Carrier Classification (WC 2634)

R

RAT

Spaceman
As I say in the news post:
In game Ranger position as Light Carrier.. but in 2634 spacefighter is more smol dimension and Ranger may be in Fleet Carrier Class... In game it take 40 fighter, but in the begining it must be aproximately 60...
In Movie i calculate fighter on TCS Tiger's Claw - 20 rapier (12 in Angel wing, 2 on patrol TC and 6 on board) and 2 broadsword. But it have strong torpedo and missile weapons. I plase it in Strike Carrier Class and increase broadsword up to 4.
Whot are you think about this?
 
I would advise against any such changes to the Ranger - it doesn't really matter whether the fighters were smaller, because the fighter number limit is set by a variety of different factors (you need space for the pilots, the repair crews, replacement parts, and ammunition). Besides, if I recall correctly, Action Stations (which is where the name 'Ranger' comes from) actually calls these ships light carriers, so there'd be no reason to upgrade them to fleet carriers.

As for the Tiger's Claw... I don't have my Confed Handbook here, but IIRC, in the Handbook the 'Claw's fighter compliment is the same as in WC1 - 104 ships. The ships we saw in the movie weren't everything the Tiger's Claw had - we can assume that those ships that we didn't see were either out on patrol or awaiting repairs (and of course, no carrier out in space during wartime for an extended period would have a full compliment onboard, since there's always losses).

I believe (but I could be wrong - I'm sure LOAF will correct me if I am) in the WC1 era, each squadron was 16 ships. So, we can assume that the Tiger's Claw has at least two Rapier I squadrons, one Broadsword squadron, and at least one squadron for each of the three WC1 fighters, the Hornets, Scimitars and Raptors. That already takes us up to 96 ships - the remaining eight ships are presumably support craft like shuttles.

Of course, in 2634, the squadron assignments would be much different than in the Movie. We can assume, based on the Confed Handbook, that there would be a lot more Scimitars and a lot less Rapier Is. It's also not clear whether there would be any Hornets or Raptors - although there is no established introduction date for these fighters, there are no references to indicate that they already existed in 2634.
 
Yeah, don't change any classifications. A Light Carrier is a Light Carrier based on a variety of factors such as tonnage, crew complement and other things. Fighters weren't much appreciably smaller either. And we had the Concordia Class carriers as the contemporary Fleet Carrier that coexisted with the Rangers when they were new.
 
Yes. I'm understand. But uno moment - as we see on the real carrier like CV Midway (real ocean ship) its take modifikation 3 ore 4 times at last 50 year. From ww2 fighter to modern jetfighter. And it last wiew is so different from first (diagonal launch whith jet catapult's). And, while USA build CNV Enterprise (nuklear) it be "Fleet carrier", but when CNV be build - it stay on service as "light" ore "support"...
And number of fighter is various on various modifikation.
On Tiger's Claw - I positioned movie and wc1 ship as "NOT ONE SHIP!". I new - the movie ship is "white duk" in wc uniwercity, and it no have plase in Handbook. I think its arm and fighter must be like in movie.
And last - If the ranger "Light" whith it 40 fighter's - how class the Movie TС with 24 fighter? Not escort - to much torpedo and rocket launchers.
Whot do you mean?
 
RAT said:
Yes. I'm understand. But uno moment - as we see on the real carrier like CV Midway (real ocean ship) its take modifikation 3 ore 4 times at last 50 year. From ww2 fighter to modern jetfighter. And it last wiew is so different from first (diagonal launch whith jet catapult's). And, while USA build CNV Enterprise (nuklear) it be "Fleet carrier", but when CNV be build - it stay on service as "light" ore "support"...
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That's different. This happened not because fighters doubled in size between WWII, but because they completely changed their armament. A WWII fighter would use maybe one small crate of bullets on a mission. A modern jetfighter carries five-ten missiles, each of which is bigger than that crate of bullets. And since a carrier has to be prepared for war, it must have enough munitions onboard for at least several hundred missions. So the difference in space requirements is huge. On the other hand, there is no such difference in the WC universe. A ship in 2634 carries five-ten missiles, and so does a ship in 2669.

