Deck Plans for the Garfish ???

[Seto Kaiba]

So how official or canon are the stats for ships and equipment at the Robotech.com website?

Nominally, the stats in the Robotech.com Infopedia are official and canon. In practice, they're often wildly inaccurate as an unintended result of lazily farming the composition of that material out to a Robotech fan fiction writing collective, who exploited Harmony Gold's apathy and the fan base's collective ignorance to pass off their own guesswork as well-researched material based on the OSM. Consequentially, a lot of what's there is just dead wrong... like how the listed sizes for many of the ships don't match what's in the line art, the stated dimensions of the Alpha don't match the proportions of the plane, or that the Spartas' are misidentified and contradict the show's dialogue.

(I could go on, but you get the picture... it's best to take most anything from the Infopedia with an ocean's worth of salt.)

Regarding the tenders and support vessels...... They say what I suspected, the landing ship (with different internal arrangements) is the support vessel... serving as tanker and tender.

Just for the record, it's never actually depicted as such. That's one of many errors in the Infopedia's content that I alluded to in the previous paragraph. In the OSM, the animation, and the RPG, these ships all carry their own supplies, and there're no tankers, no tenders, etc.

[jaymz]

Gryphon - from what I can find however, all of those ships never carried anywhere NEAR the numbers of mecha the Robotech counterparts did thus a carrier ship was in fact a necessity.

[jaymz]

Not arguing the sense Gryph.

However postulate this, while all the non Carrier ships may have lots of mecha, as we see those mecha are cannon fodder, so more is definitely needed. I'd venture to guess that by and large the SDF-1 VF forces, due to the desire to capture not destroy on the part of the Zentraedi, caused them lose easily 10 or 20 (if not more) units for every one VF they managed to eliminate. With those kinds of losses, using only the capital ship complement may not really have been enough, at least in the OSM.

In robotech they don't need tenders either as the ships are to report back to factory sats when needing replenishment so it isn't really needed in rtech either. At least in my opinion.

[ArmySGT.]

Can it simply be a translation error? Fanboys see carrier and think "Air Craft Carrier" because that is sexy and awesome and cool....and and and.....

but, carrier is used as a freight description for bulk cargo......... Ore carrier, coal carrier, etc.....

[Seto Kaiba]

Though admittedly, that makes a bit more sense really:
- Scoutship = frigate like escort and scout vessel
- Destroyer = line of battle destroyer or light cruiser type
- Command Ship = squadron/battle group command cruiser
- Flagship = Fleet Command Battle Monitor Ship

Eh... most of the ship designations in the Infopedia are as off as everything else. Admittedly, I think they hit a little closer to the mark than you did with ship classes. Destroyers and cruisers are types of escorts, larger in scale than frigates, but smaller than carriers or battleships. Monitors are small warships with disproportionately large guns. In terms of what we're shown of operating conditions, the "Destroyer" is actually a line battleship, the "Command Ship" is a battleship as well, just one mated to a dedicated assault carrier, and the "Flagship" is a fleet command battleship. There's nothing in the Zentradi fleet that's really equivalent to a cruiser... though the ship Kamjin/Khyron uses at the end of the original Macross was classed (officially) as a gun destroyer.

And since each of these has both a marine like landing force of infantry and mecha, and an on board aerospace superiority and strike force, AND a scout and artillery force, and actual landing ship or carrier is more or less redundant, [...]

To be fair, it only seems that way because the Robotech.com Infopedia and the RPG exaggerate the ever-loving hell out of the crew sizes and mecha complements those ships carry. Part of it is carried-over guesswork from the 1st Edition of RT's RPG, and part seems to be conflated details from the Macross II stuff they did later, but in either case most of those ships are never shown to carry anywhere near the number of mecha that RT sources claim they do. Most of the launches we actually see from Zentradi ships are done by those carriers you're arguing are redundant.

This is, in fact, a trend that carries over to the other two sagas of Robotech and Harmony Gold-original materials like the Shadow Chronicles movie... though the disparity between stated capacity and actual is at its most blatant in the pre-battle scenes in RTSC, where carriers that allegedly hold like 500 mecha are shown launching only about 24 Alpha fighters in total.

Sure, it isn't canon, but it makes more sense. Especially since we know that in Robotech, there are much, much fewer ports of call, since Zentraedi in that setting aren't typically on a planet for very long, and there aren't really that many Robotech Factories left by that point.

Have we perhaps forgotten about the massive, self-propelled "port of call" that served the Zentradi fleet as both their fleet headquarters and supply depot? It's hard to overlook a ship the size of a moon. The multiple factory satellites should also not be overlooked... and these things are shown to be a hop, skip, and a jump away from the area of operations at pretty much all times. They don't need tenders, tankers, or any kind of dedicated supply ship because they can jog down to the corner factory satellite and resupply en masse in a way no support ship could ever hope to allow.

The OSM may not have had as many ships per ship, but they certainly had enough ships a carrier was superfluous in nature anyhow. 1,000 ships pop up at a location, with scads of mecha.

Actually, what we're shown in the original Macross (and, consequentially, Robotech as well) is that the bulk of a Zentradi fleet is battleships with relatively small mecha complements. Maybe a hundred or so pods, broken up into several platoons, but not the hundreds or thousands that the Robotech stats claim. As an example, take Ep22's boarding op by the Zentradi... they let the Daedalus hit Britai's massive command battleship on purpose... if that ship carried anywhere near the number of pods the RT stats assert, we should've seen more than the few dozen pods that boarded the Macross.


The real muscle of their mecha-carrying capacity is the Queadol Magdomilla-class assault sections and the Quiltra Queleual-class landing ships which are shown carrying out most of the actual mecha launches in the series.

So again, in the OSM, they used them as carriers, because of some ridiculous perceived need for them, when the reality was that such a ship type really isn't necessary.

Please refer to the above for an explanation of why the need for dedicated carriers is entirely justified...

While a underway replenishment ship stocked with munitions, parts, and even hundreds of stored mecha makes more sense for a culture that isn't that good at actual technical repairs.

Why would they need such a thing, when the Zentradi have, as their fleet's mothership, a colossal mobile supply depot the size of a moon? Come to that, let's not forget the factory satellites that exist solely to meet the supply needs of the huge Zentradi fleets, which are only ever a few quick fold jumps away. Every single Zentradi fleet has literally dozens of ports in which to resupply vast numbers of warships, and even acquire new ships and soldiers.

In Robotech, there are multiple factory satellites and the mothership supplying the one Zentradi fleet. In the original Macross, each of the thousands of Zentradi fleets has its own mothership AND a robust supply chain consisting of 20 to 50 factory satellites capable of resupply on a scale humans can only dream about... until the UN Spacy appropriates like twenty of the satellites that supported Boddole Zer's 118th Main Fleet throughout the 2010s.

When you've got a supply chain that monstrously robust that's only ever a short skip away, do you really NEED a support fleet of tenders, tankers, and cargo haulers? The sort of situation where you can use lines like "arsenal planet" or "that's no moon... that's a space station" with a completely straight face? Factories so huge that when you stick them at a Lagrange point you can see them from Earth's surface?

No. You really don't.

[Seto Kaiba]

Can it simply be a translation error? Fanboys see carrier and think "Air Craft Carrier" because that is sexy and awesome and cool....and and and.....

Oh, it's an error all right... but it's not a translation error. The term "carrier" is never actually used in connection with those ships (Quiltra Queleual-class) in the OSM. It's officially described as a LST (Landing Ship, Tank), and that designation was helpfully written in English in the official art books like Macross: Perfect Memory. There's really no way for anyone to mistake what's written there. The way they operate in the series is just like the LSTs of World War II, the ships carry a supply of heavy assault landers that deploy mechanized units (reentry pods, in our case) and then deploys them in close proximity to the "shore". For whatever reason, the volunteer writers of the Infopedia took exception to the accurate terminology and changed it to "carrier" in their coverage.

If it interests you, the Quiltra Queleual-class LST coverage can be found in Macross: Perfect Memory, on page 182 (upper half). An accurate, English translation of that material can be obtained here. The same material is also available in a number of other publications, like This is Animation numbers 3, 5, and 7, and in the official Macross encyclopedia Macross Chronicle.

but, carrier is used as a freight description for bulk cargo......... Ore carrier, coal carrier, etc.....

