WingCommander vs. Honnorverse

[Deathbringer]

Terran Confederation and Kilrathi as of immediately after "Prophecy" lined up against the various major governments of the Honnor Harrington series of novels.

Let the slaughter begin...

//looks at Slacker.
Horribly mutilated, eh? Bring it on.
//Draws Moderator Technomage Staff of Smiting

[Fenris Ulfric]

Considering all the advantages I've heard about the Honor Harrington Universe, There is a *very* small handful of things that would cause an HH ship (much less fleet) trouble.

1) Cloaking devices. Woudl allow excellent rapid-strike potential, but the firepower of a fighter is somewhat... lacking, here.

2) Cloaking Capship Missiles. They have some serious firepower (massive M/AM warhead), and, well, they claok, making them hard to track. Unfortuantely it's not imposible to track them, and once the missiels got close, when they skipped out and into cloak to check their targeting data they're likely get shot down.

3) Flashpacks. Probably the only fighter-mounted weapon (aside from the Fission cannon which takes *way* to long to cahrge for this purpose) which could mess up a ship if it tagged it. unfortuantley, this attack requires quite a few fighters to commit suicide to deliver them.

4) The Phase Transit Cannon. Big-Ass Gun o' Doom. Might punch through the shields or sidewalls and be able to damage the ship in a single hit. Unfortunately, they are super-massive keel-mounted weapons with an un-spectacular refire rate.

5) Bio-Convergience Bioweapons. Programmable virus. Wipe out a specific element of a planet's population, ot the entire planet's population...

6) The Vesuvius (or the St. Helens, as this is). Probably the only ship that could make an attack run to deliver #5 to a world. And then only because you can hammer away at the damned thing for hours without making a dent in it...

7) Behemoth. Flying Deathstar Gun. Armed, armored, and shielded to the teeth. Do *not* get in front of this thing. Even though it could probably total a Vesuvius by running over it and not even feel the bump, and can smash a planet quicker than Species 8472, it's chronic lack of maneuverability gives it a whee bit of a tactical disadvantage. This is also an item which attracts entire battlefleets...

That's about it, there's no other real threats that WC poses that I know about.

[Kittyburger]

This will all depend on how successful the WC governments are at keeping the Honorverse ships well away from their fleets - i.e. at fighting their carriers like carriers. If they can successfully prevent the Honorverse ships from closing in to effective fighting range with the battlegroups, they can and *will* win.

If, on the other hand, the HH ships can sidestep the fighters and torpedo-bombers and take the fight directly to the carriers, the CVs are *screwed,* and the rest of the capships ain't far behind. Plunkett-class CBs aren't yet terribly widespread, which means in this case the fighting is going to largely fall to the Sheffield-class DDs, Caernaven-class FFGs, Tallahassee-class CLs and Achilles-class CAs, none of which are NEARLY as effective combatants as the Hades-class CAs and Plunkett-class CBs.

[Dahak]

I mean, fighters are nice. But what good will they do, when they have to fly into a Point Defense zone that extends for about 1 Million kilometer from the intended target?
It would be a massacre...

[Fenris Ulfric]

Originally posted by Dahak
I mean, fighters are nice. But what good will they do, when they have to fly into a Point Defense zone that extends for about 1 Million kilometer from the intended target?
It would be a massacre...

Wwll, that's where the cloaking devices come in. But only certain fighters can mount them...

[Dahak]

And how does the cloacking work? Is it a "I´m totally invisible" cloak, like ST?

[Fenris Ulfric]

Originally posted by Dahak
And how does the cloacking work? Is it a "I´m totally invisible" cloak, like ST?

Yes. Not based on subspace preiciples, of coruse, but it bends light and sensor signals around the ship. A ship that's claoked is invisible to sensors and to the eye. The trick is, you still have to drop your cloak to fire.

In WC4, it appeared that Dragons could see through cloaks, but the novel made it clear that that was due to a special IFF signal that allowed the ships to track each other, but was on some odd channel that made it look like background noise or something.

[Slacker]

*looks at Deathbringer*
*growls*
*draws The Hockey Stick of Justice*
En Guard!

