The American wood decked carriers of course carried twice as many aircraft as their British counterparts (as well as superior aircraft, fairy swordfish piece of garbage...).
I never recall any trouble with Ralatha...they closed the range, but not quick enough that I didn't have a lock on them anyways... and like I said, 4000 klicks is good enough 99% of the time.
I personally think that a laser whose beam actually travels at the speed of light would be a nice touch for wing commander :) It would make it a lot easier to hit my targets for sure.
There shouldn't be a heat problem with a decently designed power plant. Radar cross section would be big, but its not like stealth is the biggest thing in the wing commander universe of prophecy. Sensors don't really appear to be sticking of a lot of fighters either. A design like the steltek...
Also, one could construct many Sivars, rated at a mere 103 meters https://www.wcnews.com/ships/wc1sivar.shtml . Also of note is that they just needed to hit the imperial palace to cause chaos.
The information available on the graviton weapon states it raises the planets gravity 137 fold. It doesn't say a small part of the planet. Also, even if for some reason it didnt work, they could have used the same weaponry the Kilrathi wanted to use in the Battle of Earth (an even cheaper...
Out of curiousity, why would Confed construct the Behemoth when they could likely have constructed their own graviton weapon ala the KIS Sivar in a much, much smaller warship? The graviton weapon would be sufficient to crush everything on the planet's surface. Why did Confed risk the resources...
Its funny because I also remember the AMG's destroying the Concordia once or twice. I also remember the Concordia getting torpedoed once or twice too... In fact if I recall correctly, I actually got in the way of the PTC and thats why the Concordia lost...