No, if they were referring to a supply ship they would most likely have called it a cargo ship, a tanker, etc. The people who created Macross were military (and especially aviation) buffs, and they knew their stuff. The people who wrote those stats in the Infopedia... well... let's just say botched terminology is the least of their sins.

[Sgt Anjay]

Though admittedly, that makes a bit more sense really:
- Scoutship = frigate like escort and scout vessel
- Destroyer = line of battle destroyer or light cruiser type
- Command Ship = squadron/battle group command cruiser
- Flagship = Fleet Command Battle Monitor Ship

Eh... most of the ship designations in the Infopedia are as off as everything else. Admittedly, I think they hit a little closer to the mark than you did with ship classes. Destroyers and cruisers are types of escorts, larger in scale than frigates, but smaller than carriers or battleships. Monitors are small warships with disproportionately large guns. In terms of what we're shown of operating conditions, the "Destroyer" is actually a line battleship, the "Command Ship" is a battleship as well, just one mated to a dedicated assault carrier, and the "Flagship" is a fleet command battleship. There's nothing in the Zentradi fleet that's really equivalent to a cruiser... though the ship Kamjin/Khyron uses at the end of the original Macross was classed (officially) as a gun destroyer.

Point of order, the definitions of ship classifications such as “cruiser”, “destroyer”, etc. are fluid, debatable, have had many variations, and have changed many, many times since those terms have come into standard use…for a given value of “standard”. How to apply terms which have been known to be indefinite to things that don’t exist and operate in ways significantly different than the things those terms were coined for, well…it could hardly be called an exact science.

And since each of these has both a marine like landing force of infantry and mecha, and an on board aerospace superiority and strike force, AND a scout and artillery force, and actual landing ship or carrier is more or less redundant, [...]

To be fair, it only seems that way because the Robotech.com Infopedia and the RPG exaggerate the ever-loving hell out of the crew sizes and mecha complements those ships carry. Part of it is carried-over guesswork from the 1st Edition of RT's RPG, and part seems to be conflated details from the Macross II stuff they did later, but in either case most of those ships are never shown to carry anywhere near the number of mecha that RT sources claim they do.

”never shown to carry anywhere near the number of mecha that RT sources claim they do”? Shown? The animation never shows the max capacity of anything those ships carry; nobody’s got time for that, there’s a story to tell, and in any case the animators are capable of both inadvertent errors and intentional fudging for the sake of “rule of cool” and setting the scene, tech specs be damned. Carrying capacities for the ships, especially the huge Zentraedi ships crewed by beings with proportions that shouldn’t work in real life, are informed abilities. They are not in any way visually evident. Is there any actual evidence of something in the series which contradicts the Robotech stats?

[Seto Kaiba]

Point of order, the definitions of ship classifications such as “cruiser”, “destroyer”, etc. are fluid, debatable, have had many variations, and have changed many, many times since those terms have come into standard use…for a given value of “standard”.

While it's true that the precise definition of some of these terms have changed with advances in technology and so-on, we don't really need to concern ourselves with the pre-modern definitions because we're talking about a comparatively modern work of fiction. Obviously, we're going to be applying these terms in their broadest, most general sense since we're dealing with something other than a conventional navy, but the underlying logic of the classifications works out just fine... as the true creators of the material intended.

The way they're depicted in the animation, the operational roles ascribed to those designs by the Studio Nue staff fit just fine... the Nupetiet Vergnitzs and Thuverl Salan-class ships would be hard to classify as anything but battleship type, as they're large, heavily armored warships whose principal armament is their massive batteries of powerful beam gun turrets. The Queadol Magdomilla's assault section is a landing ship, but the main body of the vessel (and the ship in docked form) is primarily a battleship with an extensive array of turrets and one of the largest anti-warship cannons we're shown in the series. The Nupetiet Vergnitzs and Queadol Magdomilla deserve their titles as the "fleet command battleship(s)", because they're the largest, most heavily armed warships used as flagships for fleets. Likewise, what we're shown where the Quiltra Queleual-class is concerned is that the ship operates as a massive transport for the landing craft and the Zentradi mechanized forces they carry... making its LST designation entirely deserved. The picket ship is, in the series, exactly what the name suggests... a lightly armed advance reconnaissance ship. The ship not appearing in the Robotech.com Infopedia, the gun destroyer, fits its definition well enough too... it's smaller than a line battleship, and gets shown operating as an escort craft, though it could fairly also be called a monitor (though that classification isn't really in use these days) on account of its main gun being out of all proportion with the ship's size in terms of firepower.

”never shown to carry anywhere near the number of mecha that RT sources claim they do”? Shown? The animation never shows the max capacity of anything those ships carry; [...]

While that's generally true, there are some ships for which the animation explicitly supports the OSM-stated capacity. The fact remains, however, that the listed mecha complements for Zentradi ships in Robotech are off by several orders of magnitude. The boarding operation in Ep22 shows, fairly clearly, that the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class carries only a tiny fraction of what the RT stats claim, and the other classes can't present any support for the vastly overstated numbers in the Infopedia whatsoever.

It's simply a case of severe exaggeration on the part of the volunteer writers of the Infopedia, who seem to have had an indecent amount of trouble with scale, proportion, accuracy to the show's contents, basic arithmetic, etc.

[Sgt Anjay]

Point of order, the definitions of ship classifications such as “cruiser”, “destroyer”, etc. are fluid, debatable, have had many variations, and have changed many, many times since those terms have come into standard use…for a given value of “standard”.

While it's true that the precise definition of some of these terms have changed with advances in technology and so-on, we don't really need to concern ourselves with the pre-modern definitions because we're talking about a comparatively modern work of fiction. Obviously, we're going to be applying these terms in their broadest, most general sense since we're dealing with something other than a conventional navy

There isn't "pre-modern" and "post-modern" definitions; the definitions have shifted even in the time since SDF:Macross has aired. There are ships in service right this very second whose classification depends entirely on who's doing the classifying. Contemporary "destroyers" are larger and more powerful than previous classes of cruisers, and the French and Italian navies call their destroyers "first-class frigates", so on and so forth.

And what do you even mean by "modern"? Post-Dreadnought, one of the major turning points in naval technology? Interwar/WWII and on, i.e. the ascendancy of the aircraft carrier? Cold War era and on? Post-Cold War?

And as you point out, applying those classifications to something like a Zentraedi ship does indeed require "applying these terms in their broadest, most general sense", and that means that how you can classify them becomes even more indefinite. So regardless of whether or not the classifications given them in the OSM are applicable, and I don't know that anyone's ever contested that they are, other classifications using different standards for those same ships can also be applicable. The OSM and Robotech can both be right, and especially if the Robotech specs are different.

”never shown to carry anywhere near the number of mecha that RT sources claim they do”? Shown? The animation never shows the max capacity of anything those ships carry; [...]

While that's generally true, there are some ships for which the animation explicitly supports the OSM-stated capacity.

No, there really aren't. Glimpses of the general fighting which compose larger battles surrounding the main characters is pretty much all there is in the animation. Those glimpses do not ships stats define, especially given the inherent level of artistic license.

[jaymz]

Seems to me that a ship crewed by beings 6 times the height of a human (and thus 216 times the size overall), using mecha that are a bit larger in all cases, would carry a similar number of mecha as a ship in the human scale so to speak.

Thus a Fleet Command Battleship like Breetai's at "human scale" would be the equivalent of something like the SDF-1 (500 mecha) perhaps a bit more since the mecha themselves are not proportionally scaled up like the Zentraedi are, in comparison to humans, but certainly would not have the 6500+ the infopedia states it to have. Especially as the SDF-1 is considered a hybrid Carrier/Battleship/Flagship type capital vessel and likely carries more mecha than a dedicated battleship/flagship like vessel of similar size just by nature of it's function.

As an example I give you the ARMD at only about 1/4 the size of the SDF-1 carrying nearly as many combat units as the SDF-1 does. It was a dedicated carrier.

The Zentraedi scoutship is listed as only a token force of 50 Gnerl fighters. It is the same approximate size as the ARMD.

I think there is plenty of published evidence to show the numbers are likely off by a magnitude and should really be whittled down to show the proper numbers. Even the Landing Ships numbers a re likely quite overblown as published.


All the above being said there seems to be schism here based more on WHO is saying what rather than WHAT is being said. I am in no one's camp but my own in regards to what things can and cannot do in Robotech. Try looking at things objectively rather than based on who is saying it.

