WC2 Armaments

Dragon1

Dragon1

Rear Admiral
Hello everyone,

Just wondering about the capships of the WC2 era. Although it has been shown that the Gilgamesh and Waterloo existed prior to the setting of the WC2 game, was their weapon loadout different? Looking at these vessels, along with their Kilrathi counterparts has led me to wonder why were they armed so lightly. For example, the Gilgamesh DD has only 2 AMGs and 2 Flak guns (plus perhaps some torpedo tubes not listed in the game specs). We know that the AMG's of the period could only target other capships, and that the flak guns were good at shooting down missiles and torps, but weak against fighters. I can see why this would be at least a decent weapon loadout in a period where conventional fighter attacks were non affective, but in the periods both preceeding and post-dating WC2, fighters can again damage capships with conventional attack.

My question is this, would ships like the Gilgamesh and Waterloo have a different weapon loadout during these periods where their shields could be penetrated and even light and medium fighters could pose more of a threat? If so, what might these weapons be?

It would seem that the laser turret, a weapon not seen at all in WC2, but predominant in WC3 would naturally return to the first line of capship defense. But, why not a combination of flak and laser turret fire, something I don't think we have yet seen. It appears that ships with flak guns don't carry heavy lasers and vice versa. The Lexington-type CV(H), a brand new ship was armed with 10 flak guns. One would expect that the Vesuvius and Midway would have some sort of flak weapon, but they don't. Not even a single emplacement. Instead, they fall back (or forward, depending on how you look at it) on laser turrets. Why?
 
Flak cannons appear to be more expensive to use than laser turrets, probably because instead of firing energy bolts, they fire explosive shells with a proximity fuse. This means that they can run out of ammo at an inconvenient time (or the ship will have to have very large ammo stores). Thus, when the number of threatening enemy ships is low (as in when only torps can hurt capships), then flak cannons are more effective, but when any old fighter can damage your destroyer, then you need the massive curtain of fire that only laser turrets can provide.
 
Yes, both Midway and Cerberus have missile turrets (6x1 ImRec and 2x2 ImRec, respectively). They also have non-laser turrets, the Midway also having some ion cannon turrets, and the Cerberus having a majority of its anti-fighter turrets using tachyon cannons.

As for the original post...

AMGs could and did target fighters (specifically, yours, and frequently ;) ).

Also, we don't have any knowledge about why flak cannons went away after the WC2 period, at least as far as in-universe explanations go. For all we know, it could be that some bean counter REMF decided they don't like guns whose names start with "f". :p
 
AMGs could and did target fighters (specifically, yours, and frequently ).
Click to expand...

Not in Wing Commander 2 though. In WC3, they were used as a heavier Dual Purpose Gun, but from what I remember, the WC2 AMG was used strictly as an anti-shipping weapon that could penetrate phase-shielded targets.

Still wondering about why the WC2 era ships were so lightly armed?
 
If you need evidence of AMGs shooting at you, go play the "Recover the Courier" mission at the end of Noveya Kiev, and the last mission of SO1. The Ralatha in the first mission is all too willing to turn your Broadsword into so much nothingness when you're coming in to deliver a torp, and I'm sure everyone is aware that the #2 cause of death in the last mission of SO1 is the Fralthra's AMGs blowing your Sabre away (the #1 cause being Bear and his "friendly" fire).
 
I stand corrected. I didn't recall those examples.

Still, to the point, capships from the WC2 era seem really lightly armed. Any thoughts? Any additional armaments during the commissioning of say the Waterloo (which we know to be around at least as early as 2654) or during the WC3 and WC4 time periods when it would appear that Flak is phased out.
 
I feel like posting some nonsense speculation, so here it goes...

In WC1 friendly capships don't use any weapons, and enemies use only flak and I think missiles. By WC2 both are freely using AMGs and flaks. In WC3 and 4 they are using bunker-type energy weapon turrets (lasers, etc). In WCP/SO, they are using missiles, a newer type of laser/tach turret, and some ships are using artillery again, like the Plunkette.

In the books the description of weapon loadouts reads like a combination of all of the above: flaks, lasers, mass drivers, artillery, and missiles/torps. My guess is that these ships have rather hefty armaments, and the reasoning for different sets of weapons being used is changes in doctrine when friendly fighters are in the area.

A cheap example of real-world flak: German flak in WW2 would cease-fire before fighters would engage, so that they wouldn't have any friendly fire accidents.

To further my guess/thoughts, in WC1 there is a similar cease-fire rule used by confed, while the Kilrathi have no concern for their pilots and fire freely, but only with flak to reduce the crossfire. By WC2 both sides have decided that using flak and heavy artillery (namely AMGs) can be done in the presence of fighters without a major risk to pilots. By WC3 both sides had probably found that the newer lasers were more effective than both the flak and artillery, and silenced the latter in favor of the former. Finally in WCP/SO, everyone decided that nobody cared and the pilots were smart enough not to fly into the crossfire, and general policy was weapons-free. The cases in the novels were probably classified as emergencies and "by the book" restrictions on fire were ignored.
 
Money is another issue--Flak is cheaper per unit of potential damage (if it hits) than missiles, and energy guns are cheaper than flak (since you are not expending any explosives, only power). Thus it makes sense to use missiles for when you can reliably target individual enemy ships, flak for shooting dense, slow moving incoming formations (such as incoming bombers), and turrets for blanketing an area with fire when you have light fighters or torpedoes to worry about.
 
