Old Confederation Fighters

Do we have much canonical development history on either fighter? The Wildcat of course appears because Forschten couldn't get AWAY from the "WW2 in Space" meme, and so every fighter that deployed was named after the ones at Midway in that book. (Have I mentioned I loathe Forschten's slavish, obsessive devotion to the meme to the extent it impacted his writing in later books?)
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I don't think 'meme' means what you think it means. Wing Commander being the Pacific War in Space a specific intent of the series from the outset, not some unspoken assumption.

Your criticism of Action Stations is incorrect, too. The two 'hero' fighters are named after World War 2 aircraft, but only one from Midway (the Wildcat). The Hurricane was a British fighter. The dozen other human fighters (Sheridan, Trident, Thor, Hummer, Falcon, etc.) are not taken from WW2 at all.

(Furthermore, Action Stations was Pearl Harbor - *Fleet Action* was Midway...)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I don't think 'meme' means what you think it means. Wing Commander being the Pacific War in Space a specific intent of the series from the outset, not some unspoken assumption.
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There's intent -- and the games certainly gave strong suggestions to the intent. The books all but clubbed you over the head with the parallels.

Your criticism of Action Stations is incorrect, too. The two 'hero' fighters are named after World War 2 aircraft, but only one from Midway (the Wildcat). The Hurricane was a British fighter. The dozen other human fighters (Sheridan, Trident, Thor, Hummer, Falcon, etc.) are not taken from WW2 at all.
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I will confess it has been perhaps six years or more since I read the book itself; it currently collects dust on my mantle. I remember the Wildcat, and I thought I remembered a reference to Devastator torpedo bombers there as well; but it has been some years.

(Furthermore, Action Stations was Pearl Harbor - *Fleet Action* was Midway...)
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Was it Fleet Action that trotted out the entire "we broadcast a false message about a shortage and the Cats mentioned the shortage at Target Z" trick? I cannot remember.
 
Hey, hey, hey: the gotha Go229 german flying wing: sounds familiar?

This one was also in WW2 although at prototype stages (yet it did fly several missions and even got a few kills).

I guess the gotha from action stations was also a WW2 reference.
 
I always thought that Vukar Tag battle was wc equivalent of Midway battle (mixed with Guadalcanal). I don't think there is anything in WW2 that we can compare Fleet Action to.
 
I will confess it has been perhaps six years or more since I read the book itself; it currently collects dust on my mantle. I remember the Wildcat, and I thought I remembered a reference to Devastator torpedo bombers there as well; but it has been some years.
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That's the 'better' torpedo bomber in Prophecy.

Was it Fleet Action that trotted out the entire "we broadcast a false message about a shortage and the Cats mentioned the shortage at Target Z" trick? I cannot remember.
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I believe both have this (and both explain where it's from).

Hey, hey, hey: the gotha Go229 german flying wing: sounds familiar?
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Gotha is the name of the company that made that flying wing, not the name of the aircraft. The company more famously built large bombers during the Great War, which prompted the British to refer to *all* heavy German bombers as 'Gothas' during that conflict.

It's also a common surname and location name.

Really? I would have thought Pegasus (Movie) would have qualified as Pearl Harbor.
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The scene was definately taken from Pearl Harbor... but that doesn't change the fact that Dr. Forstchen also wrote a novel based on it. :)
 
The false message was about an explosion at the main anti-matter warhead production plant on the moon. Kilrathi then sent a message out to Hari saying that target X was to be scratched from the list.
 
the go229 was designed as a fighter bomber: offensive as well as defensive. This was based on the specifications goring had (this was the only plane that proved him satisfied). Also, the go229 was stealth capable (at least for the WW2 radar) because made of carbon tipped wood.
 
I hate to perform necromancy on my own thread.. but I'll be adding to this soon.. and revising some of the previous tries.
 
I'm glad you bumped this, I wasn't using the forum at the time of the original post, some real gems here. The Gotha is cute, my favourite is the Raptoresque Falcon, at first glance it has a similar silhouette to the WC2 Bloodfang.
 
oldwcfighters1.jpg


redid the wildcat to look like a hellcat with bigger engines. I figure the power output would be similar for older fighters.. but engines probably got streamlined and cheaper over the years of the war. so here's an old arrow, scimitar, and everyone's favorite: the cf-117 rapier too and a new design I rather like.. but I'm not sure if it actually fits the Corsair moniker or not.
 
I like the Corsair since it shows pieces of the Wild/Hellcat and the Scimitar. It makes it feel like it belongs in the fighter lineage.

The Wildcat looks good! I always imagined its differences like those of the real Wildcat-Hellcats; a bit bulkier and more primitive looking.
 
I like all of the except the Rapier, but then again I never liked the movie version fighters. Not your fault. I just don't see how the can realistcly hold all the equipment they are suppose to according to the fluf. Corsair and Wildcat are great. Other then the engine change I'm not sure what changed on the Scimitar. Arrow looks too long but I like the large Hornet like Laser Cannons All in all I'd say great work ;)
 
Seriously, this crap is great. NinjaLA , consider me a big fan. Do you have a website where you post all of your old art? I remember trying to find it once, but it was offline. You had a comic strip in the works once didn't you? What ever happened to that? WC1 and WC2 ships are my favorite, great to see some stuff in a similar style.
 
my job happened, was working too much and too irregular hours to commit to something like that. I don't want to get y'all excited and then disappoint again so I'll just say I've got some stuff in the works that I reeeally want to see work out.

the old comic can still be viewed at www.ackthpppt.com (I'm a bill the cat fan, bloom county, eh, eh?)

just click wc comic .. that site has not been updated for quite some time though.

and newer stuff can always be viewed at http://lordaramus.deviantart.com it's an easy place to post stuff to.. although much of it is not wing commander related.
 
I'm really liking the looks of the older fighters, they might be useful for... inspiration when I get round to doing book ships.
 
I think the movie-esque rapier is interesting... then again I'm a big fan of the Movie Rapiers (unlike most people around here!) - that's no secret judging by my avatar :) . I'm guessing you were going for a variant before they fitted the rotary neutron cannon? I like the way you fit the cannons, reminds me of the front-end of a P-38:

http://p38assn.org/images/p38s/gg/nose-art.jpg

Interestingly, the WC Movie handbook states the Rapier also has 2x Laser Cannons, & 10 missiles! So I agree, difficult to imagine fitting all that on such a small (9m Long!) spaceframe... We clearly only see 4 missiles on each Rapier in the movie also. Who knows, the whole visual/written continuity for the Movie is a bit of a mess. But we do what we can... And look what we get - awesome art! Like++

Always wondered what a variant between the movie & wc1 rapier would look like - perhaps this was where you were going instead?
 
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