[Sgt Anjay]

Seems to me that a ship crewed by beings 6 times the height of a human (and thus 216 times the size overall), using mecha that are a bit larger in all cases, would carry a similar number of mecha as a ship in the human scale so to speak.

Thus a Fleet Command Battleship like Breetai's at "human scale" would be the equivalent of something like the SDF-1 (500 mecha)

Well, I've gone over the reasons I regard a direct comparison of the complements of a Zentraedi ship and a human ship inadvisable at best, but alright, I'll go over at least some of them here. For one...Breetai's ship doesn't have 216 times the volume of the SDF-1, so I'm not sure why you're going with that. Especially since, seriously? The SDF-1? The ship with so much unused space it absorbed 70,000 folks easy, then still had so much room they decided to build a bit of city in it, then still had so much room that two people faced starving to death in a forgotten corner of the ship and were only rescued by lucky accident? Shove disposable soldiers in disposable mecha in that much volume and I'm willing to bet the actual maximum capacity of the SDF-1 does not equal 500.

Then, how much food and water does a human the six times taller than a normal one need? You can't actually tell, because of course humans don't work in those proportions, so you're guessing there right off the bat based on generalizations. Even an educated guess based on biology could be significantly wrong since if you really want to get realistic rather than just sci-fi handwave it you need to first somehow account for the fact that Zentraedi can even exist.

How do Zentraedi store food? Do they generate it? How would they generate it? We're talking about a clone society with tech that can pop them into a normal human size body and back again. How about their water storage? How do they store other consumables and supplies? Do they much bother with spare parts, or just junk/recycle the thing since everyone/thing is cheap? That's more things different than how human would do them on human ships. How do they store missiles and do they give a fig about the kinds of safety margins humans build into that sort of thing?

How big do their environmental control systems need to be? Something as mundane as their doors and the machinery/electronics which open/close them, and the thickness of the bulkheads, or internal walls? How big are their sanitary facilities, how are they designed, and how many per Zent do they even rate, anyway? How do they handle bodily wastes, and how much space does that take up? Betcha its not like the human stats. What're Zent shipboard bunks like? Dollars to donuts the average battlepod pilot doesn't rate swank digs like what Rick got when he became a veritech pilot.

Sensors, turrets, how big relatively are the Zent computer spaces, their conventional engines, their maneuvering thrusters, their fold drives?

Are there measurements for a battlepod when it's in that inactive storage mode where the legs are folded upon themselves and the main body/cockpit is resting on the ground, and how do they store unused ones? Or Gnerls? Or N-Gers?

There isn't enough data, not even close. Simplified comparisons don't cut it, especially when the comparisons are as applicable as apples and fold drives.

I think there is plenty of published evidence to show the numbers are likely off by a magnitude and should really be whittled down to show the proper numbers.

And I disagree, for the myriad reasons stated above.

All the above being said there seems to be schism here based more on WHO is saying what rather than WHAT is being said. I am in no one's camp but my own in regards to what things can and cannot do in Robotech. Try looking at things objectively rather than based on who is saying it.

Objectively speaking, I am against the position that something in Robotech that contradicts the OSM is wrong just because it contradicts the OSM, and that's the position I was responding to here, just as I have responded to it elsewhere, and will continue to respond to it. And as I have shown above, I have ample evidence to back my viewpoint when I choose to share it.

[jaymz]

I never stated Breetai's ship had 216 times the volume.

Eveything else you state above is supposition and no more accurate than anything else anyone else has said. For that reason i am perfectly happy to agree to disagree with you.

As for simplified generalizations, since I used what little info we had, I myself think it is a safe way to go about it. You disagree and you are welcome too.

[Sgt Anjay]

Well, I certainly agree that there is plenty of room for opposing viewpoints; I'm not against anyone using numbers that are different from those on Robotech.com. What I'm really opposed to is the view that there is enough visual evidence to say that there can only be one possible set of stats.

[jaymz]

You are welcome to that viewpoint.

I think visually we really don;t get enough to definitively say you and I are right or wrong and it can be used to support both of us to one degree or another.

Mind you, the mecha numbers really only concern me for if I am running a Macross-specific game as opposed to a Macross Robotech game. I'll use the official numbers where i htink i can get away with it whether they are accurate to OSM or not, but that is also why I differentiate between Macross Robotech and Macross specific.

[Drakenred®™©]

just one point, one of the ships aparetly has the volume to hold ~180,000 people. thats 54 yimes the crew and passenger suport of the HMS titanic.

Now if the "Dry stores" referd included 2 years of food for that many people (assuming 1 pound per person per meal) your talking about needing to have *270 TONS* of food per day, or 197,100 Tons of food...

Now if you scale up the Titanic to accomidate that many people, you get a ship thats 1022 M long.

you also need 14071 TEU of cargo capacity, or a containerised cargo ship of roughly the same volume as the Emma Mærsk Just for the food....

just an observation

[Seto Kaiba]

There isn't "pre-modern" and "post-modern" definitions; the definitions have shifted even in the time since SDF:Macross has aired. There are ships in service right this very second whose classification depends entirely on who's doing the classifying.

In their specifics, certainly... things like tonnage bands and the like. There are, however, certain characteristics which are less prone to changing, which do fit the existing ships neatly enough. Robotech's Infopedia volunteer writers seemed to almost be working with the intent to assign everything the most counter-intuitive or blatantly incorrect designation they could... which may simply be the result of their apparent ignorance of many aspects of technology and military affairs.

My apologies for the delay in my reply, it's been an interesting week.

And what do you even mean by "modern"?

Post-1975 US Navy ship reclassification is the general picture I'm thinking of... after all, this material is from the early 1980s.

Where do we see any ship in The Macross Saga arc actually field its listed totals? And by this, I mean even the reduced totals you espouse? Does this happen?

Not the hideously exaggerated Robotech listed totals, no... because they are, of course, hideously exaggerated. The average crew size of a Zentradi battleship (per the OSM) is only a hair over 1,500 officers and men of all ranks. You're not (obviously) going to crew 6,500 mecha when the entire ship's crew is less than a quarter of that. The animation shows us dozens, or hundreds of pods carried by these ships... not thousands. Britai's ship, as I've cited before, allegedly carries an enormous mecha complement... but when they carry out a boarding operation via the Daedalus attack, they deploy only a hundred or so battle pods... drawn from other ships. Kamjin/Khyron wasn't stationed on Britai's ship, after all. We're not shown any ship in Macross's original series fielding its entire complement in one go, but we have enough evidence to readily support the argument that the Robotech listed values are exaggerated by several orders of magnitude... it fails examination from multiple perspectives, as others have pointed out.

If you don't mind sources outside the animation, then yes... there are loading diagrams that validate several ships from the Macross original series, including the Prometheus and Daedalus.

Because seriously chief, we never see any ship fielding its full complement, except for maybe, just maybe, a Garfish.

Actually, we have enough visual evidence to support the 144 fighter complement on the Ikazuchi-class... just not the extra hundreds of mecha that the RT stats arbitrarily add, and are never seen in any RT title. The Shadow Chronicles might as well be explicit support from Tommy for my position, showing as it does that ships in RT have their crew sizes very small... and that the Infopedia numbers are blown all out of proportion.

And there we see the Garfish a dozen craft, three more than it can possibly carry. You keep claiming that Robotech numbers are wrong, because we never see that many ships in use, but claim that a given umber is better because we do see it.

Ironically, from the same two episodes that claim comes from, we can demonstrate the size for the SDF-4 is exaggerated... or that the Beta's missile count is wrong... or that the Ikazuchi's beam turrets are more powerful than the SDF-4's big synchro cannon, which the RPG claims is more powerful than anything short of the Grand Cannon.... and we're not even six minutes into "Symphony of Light" yet! Of course, I do take into account things like known animation errors, where ships or mecha are drawn off-model due to animator error... the Garfish launching twelve fighters instead of nine is one of the known issues. You can see from the animation and the line art (esp. that on the Infopedia) that something is clearly NOT right there. The same way you can take a quick look at the physical dimensions of an Alpha, the size of the bays, and do some quick mental math to determine the Ikazuchi is nowhere near as large as the RT stats claim it to be.

I am not even saying your wrong here. I am saying I would like a source for this though. Especially since it sort of speaks to the TSC Ikazuchi and it only having like 24 Legios total, even though i can have something like 70 launch tubes or 144 Alpha slots.

Well, we can demonstrate between the animation and the model sheets for same that the Ikazuchi really does carry a complement of 144 fighters. That much was never in doubt (probably because that's what the original creators designed).