Cap ship defenses

Possibly one reason cap ships of the WC1/WC2 era have flak guns is the lack of turrets for beam weapons to serve adequately in an anti-fighter role. I have never seen the specs on the number of flack guns a cruiser or carrier might mount but it has to be a decent amount given the flak you fly through.

As for WC3 and beyond, all cap ships mount more turrets than they did in WC1/WC2 which makes more sense for beam weapons to be used in an anti-fighter role. No reasons are really given for why this is, maybe increased efficiency with the powerplants, more rapid firing lasers and the like, or just plain cost compared to flak. Finally missiles seem to play a larger part in anti-fighter defenses in the later games than they did earlier. Which with missiles and laser turrets (or whatever energy beam they are using) backing each other up, flak just might have seen redundant.
 
What it seems to boil down to, in my mind anyway, is cost.
Energy weapons cost next to nothing to operate, and as confed began losing the war, they had to find a cheaper alternative to flak. Once the war ended, missiles became a viable option once again, as they were more effective, and no one expected a major invasion like the nephilim. The reason flak didn't make a comeback, was ammunition/cost vs the lasers. (or, perhaps, laser turret tracking systems had made enough of an improvement to do better than flak)
 
Good point--it is easier to increase the penetrating power of energy guns than to do the same for ballistic guns, since increasing the latter requires that you pack more explosives into them (there is a physical limit to the power of chemical explosives, and a minimum size to fusion/antimatter warheads, which is why torpedoes are so bulky), thus making them bulkier. This would be why shield and armor strength nearly doubles from WC3 to SO, yet it is only by incorporating Nephilim technology that Confed develops the Artemis ELRIR that has twice the power of the Spiculum.

The upshot of all this would be that flak would have a decreased penetrating ability in WC3 and later because of the increase in shield and armor strength at the end of the war.
 
That's weird, on my experience the only time enemy turrets is really a danger to the ship trying to use torps is on WC2 with the flaks. You don't take as turret much damage on bombing runs on WC3/4/P.

Perhaps that's because we can't really target the subsystems of capships on WC2. But the fact is that an enemy capship without escort is more dangerous on WC2 than on other games.
 
'Speculation only' disclaimer.

Couldn't Confed shoot Fusion or Antimatter shells from their flak guns, thus causing greater damage from the rather small explosive bursts emitted from the WC2 design?
 
I think that this has less to do with some impossible to figure theory of capital ship evolution and more to do with the idea that complete specifications are never really listed for capital ships. Look at the source that introduces this terminology in the first place... Claw Marks' Weapons of the Terran and Kilrathi Fleets section defines both "Flak Guns" and "Turreted Lasers". Despite this, none of the ships in Joans' list Flak Cannons at all... and, also important, none of the ships list Turreted Lasers that match the Laser Batteries on their line art, either.

The problem here is that you're trying to draw a timeline from how individual game engines function and differ. They're entirely focused on gameplay rather than creating any sort of continuity -- Wing Commander I shoots laser bolts, Wing Commander II has exploding flack and so forth.

This sort of analysis falls apart when you hit 2669: Wing Commander III has laser turrets, Armada has heavy flak and Privateer has turreted (and fixed!) fighter type weaponry. It becomes even more complex when you consider the age of actual designs -- the Victory is older than anything else we see... and it uses the same type of turrets as the new Vesuvius-class! At the same time, the fairly new Paradigm and the really new Lexington-type use two seemingly contradictory systems.

I think False Colors pretty much solves this: capital ships have *all* types of weaponry. The weapons seen in Wing Commander III/Victory Streak are those ships' anti-shipping weaponry... and they also have anti-fighter weapons of all sorts (as well as torpedo tubes and such). From False Colors, referring to the Karga: "Of her eight laser turrets, six were back online... He also had hopes of getting the num erous point-defense turrets working again...". This holds true through the novels -- the turrets seen in WC3 are high calibur 'Laser Batteries', and ships also have point defense weaponry (which includes flak) that's simply not seen in the games.

Wing Commander II might be the exception -- its ships have both anti-fighter weapons (flak) and anti-shipping weapons (anti-matter guns). In that sense, the specifications for the Waterloo and Gilgamesh may be complete in so far as we can ever expect...

I think this has always been the purpose -- gameplay and continuity aren't one and the same. Capital ships have a real purpose in the Wing Commander universe outside of being large targets for Colonel Blair... they need to have an array of offensive weaponry that we just don't have any reason (or ability) to see in the games. Heck, we see this in the games... think of the turret we see from inside of the Victory's Gunnery Control deck -- it's not one of the Dual Laser Turrets listed in her specifications or seen in the game.
 
Dragon1 said:
'Speculation only' disclaimer.

Couldn't Confed shoot Fusion or Antimatter shells from their flak guns, thus causing greater damage from the rather small explosive bursts emitted from the WC2 design?
Click to expand...

The size of torpedoes leads me to believe that nukes and antimatter bombs are too bulky to use against fighters. Remember, for a fission nuke you need a minimum critical mass (about 10 kg of isotope plus detonators plus structure plus enough shielding to protect your loading crew), and for a fusion nuke you need a fission bomb as a detonator. For an antimatter bomb you need a failsafe magnetic bottle generator to keep it from going kaboom ahead of time.
 
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