Confederation Lexington class Heavy Carrier (Wing Commander):

The Lexington class heavy carrier is a the Confederation Fleet's newest and most advanced fleet carrier design. The first ship of the class was laid down in 2664 along with the Confederation class dreadnought and the Jutland class attack carrier being started just prior to the Lexington class carrier. Unlike the dreadnought and attack carriers, the Lexington class was designed to be mass produced with the hope that the new carriers would finally squeeze the life out of the Kilrathi military. The first vessel of the class, given the name Lexington after the famous World War Two carrier, was built at the Trojan IV shipyards along with the entire first flight of the class. Considered the pinnacle of Terran naval thought and development, the Lexington class carriers were designed with the many lessons learned from fighting the Kilrathi for the past thirty plus years. The Lexington class was developed as a replacement for the aging Concordia class carriers like the Eagle class light carrier was developed as a replacement for the Ranger class light carrier. Unlike the Ranger class, there was no plans to decommission the remaining Concordia class carriers.

One of its most distinguished characteristic of the class is that in addition to the primary launch bay that runs along the hull's length, there are two smaller launch/landing bays. These secondary landing bays are on either side of the carrier's hull, and they are connected to the main bay and the main hangar storage deck by large armored blast doors. This feature was to maintain the heavy carrier's launch capability, as throughout the War the Kilrathi were notorious for hitting the launch bays, disabling any further means to launch fighters and crippling the carrier. Lexington-class carriers can take critical hits in two launch bays and still keep on fighting by shifting fighters from one bay to another.

When compared to the previous Concordia class fleet carrier, the Lexington class heavy carriers is considerably larger and mounts a much greater defensive weapon array. The latest flight IIA weaponry upgrade consists of a trio of defensive missile launchers and a dozen heavy laser turrets. The ship also has the most powerful phase force fields and are heavily armored against attack. The carrier's embarks a slightly larger embarked fighter with than the Concordia class with a total of one hundred and twenty craft including eighty fighters, twenty bombers, and twenty support craft. While the Lexington class heavy carriers are more expensive to construct than the Concordia class, the design of the new carrier is refined for faster mass production than the Confederation and Jutland classes.

The Lexington class fleet carriers are one of Confederation Navy's most powerful naval designs and is already considered a great asset to the Confederation forces in the front. These ships only entered service after the Kilrathi attack against Earth and it shows that humanity can bounce back from any adversity and emerge victorious. While the Lexington was laid down first, the Saratoga was the first ship to enter service. It was commissioned just before the attack against Earth but had not been completed. Three incomplete hulls had been destroyed under construction at the Battle of Earth. The last several vessels of the class were named after famous presidents of either the Terran Confederation or the ancient democratic nations which eventually became it.

Notes of game conversion:

Because of the nature of the Video Game / Novel series “Wing Commander” and the needs to put the starship into game mechanics, the starship has several modification compared to the Video Game and Novels. The most important change it to change top speed to acceleration. Like fighters in Star Wars and original Battlestar Galactica, the fighters appear to act as if they are in the atmosphere even when they operating in space. This is incorrect. The Television series Babylon 5 and the new Battlestar Galactic are good series to watch to get a clearer idea on how space vehicles would probably maneuver although still not a perfect perspective. The starship has been modified to uses my revised phase world starship rules and can hold their own against most C.A.F and Kreeghor starships. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World / Three Galaxies for more details.

Model Type: CVA-61
Vehicle Type: Heavy Carrier
Crew: 4,000 (90 Officers, 80 Chief Petty Officers, and 3,830 Enlisted)
Troops / Passengers: 160 fighter pilots. Has flag facilities for up to 120 additional personnel Can embark up to 600 marines for assault missions although the carrier is extremely overcrowded.

