Lolwut? A Ha'tak is listed as carrying 12 wings of Gliders, and 3 wings of Al'kesh, but that doesn't say jack squat of how many of each constitutes a 'wing'. Granted, said quote is derived from the RPG, making its canonical status just a tad dubious.
For a fighter craft, might I make a suggestion. Borrow a page from a few other stories/timelines, and throw the real world YF-23 prototype into the mix, and integrate tech into that design. Has the basics of a preexisting airframe to start from, and some of the funding and R&D can be hidden a bit easier initially. One thing I'm wondering about come the season 3 timeframe if you get this to that point. How will the Stargate Council relations with the Tollan go this time around? While I could see the Tollan still being somewhat careful and cautious with Earth, I could see some minds being put a bit at ease if the SGC has shown that they are willing to open up to other nations.
Most Bomber Wings have more then twenty aircraft you know. In fact, I believe (since the show is about the USAF and probably uses their own nominclature) a aircraft wing would be around 72 aircraft. So, that means that 3 wings might well mean there being 210 Al'Kesh. So I think that fifty is likely low-balling it completely.
Some quick dirty calcs on the reactor output for a Tel'Tac; It was capable of vaporising a ~1 mile tube of ice in ~10 minutes in the season 7 final. This is 2.68224 m/s of ice being vaporised, which is a volume of 8.42650548 m^3 metres (using a radius of 1 metre for the ring transport), and ice has a density of 0.9167 g/cm^3 so that's vaporising 7724.57757 kilograms per second. Energy required; 2.58*10^9 joules to melt it. 3.22*10^9 joules for heating the water to boiling point. 1.74*10^10 joules to vaporise it. Which is 2.32*10^10 joules per second. That means the Tel'Tac, a dinky little scout, has a 23.2 gigawatt reactor.
The term 'wing' being used is the Goa'uld variant (and used by Bra'tac a few times, but under no circumstances was any indication of solid numbers given), NOT the Earth term. What's more, a Ha'tak not only has to support those 12 wings of Gliders, and 3 worth of Al'kesh, but also several thousand (2000 at minimum) worth of Jaffa. A single Al'kesh is roughly 40 meters long. Most scalings put a Ha'tak's length at 600-650 meters, tops. And given how much of that 650 meters isn't part of the pyramid/tetrahedron, OR the supporting black-colored superstructure? Yeah, I'm gonna call bull**** on the numbers you're claiming. More than forty-eight Gliders and twelve Al'kesh would seriously be straining credibility.
Can’t find any evidence that Alkesh are carried by Ha’tak (RPG aside) nor have they ever appeared in anything like those numbers. Considering their size (they are used as troop transports) and their hyperdrive engines putting them on a Ha’tak would be horribly inefficient and you could only have a very small number. As for what you are going to do about them? Secondary weapons. If a missile carried by an F-302 can kill the things then simply mount a bunch of missile launchers on your massive warship! There is no advantage to having an entire fighter craft to carry your missiles when your ship will be in missile range anyway.
Sure, but remember Hat'aks are basicly where the high-end Goa'uld live. They are space-bourne palaces/bases which just happens to be able to inflict civilization destroying firepower. Al'Kesh are variable sized. The Al'Kesh is closer to a line of starships than a single starship model cast in stone.
...okay, I'd really love to see the source for this particular claim. Addendum: And just to pre-empt; VFX gaffe. It wouldn't be for the first time in sci-fi, and it won't be the last. See the events of Camelot. They screwed up the scaling on both of the 304's compared to a Ha'tak (some scenes, the 304s looked bigger than them, I shit you not), as well as Kvasir's O'Neill-class (not nearly large enough; barely bigger than the Ha'tak, when it should have been at least 1.6-2 klicks in length, or even more so).
