RE: FT-Fighters and launch bays

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ryan Gill [SMTP:rmgill@mindspring.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 4:09 AM
> To:	gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
> Subject:	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.
> 
[Bri] It depends on how you view the Cargo Hold on a spaceship. Remeber,
when we address 1 mass it is not really just mass, but also volume. As
with
airline cargo units things are packed VERY TIGHLTY in standard shape
cargo
crates. There is no room to unpack the crates because the crates fill
the
entire cargo space. If you add empty space, you have to "pay" for the
mass/volume. If you want a way to get the fighters (crated or uncrated)
to a
hanger deck, you must assign volume (and the mass that it could have
held)
to the cooridor to move it. You must also take into account where the
packing crate/materials will be stored (you do assume that you will get
the
fighter back, don't you?). And you have to account for the mass of extra
fuel that will be used (and space to store it and get it to the hanger
bay).
  So you now have 3 choices as I see it:
  1) Pay for extra mass/volume to allow internal movement of fighter to
bays
for unpacking.
  2) Pay for extra mass/volume to allow unpacking of fighter in cargo
bay
and for the extra mass/volume to allow internal movement to a fighter
bay.
  3) Pay for extra mass/volume to allow unpacking of fighter in cargo
bay,
but push the fighter out the cargo hatch (makes it hard to rearm/refuel
fighters, or assumes casualties and lowers morale). This is also
dangerous
for the crew and provides a chance of loosing cargo to vacuum.
  4) Push crated fighter out cargo hatch and into Fighter Bay for
unpacking.
This would be time consuming and require loaders to be exposed to combat
conditions.

> >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.
> 
[Bri] I would not call the aircraft storage area of an Aircraft Carrier
a
Cargo Section. And they have a fair amount of ship volume assigned to
lifts
and other equipment to get the aircraft to the launching deck. In FT
terms
you would need hatches and accessways to get the fighters to the Fighter
Bays. This should add mass/cost.

> >
> >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)
> 
[Bri] So what would be reasonable? Count a fighter group as mass 9 for
cargo
storage? 

> 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.
> 
[Bri] True, but if you are preping a fighter in front of the hatch,
another
fighter cannot use it. And you must uncrate the first one somewhere.

> (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.
> 
[Bri] So you have to assign crew capacity to unpacking and moving the
fighters. These cannot be used for damage control if fighters are being
moved to/from the cargo bay.

> 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...
> 
> --
> - Ryan Montieth Gill		  DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
> - ryan.gill@SPAMturner.com  I speak not for CNN, nor they for me -
> - rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com	       www.mindspring.com/~rmgill/ -
> - '85 Honda CB700S  -  '72 Honda CB750K  - '76 Chevy MonteCarlo  -
> 
> 
My comment above marked by [Bri]

I would suggest that fighters in storage that are able to be unpacked
would
take extra volume/mass capcity. So assign a mass of 9 to fighters in a
cargo
bay that can be unpacked. This represents the extra space used and
storage
of fuel/munitions for the fighters.

You would need an accessway from the cargo hold to the Fighter Bay. Draw
a
line from one of the 4 cargo hold icons to a Fighter Bay. If the icon is
lost to threshold checks/needle attacks, fighters may not be transfered
from
another cargo bay icon to that fighter bay.

You would need to assign each fighter group to one of the 4 cargo hold
icons. The icon must be of sufficient capacity to hold the fighers and
unpack them (9 mass?).

A better option would be to have a "Ready Bay" for fighters. 9 mass, but
only 18 cost for each fighter group stored (does not include the cost of
the
fighters). The mass accounts for the mass of the fighters, room to prep
them
and a cooridor/hatch to the launching bay, but is less expensive,
because it
does not have deal with launch/recovery of fighters. Draw a line from
the
Ready Bay to a Fighter Bay. If the Ready Bay is lost the fighter group
in
the bay is lost and fighters may not be stored there. If the Fighter Bay
is
lost fighters in the Ready Bay may not be moved to another Fighter Bay
(in
the time frame of a game). In between games, Fighters in accual cargo
storage may be moved to a Ready Bay or Fighter Bay.

---
Brian Bell
bbell1@insight.rr.com
http://www.ftsr.org/
---