As far as RTSC goes, it's not uncommon for ships in the real world (and in some of the OSM) to operate with less than the maximum complement they can carry. The inexplicable switch from launch bays to sixty separate catapult decks makes it clear that the Ikazuchi refit is not working with nearly as many craft as it originally was... though it seems to have a lot fewer than it should. (Only 24 are launched, total.)

[jaymz]

Gryphon - I have no source and never said i did. Nor did I say the Zentraedi ship only had 500 crew. I was using my own sort of logic that since the beings crewing the ship were of significantly larger size that a ship for those beings that was 4000m would be the equivalent to a ship 1/6 that size for humans or about 800m or so. I used the SDF-1 as my example above since it seems to be the ship that would serve a similar role to the flagship in the earth fleet and it only had about 500 mecha on board. It is an opinion. One I will continue to have and am happy to say I agree to disagree if you don;t share my opinion.

Before anyone reiterates "the SDF-1 had 70 000 civvies on board too" let us remember all the mecha forces were moved from teh ship onto the to outboard carrier ships that were attached to the the SDF-1 and that the city itself as portrayed could never actually fit the way the show it, but regardless, it is officially listed as carrying only about 500 mecha. A flagship carrying 6500 is quite frankly ridiculous in my opinion. I could accept upto 1000 or so but 6500? just no.

[ArmySGT.]

What is the status of Zentraedi stasis pods? Are they still keeping crew and pilots on ice?

[jaymz]

Maybe in Macross II but I don;t believe the kept that in the RPG as there was no evidence of it in Robotech or the original Macross.

[Seto Kaiba]

What is the status of Zentraedi stasis pods? Are they still keeping crew and pilots on ice?

Such a thing is never depicted in Robotech, or in the original Macross.

Only the Macross II: Lovers Again OVA, which is a parallel universe story, ever depicted the Zentradi being kept in any type of stasis... but only those Zentradi used as a disposable clone army by the Mardook. The regular Zentradi Army fleets (and their Meltrandi opposite numbers) that appeared in the Macross II timeline did not use any stasis technology.

[Drakenred®™©]

ok lets step back a bit.

the SDF 4 you can kind of make an argument that yes you can easily have a 180,000 man capacity on that ship. *if the scale is correct,*because THATS A FREAKING HUDGE SHIP

If my rough estimate(and its very rough!) of the relative scale of the ship to the the Wasp is relivant then you start to run into problems with thoes numbers for 3 reasons.

1 Based on the USN reported provisioning neads for the Wasp simply scaling up gives you plently of "play" with the mubers, expecialy if the hull volume needed for Life suport/powerplant/Engineering and Maintinance/propulsion needs are compable then yes you do have the Volume needed to load enough supplies for the listed number of combatants for 2 years, and still have room to store all the cargo that you need to properly feed and maintain most of the other 180k people for the same ammount of time....assuming there job is to simply eat food, poop, change clothes and take baths and so forth.

2) Keeping that many people functionaly cooped up for 2 years in a hull of that volume is problematic At Best. Currently the USN has the Carriers Deployed for 9 months at a time and there generaly not happy about that for a variety of reasons related to crew moral and maintenance needs. while the second can be handwaved away by advance tech not needing as mutch maintenance and haveing a higher ratio of crew on board that are Maintenance focused than on current carriers can explain away being deployed for 2 years is not a problem, basic crew moral issues are bluntly not as easy to deal with. compounding that with the whole " you have to live on food thats going to be up to 2 years old"... will not help matters.

3 and this is the most important part, We dont realy have any reason to assume that the Life suport and Enginering spaces will be the same size as what is on a Wasp Class, in fact given that you also need Artifical gravity generators, a Life suport system capable of recylging 100% of the air on board, and a power plant needed to suport engines capable of 2 competly DIFERENT mods of travel (fold generator AND Sub light thrusters) that a greater % of total volume would be used by thoes systems....never mind the inevitable need for spare parts for said systems.

[Sgt Anjay]

Robotech's Infopedia volunteer writers seemed to almost be working with the intent to assign everything the most counter-intuitive or blatantly incorrect designation they could

Disagreed. While not the system I use in the infrequent occasions that issue comes up and I agree with you the addition of a military buff in the creative staff certainly wouldn’t hurt at all, it’s not really intolerably off as sci-fi series designations go.

Also, there's really no need to get so blatantly mean-spirited.

[Seto Kaiba]

the SDF 4 you can kind of make an argument that yes you can easily have a 180,000 man capacity on that ship. *if the scale is correct,*because THATS A FREAKING HUDGE SHIP

That's a big if... but we'll roll with it for the sake of argument. You make some good points here, particularly #3.

1 Based on the USN reported provisioning neads for the Wasp [...]

Using real-world craft as a metric for this is probably a bad idea at the best of times, since human starship tech in RT must include some pretty sophisticated recycling systems to enable the feats we see in the Macross Saga and later. They likely don't need anywhere near as much room for supplies as they would if they were simply carrying everything freeze-dried or vacuum-packed.

2) Keeping that many people functionaly cooped up for 2 years in a hull of that volume is problematic At Best.

Quite... though it's unlikely, IMO, that any ship in Robotech would be operating away from a base for that long. They had a variety of deep space installations, at least one of which was an operating shipyard, and surface-side bases as well. As fast as fold drives are in RT (based on what little evidence is available), those bases are probably not more than a few hours away at any given time.

Robotech's Infopedia volunteer writers seemed to almost be working with the intent to assign everything the most counter-intuitive or blatantly incorrect designation they could

Disagreed. While not the system I use in the infrequent occasions that issue comes up and I agree with you the addition of a military buff in the creative staff certainly wouldn’t hurt at all, it’s not really intolerably off as sci-fi series designations go.

From a translation standpoint (and they DID present this stuff as OSM-derived), their standard of work is somewhere south of abysmal. We're talking the sort of thing that would earn 'em a "Very poor, see me after class", and their stuff is packed with contradictions and information that contradicts the show... but you've heard my strictures on most of that, so I'll go ahead and skip that.

Take, for instance, their coverage of the Tokugawa-class. They assert that it's a battleship, then turn around and by the second paragraph they're telling us it's not a battleship at all, has no offensive armament worth a damn, and is actually a carrier design.

[taalismn]

[

2) Keeping that many people functionaly cooped up for 2 years in a hull of that volume is problematic At Best.

Quite... though it's unlikely, IMO, that any ship in Robotech would be operating away from a base for that long. They had a variety of deep space installations, at least one of which was an operating shipyard, and surface-side bases as well. As fast as fold drives are in RT (based on what little evidence is available), those bases are probably not more than a few hours away at any given time..

That's why Macross vessels keep an idol singer and rock band along....emergency rations.

[Drakenred®™©]

2) Keeping that many people functionaly cooped up for 2 years in a hull of that volume is problematic At Best.

Quite... though it's unlikely, IMO, that any ship in Robotech would be operating away from a base for that long. They had a variety of deep space installations, at least one of which was an operating shipyard, and surface-side bases as well. As fast as fold drives are in RT (based on what little evidence is available), those bases are probably not more than a few hours away at any given time.


.

That brings us back to the problem though, Frankly theres no real need to build in a 2 year supply unless you intend to use it. Seriously its mission creep of the worst kind, Kind of like trying to justify building the Next Nuclear carrier by saying " and it can also use its flightdeck to haul 18,000 TEU of containerised cargo." and thats not counting the fact that its aparently also a passenger liner for up to 140,000 people in addition to the combat crew.

You can justify it to the extent that you can say that they built ships to be able to be as flexible as posible and were intended to be part Exploration ships into the "unknown black yonder of deep space" or that they were suposed to be both convoy, escort, and Main battle fleet all in one. but what you end up with are the "Battle Barges" that we see. In the real world Its far more practical for them to build dedicated warships and dedicated Logistics Freighters.

Frankly they would have been better off saying something like "It carrys 3-6 months of food and suplies, but its life suport and hydrophics can keep the crew alive for 2 years without resupply, but meh.

However aparently the SDF4 it was intended to be the very Logistics base that other ships fold back to that you were talking about...wich makes useing it on the front lines mission creep or desperation or stupidity. (seriously they put a wave motion gun on what is aparently a Logistics/Passenger ship!)

[Seto Kaiba]

That brings us back to the problem though, Frankly theres no real need to build in a 2 year supply unless you intend to use it.