The simple reason for why the various SG craft are such bad designs is that the writers failed to research the subject enough but if you want some in universe explanations they are easy enough to find. The X-301 was a project of desperation, the scientist entrusted with the defence of the planet where briefed to get a defensive platform available in the quickest time frame possible. With two functioning alien spacecraft available for parts and inspiration it was a simple matter to put together something that was better than noting in a time frame that was faster than any new built project would allow. The fact that the project failed was more an act of plot, the recall device, and an over estimation of the capabilities of human weapon system, nuke penetrators. The X-302 was earths first attempt at an all home grown platform, it had the benefit of a better understanding of the technology involved and a longer development timeframe but it still suffered from a number of inherent design flaws . First was the design brief, while never stated in the show we can make a educated guess that it was something along the lines of better than a Death Glider and able to take the fight to the enemy, this got translated to being like a Death Glider and being able to deploy from Earth, at the time the SGC’s only military outpost, to an enemy position and execute a mission. This locked the design right from the start as something that was only a slight improvement on the basic Glider concept wrapped around the smallest hyper drive humanity could build. The project continued to progress under the justification that it was still better than anything else earth had in its inventory but ultimately the design was rendered redundant with the development of the 303 and the 304. The hyper drive unnecessary due to the development of a mother ship and the basic technologies that went into the 302 where becoming increasingly obsolete even by human standards. The X-303 was a test bed builtbas a proof of concept for reverse engineered technologies that where often poorly understood and still being researched even as they were being installed in the test bed. My belief is that the 303 was never meant to be a ship, it started life as a engine test frame and then a group working on the energy management systems asked to use the same rig, the ship slowly grew around that as they worked to test new equipment it was simpler to integrate it with existing equipment, equipment that it would have to work with later any way. The fact that it could fly and even fight was simply an accident of bureaucracy. The F-304 was the culmination of nearly a decade of research and trial and error. The ship was using advanced technology that was at least well enough understood that the on bored engineering crews could diagnose faults and conduct repairs . The platform was simple and multi mission capable and in most respects was a good design for the environment it was intended to operate in. What it lacked was the one thing humanity had been trying to get for over ten years, heavy offensive fire power, against Hatacks its missile barrage was an effective if one-shot deterrent but when the Wraith where encountered they just couldn’t penetrate the point defence. The ease with which the Asgard installed the later plasma beam makes me think that the designers had allowed for the addition of larger energy weapons with the inclusions of weapon hard points and energy conduits for a later refit when technology allowed. Added a exert from an earlier post of mine that discussed how earth should have gone for a first strike capability, at least in the early years of the SGC. “The new X-fighters will be stealthy long range interceptors capable of engaging multiple death gliders from well beyond their capable range before closing and then destroying any remaining opponents with superior manoeuvrability and group tactics once they enter gun range. One optional weapons load out will inevitably be a mother ship busting naquadah enhanced nuke, but this I see as a very secondary load out, as was shown in the series fighter level ordinance never really achieved a victory in the ongoing arms race between shields and shield penetrators. To fix this problem I see a second type of ‘aircraft’ a bomber really, a space going contemporary of the B-2 or maybe the B-52. A craft with long range, deep penetration capability i.e. ftl, stealth properties and large weapons payload. This craft would fill two main roles the first a defensive stance, tasked with destroying attacking mother ships. It should have the capability to saturate even full strength shields operating either by itself or with the support of squadron mates. Its second offensive role would be as a strategic deterrence bomber, capable of travelling independently to Goa'uld home worlds and deploying world ending levels of explosives. The ability of earth to construct and deploy relatively large numbers of these craft without having to rely on large amounts of alien tech should give them the ability to discourage any direct attack by the Goa'uld without having to rely on outside, alien, intervention.”
In which case, no-one on the production crew, nor the writers, gave any real indication of what size to go with, so the VFX crews just went, "What the hell/Who the **** cares, anyways", and picked a random size for each appearance. Once more, not the first time, and certainly not the last. If ever.
The Goa'uld are tens of thousands of years old a space-bourne power, with thier technology lasting for centuries to thousands of years without any maintenance at all. A rather significant downgrade from the multi-million year viable Ancient technology. It is more unbelievable that they haven't varied the design at all despite canonicly implementing incremental improvements and a number of ships being noted for custom changes from stock.
