on its strike mission against an enemy Battle Group, then you've lost one flight deck and the forty fighters it carried, given that bombers in WC2 seem to require extra support as far as supplies and storage goes.

Standard carrier tactics mean that the carrier stays at extreme range, sending the fighters and maybe one or two destroyers ahead to accompany the strike, while it stays behind its own destroyer and cruiser screen. The Fralthra, should they want to strike at the Confed-class, will need to launch their own fighters at them, and detail off some capship support to keep the destroyers busy by the Confederation-class, where there's at least a chance to put a shot in on the enemy carrier. They shouldn't be closing in to engage with their own AMGs, since that would mean putting the cruiser at risk, and thus losing all those pilots based off her should that ship go down.

You're in a pickle here, still, defensively speaking - if you're assuming that all the Fralthra are carrying 'standard' loadouts, there will not be Grikath or Gothri. If you are assuming that one of them does have bombers, then you've lost half of your fighter strength. The Fralthra are still weak in anti-fighter weapon loadouts, which means they're more dependent on their fighters and shields for protection than an equivalent-sized carrier is. If you send all of your escorts away to overwhelm the enemy strike, then you risk attack by any capships escorting that strike in, or even just a detachment of bombers since you've effectively given away all your protection to the first cruiser. If you keep any fighters back, then the first cruiser's defenses are still likely to get overwhelmed and more enemy bombers will survive the strike.

The games show that cruisers go down fairly easily, even Fralthra. Carriers, however, have always seemed to require either surprise or overwhelming strength to take down.

(continued on another post)

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

No I didn't. Incidentelly, did you ever get around to pointing out how corvettes not being able to dock fighters made any kind of difference in my original argument at all? I would hope so, you sure wrote a lot about it.

This was your 'point 2)' in your initial post.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

#2 -- in space carriers aren't as big a deal. In WW2 you needed a carrier to transport aircraft from point A to B through the Pacific. So they were the limiting factor in any engagement. In space, *every ship* has a hangar since there are no transporter beams like in Star Trek. So every ship can carry a fighter or two. The big issue in WC is the # of fighters in an engagement.

There's also this:

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

Because dude, they're in SPACE. You can't park the ship offshore, and have everybody walk off a ramp. You need some way to transfer people, fuel, munitions and repair materials back and forth. A docking bay and a ladder won't cut it. So every ship has to be able to "open up" some way to allow stuff to transfer.

You stated that 'every ship had a hangar, and thus every ship should have a fighter'. This is an invalid statement, and I've brought up examples to show why, while you've kept repeating that 'cruisers and destroyers carry fighters, thus cruisers and destroyers are more efficient fighter-carrying platforms'. You've never proven that every ship had a hangar, or that every ship needed a fighter on it. Yes, cruisers and destroyers do carry fighters, and cruisers carry enough fighters to provide themselves with a light fighter screen. Waterloo-class cruisers have enough fighters to act as escorts to convoys and transports, and the Kilrathi are forced to use their own cruisers in this fashion due to Confed raiding before the False Armistice.

But since when does this prove that cruisers are more efficient fighter platforms, or that every ship needs a fighter, even if it just straps one onto the top of the hull? Or, for that matter, that every ship has a hangar?

The TCS Coventry, a destroyer in the WC3 time period, carried a half-squadron of fighters and was one of the newest destroyer designs. The TCS Gwenhyvar launched 5 Rapiers at you in the Jotunheim mission, and four more Rapiers were later sent at you in Firekka. We're not talking a very useful number of fighters here, less than a squadron at best. Cruisers reconfigured as light carriers fare better, but again are limited in utility due to their fighter complements; we've seen deciated light carriers carry bombers, but Fralthra and Waterloo-class ships don't apparently carry bombers under normal circumstances. Later cruisers don't even make a pretense of carrying that many fighters.