It's always a nice thing to be prepared, and with the UEEF and UEDF apparently having issues with the reliability of the fold drives they use (per AotSC) that may have been as much a safety net as it was to enable long-duration operations in the field. There's a lot about those ships that's exaggerated though, from their dimensions right on down to their firepower or mecha complements.

In the real world Its far more practical for them to build dedicated warships and dedicated Logistics Freighters.

Well, yes... but Robotech is sci-fi, not the real world. They have some well-established precedent for ships to have significant endurance when it comes to supplies, both from the series and the OSM. Admittedly, not the MOSPEADA OSM, since those ships were not extrasolar-capable and were basically built for one-way flights from Mars to Earth.

(seriously they put a wave motion gun on what is aparently a Logistics/Passenger ship!)

From what they've written on it, the SDF-4 was basically meant to be a literal mobile fortress... shuttling all of the troops, supplies, fighters, etc. that would be needed for a planetary assault and occupation effort in one package. The ship's big synchro cannon is part of that capability. (In a sense, it's a lot like the Space Marine battle barges from WH40K.) Tho in having that synchro cannon, they were just going with the flow of the OSM... in which the Izumo was just a colossal flagship built specifically for the final assault on Earth, and was more guns than anything else.

[Sgt Anjay]

Robotech's Infopedia volunteer writers seemed to almost be working with the intent to assign everything the most counter-intuitive or blatantly incorrect designation they could

Disagreed. While not the system I use in the infrequent occasions that issue comes up and I agree with you the addition of a military buff in the creative staff certainly wouldn’t hurt at all, it’s not really intolerably off as sci-fi series designations go.

From a translation standpoint (and they DID present this stuff as OSM-derived), their standard of work is somewhere south of abysmal.

I don't recall Robotech.com ever presenting them as the OSM ships, just that they referenced the OSM when coming up with stats. I can imagine that expecting the OSM and not getting it would be quite a shock, but I don't see where just translated OSM is ever what they were going for. Still, yes, quite well aware of your opinion of how wrong not adhering to the OSM is.

Take, for instance, their coverage of the Tokugawa-class. They assert that it's a battleship, then turn around and by the second paragraph they're telling us it's not a battleship at all, has no offensive armament worth a damn, and is actually a carrier design.

Uh, actually, that's not really how it's presented. They title the design a battleship, yes, but right under the ship title there it says "Also known as: Super-Carrier of the early Expeditionary Forces". So before even the first paragraph they let us know how the ship is actually referred to/used. And as for that first paragraph, its not shy about telling us that it doesn't have heavy weaponry as you would expect in a battleship, as "their main design features were too far along to be altered before production began, and as a result the ships do not benefit completely from the combat experience gained in the First Robotech War."

Basically, the thing was designed to be a pre-1st Robotech War battleship...so if it had been built as originally envisioned (a design we aren't privy to and never existed anyway), it would have been considered a battleship in the vein the Oberth was a destroyer and the Armor was a carrier, and backing up the battlefortresses which would've occupied the top of the ship food-chain. Then the 1st Robotech War happened, and humanity learned how off their designs were. For whatever reason, they decided the Tokugawa was worthwhile anyway (probably transport capacity, and/or longevity, the ships definitely demonstrate they had that considering how long the Tokugawa must have been in service) and built it configured more as a "supercarrier" instead.

[Seto Kaiba]

I don't recall Robotech.com ever presenting them as the OSM ships, just that they referenced the OSM when coming up with stats.

To be fair, they presented (and still do present) a not-inconsiderable portion of their material as having a strong basis in the OSM for the particulars of many designs... which is, by in large, not actually true. It's equally problematic that their work is often in contradiction with what's in the animation and dialogue of the Robotech series itself (e.g. what was discussed in the Ajax thread recently) or suffers from internal contradictions. As a consequence, its utility is limited at best and does not really live up to the promise of a reliable reference for the series.

Uh, actually, that's not really how it's presented. They title the design a battleship, yes, but right under the ship title there it says "Also known as: Super-Carrier of the early Expeditionary Forces". So before even the first paragraph they let us know how the ship is actually referred to/used.

Which does not, you must admit, do anything to diminish the contradiction of calling it a battleship and then turning around and describing it as anything but. (Indeed, the word "battleship" or any allusions to same are conspicuously absent in that class's description.) I have to admit that I disagree with your interpretation of the material, particularly in stating that the design was a pre-1st Robotech War battleship. The Infopedia entry describes it as an evolution of the ARMD, which was a space carrier, and only described as such in its own coverage. In fact, it refers to the Tokugawa as a "carrier design" in a similar vein to the ARMD, which does not fit with your interpretation of it as a redesignated battleship.

This sort of thing is exactly what I'm getting at though, there are very clear cases where assigned designations do not fit the description of the ship or how it's actually used... just as there are very clear, very obvious cases where the Infopedia stats do not match the expressed capabilities or combat performance of the mecha in the series proper. (Yes, I mean the Southern Cross mecha in particular, which are really, REALLY shortsold.)


EDIT: On re-reading this after posting, I realize this sounds more than a little arch. I'm not trying to be, I promise.

[Sgt Anjay]

I don't recall Robotech.com ever presenting them as the OSM ships, just that they referenced the OSM when coming up with stats.

To be fair, they presented (and still do present) a not-inconsiderable portion of their material as having a strong basis in the OSM for the particulars of many designs... which is, by in large, not actually true.

That's...hard to say anything about, actually, since it's so very vague. This thing that was said this time in that place was definitely wrong. Uh, maybe?

Uh, actually, that's not really how it's presented. They title the design a battleship, yes, but right under the ship title there it says "Also known as: Super-Carrier of the early Expeditionary Forces". So before even the first paragraph they let us know how the ship is actually referred to/used.

Which does not, you must admit, do anything to diminish the contradiction of calling it a battleship and then turning around and describing it as anything but.

Disagree. If it was supposed to be one thing then used as another...kinda like how lots of cruiser hulls ended up as aircraft carriers, hence the CV (cruiser, heaVier-than-air carrier, or something like that) as the standard use designators for aircraft carriers, then at worst them calling it a battleship is simply confusing or poorly presented data.

And I think we both agree the infopedia is not exactly well presented data, even where that data might be accurate.

I have to admit that I disagree with your interpretation of the material, particularly in stating that the design was a pre-1st Robotech War battleship.

And you're absolutely welcome to. Just presenting a point of view.

(Yes, I mean the Southern Cross mecha in particular, which are really, REALLY shortsold.)

If by shortsold you mean they don't seem to be given their due, this would be something else we are in agreement on.

I must be mistaken though, cause everyone knows there's no way there could be two things we agree on!

[Seto Kaiba]

That's...hard to say anything about, actually, since it's so very vague. This thing that was said this time in that place was definitely wrong. Uh, maybe?

Let's just say that 99 times out of 100 their information is either not OSM at all, or misquoted/distorted beyond the point where it's actually accurate or usable.

Disagree. If it was supposed to be one thing then used as another...kinda like how lots of cruiser hulls ended up as aircraft carriers, hence the CV (cruiser, heaVier-than-carrier) as the standard use designators for aircraft carriers, then at worst them calling it a battleship is simply confusing or poorly presented data.

I'm not seeing it, man... and believe you me, I'm trying. There's nothing in there about the Tokugawa being designed as anything other than a carrier, and they make a meal of how it's a carrier design and the ultimate extent of development of the Armor-class carriers. Everything there points to the Tokugawa-class as the ARMD's successor, designed, built, and fielded as an aircraft carrier of truly spectacular scale. (Which would make perfect sense, considering the way it's used... except in Prelude. One doth not send an aircraft carrier to go hunting what is essentially a destroyer ALONE, unless you really have something against the captain.)

(Yes, I mean the Southern Cross mecha in particular, which are really, REALLY shortsold.)

If by shortsold you mean they don't seem to be given their due, this would be something else we are in agreement on.

I must be mistaken though, cause everyone knows there's no way there could be two things we agree on!

Better check outside... it might be raining frogs or something similarly untoward. The SCA mecha got a lot of downgrades foisted on 'em by the Infopedia stats, several of which directly contradict dialogue in the Robotech series itself. For others, the stats just don't line up with the visuals of the design itself (like the whole Ajax thread discussion).

