Fighter Mounts (Was:More Fleet Book questions)

At 00:09 5/31/98, scipio@interlog.com wrote:
>The problem with fighter on the outside is that it is incredably
awkward to
>do anything with them. Imagine a surprise attack, you would have to get
>suited up and then `run` through an airlock. What about getting a
wounded
>pilot out an into a sickbay, what if he needed first aid right there?
Doing
>routine repair work would be slowed if you had to use a vacsuit. I
think
>the cost of a fighter bay is justified.

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!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Jim 'Jiji' Foster / jfoster@kansas.net / Jiji @ AnimeMUCK / TIP #28 /
PPIG #42

"The wisest and best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions,
may
be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.
"
    - Jane Austen, _Pride & Predjudice_