Yet, in each game, carriers keep coming back; the reasons given for their existence are varied, though 'economy, fighter capacity, and their design being dedicated to the mission of fighter support' seems to echo in each time period. Otherwise we probably WOULD see more cruisers with fighters, if this wasn't the case. You've yet to prove that this isn't true, which is why the burden of it's been on you throughout the whole thread. I'm presenting arguments which are supported by inferences based on the stuff we've seen in both games and novels.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

Actually if you ever took the time to actually READ what I originally said, before typing 8 pages on it, you might have noticed that what I said, and said repeatedly, was that destroyers and cruisers which carried fighters could and would assume roles previously held only by dedicated carriers -- diminishing but not eliminating the carrier's role. I pointed out the Fralthra as a specific example of this. When I say carrier I meant the dedicated carrier in the sense that is generally used on here and by Forstchen: about 100 fighters, no anti-matter weapons and not meant to duke it out with other capital ships. While the Fralthra could be considered a light carrier of sorts, it is not a dedicated carrier. Your argument is purely semantic.

Where does striking power come into semantics? 'A carrier always has heavy strike craft, while a cruiser does not usually carry them or is incapable of carrying them' is not a semantic argument. You've called Fralthra carriers, as I pointed out, after stating that Fralthra were not carriers. That's not semantics - that's a change in position.

It's also been pointed out that Fralthra were not usually associated with Gothri, unless it was stated that carriers were in the system. Examples of Kilrathi carriers exist in the games (look at the Snakier) and have been pointed out. It's also been stated that those Gothri do not have to be part of a ship's fighter complement to be seen with it; while Gothri are seen with Fralthra in SO1, they're also seen with Kamekh-class corvettes in SO2 in the Canewdon system, and we also see Sabres with a Fralthra at Ayer's Rock. Does this mean that Kamekh-class corvettes also carry jump-capable Gothri, or that Fralthra normally keep Confederation Sabre-class heavy fighters as part of their standard complement?

We have seen Drakhri and Sartha in systems where there is no Kilrathi presence (Gwynedd) in association with a Fralthra. We've never seen Fralthra with Grikath or Gothri in systems where there are no other Kilrathi carriers, and we also know the Gothri is jump-capable. We've also aware that even dedicated light and escort carriers had problems carrying 36-meter long Broadsword bombers, and have a fighter capacity comparable to cruisers.

The only light carrier we've seen with the ability to carry bombers was the pre-War Ranger-class, on the Confed side. The Kilrathi, by the WC3 period, had dreadnoughts which surpassed the Hakaga-class supercarriers in every respect, and were effective terror weapons due to their shielding and large guns. It was less a carrier and more a siege weapon.

Originally Posted by sea_monkey

You know you're losing when you're resorting to semantic arguments.

(But how about another hypothetical scenario: let's assume your fingers have been chopped off. You can't reply, so you have lost the debate. Do you see? There is no hope of winning.)

And this relates to Wing Commander how? The burden of proof has always been on you, and you've yet to give us examples in game which conclusively state your case. That case was:

• Confed was outmatched at every turn: the Kilrathi were more prepared for a war, and thus had more capship yards in place. Check Fleet Action for details on this statement, specifically after Adm. Tolwyn returns to Earth. The loss of the Claw was significant due to the fact that they were on a strike mission to K'tithrak Mang, and because Confed had lost some ability to project power; it was not because there weren't enough fighters to go around - it was more that a whole 'base' had been lost in action and at that time Confed fleet strength was relatively low.
• Too Carrier-Centric: your initial statement was that there were many Fralthra (of which there were twenty at the time of Fleet Action) and that Thrakath's flagship was a heavy cruiser; the Kha'ifra, as seen in cutscenes and the pictures LOAF has produced is not a cruiser design, and seems to be a carrier or possibly a dreadnought to judge by the open launch bay at the front of the craft. Where's your evidence concerning this? You haven't proven anything here either.
• 'In WW2 you needed a carrier to transport aircraft from point A to B through the Pacific. So they were the limiting factor in any engagement. In space, *every ship* has a hangar since there are no transporter beams like in Star Trek. So every ship can carry a fighter or two' - where's the proof every ship has a hangar? Or that it can or needs to carry a fighter? Theoretically, you could just strap a fighter on top of every transport that you had out there, or any ship that needs a fighter escort (they talk about it in End Run). But do they need them, or should they have them? Where's your proof that this works, in the games? You've presented arguments which you haven't even argued successfully - since when is it desirable to lose a ship at all, and that it's easier to defend three targets? Remember that the problem was not apparently fighter production, so much as capship production and then pilots to fly those fighters. The Fralthra have also been demonstrated to be significantly less well-protected than even Snakier carriers in terms of anti-fighter defenses.

