1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

The freighters are tricky, as they don't really fit in our world. We may put a deck gun or other armament on large transports during war, but these are large ships, and the freighters are meant to be only a bit larger than fighters. We don't put guns on semi trucks.

Even in the Star Wars universe, freighters appear to mostly use their weaponry to defend until they can escape or help arrives, not dive into dogfights. I know they need to be in the game because they're recognizable ships, but in an ideal world, I would think combat-equipped freighters would be more akin to AC-130s, supporting ground troops once air superiority was established.

Don't know of this link has the time stamp, but I think there's a flotilla-ish reference ship at 9:10 https://youtu.be/_cObwTdbeAY

That or the PT boats now that I think about it. The mosquito fleet played a fairly large part in the guadalcanal campaign.

I think it's more useful to think of the freighters by role rather than size. And they are a good representation of the various roles transports might serve in a battle fleet- as support and supply vessels, as hospital or repair ships. In a squad heavy fleet, they do a pretty good escort carrier impression.

Edit- D'oh, wrong freighters. That'll teach me for not looking. The closest thing to a freighter in the real world would be the HE-111, which was a converted airliner. Role-wise, they're more like heavy or night fighters, like ME-110s, DeHavilland Mosquitos, and JU-88s.

On 7/15/2017 at 10:40 PM, GiledPallaeon said:

Does the Advanced get the Fw 190 then? And while the P-47 was a devastating attack aircraft, the big cannon that made the P-39 worth flying seemed more appropriate for the B-wing, as opposed to the hail of .50 cal and rocket fire (and the odd bomb) a P-47 killed with.

The P-39 reference automatically wins this thread. You could almost go P-63 for the TIE Defender.

15 minutes ago, shmitty said:

The P-39 reference automatically wins this thread. You could almost go P-63 for the TIE Defender.

"Don't give me a P-39,

With an engine that's mounted behind,

It will tumble and roll,

And dig a big hole,

Don't give me a P-39."

39 minutes ago, vercingex said:

Edit- D'oh, wrong freighters. That'll teach me for not looking. The closest thing to a freighter in the real world would be the HE-111, which was a converted airliner. Role-wise, they're more like heavy or night fighters, like ME-110s, DeHavilland Mosquitos, and JU-88s.

In the games, sure. I'm just saying that's a bit forced, as in the OT movies, they're not really great at dogfighting. The ship's main purpose is transporting cargo and people, and when attacked, it runs. In the miniatures games, they're heavy fighters, but in lore, I think they'd be closer to C-series planes with guns.

4 hours ago, JJ48 said:

We don't put guns on semi trucks.

This picture says otherwise. Gun trucks are a THING!

14 minutes ago, Maturin said:

This picture says otherwise. Gun trucks are a THING!

There you have it, folks: the real-world equivalent of the Millennium Falcon .

I don't know what a modern equivalent would be (TU-95? AC-130?), but the WWII equivalent of the YT-1300 has to be the B-17, if for no other reason than that's what George Lucas referenced when he story boarded the scene in which the heroes escape from the Death Star, and Luke and Han run to their "ball" turrets. Some of those shots are frame-by-frame recreations of vintage bomber footage; he simply replaced Messerschmitts with TIE fighters.

8 hours ago, Grathew said:

I think the Graf Zeppelin deserves a mention too. Should she have been finished she would have been a "functional" light cruiser armed carrier.

Not really, the 5.9” guns Graf Zeppelin was going to get were defensive guns incase surface ships got close.

an aircraft carrying cruiser’s shipboard weapons are the offensive punch

In naval terms freighters may be most closely related to the APD of the USN during WWII

6 hours ago, Maturin said:

This picture says otherwise. Gun trucks are a THING!

Merica we put guns on everything

6 hours ago, Rmcarrier1 said:

I don't know what a modern equivalent would be (TU-95? AC-130?), but the WWII equivalent of the YT-1300 has to be the B-17, if for no other reason than that's what George Lucas referenced when he story boarded the scene in which the heroes escape from the Death Star, and Luke and Han run to their "ball" turrets. Some of those shots are frame-by-frame recreations of vintage bomber footage; he simply replaced Messerschmitts with TIE fighters.

