Re: FT-Fighters and launch bays

Note all of this is for the sake of argument and discussion. I'm not 
certain now after further thought that the Mostly Cargo space 
"carrier" is such a great idea....

At 10:23 PM -0400 6/5/01, Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
>The awkward problem is repairing fighters.  They cannot
> be repaired in the cargo
>bay,

Well, I can't see much of a reason why a fighter can't be repaired 
anyplace the crew can get to the components. Cargo bay or launch bay. 
Really I think the best way to think about the "fighter launch bay" 
is that it includes the shipboard crewmen to maintain/arm the thing 
and the space for hardware associated with all of that. A carrier 
based fighter takes up no mores space spotted or packed.

>and moving a fighter from the cargo to flight deck requires an empty

Ever watch the Blue-shirts on carriers spot aircraft? They do a 
pretty good job with those multi ton jigsaw puzzle pieces.

>
>Balance is another issue.  The only way to reflect the disadvantage of
not
>carrying all of the fighters in launch bays is to disallow launches
before the
>game starts.  The launch evolution would then be: turn one, launch
ready
>fighters.  Turn two, move squadron of unready fighters to launch bay
and
>determine when they will launch (they cannot launch before turn 
>three, probably
>will not launch until turn four, may not launch until turn five [is the
battle
>still going?], no recovery until the second group is launched/struck 
>back to the
>hold, which also takes a turn).

Which is why a carrier set up this way would need Cargo space of 
sufficient size for the fighters plus a bit extra space AND probably 
three launch bays (One for recovery, one for the Ready 5 and one for 
launching the CAP or other aircraft)

Once you've got clear space in the 'cargo' space, you've got room to 
prep aircraft.	If you have Cargo space for 8 groups and 4 bays you 
could operate oh say 10 groups pretty easy. Once a group was launched 
and on CAP and another group was out on escort for the Anti-shipping 
role, you'd have more elbow room for prepping, spotting and rearming.

(note how Hermes and Invicible carried and operated more fighters 
than standard during the Falklands war by using deck space parking...)

Now, all that said, you still need room and bunk space for the Ordies 
(red shirts), Plane captains (browns), safety guys (whites), spotters 
(blues), grapes  (fueling/purple guys), greens (techs iirc) and of 
course the pilots and other O-Gangers associated with Aviation ops on 
the ship. Cargo space doesn't buy you that, so either figuring out 
some number and adding that amount of Passenger space plus cargo 
space for shops and parts and stuff, would give a fair approximation 
of the mass requirements. Assuming your WAG is correct.

At any rate going with the all bay based system isn't a bad idea. 
Adding a bit of cargo space for an extra group or two would work. The 
delay in launch/recover/rearm evolutions would probably approximate 
the balance of crewman that are double timing on aircraft.

Though if a Nimitz could launch all of its aircraft at the same time, 
I suspect there would be a few more Blue shirts. Also note, you don't 
get an automatic fast turn around time for recovered fighters.

>
>Hmm, surprising a carrier with many of its fighters in a non-ready 
>condition is
>quite the coup.  That may be why noone carries fighters in that
fashion.

Getting next to a carrier in any situation and being the bad guy is 
generally bad for the carrier. Carriers don't knife fight, and 
certainly aren't supposed to be even close to arms reach. Aircraft 
are strictly very long range weapons...

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