Now prove it. You've already stated that you don't even consider most of the games canon, which is rather like telling a lawmaker that the laws he passed aren't valid because you don't consider it that way. It's a rather futile defense in court, and doesn't fly much better here.

[HammerHead]

Wow!
How have I missed this thread?!

I just spent 3 hour catching up and what I understood, base on your recent remark sea_monky –

Actually if you ever took the time to actually READ what I originally said, before typing 8 pages on it, you might have noticed that what I said, and said repeatedly, was that destroyers and cruisers which carried fighters could and would assume roles previously held only by dedicated carriers -- diminishing but not eliminating the carrier's role. I pointed out the Fralthra as a specific example of this. When I say carrier I meant the dedicated carrier in the sense that is generally used on here and by Forstchen: about 100 fighters, no anti-matter weapons and not meant to duke it out with other capital ships. While the Fralthra could be considered a light carrier of sorts, it is not a dedicated carrier. Your argument is purely semantic.

Is that the entire argument is whether fighter carrying cruisers and destroyer can replace dedicated carriers or not.

My short answer is: NO! Sorry sea_monky, I'm with LOAF and the guys on this one.

But I should probably explain why not… so…
I noticed that every one said they don’t want to talk about numbers (and ended up talking all about them) and I say

LET TALK NUMBERS! Cold hard fact numbers:
(for those who are unfamiliar with the metric system – 1 meter is roughly 1 yard - 1.094 yards to be exact)

And for simplicity – lets be a little abstract.

POINT 1.
The basic thing you need to remember about dedicated carrier is that the idea behind her is to easily and effectively service fighters. The big question is what is hiding behind the expression "easily and effectively".
Lets take a NUMERICAL example – a fighter complement of 12 Raptor class heavy fighters and 24 Hornet light fighters. (I've chosen them specifically since I have accurate data on their dimensions – as I'm doing some 3D modeling and took the time to pick the data ). This is a total of 36 fighters, it's definitely within a cruisers capability, and is an effective strike force (for 2654 and even later).
A Raptor is a monstrosity 36 meters long, 31 meter wide and 17.2 meter high, so an "easy and effective" parking deck space for it will be 40 meters by 20 meters. A hornet is smaller but is still 20 meters long and roughly that wide (her height doesn't mater as she's lower then the Raptor) so it need 20 by 20 meters of deck parking space.
Lets say our flight deck is 250 meter long, and since we need taxing space it'll have to be 250m by 35m (or even 40m) – because of the Raptor.
Now – if we do the math, that’s 27,950 meter of deck space.
It'll also have to be at least 20m high (if not 25) again, because of the Raptor –
So now its 559,000 cubic meters of deck volume – that's 559 CUBIC KILOMETERS!!! (that’s 350 cubic Miles)
Now – I haven't taken into account the following things:
*Runway
*Landing bay
*Storage rooms – for weapons and spare parts – and you'll probably want more then one, to spread the load.
*Briefing room for your 40 pilots (36 for the plane + 10% "spare heads" – practically "spare head" ratio can get to 30 and even 50% - they unable you to keep your fighters up while giving returning pilots time to rest)
*Living quarters for your 40 pilots.
*For every pilot you have 5 supporting personnel (repairman, arming-man, flight control officers, lunch and recovery officers etc.) in real life it more then 5:1 but alas – that would be living quarters for 200 additional support personnel.