[Sgt Anjay]

Better check outside... it might be raining frogs or something similarly untoward. The SCA mecha got a lot of downgrades foisted on 'em by the Infopedia stats, several of which directly contradict dialogue in the Robotech series itself. For others, the stats just don't line up with the visuals of the design itself (like the whole Ajax thread discussion).

Fair enough. I'll be damned. Calling this a win for there always being common ground for people to find, and leaving well enough alone.

[glitterboy2098]

back on the original topic... you get to crawl around the inside of a Garfish in the Robotech Invasion video game. true, it's a crashed garfish that's upside down, but if you can find a map for that level, you might be able to extrapolate from there.

[Drakenred®™©]

To be fair theres a lot of retconing that can happen in or after production.(BSG for example changed the number of weapon mounts and sub craft carried by diferent craft in there "Offical" Bible durring production, and aparently what ended up on screen did not match what was suposedly in the "Oficial bible" on more than one occasion) And lets be blunt the people who "remastered" the OSM into Robotech seem to know as mutch about how a military actualy works as the average person whos total exposure to Military reality was random Fictional War movies and TV showes.

That said there seems to be 3 types of ships officialy for the game,

Actual Warships (Garfish/Shimakaze)
Troop Transports (Ikazuchi)
Self propeled hybrid Warship Comand base Logistics Center and ARD (SDF3 and 4, also arguabley the SDF 1 and 2, although Originaly it would seem that the SDF 1 is was actualy a Monitor* that was rebuilt to human standards and the SDF 2 was a Redesigned SDF1 to the limmits of human Design capability)

*and dont get me started on that, for some reason the people at HG (and elsewhere) seem to visualise a "Monitor" as being some kind of Border patrol ship (that monitors things) and not as a "Rediculously overguned ship for its displacment" that is bascialy a floating costal battery for the most part .... or one of three British warship mounting a single 18 in gun in a semi fixed broadside mount because Lord John Fisher thought that arming a lightly armored ship with 2 of them was a good idea.**... and they ended up needing to do something usefull with them.

**And dont get me started on exactly how bad of an Idea THAT was

[glitterboy2098]

well, the monitor concept in real life was a kind of border patrol ship.. it was tasked with protecting territorial waters and managing shipping in them. it was just a big border patrol ship with a big honking gun, compared to generally smaller and lightly armed launches and cutters which saw most of the actual work. Monitors were generally shallow of draft and a bit top heavy.. they had sucky open ocean handling, so they were only really good for littorial and riverine work.

in macross, and in robotech in so far as anyone classifies anything, a Monitor seems to be any kind of ship built around a single very heavy weapon system, like the SDF-1 or the zentraedi Quiltra-Quelamitz (the ship Khyron does his kamikazi run in). basically a flying cannon with comparatively limited secondary combat systems.
the SDF-3 and those synchrocannon equipped Garfish variants we see at space Station Liberty would probably also qualify.

[ArmySGT.]

Speaking of Garfish variants........ This is definitely not a pod for nine Legios combos...

http://info.rtucn.net/epic/arm/sc-garfish.htm

[Seto Kaiba]

To be fair theres a lot of retconing that can happen in or after production. [...]

On a live-action series, or very poorly planned animated series... but the anime industry in general is usually more together than that. They usually have this stuff figured out and labeled on the animation model sheets themselves before they get to production of the animation, especially nowadays (Gundam and Macross sort of set this particular trend). In Robotech's case, it's simply the result of Harmony Gold lazily farming out the research and composition work to a fan group who presented themselves as having researched the OSM in detail.

And lets be blunt the people who "remastered" the OSM into Robotech seem to know as mutch about how a military actualy works as the average person whos total exposure to Military reality was random Fictional War movies and TV showes.

To be honest, the people who composed the Robotech.com Infopedia's original stats seem to have had issues with all sorts of things... written English comprehension and a sense of physical dimension being among them. It's actually quite amusing to go through the OSM and see how things went awry and where intentional deviations were made... it's like an autopsy of Robotech.

That said there seems to be 3 types of ships officialy for the game,

Actual Warships (Garfish/Shimakaze)
Troop Transports (Ikazuchi)
Self propeled hybrid Warship Comand base Logistics Center

's more like:
Mobile Headquarters (SDF-anything, carries a big gun, some fighters, a boatload of troops)
Big Vulnerable Carrier (Tokugawa/Ikazuchi, carries a lot of fighters, useless in a scrap)
Light warship/escort (Garfish/Shimakaze, not shooty, few fighters, mostly decorative)
Landing Craft (Horizon/Crusader, defenseless, carries ground forces)

*and dont get me started on that, for some reason the people at HG (and elsewhere) seem to visualise a "Monitor" as being some kind of Border patrol ship

"Monitor" is mostly a fan-use term for those ships... it isn't actually used in the official material for RT or the OSM. In OSM sources, ships like the SDF-1, the ship Kamjin/Khyron uses in Ep36, etc. are termed "Gun Destroyers", a definition that'd fit the Shimakaze too. They're long-range fleet escorts, built principally around massive guns with little else to fight with.

in macross, and in robotech in so far as anyone classifies anything, a Monitor seems to be any kind of ship built around a single very heavy weapon system, like the SDF-1 or the zentraedi Quiltra-Quelamitz (the ship Khyron does his kamikazi run in).

See the above, in Macross, the ships in question are officially classified as "medium-scale gun destroyer"... the term "monitor" is never used. The term "Gunboat" is sometimes used, to reflect that they're basically built around a single huge cannon that can also be used for bombardment of a planetary surface.

Speaking of Garfish variants........ This is definitely not a pod for nine Legios combos...

Ah, this old misconception...

You see, the term "Legioss" (yes, double "S") is the original name of what Robotech calls the "Alpha fighter". It's not, and never was, the correct term for the combined craft. The original name and designation of the Robotech version's VF/A-6 Alpha was the AFC-01 Legioss Armo-Fighter, and the VF/B-9 Beta was called the AB-01 T.L.E.A.D. Armo-Bomber (it was short for "Transport Legioss Escort Armored Dreadnought"). When I say the pod is for nine Legioss units, I mean that it's for nine AFC-01 Legioss armo-fighters (or nine Alphas, by RT's terms). The only ships in Genesis Climber MOSPEADA that carried AB-01 TLEAD armo-bombers or Legioss+TLEAD combiners was the Horizont-type descent shuttle, which had one combiner docked to its ventral umbilical and its lander pods were sufficiently roomy to carry a single AB-01 TLEAD armo-bomber (properly anchored to the decking).

[ArmySGT.]

Speaking of Garfish variants........ This is definitely not a pod for nine Legios combos...

Ah, this old misconception...

You see, the term "Legioss" (yes, double "S") is the original name of what Robotech calls the "Alpha fighter". It's not, and never was, the correct term for the combined craft. The original name and designation of the Robotech version's VF/A-6 Alpha was the AFC-01 Legioss Armo-Fighter, and the VF/B-9 Beta was called the AB-01 T.L.E.A.D. Armo-Bomber (it was short for "Transport Legioss Escort Armored Dreadnought"). When I say the pod is for nine Legioss units, I mean that it's for nine AFC-01 Legioss armo-fighters (or nine Alphas, by RT's terms). The only ships in Genesis Climber MOSPEADA that carried AB-01 TLEAD armo-bombers or Legioss+TLEAD combiners was the Horizont-type descent shuttle, which had one combiner docked to its ventral umbilical and its lander pods were sufficiently roomy to carry a single AB-01 TLEAD armo-bomber (properly anchored to the decking).

So it is an even more useless mecha than previously imagined...... great.

[Seto Kaiba]

So it is an even more useless mecha than previously imagined...... great.

Hey now, the Alpha's supposed to be the latest, greatest thing in the UEEF arsenal... though it supposedly has only a short operational range in space, a lower flight ceiling, slower top speed, has lower maneuverability and physical agility, less powerful armament, and no operational versatility to speak of. Wait, where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, the Garfish-class and Ikazuchi-class from the original Genesis Climber MOSPEADA were not actually designed for deep space operation... and in truth did not even possess faster-than-light capability. The Ikazuchi really served as an escort carrier intended to protect the more important and numerous Garfish-class transports and descent shuttles once they reached Earth orbit after the short hop from the colonial forces staging area on the moon. Their mission profile was basically to pick off Inbit ships from afar with their cannons while their fighters escorted the shuttles down, then return to the staging area to pick up reinforcements after a beachhead was established. The Garfish-class carried the nine Legioss armo-fighters to provide its own reentry escort detail... it wasn't really meant to operate as a proper carrier for any length of time.