The Honorverse has too many advantages in this one for Wing Commander, my number 3 universe, to win...*sighs* Fighters wouldn't make it past the point defense to hit, and cloaked fighters wouldn't have sufficent numbers to punch into the sidewalls...As for the Behemoth and the Vesiuvius, a death-riding destroyer with an intact wedge should be sufficent...

[Kittyburger]

The Confederation probably won't win... but the Honorverse ground troops will CERTAINLY pay in buckets of blood for every inch gained. Confederate ground troops are, I dare say, among the best in sci-fi.

[Soulman]

The WC forces are so outclassed its not even funny. The HH ships have a clear advantage in the following areas:
1) Point defense, NOTHING that is not cloaked will not get anywhere near the HH ships. As soon as a cloaked ship uncloaks it dies.
2) Protection, a HH ship is built to survive having half the hull blown away. They have VERY good armour, are impervious to attack from above and below and I'd like to see a WC fighter try to puch through a sidewall.
3) Weapons, an SD has the firepower to smash a small moon and can fire missiles at targets 8 light minutes away.
4) Speed a WC fighter will not be able to reach the maximum speed of a HH ship which is 0.8c.
The WC ships however do not use impeller wedges so they will not be detected until they are relitively close but the HH ships will stil engage the WC ships out of their range.

[$tormin]

i know nothing about the honnorverse but i will try to clear a few things up

Originally posted by Fenris Ulfric
Considering all the advantages I've heard about the Honor Harrington Universe, There is a *very* small handful of things that would cause an HH ship (much less fleet) trouble.

1) Cloaking devices. Woudl allow excellent rapid-strike potential, but the firepower of a fighter is somewhat... lacking, here.

2) Cloaking Capship Missiles. They have some serious firepower (massive M/AM warhead), and, well, they claok, making them hard to track. Unfortuantely it's not imposible to track them, and once the missiels got close, when they skipped out and into cloak to check their targeting data they're likely get shot down.

you forgot the possible biological weapon payload. they can carry those too

3) Flashpacks. Probably the only fighter-mounted weapon (aside from the Fission cannon which takes *way* to long to cahrge for this purpose) which could mess up a ship if it tagged it. unfortuantley, this attack requires quite a few fighters to commit suicide to deliver them.

or they could be used like mines. pliers said he could whip up a few in a week. think what a factory could do.

4) The Phase Transit Cannon. Big-Ass Gun o' Doom. Might punch through the shields or sidewalls and be able to damage the ship in a single hit. Unfortunately, they are super-massive keel-mounted weapons with an un-spectacular refire rate.

not to mention the fact that it is out of service because of a tendancy to blow up if fired at low power. (the concordia got lucky on several counts)

5) Bio-Convergience Bioweapons. Programmable virus. Wipe out a specific element of a planet's population, ot the entire planet's population...

or it can be set for a specific individual. and nobody else will probably know its there

6) The Vesuvius (or the St. Helens, as this is). Probably the only ship that could make an attack run to deliver #5 to a world. And then only because you can hammer away at the damned thing for hours without making a dent in it...

the St. Helens died under a barrage that almost any prophesy era capship can survive easily. that means that a destroyer is probably better armored than a vesuvius. so prophesy era ships are better than the WC4 superships. all modern confed ships can take even greater ammounts of firepower before going down.

7) Behemoth. Flying Deathstar Gun. Armed, armored, and shielded to the teeth. Do *not* get in front of this thing. Even though it could probably total a Vesuvius by running over it and not even feel the bump, and can smash a planet quicker than Species 8472, it's chronic lack of maneuverability gives it a whee bit of a tactical disadvantage. This is also an item which attracts entire battlefleets...

that bad manuverability is it with its ramscoops open. close them and it still sucks but its a vast improvement

That's about it, there's no other real threats that WC poses that I know about.

[OmegaPaladin]

I wonder how the ECM frigate from WC4 would treat an HH ship. Point Defense would do neither jack nor $hit if you have no sensor data. And it covered a whole system...