The Ranger class light carriers are 720m long ships SPECIFICALLY designed to accommodate ALL these things (and a few more I forgot) –
So how are you going to squeeze ALL these on a 500-550m long cruiser which is already packed to her gills with weapons, armor, cap-ship ammo, and 500 or so crew members?
Cruiser flight decks are usually cramped and unsuited for fast regular operation (that's why the Waterloo carries only light fighters)

POINT 2
Cruisers are supposed to hack and slash with enemy ships up close and personal – with grave danger of heavy or even terminal damage. Once you start using them as carriers you get into a dilemma – get close for a fire fight ant risk stranding your pilots after your ship took unrepairable damage to its flight deck or have been destroyed, or staying away, thus loosing the advantages of the cruiser's heavy weapons and armor (practically becoming a dedicated carrier).
Either way you look at it – you just created a hybrid ship – that is not good enough from either roll…

POINT 3
You offer to substitute one Hakaga super carrier with 7 Fralthra cruisers – lets look at it from a mathematical point of view:

Let's say and attack is lunched on a system and tactical analysis suggests that 300 fighters are needed.
Troops will be sent ONLY after the system has been secured.

1 Hakaga is dispatched. With her 300 fighters, escort ships and supply line.
Escort ships will include and approximate of :
4 Cruisers.
6 Destroyers.
3 Frigates
2 Scout Corvettes
1 EW Corvette
1 Mine Sweeper.
---------------------
18 ships total

The supply line will be about 6 transports for supplies (3 for the Hakaga and 3 for the other ships) with 2 destroyers for escort
---------------------
Totaling at 26 capital ships and 300 fighters – all in all, a full fledge carrier battle group.

Now – your offer – a 7 Cruisers squadron:

7 Cruiser/Carriers – with a total of 280 fighters
7 Destroyers – each cruiser with her dedicated escort.
2 regular Cruisers – as mainstay support
-------------------
16 so far…

since you have such a large force (dispersed on a relatively large patch of space) and not a small force centered around a central ship, you'll need a picket squadron:

4 Destroyers
4 Frigates
-------------------
24…

such a large force need better recon capabilities –
4 Scout Corvettes
-------------------
28…

The same goes for electronic warfare and mine sweeping
3 EW Corvette
3 Mine Sweeper
-------------------
34…


The supply line will have to be large – 1 transport for each Cruiser/Carriers (as the need supplies both for the ship and it's fighter wing. 2 additional ones for the close escorts. 2 transports for the picket force, and 2 more for the Corvettes and Mine sweepers (and I'm pulling it thin!)
That’s 13 transports… flying into enemy space, minimum escorts should include 3-4 destroyer and an escort carrier.
That's 17 ships convoy.
---------------------
Totaling at 51 capital ships and 280 fighters (and "change" fighters one escorting ships – all in all, a Cruiser based group with 300 fighters.

(You still want to talk numbers???)

The hole idea is to achieve the maximum goal by delivering the necessary force (in our case – 300 fighters) with the minimal number of ships in order to ENSURE MINIMUM CASUALTIES!!!

Also remember the more ships you have the more "noise" you make – Ion trails, Infra-Red emission, radar reflections, comm. chatter etc.


POINT 4
To answer your question why is the Hakaga a super weapon I'll use a little analogy:

You need to destroy a big block a concrete (lets say 5x5x5 meters) you have basically 2 options:
Take a sledge hammer and start bashing it to gravel, which could take some time.
Or, take a big massive Jackhammer, drill through to it's dead center, and place some Dynamite (or C4, or ESK-5, or whatever explosive compound you wish) and blow it up.

For 34 years Confed and the Kilrathi have been bashing each other to gravel with fleet carriers (2634-2668) and once the Kilrathi realized Confed was winning the bashing contest, the pick up the Hakaga – the resident Jackhammer – and drilled right into Confed's core. Only Jukaga stoped his people from activating their Dynamite.