The UEEF seems to take after its OSM Mars Colony counterpart with its tactical approach... the big battles in space are an expensive sideshow to the real action, which is orbit-to-surface assault. The Robotech version just gave them a fold system to get around the galaxy, but otherwise didn't really change their operational profile much.

[Drakenred®™©]

[...]
To be honest, the people who composed the Robotech.com Infopedia's original stats seem to have had issues with all sorts of things... written English comprehension and a sense of physical dimension being among them. It's actually quite amusing to go through the OSM and see how things went awry and where intentional deviations were made... it's like an autopsy of Robotech.

In all fairness they got things wrong in both directions, if the Scale Guide I have for the factory ship is accurate the Guesstimate of the docking capacity should fit in one of the pods assuming that each spacedock would have a 100m margin in all directions. To be fair, the issue is just how mutch tunneling had taken place in thoes rocks. (incidentaly unless the linked asteroids were pure carbon they should have more or less "rounded" themselves Gravitationaly in the real universe, but thats another topic)

That said there seems to be 3 types of ships officialy for the game,

Actual Warships (Garfish/Shimakaze)
Troop Transports (Ikazuchi)
Self propeled hybrid Warship Comand base Logistics Center

's more like:
Mobile Headquarters (SDF-anything, carries a big gun, some fighters, a boatload of troops)
Big Vulnerable Carrier (Tokugawa/Ikazuchi, carries a lot of fighters, useless in a scrap)
Light warship/escort (Garfish/Shimakaze, not shooty, few fighters, mostly decorative)
Landing Craft (Horizon/Crusader, defenseless, carries ground forces)

I was overgeneralising.

*and dont get me started on that, for some reason the people at HG (and elsewhere) seem to visualise a "Monitor" as being some kind of Border patrol ship

"Monitor" is mostly a fan-use term for those ships... it isn't actually used in the official material for RT or the OSM. In OSM sources, ships like the SDF-1, the ship Kamjin/Khyron uses in Ep36, etc. are termed "Gun Destroyers", a definition that'd fit the Shimakaze too. They're long-range fleet escorts, built principally around massive guns with little else to fight with.

in macross, and in robotech in so far as anyone classifies anything, a Monitor seems to be any kind of ship built around a single very heavy weapon system, like the SDF-1 or the zentraedi Quiltra-Quelamitz (the ship Khyron does his kamikazi run in).

See the above, in Macross, the ships in question are officially classified as "medium-scale gun destroyer"... the term "monitor" is never used. The term "Gunboat" is sometimes used, to reflect that they're basically built around a single huge cannon that can also be used for bombardment of a planetary surface.

Ironicaly they may have gotten that mistake from a Translation of one of the books Avalible in Japan from Tamiya(sp?) and others that sometimes refers to the WWI and WWII British Bombardment Monitors as "Medium" or "Heavy Gun" Light cruisers or Destroyers and then jumped to the conclusion that the creators ment Monitor. (partly because they for whatever reason are not allways reffered to as Monitors because they were Basicaly ment to shell Costal and inland areas, and not engage in Ship to ship combat)

[Seto Kaiba]

In all fairness they got things wrong in both directions, if the Scale Guide I have for the factory ship is accurate the Guesstimate of the docking capacity should fit in one of the pods assuming that each spacedock would have a 100m margin in all directions.

Officially, the factory satellite in Macross is fairly massive, being up to 3,000km across in places. It's literally a small moon size-wise, and can be seen from Earth's surface even though it's at an Earth-Moon Lagrange point.

I cannot speak to the accuracy of your scale guide, but "bigger than huge by a lot" is fair.

Ironicaly they may have gotten that mistake from a Translation of one of the books Avalible in Japan from Tamiya(sp?).

Almost certainly not.

The creators of the original Macross are big, BIG military buffs. Their choice of term was likely influenced by the fact that the hull classification of "monitor" is no longer in use, and that both "gun destroyer" and "gunboat" better fit the ships in question.

[Drakenred®™©]

The creators of the original Macross are big, BIG military buffs. Their choice of term was likely influenced by the fact that the hull classification of "monitor" is no longer in use, and that both "gun destroyer" and "gunboat" better fit the ships in question.

That would be an understatment,Shōji Kawamori not only had a "Recomended reading" list that runs from Mayhan (virtualy every book and lecture) to several books from Kōkan Senshi (some of which he aparently had more pages of notes from cross referenceing other sources than the books has pages) to several diferent Histories of The Imperial German Navy, but he also aparently has several hundred Books of Blueprints and archetectual renderings of Ships and aircraft

[Seto Kaiba]

That would be an understatment,Shōji Kawamori not only had a "Recomended reading" list [...]

While I'm familiar with Kawamori's remarks on his real-world interest in aviation engineering from his interviews in Macross: Perfect Memory, his Macross Design Works book, and various hobby magazines, I'm not aware of any occasion on which he cited a list of "recommended reading" titles. Can you please source your remark?

[Deathknight69]

Thanks for the help and lively debate guys.

[ArmySGT.]

In case you need some ideas on what to do with a Zentraedi "Landing Ship" which, as we can see from U.S. Navy terminology is a very broad category.

Then you can use the "Craft" ideas to flesh out purpose built Horizont bunkers.

Taken from........http://www.history.navy.mil/books/opnav20-p1000/l.htm

LSB -- Landing Ship, Bombardment
LSD -- Landing Ship, Dock
LSH(L) -- Landing Ship, Headquarters (Large)
LSH(S) -- Landing Ship, Headquarters (Small)
LSM -- Landing Ship, Medium
LSM(R) -- Landing Ship, Medium (Rocket)
LST -- Landing Ship, Tank
LST(H) -- Landing Ship, Tank (Casualty Evacuation)
LSV -- Landing Ship, Vehicle
LSX -- Landing Ship Planned
LANCRA -- Landing Craft
LB -- Landing Barge(s)
LBE -- Landing Barge, Emergency Repair
LBE -- Landing Barge, Oiler
LBK -- Landing Barge, Kitchen
LBS -- Landing Barge, Support
LBV -- Landing Barge, Vehicle
LC or L/C -- Landing Craft
LCA -- Landing Craft, Assault
LCC -- Landing Craft, Control
LCC (1) -- Landing Craft, Control (Mark I)
LCC (2) -- Landing Craft, Control (Mark II)
LCE -- Landing Craft, Emergency Repair
LCEOP -- Landing Craft, Engine Overhaul Parties
LCF -- Landing Craft, Flak
LC(FF) -- Landing Craft, Flotilla Flagship
LCG(L) -- Landing Craft, Gun, (Large)
LCGM -- Landing Craft, Gunboat
LCGP -- Landing Craft, Group
LCI -- Landing Craft, Infantry
LCIDiv -- LCI Division
LCIFlot -- LCI Flotilla
LCI(G) -- Landing Craft, Infantry Gunboat
LCIGrp -- LCI Group
LCI(L) -- Landing Craft, Infantry, Large
LCILFlot -- LCI(L) Flotilla
LCI(M) -- Landing Craft, Infantry (Mortar Ship)
LCI(R) -- Landing Craft, Infantry (Rocket Ship)
LCM -- Landing Craft, Mechanized
LCM(1) -- Landing Craft, Mechanized, Mark I
LCM(2) -- Landing Craft, Mechanized, Mark II
LCM(3) -- Landing Craft, Mechanized, Mark III
LCM(6) -- Landing Craft, Mechanized, Mark VI
LCMSO -- Landing Craft Material Supply Officer
LCN -- Landing Craft, Navigation
LCOCU -- Landing Craft, Obstruction Clearance Unit
LCP -- Landing Craft, Personnel
LCP(L) -- Landing Craft, Personnel (Large)
LCP(M) -- Landing Craft, Personnel (Medium)
LCP(N) -- Landing Craft, Personnel (Nested)
LCP(P) -- Landing Craft, Personnel (Plastic)
LCP(R) -- Landing Craft, Personnel (Ramp)
LCP(Sy) -- Landing Craft, Personnel(Survey)
LCR(L) -- Landing Craft, Rubber (Large)
LCR(R) -- Landing Craft, Rubber (Rocket)
LCR(S) -- Landing Craft, Rubber (Small)
LCRU -- Landing Craft, Recovery Unit
LCS(L)(3) -- Landing Craft, Support (Large) (Mark III)
LCS(M) -- Landing Craft, Support (Medium)
LCS(R) -- Landing Craft, Support (Rocket)
LCS(S) -- Landing Craft, Support (Small)
LCS(S)(1) -- Landing Craft, Support (Small) (Mark I)
LCS(S)(2) -- Landing Craft, Support (Small) (Mark II)
LCT -- Landing Craft, Tank
LCT(5) -- Landing Craft, Tank (Mark V)
LCT(6) -- Landing Craft, Tank (Mark VI)
LCT(A) -- Landing Craft, Tank (Armored)
LCV -- Landing Craft, Vehicle
LCVP -- Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel

"Lion" -- A large advanced base unit consisting of all the personnel and material necessary for the establishment of a major, all-purpose naval base. It is made up of a large number of functional components which enables the base to perform voyage repairs and repair minor battle damage to a major portion of a fleet.

