Fighter Mounts (Was:More Fleet Book questions)

> At 00:09 5/31/98, scipio@interlog.com wrote:
Doing
> routine repair work would be slowed if you had to use a vacsuit. I

I guess I'm thinking that the mass cost for a fighter group includes enough
equipment to allow them to be easily maintained and scrambled. My contention
is that a launch system that apes a wet navy carrier by requiring a dedicated
launch bay on top of this is unecessarily limiting, and in certain genres,
unrealistic.

Specifically, I'm thinking of LOGH in which the cockpits of the fighters
opened into a pressurized bay, but the fighters launched simply by being
ejected from the bottom of this bay. Come to think of it, I *think* Space
Above & Beyond had a similar system.

Admittedly, launches were squadron by squadron, but given FTs 15 minute turn,
it's more than possible to launch the entire carriers complement of fighters
in a single turn. LOGH carriers with about (counting on a mental picture) 7 or
so squadrons of 5 launched them all within about 15 seconds, like a dandelion
shedding seeds.

Furthermore, if one is dependent on a bay to launch/recover, losing that
single system cripples *all* one's fighters. Now, this may be appropriate for
some genres (a couple of Battlestar Galactica eps come to mind) but in a less
cinematic setting, there's no reason to have a 'runway' to launch fighters...
just pop them out from wherever they're stuck on the hull, and let them
maneuver as they will. After all, they've already got the velocity of the
carrier on their side.

I suppose in the end, this diatribe amounts to 'you do it your way, I'll do it
mine':) But I like to think there's some justification for my
way.....

"Spartanian.......hasshin!"

> At 10:26 PM 6/2/98 -0500, you wrote:

> Specifically, I'm thinking of LOGH in which the cockpits of the

I think that it needs to be flexible also. Depending on which version of
Macross/Robotech you watch, either the fighters are launched from
dedicated bays, a carrier deck, or in Clash of the Bionoids(sp?) from a clamp
that extends the fighter out above the ship then releases it.

> I suppose in the end, this diatribe amounts to 'you do it your way,

I propose that if a ship has more mass dedicated to fighters than to other
offensive weapons, it should be considered a carrier.

My 2 cents.

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> At 10:26 PM 6/2/98 -0500, you wrote:

> Specifically, I'm thinking of LOGH in which the cockpits of the

I think that it needs to be flexible also. Depending on which version of
Macross/Robotech you watch, either the fighters are launched from
dedicated bays, a carrier deck, or in Clash of the Bionoids(sp?) from a clamp
that extends the fighter out above the ship then releases it.

> I suppose in the end, this diatribe amounts to 'you do it your way,

I propose that if a ship has more mass dedicated to fighters than to other
offensive weapons, it should be considered a carrier.

My 2 cents.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++