Some more historical questions

M

MjavTheGray

Spaceman
Hello to everyone, it's me again, and here are some more questions, as usual: :)

1.What was the fate of Confed Morningstar fighters? Were they put to scrap? Or used in some secret operations?

2.Is blacklance' mace missile in some way connected to Todd's tactical nuke mace?
 
1.What was the fate of Confed Morningstar fighters? Were they put to scrap? Or used in some secret operations?
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According to the Wing Commander Academy manual, the Morningstar was the "current Confederation state-of-the-art capital ship destroyer" near the end of the war. Remember that the ships we fly in Wing Commander III are fairly old -- presumably there's a front line carrier force operating squadrons of Morningstars, Wraiths, Phantoms and so forth while Blair is flying off the Victory.

2.Is blacklance' mace missile in some way connected to Todd's tactical nuke mace?
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Yes, they're the same weapon. The Mace wasn't a Black Lance weapon, though - you get it by capturing a regular Confederation carrier.
 
Speaking of Armada ships, do we ever know what the deal is with the Gladius and it's two wildly seperate variants that we see in Privateer and Armada?
 
powell99 said:
Speaking of Armada ships, do we ever know what the deal is with the Gladius and it's two wildly seperate variants that we see in Privateer and Armada?
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It seems to me that militia Gladius was just the stripped down semi-civilian version, but of course I can be mistaken.

Bandit LOAF: I am ashamed, the missile was really captured from Confed, not B.L. How could I forget?...

And as for Morningstars - is it possible that Confed would use it against BW in border conflict?
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Remember that the ships we fly in Wing Commander III are fairly old -- presumably there's a front line carrier force operating squadrons of Morningstars, Wraiths, Phantoms and so forth while Blair is flying off the Victory.
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Which doesn't make sense to me. I understand the need for maintaining a low profile to avoid attention from Kilrathi intelligence by using an obsolete carrier, but it was tasked with the single most important mission of the war - protecting the Behemoth, and later delivering the T-Bomb. Wouldn't it figure that they would equip Victory with the latest and best fighters including the above mentioned ships and not just a limited number of Excaliburs.
 
McGruff said:
Which doesn't make sense to me. I understand the need for maintaining a low profile to avoid attention from Kilrathi intelligence by using an obsolete carrier, but it was tasked with the single most important mission of the war - protecting the Behemoth, and later delivering the T-Bomb. Wouldn't it figure that they would equip Victory with the latest and best fighters including the above mentioned ships and not just a limited number of Excaliburs.
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I believe that in the novels, possibly TPoF, it is explained that Confed high command did not really support the Behemoth Project, and that was part of the reason that Tolwyn was using the Victory in the first place.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
According to the Wing Commander Academy manual, the Morningstar was the "current Confederation state-of-the-art capital ship destroyer" near the end of the war. Remember that the ships we fly in Wing Commander III are fairly old -- presumably there's a front line carrier force operating squadrons of Morningstars, Wraiths, Phantoms and so forth while Blair is flying off the Victory.
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The only thing that is annoying about this is that the Lexington in WC4 is a front line carrier, yet still operating with the same old junk that the Victory had. Obviously, from a gaming standpoint this was pretty necessary, but it does add a little "weirdness" to the fact that the T-bolt, Arrow, and Hellcat are all supposed to be out dated (obviously, the Excalibur is another story).

I wonder if it could be thought of in WWII terms when it comes to some of the fighters. In Germany, the Allies operated largely with P-47's, P-51's, etc. In the Pacific, there were the Wildcats, Hellcats, Avengers, etc. Obviously, there were two different branches (Army, and Navy) operating, but even the ground based fighters in the pacific were largely still Navy fighters.

Is it possible that Confed is structured similarly, with different types of fighters depending on the missions that are assigned to a specific carrier?
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Yes, they're the same weapon. The Mace wasn't a Black Lance weapon, though - you get it by capturing a regular Confederation carrier.
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Except for the infinitely useful feature added where you hold down the fire button as you fire, and release to detonate it, instead of having to blow up your own missile just as it gets to the edge of gun range with a very well placed particle cannon shot...

Man, Maniac was one crazy bastard.
 
I think people are forgetting about one important factor...cost. (Both dollars and resources to build). Morningstars might be really awesome fighters, but if a Hellcat is 80% as good at dogfighting, a Thunderbolt is 80% as good versus capships, and both are 25% the cost, then a lot of carriers are going to carry Hellcats and "Thuds" instead of Morningstars.