[GrimmReaper]

Looking at my 1st edition Sentinels book the garfish carried 6 to 8 destroids with at least one of those a MAC II or A MAC III . I dont have any books for the new generation yet in second edition got TSHC ans macross and the masters. All my other books are first edition plus what I have found on line for ships and such.

[Seto Kaiba]

Looking at my 1st edition Sentinels book the garfish carried 6 to 8 destroids with at least one of those a MAC II or A MAC III . I dont have any books for the new generation yet in second edition got TSHC ans macross and the masters. All my other books are first edition plus what I have found on line for ships and such.

Yeah, it definitely doesn't do that anymore.

The official Garfish-class spec. indicates that it can carry 15 Alpha fighters in its hangar, but doesn't mention carrying mecha in the cargo hold. Mind you, the official spec is at odds with the official art, which indicates the ship is about 1/2 the stated size and holds just 9 Alphas. Either way, you'd have a real hard time getting a Monster on board... the enlarged size in the official spec. gives the ship just 33m of head room at maximum cross-section, and the Monster's 24m tall and 41m long. It'd take up the entire front half of the ship.

[taalismn]

The official Garfish-class spec. indicates that it can carry 15 Alpha fighters in its hangar, but doesn't mention carrying mecha in the cargo hold. Mind you, the official spec is at odds with the official art, which indicates the ship is about 1/2 the stated size and holds just 9 Alphas. Either way, you'd have a real hard time getting a Monster on board... the enlarged size in the official spec. gives the ship just 33m of head room at maximum cross-section, and the Monster's 24m tall and 41m long. It'd take up the entire front half of the ship.

From that description, I have this amusing image in my mind of a Garfish sprouting Heavy Howard arms protruding out the sides, gun barrels sticking up forward, and a pair of big booty feet dangling underneath...
That, and the same assemblage waddling across a landing field to a hangar.

[ShadowLogan]

From that description, I have this amusing image in my mind of a Garfish sprouting Heavy Howard arms protruding out the sides, gun barrels sticking up forward, and a pair of big booty feet dangling underneath...
That, and the same assemblage waddling across a landing field to a hangar

Based on the Infopedia size for the Garfish and the Monster, it could fit within the hull completely. Odds are though 1 Monster would take up any and all space (not saying you couldn't cram some stuff in w/it to share the foot print area).

The official Garfish-class spec. indicates that it can carry 15 Alpha fighters in its hangar, but doesn't mention carrying mecha in the cargo hold. Mind you, the official spec is at odds with the official art, which indicates the ship is about 1/2 the stated size and holds just 9 Alphas. Either way, you'd have a real hard time getting a Monster on board... the enlarged size in the official spec. gives the ship just 33m of head room at maximum cross-section, and the Monster's 24m tall and 41m long. It'd take up the entire front half of the ship.

Re: Alpha
And the Animation is shown to have the Garfish launch more than 9 Alpha/Legois. In NG#1 a garfish launch bays are shown in the 3 per row and 2 per column stack (so 6) with 2 simultaneous flights of 6 launching (one after the other). Its not 15, but it is also more than 9. And IIRC there is a shot that has 3 waves.

Re: Monster (Spec Size per Infoepdia)
Garfish Spec: 179m long x 59m wide 33m tall main body (56m w/hangers)
Monster Specs are 22.1m long w/o barrels (41.1m w/) x 22.5m tall x 24m wide.

Given the RT.com infopedia's stated barrel life (30 shots) of the 40cm cannons on the Monster (even w/o it though), one could save space w/re to the Monster in a Garfish by having the barrels removed during transit. Military attack helicopters are partially disassembled when transported by cargo plane after all. So that would be one way to transport a Monster destroid by Garfish potentially.

Alternatively if they are using a new weapons configuration, something like putting beam cannons in the arms instead of missiles and replacing the 40cm cannons with missile launchers to remove the need for those ~20m barrels. But something like this is pure speculation w/re to RT at this time.

Either way though the Monster is probably going to eat up a lot of the available space, so anything else it transports will have to use the open voids left in the hold by the Monster on the floor. That or the Monster is going to have to be carried externally.

[Seto Kaiba]

Based on the Infopedia size for the Garfish and the Monster, it could fit within the hull completely.

Theoretically, yes... but there is the slight problem that the interior of the ship has to have things like crew quarters, supplies, and other essentials, and the rather-less-slight problem of the Garfish-class cargo bay seen in the series itself being far too small and with too low a ceiling for anything much larger than a Silverback or Cyclone. You could make destroids fit inside if you gut the interior, but there's no way to get them in or out on the series version, and the RTSC version dispenses with the possibility entirely.

After all, the Garfish-class is not a large cargo hauler... they have Horizonts for that.

And the Animation is shown to have the Garfish launch more than 9 Alpha/Legois.

An acknowledged piece of off-model animation shows this, yes... but, as I noted before, a quick look at the production line art that's right there on the Infopedia next to the stats, shows it's clearly impossible. (Because the creators of MOSPEADA intended that ship to carry nine fighters, and sized it accordingly.)

(Amusingly, the Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles CG models for the Garfish and Ikazuchi classes are presented as only slightly larger than their OSM sizes of ~80m and 300m respectively.)

[ShadowLogan]

Theoretically, yes... but there is the slight problem that the interior of the ship has to have things like crew quarters, supplies, and other essentials, and the rather-less-slight problem of the Garfish-class cargo bay seen in the series itself being far too small and with too low a ceiling for anything much larger than a Silverback or Cyclone. You could make destroids fit inside if you gut the interior, but there's no way to get them in or out on the series version, and the RTSC version dispenses with the possibility entirely.

After all, the Garfish-class is not a large cargo hauler... they have Horizonts for that.

I agree its theoretical based on the Infopedia size. IINM the stock Horizon Bunkers are to small to carry a RDF Monster (or even the REF version) based on the 1E RPG's stated size for the bunkers (~10m tall x ~10m wide), so either they have their own specialized bunkers or they are carried exposed (this approach can also be used for the Garfish). That assumes the UEEF even uses the older Monster, they might not even make allowances for it if they don't use it (the REF MAC3 is smaller than the Monster, so might be a different matter).

But as I also stated, there are ways to make it fit/work on a more practical level. You can certainly save required space by removing the barrels (given the "hover ability", it could also curl up to save additional space), or using a different weapons packages. You can break the mecha down into more manageable chunks to transport, it has the downside of not being ready when you arrive but is not without precedent. Door size is an issue, but are we sure there aren't other "doors" they can use to move it outside (like down into the hangar modules)?

Lets also remember that w/n canon there are 3 separate versions of the Garfish that we can discern: Old Timer/Standard, Science Vessel (TSC), and presumably the modified ones with the "maw" effect for the SyncroCannon BFG seen at SSL (TSC). That opens up the possibility of specially/specifically configured Garfish for the task, so I am not going to dispute that the old timers version's ability, but given we have at least 3 versions by the time of TSC I don't think its possible to rule out a variant for the task completely. Plus in the comics (Love & War #1) they are shown to be used to deploy/retrieve VHT-2s from the hangar modules, suggesting that the hangar modules are really where ground troops would be carried (probably at the cost of air power).

An acknowledged piece of off-model animation shows this, yes... but, as I noted before, a quick look at the production line art that's right there on the Infopedia next to the stats, shows it's clearly impossible. (Because the creators of MOSPEADA intended that ship to carry nine fighters, and sized it accordingly.)

The OSM aspect really doesn't necessarily apply to RT given how much they cherry pick form the OSM material and production errors (making some "real" and ignoring others).