That is why the Hakaga is a super weapon – because it was the Jackhammer in a world of sledge hammers.

To quote one of the famous
"You still want to talk number huh? Do you, PUNK?!"

[Nemesis]

Wing Commander has major continuity issues throughout the entire series so I figure everyone has to pick and choose what they like to some extent. . . . I consider the WC3, WC2, WC1 & SMs1&2, and *lightly* S01&2 canon in that order because to me they make the most sense like that. After that, stuff like the books, Privateer, Academy, Armada, the manuals, as far as they don't contradict each other and the "main" games. . . .You can either go to extreme lengths to rationalize every inconsistency, however ridiculous -- or you can say, "okay, the manual creators made a mistake. I'll pretend they didn't say that." . . . I think that's the big difference here between me and some of you guys. I would rather pick and choose elements of all the materials that make the most consistent and enjoyable universe rather than try to force contradictory elements (written by different people with entirely different ideas about the games) together in the same universe. . . .So it's up to the imagination of the player to make sense of everything. . . .Doesn't look there's going to be too many more quality products. But I agree with this [that I will “be further disappointed by future quality products”] to a point -- but this is more a result of the direction Origin took than anything else. . . .Maybe some people can reconcile the issues between the games and the books, but I cannot so I ignore them, so in my imagination, they didn't happen. I posted here to see if anyone else saw the same issues . . .

But if your view truly is that each person is free to envision WC as he or she believes works best, then how can there be any “issues” that you would care to know if anyone else sees? Why would you care to know what others think? Why would you care if they agreed with you or not? I’m just not clear on what you’re looking to get out of this thread.

Also, you appear to misunderstand our efforts to reconcile inconsistencies among the sources. It is not simply or only to try to weave a consistent time line and history for WC (as well as have a lot of fun doing that), but essentially to keep WC a “living” story. We see it as dynamic, with a great potential. And that strikes me as the real difference with the views you present. You seem to value WC as only a static and effectively dead concept.

[Edfilho]

So now its 559,000 cubic meters of deck volume – that's 559 CUBIC KILOMETERS!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO It's not!!!!! A cubic Kilometer is a cube of one kilometer each side, and a kilometer is 1000 meters, so, 1000m x 1000m x1000m = 1,000,000,000 cubic meters, or 10^12 cubic meters. 559,000 cubic meters is exactly... 559,000 cubic meters, or 0,000559 cubic Km. thank you.

[HammerHead]

Uhh...
*scratch my head*
Uhh...

Your right...


sorry,

my silly mistake....

oh well....

It's still 559,000 cubic meters

I still dare you, or any one for that matter, to sqeeze it on a full-fledged, packed-to-the-gills, heavy cruiser.

[Edfilho]

Originally Posted by HammerHead

Uhh...
It's still 559,000 cubic meters

I still dare you, or any one for that matter, to sqeeze it on a full-fledged, packed-to-the-gills, heavy cruiser.

Ah, I agree with that part.

[Bandit LOAF]

Just wanted to let the debate in general know that I'm off to Boston for three days - so if I haven't replied before tuesday, it's not because I've moved on (G)

[sea_monkey]

Is that the entire argument is whether fighter carrying cruisers and destroyer can replace dedicated carriers or not.

No, absolutely not, but you would think so if you read Hesselich's posts.

I said destroyers and cruisers that could carry fighters would reduce the importance of the carrier, not eliminate it or make it insignificant. Obviously they are important. But not as much as in WW2 where the carrier was the only ship that could carry fighters.

Really, this is pretty much common sense and impossible to argue, but a few posters are arguing that I'm wrong, because "carriers are important" -- totally irrelevant to my post.

For 34 years Confed and the Kilrathi have been bashing each other to gravel with fleet carriers (2634-2668) and once the Kilrathi realized Confed was winning the bashing contest, the pick up the Hakaga – the resident Jackhammer – and drilled right into Confed's core. Only Jukaga stoped his people from activating their Dynamite.