[$tormin]

Originally posted by OmegaPaladin
I wonder how the ECM frigate from WC4 would treat an HH ship. Point Defense would do neither jack nor $hit if you have no sensor data. And it covered a whole system...

good point. i forgot about that.
goodbye shields, sensors, guided weapons, most communications.

[Barraka]

Ahh, but HH's shields aren't really shields, it's their propulsion system. If you're going to get really picky about "shields" you might argue that it could take out sidewalls, but I think that's stretching. As for guided weapons, fine, stick to energy weapons if you have to, not that WC capships move extremely fast in combat in the first place. You could just fire out the missiles dumbfired. Oh, and fighters and capships could still be handled with lacs.

[[BL]Phalanx]

Originally posted by Barraka
Ahh, but HH's shields aren't really shields, it's their propulsion system. If you're going to get really picky about "shields" you might argue that it could take out sidewalls, but I think that's stretching. As for guided weapons, fine, stick to energy weapons if you have to, not that WC capships move extremely fast in combat in the first place. You could just fire out the missiles dumbfired. Oh, and fighters and capships could still be handled with lacs.

WC capships not fast? They've demonstrated really good straight-line accel, at the very least.

Go by movie-cutscenes, not in-game speeds. Otherwise... you already lost. Wingers have gone over this before, and last time totally cowed Fivers into silence on the issue.

Remember that in-game is a simulation of the universe. Novels and cutscenes are "descriptions" of actual events in that universe. And cutscenes and novels show capships in WC universe to be fast enough to travel across a star system in days, indicating a good chunk of C.

[Barraka]

Yes yes yes, but do they actually travel that fast in combat?
BTW, only info on WC I'm going off of is from WC2 (only one I've played and they really didn't go fast in that one ), two of the WC books, and what I've heard off of this site (general tidbits from all of the games and the books). So you may be right on the speed issue, I'm not certain.

Does this mean, however that you agree with the point over the "shields"?

[$tormin]

Originally posted by Barraka
Yes yes yes, but do they actually travel that fast in combat?
BTW, only info on WC I'm going off of is from WC2 (only one I've played and they really didn't go fast in that one ), two of the WC books, and what I've heard off of this site (general tidbits from all of the games and the books). So you may be right on the speed issue, I'm not certain.

Does this mean, however that you agree with the point over the "shields"?

www.wcnews.com

the best WC site i know of. it has almost all the information.

[Barraka]

thanks

[$tormin]

if you want to find me there my name over there is $tormin as well

[Kittyburger]

What does the Honorverse have in the way of ground troops? Because like as not, their biggest problems are going to come on the ground, where there's only a certain amount of mass a single soldier can hold and a lot of the rules of space battle don't hold.

Confederation grount troops are some of the best in sci-fi...

[Dahak]

Originally posted by Iceberg3k
What does the Honorverse have in the way of ground troops? Because like as not, their biggest problems are going to come on the ground, where there's only a certain amount of mass a single soldier can hold and a lot of the rules of space battle don't hold.

Confederation grount troops are some of the best in sci-fi...

HH ship always carries Royal Marines. They are dropped with Assault shuttles and mostly pinnaces.
They have heavy powered armour, and quite effective weaponry, as Heavy Pulser rifles (highly accelerated explosive "darts"). And you can always use a SD to "soften up" your drop zone with kinetic strikes...

[Soulman]

Or don't bother taking the planet and launch kinetic missile travelling at 0.8c

[Shrike]

It might be more fair to bit the Starfire In Death's Ground forces against the Confeds...The Honorverse ships have several thousand times the range of WC ships.

[$tormin]

Originally posted by Shrike
It might be more fair to bit the Starfire In Death's Ground forces against the Confeds...The Honorverse ships have several thousand times the range of WC ships.

including capship missiles?

[phongn]

Originally posted by $tormin


including capship missiles?

Those capships missiles have fricking huge ranges, though don't have the standoff warheads HH ships do.

Anyone notice the similarity between the IDG and WC stardrives? They aren't exactly the same, but in principle very similar (find fixed point, use it to travel, except IDG's points will randomly distribute the transiting fleet).