B-17 might have been the inspiration for the gun turrets, but claiming an armed smuggling vessel is equivalent to a heavy bomber is ridiculous.

like i said either an APD or a q-ship in role if not size.

edit

the above I think is a stretch. Since even by role they don’t really fit. Probably armed yatch would literally be the best option.

very lightly armed, and much smaller than any actual freighter/cargo/transport ship but can still be loaded with some supplies (often times mail before radio)

55 minutes ago, JohnPJones said:

B-17 might have been the inspiration for the gun turrets, but claiming an armed smuggling vessel is equivalent to a heavy bomber is ridiculous.

like i said either an APD or a q-ship in role if not size.

edit

the above I think is a stretch. Since even by role they don’t really fit. Probably armed yatch would literally be the best option.

very lightly armed, and much smaller than any actual freighter/cargo/transport ship but can still be loaded with some supplies (often times mail before radio)

So a Patrol Boat, armed with light guns - or maybe a late WW2 PT boat, since those still carried a few Torpedoes that could hurt capital ships...

1 hour ago, Cap116 said:

So a Patrol Boat, armed with light guns - or maybe a late WW2 PT boat, since those still carried a few Torpedoes that could hurt capital ships...

No, not really. You’re still talking about purpose built vessels.

APDs were destroyers that were converted into light transports.

Qships were armed transports designed to hide their weapons to surprise a commerce raider that might attack their convoy.

an armed yatch is a civilian ship purchased by a navy and then lightly armed.

in WWII they often had 1-2 3” guns and a few .30 caliber MGs. They were improvised patrol boats, much like the millennium falcon and similar craft are more improvised in regards to combat

for reference a c-130 carries 21tons

the falcon carries 100tons

a Lewis and Clarke class T-AKE class carries over 3k tons of fuel and over 6k tons of dry goods

11 hours ago, JohnPJones said:

No, not really. You’re still talking about purpose built vessels.

APDs were destroyers that were converted into light transports.

Qships were armed transports designed to hide their weapons to surprise a commerce raider that might attack their convoy.

an armed yatch is a civilian ship purchased by a navy and then lightly armed.

in WWII they often had 1-2 3” guns and a few .30 caliber MGs. They were improvised patrol boats, much like the millennium falcon and similar craft are more improvised in regards to combat

for reference a c-130 carries 21tons

the falcon carries 100tons

a Lewis and Clarke class T-AKE class carries over 3k tons of fuel and over 6k tons of dry goods

I think we're mixing up the definitions of what a YT-1300 is. You're clearly referencing its Star Wars background as a freighter.

But....in Armada game terms, it's a slow fighter escort. With counter 2......and neither PT boats, APDs, nor Qships had any significant AA armament. Which I think is where the others are coming from...as referenced below.

I still stand by my YB-40 reference even though it was an operational failure, which the YT-1300 most definitely is not. :D

21 hours ago, vercingex said:

I think it's more useful to think of the freighters by role rather than size. And they are a good representation of the various roles transports might serve in a battle fleet- as support and supply vessels, as hospital or repair ships. In a squad heavy fleet, they do a pretty good escort carrier impression.

Edit- D'oh, wrong freighters. That'll teach me for not looking. The closest thing to a freighter in the real world would be the HE-111, which was a converted airliner. Role-wise, they're more like heavy or night fighters, like ME-110s, DeHavilland Mosquitos, and JU-88s.

20 hours ago, JJ48 said:

In the games, sure. I'm just saying that's a bit forced, as in the OT movies, they're not really great at dogfighting. The ship's main purpose is transporting cargo and people, and when attacked, it runs. In the miniatures games, they're heavy fighters, but in lore, I think they'd be closer to C-series planes with guns.

2 minutes ago, Maturin said:

I think we're mixing up the definitions of what a YT-1300 is. You're clearly referencing its Star Wars background as a freighter.

But....in Armada game terms, it's a slow fighter escort. With counter 2......and neither PT boats, APDs, nor Qships had any significant AA armament. Which I think is where the others are coming from...as referenced below.