(Actually, to my eye, the Hellcat and the Morningstar have a very similar looking design. I had wondered for the longest time if the 'Cat might be a production scale fighter built using technology pioneered for the Morningstar, but LOAF shot that idea down for me by pointing out that the 'Cat probably pre-dates the Morningstar. It's still possible they leverage similar technologies, but the superficial similarities might just be because those design features were the best ways of doing things...kind of like why all fighters designed from the mid-70's up till the ATF's came out all kind of looked the same, regardless of nationality--similar wingforms, twin engined, twin tail (the FA-18, the F-15, the Mig-29, the Su-27, etc.). It just makes engineering sense. But I digress).

The comment about the European theater versus the Pacific theater is interesting. Actually, the Allies DID use P-51's and P-47's, and especially P-38's in the Pacific, as well as in Europe. However, the reason why you see Wildcats, Hellcats, Avengers, etc. more often is a difference in operational requirements. In the Pacific, fighters were either operating off carriers or hastilily constructed, often rough, island runways really close to the action, or from established bases very far from anything. So they either needed extremely long range (like the P-38), or the ability to take off from a short, rugged, often pitching runway but not needing a whole lot of range at all (all the Carrier planes). Performance was meaningless unless you could meet these requirements, so even though a P-51 could outperform (in most respects) a P-38 or a Hellcat, it wouldnt' have been usable in either of those two roles.

On the other hand, over Europe performance was more of a premium, and operating conditions were less stringent, and so you saw different fighters prosper there.

The cost issue is highlighted as well. In China and the USSR you saw a lot of P-40 Warhawks and P-39 Aircobras, because these fighters, although underperforming, we cheap and all the Chinese and Russians could afford (or at least, that we were willing to sell them on the cheap).
 
I agree alot with this line of reasoning. It would be great to see all of the Confederation fighters used in the Kilrathi War rendered in the same engine for a more definitive comparison.

It can be a challenge to accurately gauge a Morningstar from WC2 vs a Hellcat from WC3. Sure, we have fiction supporting the various ships and what they supposedly excel at. Nevertheless, there's no replacement for the experience gained in the lab, so to speak, and I think this discussion would benefit greatly from that kind of analysis. This would help us decide which fighters would serve on which carriers predominantly performing which types of mission.

I like to think, for example, that there was reasoning behind the madness in WC1 that resulted in the 'Claw receiving prototype Rapiers beyond the simple fact that it was the player's carrier. It makes sense to me that a strike carrier that frequently operates behind enemy lines would be far more likely to receive such an upgrade than, say, a standard Concordia fleet carrier holding the line in a less threatened system...
 
Farbourne said:
(Actually, to my eye, the Hellcat and the Morningstar have a very similar looking design. ).
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:confused:??????.............because they both have a place for a pilot to sit??
 

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McGruff, you are such an idiot.

There's also guns, shields, an engine, armor... I mean sheesh, how could that NOT be obvious?
 
Don't forget the black background. The hellcat has a star or two in there, but its veery similar.

They're also mostly gray.
 
It can be a challenge to accurately gauge a Morningstar from WC2 vs a Hellcat from WC3. Sure, we have fiction supporting the various ships and what they supposedly excel at. Nevertheless, there's no replacement for the experience gained in the lab, so to speak, and I think this discussion would benefit greatly from that kind of analysis. This would help us decide which fighters would serve on which carriers predominantly performing which types of mission.
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In a one-on-one, it's the man not the machine(the gun array of the morningstar does more damage, the ship itself is smaller so harder to hit), while the hellcat V is faster, but not much(max velocity is in the hellcat's favor, while the max afterburn is equal). Give(upgrade?) the morningstar the shielding and armor level the hellcat uses, and i would favor the morningstar.

As in their roles, the morningstar carries two torpedoes, and the mace missile, and has a jumpdrive, you could perform a quick strike on a capship with ease, while the hellcat V is more suitable for a defensive role.
 
You know, this whole question of the Morningstar just hit me- it was being developed as part of a special program where _Maniac_ was the head... and Bluehair himself comments that whoever approved this must have been insane. Perhaps Morningstar was in development by one group that intended to provide it for various Special Forces groups, and either the project got nixed during the Mandarin debacle or the Victory simply doesn't get that kind of clearance. Meanwhile Excalibur was being developed by some other group. A theory, maybe one proposed before.
 
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