Vehicles:
Fighter Compliment:

	36	Light Starfighters (Normally F-96B Arrow Light Fighter)
	24	Medium Starfighters (Normally F-86C Hellcat V Medium Fighter)
	20	Heavy Starfighters (Normally F-66A Thunderbolt VII Heavy Fighter)
	20	Heavy Fighter / Bombers (Normally F/A-76A Longbow Fighter / Bombers)

Other vehicles:

General Purpose Shuttles

M.D.C. By Location:

	Heavy Laser Cannon Turrets (12):	300 each
	Long Range Missile Launcher (3):	500 each
	Large Hanger Hay:	8,000
	Small Hanger Bays (2):	5,000 each
	[1] Main Bridge:	8,500
	[1] Auxiliary Bridge:	8,500
	[2] Engineering section:	25,000
	Main Engines (2):	10,500 each
	[3] Main Body:	45,000
	[4] Variable Force Field:	8,000 per side (48,000 Total)

Notes:
[1] In reality this is how much damage needs to be done for a weapon to hit the bridge through the ship’s armor. This ship also has an auxiliary bridge. Even if both bridges are destroyed, the ship can still be piloted from engineering but ship is -3 to dodge and all weapon systems will be at local control. Weapon hits near the bridge that do not penetrate the ships integrity can injure crew members on or near the bridge.
[2] Destroying the engineering section means that ship FTL propulsion systems are destroyed and maximum sublight acceleration is reduced to ten percent of normal (using navigational thrusters).
[3] Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body will put the carrier out of commission. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck.
[4] Shields positions can be varied and all could be combined in one shield. Shields regenerate at the rate of 5% (2,400 M.D.C.) per melee.

Speed:
Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.
Sublight: Has a special sublight engine that allows the ship to travel up to 60 percent of the speed of light. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.32 percent of light per melee.
Atmospheric Propulsion: The carrier cannot operate within an atmosphere. If the ship enters an atmosphere, it will crash.
Stardrive: The carrier mounts a jump drive which is capable of jumping instantly from a fixed point in a system to another fixed point in a system. These points are weaknesses in the fabric of space and have been mapped in most cases. Fuel is hydrogen which the carrier scoops from space to fuel the jump engine.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. The carrier has about four years worth of supplies on board.

Statistical Data:
Length: 3,034.8 feet (925 meters)
Height: 789.0 feet (240.5 meters) for hull and 921.3 feet (280.8 meters) including antenna
Width: 1051.5 feet (320.5 meters)
Weight: 104,710 Tons (95,000 metric tons) fully loaded
Power System: Fusion with a 20 year life span. The ship normally only goes 5 years between refueling.
Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 12,000 tons of cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition. Each enlisted crew member has a small locker for personal items and uniforms. Ships officers have more space for personal items. Most of the ships spaces are take up by extra ammunition, armor, troops, weapons, engine, and other equipment.
Market Cost: The Lexington class heavy carrier costs around 34 billion credits to manufacture not including fighter compliment. Fighter compliment cost approximately 5.77 billion credits.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Twelve (12) Heavy Point Defense Lasers in Dual Mounts: Twelve total on top, bottom, port, and starboard side. All can fire forward and aft. Each Turret can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. Individually more powerful than the lasers mounted on fighters and have a longer range. Compared to point defense weaponry carried on most starships within the Three Galaxies, the weapon mounts have a longer range.
Maximum Effective Range: 4,971 miles (8,000 km) in space and 24.85 miles (40 km) in an atmosphere.
Mega-Damage: 4D6x10 M.D.
Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the Gunner (usually 4 or 5).
Payload: Effectively Unlimited
Two (2) Long Range Missile Batteries: Missile has a top speed of Mach 20 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 8% of light per turn (faster than any starship). Since star ships will no longer engage at rock throwing distances, whether weapons can be shot down is calculated from the speed of target, launcher, and missile. When drive goes dead, missile will continue to travel in a straight line unless set to self destruct but has very low odds of hitting star ships (Great for hitting bases and planets because target does not move and missile, when unpowered, is at -25% to be detected.) Long range missiles do not have penalties to hit small targets unlike cruise missiles and are all considered smart missiles. Battery can launch on multiple targets each at the same time.
Maximum Effective Range: Missile range is 3400 miles (5470 km) in an atmosphere and 1,800,000 miles (2,897,000 km/9.7 light seconds) in space.
Mega-Damage & Properties: See revised Phase World / Three Galaxies missile tables for details (Fusion warheads inflict 2D4x100 M.D.C. each.)
Rate of Fire: One at a time or in volleys of 2 or 4 per launcher, per melee attack.
Payload: 216 total, 72 long range missiles per battery.

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CGI / Artwork of starship created by Wing Commander Saga Team. Picture taken from Wing Commander CIC.

Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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