Pilot Archive
Thread: Anyone else want to see NAVY ranks introduced for JTL?
JediNg
Wed Jul 20, 2005 5:38 am
#53
rols_cerentz wrote:
La-grange wrote:
Well since a submarine is one step below (hehe...former bubble head here) a space craft. And since the Navy has the structure and discipline to acutally pull space exploration and combat off in large ships (Airforce/army....yeeesh...get real...naval forces has had expertise in that area for thousands of years). Then yes I agree.
If the Navy would be so much better at Space Exploration, how come NASA was born from the Air Force? (Only rhetorical question BTW.)
Space combat and Naval combat are not the same thing. The tactics one uses in water is significantly different then the tactics available in space. There's almost always been a serious problem with the starships used in Star Wars because they are designed to act/react along the lines of World War II Battleships and Fleets.
Star Destroyers, for instance, have an excellent attack profile when coming straight at an enemy vessel and when the "top" of the battleship faces the enemy ship and it has an adequette profile for broadsides. The problem is its rear end, in the original movie designs and in early games there were virtually no rear firing weapons and very few bottom firing weapons. When you have enemies that can come at you from every and any direction, that is a very poor design. It would have been a superior design to have the rear end of the ship also have some kind of pyramid shaped cone with the engines built into and around the rear "cone". This would have allowed for a significant rear fire coverage resulting in a better space battle platform.
That's just one example. We could argue this back and forth all day long, but there are already endless arguments regarding the differences between space and naval combat. Suffice to say, there are some simalarities, but the differences are significant enough that virtually all current Naval tactics would have to be heavily rewritten in order to be effective.
Submarines, not surface vessels.
rols_cerentz
Wed Jul 20, 2005 6:43 am
#54
JediNg wrote:
Submarines, not surface vessels.
Submarines are a poor design for space combat as they do not deal with the same kind of threats that a space warship would deal with. For instance, submarines do not deal with small enemy fighter craft that can travel at high speeds and can also attack the sub from any direction. Submarines also work on a significantly slower speed scale then a space warship would work on.
Now, if you are talking about the fact that Submarines are completely enclosed systems with the crew working in often tight quarters... Well, that's just about the only similarlity.
But now we are getting WAY off the topic.
I don't believe that Navy ranks should be introduced with JTL. Our characters are not part of any Navy, Imperial, Rebel or Neutral. We are Special Forces Operatives and fill roles more aligned with the roles of Han, Leia and Lando.
Han had the title of General and lead a gruond attack group at Endor.
Lando had the title General and lead the attack on the Death Star II in space.
Obi-Wan had the title of General and lead an entire Clone Army, consisting of Space, Air, Ground and Sea forces, he did not change titles as he changed combat situations even though he very likely had Naval personel working under him on his warships.
General Dodonna lead the defense of Yavin and the Attack on the Death Star.
From the movie and EU, the only Navy personal with Naval Ranks we are exposed to are people who work only on the Navy Vessels, they aren't seen leading ground assaults, they aren't taking part in ground assaults.
Admiral Ackbar? He stayed in space and yelled about it being a trap and wanted to run away.
Admiral Piet? He stayed on the Star Destroyer.
Admiral Ozzel? He was as clumsy as he was stupid and was only shown commanding a Star Destroyer, he had no grasp of tactics involving planetary combat, which is why he accidently jeopardized the Empire's assault on Hoth.
Again, Star Wars canon shows Naval titles to be bestowed upon those that hang out on large starships almost exclusively and most always perform combat operations from those starships. Luke might be considered an exception to that, but his role changed once he became a Jedi and stopped being just another Fighter pilot.
Cdapolito
Wed Jul 20, 2005 6:52 am
#55
Treena_Daal wrote:
Brutus_TOD wrote:
Maybe if the ranks had "Army" or "Navy" infront of them it would work. So one could destinguish between a "Navy Captain" and "Army Captain"
Could we not? Let's keep the stupid names to a minimum. The ground ranking system is full of them. "Captain" sounds fine. No need to stick anything else onto that. If you need the ability to tell the difference, give us the black uniforms that we should have as members of the Imperial Navy. That should cover it nicely. Wearing black? Navy. Wearing gray? Army.