And of course, the most important difference is that we know that the Midway-class was reclassified because its fighter capacity changed. On the other hand, the Ranger-class was not reclassified - it was a light carrier in 2634 and in 2669. So, we can assume that there is no significant difference in its fighter capacity, either.


On Tiger's Claw - I positioned movie and wc1 ship as "NOT ONE SHIP!". I new - the movie ship is "white duk" in wc uniwercity, and it no have plase in Handbook. I think its arm and fighter must be like in movie.
And last - If the ranger "Light" whith it 40 fighter's - how class the Movie TС with 24 fighter? Not escort - to much torpedo and rocket launchers.
Whot do you mean?
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It's a strike carrier, just like in the game. Even if you treat the Movie and the WC1 versions as two separate ships (although there is no reason to do so), the Confed Handbook deals specifically with the Movie version. So, regardless of the game, the Movie 'Claw has 104 fighters. The reason they showed less fighters than that in the Movie is because they had different needs, story-wise - when making a movie, you're not going to waste screen time showing wave after wave of Rapiers just so that the fans can count 104 ships. They only showed the ships they needed to show. For all we know, Angel's strike team could have included another fifty ships that simply stayed off-camera.
 
On Ranger - all right.
But On Angel strike team:
Quarto said:
They only showed the ships they needed to show. For all we know, Angel's strike team could have included another fifty ships that simply stayed off-camera.
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In movie man on sensors say (not 100% but true) "...more dozen fighter incoming... i hear confed comm signal..."
DOZEN = 12!! Becouse i whont to set 104 fighter on board...and on this pic - jast no plase fore 104 fighter... I think its wariouse class?
I wait you answer (may be wrong word...)... think....
 

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RAT said:
In movie man on sensors say (not 100% but true) "...more dozen fighter incoming... i hear confed comm signal..."
DOZEN = 12!!
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When ships fly in formation, they don't all appear on your radar simultaneously. And the more of them there is, the more spread out they get. From the moment when the radar officer announced the appearance of the new group of fighters, it could have been as long as a few minutes before the entire group was visible on radar.

Also, don't forget that Angel's group wasn't the entire wing. There was probably another half a dozen or so on combat air patrol (we only see two of them die - doesn't mean they were the only ones there, though). More ships were waiting on the flight deck to scramble against the enemy. And even more ships were out on long range patrol.

The patrol wings in particular are important - in space, you don't patrol a circle around the ship, but rather a sphere. This means that it takes a lot of fighters to cover all directions. In all likelihood, there was more ships out on patrol than Angel's wing and the rest of the fighters near the Tiger's Claw combined.

and on this pic - jast no plase fore 104 fighter... I think its wariouse class?
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Wll, I don't see where you would find place for even a dozen fighters on this diagram, because the fighter storage area doesn't seem to be marked :). But this is just a very rough diagram - the side view indicates that there are multiple levels of the ship, but we only get one top-down diagram. If there are five or six levels, and we only have a top-down diagram for one level, that means we have no idea about the layout for most of the ship.
 
I believe (but I could be wrong - I'm sure LOAF will correct me if I am) in the WC1 era, each squadron was 16 ships. So, we can assume that the Tiger's Claw has at least two Rapier I squadrons, one Broadsword squadron, and at least one squadron for each of the three WC1 fighters, the Hornets, Scimitars and Raptors. That already takes us up to 96 ships - the remaining eight ships are presumably support craft like shuttles.
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That's correct, though as best we can tell they didn't have full squadrons of the more specializde craft like Broadswords. Both Angel's Black Lions and the Scimitar squadron (Blue Devils?) from Academy seem to be billeted for 14 of their ordinary fighters (Rapiers and Scimitars respectively) *plus* two Broadswords.

That way we can fit all the full strength requirements into six squadrons (three Rapier at the time of the movie, a Hornet, a Raptor and a Scimitar per the movie novel) plus all the odd little fighters seen in Academy (interceptor, Epee, Sabre).

In movie man on sensors say (not 100% but true) "...more dozen fighter incoming... i hear confed comm signal..."
DOZEN = 12!! Becouse i whont to set 104 fighter on board...and on this pic - jast no plase fore 104 fighter... I think its wariouse class?
I wait you answer (may be wrong word...)... think....
Click to expand...