And? So? But, therefore? You're attempting to make a logical extrapolation, given a reasonable interpretation of the facts at hand. I get that. My own point? Aside from VFX ***-ups (gaffe is too mild a description, in retrospect), there are NO overt in-universe case(s) of a single design being built to multiple sizes, given in dialogue. An Al'kesh is an Al'kesh is an Al'kesh. Some are heavily customized by their owners, have varying degrees of tweaks and/or additions to their systems here and there, but otherwise? Same. Design. I prefer to go with Occam's Razor in this case, even though the theorem itself ain't nowhere near perfect.
We've seen Ha'tak class ships carry Death Gliders and a Teltac. Never in any episode of SG-1, Atlantis, or Milky Way based episodes of Universe has a Ha'tak been seen with an Al'kesh inside it. The only two ships I've seen that could have carried any at all inside where Apophis's massive command ship from season 4, and the two massive motherships that Anubis was able to build. As for the size of Al'kesh, this has varied from episode to episode, though I've never seen any suggestion as to if the ship intentionally comes in multiple sizes, or if the CGI program wasn't used correctly or what. I'm guessing it will be in season 3 timeframe, but will the Stargate Council be keeping with just five countries right now, or will they slowly bring other nations into the fold as time goes on?
Maybe I'm wrong about the number of Al'Kesh *Shrug*. But the point remains that you can't ignore them either in favor of making a ship that can go head to head with a Ha'Tak. Just create a smaller class of craft that can take them.
I have been reading the discussion here, and here is my two cents. Based on the tech involved, as well as the ship sizes and such, the space superiority fighter concept is basically obsolete. While the fighter could preform certain tasks, in cannot take up ship to ship combat without a Dues Ex Machina being involved. So lets shift it from fighter to fighter-bomber. To use an example, an upgraded YF-23. Using the same tech used on the X-302, the YF-23 would have smaller engines installed of the ones it was designed for, which leaves more room for missile and bombs. A shield generator could also be installed without too much sacrifice of it's internal weapon bays. The main purpose of the XYF-23 would be force and power projection for the mothership it's stationed on. For instance, an X-304 arrives over a Goa'uld world that has anti-capital surface weapons. The X-304 stays out of range, but deploys the XYF-23's, which are armed with anti-fighter missiles and naquadra-enhanced nukes. The fighter-bombers disperse, and move to bomb the weapon sites. When Death Gliders rise to meet them, the XYF uses it's anti fighter weapons to defend itself, but doesn't focus on the gliders. Instead, it bombs the weapon sites like intended, clearing the way for the X-304 to move in unimpeded. They then support SG teams coming in through the stargate, preforming CAS runs and using ground attack missiles and bombs. The mission profile I envisioned is "to possess the capability to attack and destroy ground targets of all types, from deep space to planetside, and have the capability to achieve local superiority over other fighter craft if necessary." Basically, instead of an interceptor, Earth designs a multi-role CAS/bomber/fighter that was never intended to fight capital ships anyways.
You know what, exactly that. If you can get Anti-capital weapons to be on planets that can take down Capital ships with utter ease like on the Tollan Homeworld you can create a reason to keep fighters viable. Without fighters Capital ships would never be able to get anywhere close to a planet to project their force.
Well, for Anti-Fighter weapons you could use one of these: AIR-2 Genie AIM-26 Falcon. To take out entire groups of DGs/Al'Kesh. Would definitly do a lot of damage. Well, I believe that a number of Goa'uld base Ha'Tak class Staff Cannons on their more important worlds.
VFX Gaffs as canon sizes. I think we've finally found something stupider than crossover fire power to argue about. Edit: And no, it's confirmed flat out in show that Alkesh Bombers are not carried on Hataks.
Shields are massive energy hogs. Tel'Tac have something in the order of a 23 gigawatt reactor, and from memory I can't recall ever seeing one shielded. Even much larger Alkesh are hit & miss on if they are shielded. They outright say in one of the briefing/clips eps that the F-302 was designed to take on deathgliders, maybe some of the Alkesh bombers and if the shield piercing missiles worked maybe have a hope in hell on hurting Ha'taks.