I still stand by my YB-40 reference even though it was an operational failure, which the YT-1300 most definitely is not.

APDs still had at least one DP 5” gun, and 2-4 dual or quad 40s and a handful of 20s

the 40s would be about equal to the falcon’s guns.

im only here for the thought exercise of the topic as I’m just now getting into x-wing, but does armada have any sort of scenario or escort missions or missions or planetary support missions for campaigns? If the game is treating them as fighters that’s kind of ridiculous

i never followed the clone wars closely, and have seen almost none of rebels or the newer cartoons, but i don't recall ever seeing the falcon launching missiles, or it being mentioned it has missiles, but wookiepedia says the falcon has 8. are those missile launchers ever actually mentioned?

2 quad AA mounts, and 8 missiles, that would generally equate to something like a soviet missile boat (1 or two rotary CIWS and 4-8 ASMs) but again, it's not a military vessel, it's a converted vessel so i think armed yatch is still the closest.
and with the decimator being designed as an 'evil' millenium falcon with more missiles, and a smaller transport capacity, i think that pretty well shows the falcon is an improvised patrol boat.

3 hours ago, JohnPJones said:

i never followed the clone wars closely, and have seen almost none of rebels or the newer cartoons, but i don't recall ever seeing the falcon launching missiles, or it being mentioned it has missiles, but wookiepedia says the falcon has 8. are those missile launchers ever actually mentioned?

2 quad AA mounts, and 8 missiles, that would generally equate to something like a soviet missile boat (1 or two rotary CIWS and 4-8 ASMs) but again, it's not a military vessel, it's a converted vessel so i think armed yatch is still the closest.
and with the decimator being designed as an 'evil' millenium falcon with more missiles, and a smaller transport capacity, i think that pretty well shows the falcon is an improvised patrol boat.

Lando launched missiles from the Falcon in the Death Star 2 reactor

13 hours ago, JohnPJones said:

2 quad AA mounts, and 8 missiles, that would generally equate to something like a soviet missile boat (1 or two rotary CIWS and 4-8 ASMs) but again, it's not a military vessel, it's a converted vessel so i think armed yatch is still the closest.
and with the decimator being designed as an 'evil' millenium falcon with more missiles, and a smaller transport capacity, i think that pretty well shows the falcon is an improvised patrol boat.

Pretty much. It's essentially a 'space technical' - the default YT-1300 (the one you see in Solo ) has a pair of relatively light single laser mounts to persuade badly-armed pirates to go away and attack someone unarmed.

Over the years he owned the Falcon , Han beefed up the shields, and swapped the light self-defence guns for big quad-batteries that if they didn't come from a VT-49 decimator themselves, might as well have done - probably in no small part so it could put up a fight against an just such a ship should there be a 'difference of opinions' on customs legislation...

On 9/12/2019 at 6:10 PM, Cap116 said:

Lando launched missiles from the Falcon in the Death Star 2 reactor

Did he? I don’t remember that at all lol

28 minutes ago, JohnPJones said:

Did he? I don’t remember that at all lol

Yep. Concussion missiles.

In the Novelisation, basically its pointed out that Wedge's Proton Torpedos won't dent it through the shielding, which is why he goes for the Power Regulator instead.

Lando uses the concussion missiles since they'd get through. Or something.

35 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Yep. Concussion missiles.

In the Novelisation, basically its pointed out that Wedge's Proton Torpedos won't dent it through the shielding, which is why he goes for the Power Regulator instead.

Lando uses the concussion missiles since they'd get through. Or something.

**** im still trying to pin down the difference between torpedo and missile in Star Wars aside from speed and maneuverability

also so it’s mildly annoying that all weapons seem to come in different strengths but no prefix or suffix is attached.

it would be like just saying naval artillery and not differentiating between a 3”/50, 5”/45, or 16”/50

39 minutes ago, JohnPJones said:

**** im still trying to pin down the difference between torpedo and missile in Star Wars aside from speed and maneuverability

To me, it always seemed like Torpedos were energy weapons, while missles were ballistic.

I might be wrong.