Well, the very same book that you're posting the internal schematics from *also* has a movie-specific Joan's Fighting Ships which lists the Tiger's Claw's complement as 104 fighters.

Angel's squadron has twelve fighters instead of sixteen because the Tiger's Claw is fighting on the front lines... it has sixteen positions for fighters, they've just lost four Rapiers recently.

To note to the general conversation -- while Wing Commander has 'Light Carriers', 'Strike Carriers', 'Fleet Carriers' and 'Heavy Carriers' it's worth noting that from a naval classification perspective they're all on the same level... they all get 'CV' designations.

WC does give special designations for other types of carriers - CVS for Dreadnaughts, CVA for Attack Carriers, CVE for Escort Carriers... but there's no CVL for light carriers or CV? for Strike Carriers. They're all on the same level in terms of their roles.
 
Hmmmm.... All it's true... fore >2650 era... but 2634.... 16 years is the big time.... No scimitar's... no hornet's... no raptor's...
Thenk you for info - its realy help me. I must think about this...
 
From Fleet Tactiks:
"The F-32 Scimitar was the result of a crash program to rebuild the Confederation Space Force due to losses in the McAuliffe Ambush and the start of the Kilrathi war. Intended as a stop-gap replacement of aging Hurricanes, the Scimitar was initially designated as the Corsair. Near the end of its development, BuShips renamed the Corsair as the Scimitar to give the ship a more "war-like" name. Mass production began in 2635."

As we are have no info, we need stay at one position. If the one of top website hase are info - i wont to use it info, and not increase anarchy. Thets is my position.
 
Fleet Tactics is wrong - and that particular entry is just plain stupid, Why would they decide to retcon away the Corsair? The Scimitar is clearly said to be a pre-war fighter design in both the Confederation Handbook (which puts it as a *significantly* pre-war fighter design) and the original Wing Commander game, which references Shotglass flying them before the war.

Here's a correct history and set of specifications for the Scimitar: https://www.wcnews.com/ships2/wc1scimitar.shtml

The problem with Fleet Tactics, as has been pointed out over and over at these boards, is that they generally chose to make up histories instead of properly reference various sources. They even have a disclaimer at their site warning people not to use their information in fan projects because it just plain isn't right.
 
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wow...that is pretty crazy. probably the worst fleet tactics entry i've ever seen. 'hey, i got a great idea here guys....since we never see the corsair, lets get rid of it and call it the scimitar, and also...this is the brilliant part guys....add to the entry some cheesy deal about corsair not being 'warlike', completely ignoring the fact that it was named after an actual WWII aircraft just like the wildcat and hurricane....this is bulletproof!'

gah.
 
wow...that is pretty crazy, "I've already got plans to fix it, but I don't have a lot of time right now, damn that SEAL Trainingl! Goddamn all of those gear prep and stringent liberty policies and boat crew musters and inspection preperation and 1-on-1 Instructor beatings that take away all of my free time when we get off for the day!"

gah.
 
Why did you come up with that stuff in the first place, Psych?. I know FT Fills empty spaces with wierd info, but this ship obviously do have a canon background...
 
If I remember, I think I released FT back in Xmas of 2003, and it was a lot of content to keep track of, and it was a while back so I personally can't remember why things turned out the way they did.

Back when FT was first released, LOAF sent me a list of comments. And I took the time to read the forums and I made a note of everything that people said, and I saved it to a file. I have every intention to change it for the better, and I started editing stuff here and there. Since that time, I got orders to BUD/S and my time has diminished severely. I will change that stuff in Fleet Tactics; however, earning my Trident is my first priority.

Everything else is secondary.
 
psych said:
I will change that stuff in Fleet Tactics; however, earning my Trident is my first priority.

Everything else is secondary.
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You could even say you'd die before you'd quit.
 
Hmmmmmm.....
Whots the emotion?!
I think you both right. Scimitar developed before Kilrathi war, BUT mass produce starting after heavy loses in McColiffe battle (and starting terran-kilrathi war). I think, as new fighter at first it be send in elite forces. After starting war Confederation stay on war economik path (pilgrum war is on end path and all colonies not need forsed they economy, but...kilrathi) and new technik send to all carriers to create technic overload before kilrathi.
I think it's a good theory.... Whot do you think?
 
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