Just to fix your coloring:
- Green - Army
- Gray - Naval Officer
- Black - Naval NCO or Stormtrooper Officer
- Crimson/Red - Inquisition and Intelligence
- White/Cream with Black pants - ISB
And I too would love to have Naval Ranks in place of or in addition to Army Ranks. But mainly I just want my Inquisitors Dress Uniform (Long Formal jacket doesn't come in Crimson)
Kssob
Wed Jul 20, 2005 7:29 am
#56
BlueGal wrote:
The ranks we have right now are all based on the ground game army. It hit me today that it would be really neat if they introduced a second set of ranks for JTL that was modeled after the NAVY's ranks. I am not sure how much support something like this would have or even if the developer's would ever consider adding itbut I think it would be cool to have aLt. Commander rank as opposed to Major.Who knows, we might even be able to convince someone to let us purchaseJTL NAVY ranks with prestige points. Sorry, just a random thought I had today at work and figured I would pass onto see if anyone else has thought of something similar.
/agree
I don't care if they are consistent with the timeline or not. As long as they relate to Navy ranks or pilot ranks and are different than ground ranks, I'm happy.
JanuHull
Wed Jul 20, 2005 3:48 pm
#57
BlueGal wrote:
The ranks we have right now are all based on the ground game army. It hit me today that it would be really neat if they introduced a second set of ranks for JTL that was modeled after the NAVY's ranks. I am not sure how much support something like this would have or even if the developer's would ever consider adding itbut I think it would be cool to have aLt. Commander rank as opposed to Major.Who knows, we might even be able to convince someone to let us purchaseJTL NAVY ranks with prestige points. Sorry, just a random thought I had today at work and figured I would pass onto see if anyone else has thought of something similar.
/SIGN
Yalton
Wed Jul 20, 2005 6:26 pm
#58
JediNg wrote:
rols_cerentz wrote:
JediNg wrote:
Submarines, not surface vessels.
Submarines are a poor design for space combat as they do not deal with the same kind of threats that a space warship would deal with. For instance, submarines do not deal with small enemy fighter craft that can travel at high speeds and can also attack the sub from any direction. Submarines also work on a significantly slower speed scale then a space warship would work on.
Now, if you are talking about the fact that Submarines are completely enclosed systems with the crew working in often tight quarters... Well, that's just about the only similarlity.
But now we are getting WAY off the topic.
I don't believe that Navy ranks should be introduced with JTL. Our characters are not part of any Navy, Imperial, Rebel or Neutral. We are Special Forces Operatives and fill roles more aligned with the roles of Han, Leia and Lando.
Han had the title of General and lead a gruond attack group at Endor.
Lando had the title General and lead the attack on the Death Star II in space.
Obi-Wan had the title of General and lead an entire Clone Army, consisting of Space, Air, Ground and Sea forces, he did not change titles as he changed combat situations even though he very likely had Naval personel working under him on his warships.
General Dodonna lead the defense of Yavin and the Attack on the Death Star.
From the movie and EU, the only Navy personal with Naval Ranks we are exposed to are people who work only on the Navy Vessels, they aren't seen leading ground assaults, they aren't taking part in ground assaults.
Admiral Ackbar? He stayed in space and yelled about it being a trap and wanted to run away.
Admiral Piet? He stayed on the Star Destroyer.
Admiral Ozzel? He was as clumsy as he was stupid and was only shown commanding a Star Destroyer, he had no grasp of tactics involving planetary combat, which is why he accidently jeopardized the Empire's assault on Hoth.
Again, Star Wars canon shows Naval titles to be bestowed upon those that hang out on large starships almost exclusively and most always perform combat operations from those starships. Luke might be considered an exception to that, but his role changed once he became a Jedi and stopped being just another Fighter pilot.
The similarity is that submarines operate on 3 axis of movement just like space, and are slow moving thingslike a 'capital ship' would be.Message Edited by JediNg on 07-20-2005 03:43 PM
Yes a Sub has three dimensional movement so to speak. But a Sub has weapons in the front or in the back. Durring the World Wars Subs would surface and use what was called a deck gun. But deck guns ahve gone away. Some Specialized subs have other weapon systems in diffrent patterns. But Space vessels have turret mounted weapon, broad sides, have to deal with fighters and missles. Sure torpedos can turn to attack thins that are not directly in fron of the sub or behind it. But they in no way compare to direct fire weapons for space. It doesn't counter fightr craft and other small craft attacking the ship.
Also the tacical thoughts for a submarine are completely diffrent. There aren't induction layers in space, there aren't current in space, etc... All the things that a current sub commander uses to attack his target wouldn't apply. You can't run silent or run deep in space. Space combat resembles air combat a lot mroe then naval combat. I think the only reason people ahve associated Navy and space is teh fact that the vessels for travel are called space ships. Would we be having this disscusion if there were always called space CRAFT instead?