That was another issue. Why are Hakagas so superior to other smaller units that they represent a "jackhammer"? It's not even clear that a Hakaga would beat 7-8 Fralthra in a fight, let alone win overwhelmingly. Bottomline, a Hakaga is a big, heavily armored bus for ships. That's nice, but hardly a superweapon. The fighters are the real weapons, and they could be carried by smaller ships as well (destroyers, cruisers, standard carriers), which would probably be actually easier to defend due to the sheer number of them.

since you have such a large force (dispersed on a relatively large patch of space) and not a small force centered around a central ship, you'll need a picket squadron: such a large force need better recon capabilities – The same goes for electronic warfare and mine sweeping

Umm, why? You're doing a Hesselich here. The cruisers need more escorts than a Hakaga ... because you say so.

Lets say our flight deck is 250 meter long, and since we need taxing space it'll have to be 250m by 35m (or even 40m) – because of the Raptor.

The hangar in the cruisers and destroyers in WC3 is a tiny little hole in the back. A runway really isn't needed, you could really just push the ship overboard. It's not like it is going to fall into the ocean and sink.

But if your view truly is that each person is free to envision WC as he or she believes works best, then how can there be any “issues” that you would care to know if anyone else sees? Why would you care to know what others think? Why would you care if they agreed with you or not? I’m just not clear on what you’re looking to get out of this thread.

Why post *anything*? I saw some issues and was wondering if anyone else saw the same things, and what they thought of it. I saw one post on here by a guy who thought the reason why Hobbes defected was because of the Behemoth and the destruction of Kilrah -- which I had come to as well. That was interesting to read.

Also, you appear to misunderstand our efforts to reconcile inconsistencies among the sources. It is not simply or only to try to weave a consistent time line and history for WC (as well as have a lot of fun doing that), but essentially to keep WC a “living” story. We see it as dynamic, with a great potential. And that strikes me as the real difference with the views you present. You seem to value WC as only a static and effectively dead concept.

I don't really follow you here, as I don't see the connection between living/dead and resolving inconsistencies? What am I doing if not trying to resolve inconsistencies.

[sea_monkey]

They (the 2 Fralthra, while the 3rd is under attack) shouldn't be closing in to engage with their own AMGs, since that would mean putting the cruiser at risk, and thus losing all those pilots based off her should that ship go down.

Ummmmmm .... this also puts *your carrier* at risk of losing all those 120 pilots based over it should I be successful. Highly likely if you've focused the majority of your fighters onto one of my ships, leaving 2 Fralthra and their 80 fighters free to smash your carrier.

Sorry dude, but you are that guy in Starcraft or other strategy games that just turtles up and goes for the most powerful unit in the game right away ... the guy that gets killed all of the time. There are risk/return issues that you just aren't seeing.

The hypothetical scenarios in question actually take your original statements into account - that it 'makes more sense to have fighters based on cruisers than on carriers, since 3 cruisers are less risky than one big target'. ... The game stacked the deck, not I. I'm using game-based stats for all this, and inferences based on the games and novels which both come from the original source material.

In one of your little scenarios, you had my cruisers being spread out so far that they couldn't help each other. So your carrier's 120 fighters could go from cruiser to cruiser and overwhelm each ones 40 fighter complement one at a time. The implication, of course, is that my cruisers will sit there with their thumbs up their asses while you do this. I'm sure you thought that this would be a fairly reasonable scenario, but it makes about as much sense as my scenario where your fighters are rubber-cemented to the flight deck. It's ridiculous.

.

And this relates to Wing Commander how? The burden of proof has always been on you, and you've yet to give us examples in game which conclusively state your case. That case was:

Just because you ignore what I say doesn't it mean it wasn't there. But for a review:

Confed was outmatched at every turn: the Kilrathi were more prepared for a war, and thus had more capship yards in place.

You totally missed the point here. I said in the games, it definitely seems as though Confed is significantly outnumbered. The books indicate that this is not the case, it's about 1.5:1. Your response is ... the Kilrathi have more shipyards so they have more ships? What? So you AGREE with me? Interesting.