For the person that said a O-6 in the navy commands fighter wings and that is a good reason must ahve ignored ther est of my comments that we don't command ANY THING! Also you aren't famlilar with what a wing commander really does. In two words a wing commanders job is almost competely PAPER WORK! How many of you really want to be a bueracrat(sp) instead of a pilot? WIng commanders only get to fly for heir recertifications. That isn't combat and it sure isn't as much as they would like to fly. In fact the Wing commanders plane in teh Air Force is called the Hangar Queen since it is invaribly parked in teh hangar almost all the time.
Message Edited by Yalton on 07-20-2005 05:29 PM
JediNg
Wed Jul 20, 2005 7:50 pm
#59
Okay, well that aside, vessels in space in star wars are 'capital ships' and not 'capital starfighters' 
Mac_Leod
Wed Jul 20, 2005 11:53 pm
#62
rols_cerentz wrote:
La-grange wrote:Well since a submarine is one step below (hehe...former bubble head here) a space craft. And since the Navy has the structure and discipline to acutally pull space exploration and combat off in large ships (Airforce/army....yeeesh...get real...naval forces has had expertise in that area for thousands of years). Then yes I agree.
If the Navy would be so much better at Space Exploration, how come NASA was born from the Air Force? (Only rhetorical question BTW.)
Space combat and Naval combat are not the same thing. The tactics one uses in water is significantly different then the tactics available in space. There's almost always been a serious problem with the starships used in Star Wars because they are designed to act/react along the lines of World War II Battleships and Fleets.
Star Destroyers, for instance, have an excellent attack profile when coming straight at an enemy vessel and when the "top" of the battleship faces the enemy ship and it has an adequette profile for broadsides. The problem is its rear end, in the original movie designs and in early games there were virtually no rear firing weapons and very few bottom firing weapons. When you have enemies that can come at you from every and any direction, that is a very poor design. It would have been a superior design to have the rear end of the ship also have some kind of pyramid shaped cone with the engines built into and around the rear "cone". This would have allowed for a significant rear fire coverage resulting in a better space battle platform.
That's just one example. We could argue this back and forth all day long, but there are already endless arguments regarding the differences between space and naval combat. Suffice to say, there are some simalarities, but the differences are significant enough that virtually all current Naval tactics would have to be heavily rewritten in order to be effective.
Almost all spacecraft terminology in sci-fi comes from naval tradition. Heck, even referring to different parts of the spacecraft comes from the navy: bow, aft, port, starboard, deck, bridge, brig, etc. And then there's the fact that we call them "ships", another nautical term.
The large space battles in Star Wars make me think of what a battle between two (armed) aircraft carriers would be like. With starfighters and the large capitol ships needed to transport them, the naval model makes more sense.
rols_cerentz
Thu Jul 21, 2005 4:22 am
#63
JediNg wrote:
The similarity is that submarines operate on 3 axis of movement just like space, and are slow moving things like a 'capital ship' would be.Message Edited by JediNg on 07-20-2005 03:43 PM
They may operate using 3 Axis, but it is not a true 3 Axis as it would be in the environment of space.
How often do Submarines perform "Barrel Rolls", in combat or otherwise?
How often do submarines perform Loops, in combat or otherwise?
It may very well be possible, but I have read of no submarines that commonly, or have ever, performed such tactics to evade or attack enemy targets. Which again only shows that the similarity between space and naval submariner combat is the fact that a sub, like a space craft, is a totally enclosed environment.
JediNg
Thu Jul 21, 2005 4:25 am
#64
Nevertheless, they are given nautical terms.
Destroyer, Dreadnought, Cruiser etc
rols_cerentz
Thu Jul 21, 2005 5:42 am
#65
JediNg wrote:Nevertheless, they are given nautical terms.
Destroyer, Dreadnought, Cruiser etc
That is not being contested.
Again, all I am saying is that our characters are not Naval personel. We are Special Forces Operatives, regardless of the faction we are in. Due to this, we are able to go anywhere and do anything as first strike commando-type units. Again, per the movies, SpecOps members, like Han, Lando and Obi-Wan utilized Army ranks. Our actions are not limited to one combat sphere, we are capable of taking part in the GCW on the ground and in space, we don't take orders 90% of the time and our time isn't structured and controlled like it would be, if our characters were, in fact, military regulars. (Either regular Naval or regular Army troopers.)
I will have no problem if they offer up Naval commissions for JTL, if the character in question gives up all ground combat activities.