Too Carrier-Centric: your initial statement was that there were many Fralthra (of which there were twenty at the time of Fleet Action) and that Thrakath's flagship was a heavy cruiser; the Kha'ifra, as seen in cutscenes and the pictures LOAF has produced is not a cruiser design, and seems to be a carrier or possibly a dreadnought to judge by the open launch bay at the front of the craft. Where's your evidence concerning this? You haven't proven anything here either.

Why do you keep quoting the books back to me as if that has some effect on my argument? That is like quoting the Bible to an atheist.

I said that, in the games, the Kilrathi seem to use cruiser/carriers (Fralthra/Fralthi) as more of a front-line force than carriers. The evidence is the GAMES, where you don't see a carrier in WC1, SM1, WC2, SO1, or SO2. You only see carriers deep behind enemy lines in WC3 (Ariel, Freja), or when the whole fleet is assembled (SM2).

Your evidence to the contrary is ... well the books say differently! ~~~.

'In WW2 you needed a carrier to transport aircraft from point A to B through the Pacific. So they were the limiting factor in any engagement. In space, *every ship* has a hangar since there are no transporter beams like in Star Trek. So every ship can carry a fighter or two' - where's the proof every ship has a hangar?

Every ship might not have a hangar, but most do. Cruisers, destroyers and transports can all carry or dock fighters. In WW2, only carriers could carry fighters. So, in WC, carriers are less important. End of story.

Whenever you try to argue this point you just go off on a tangent about some totally unrelated point, like how important carriers are for strike missions, which has nothing to do with my point.

Now prove it. You've already stated that you don't even consider most of the games canon,

Yawn. No I didn't.

But since when does this prove that cruisers are more efficient fighter platforms

It doesn't. And the reason why it doesn't, is because I never said that -- which you would understand if you were actually reading my posts.

Or, for that matter, where do you get the the idea that only a handful would survive the bombing run on the cruiser?

Totally a matter of interpretation, as the books make it seem very hard to destroy capships in general, while the games make it fairly easy for 1 fighter to do. Any argument on this subject is OPINION, not right or wrong. Which I'm game for -- and what I was expecting on this thread -- but not what you are doing.

I was referring specifically however to your suggestion that it would be more efficient to focus all your bombers onto the first cruiser, then the 2nd, then the 3rd. When the truth is, your bombers will crush the first cruiser, but they will take losses and damage. The depleted force will then have to go on another 30 second torpedo run -- with fighters STILL shooting at them. If any survive the 2nd cruiser, they have a third run, having taken heavier losses and more damage ... 30 seconds with fighters STILL shooting at them.

In reality it'd be much more effective to split your forces evenly among the cruisers.

Where does striking power come into semantics?

It doesn't. The semantics comes into play when you say that my argument:

1) Kilrathi seem to use Fralthra (cruiser/carriers) more than dedicated carriers (as opposed to Confed)

2) Confed seems to often refer to Fralthra as carriers

... is a contradiction. It's a semantic argument because *whatever* the word is people use to describe the Fralthra (cruiser, heavy cruiser, cruiser/carrier, light carrier, dreadnought, etc), it is NOT a ship that carries about 100 fighters and has no anti-matter guns -- which is what I was referring to (and I think that was perfectly clear) when I said carrier in (1).

Your argument therefore is over nothing but the meaning of words and how I used them. Semantics.

but Fralthra and Waterloo-class ships don't apparently carry bombers under normal circumstances.

I said they CAN (correct), you said they CAN'T (incorrect). Not that they "usually don't."

The games show that cruisers go down fairly easily, even Fralthra. Carriers, however, have always seemed to require either surprise or overwhelming strength to take down.

Actually the games show that cruisers are harder to take down, because of the anti-matter cannons in WC3 and presumably WC2. In WC1 the difference is insignificant.

I'll get to Loaf's post (the best of the bunch) later.