Talk:Gunship

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Class name

Now literally speaking the kanji translates as "lightning attack boat" which I suppose could be translated as "blitzkrieg ship". In the DVD encyclopedia it has a subtitle of weltall-zerstörerisch, which from what I can tell is not exactly meaningful. I have chosen to translate the ship class as "gunship" to avoid any confusion with actual destroyers, and because it fills an anti-ship strike role. I suppose "bomber" might be another option but it is hardly ever shown bombing anything. Iracundus 13:48, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I always called it a gunship myself as well. BTW, in MCISS we see that those modules can fire the usual blue beams - same when Merkatz uses them in Episode 22 (both at the start of the episode and the end). Vympel 13:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I know, but beams does not necessarily preclude them still being rail guns as the Imperial ground tanks are explicitly said to have rail cannons yet when it fires it fires what looks like a beam. Iracundus 13:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The difference there is that the tank cannons of the Gaiden have a distinct behavior that isn't like the beams seen in space battles. Most tellingly, we see in Episode 22 that the beams of Merkatz' gunships track over the hulls of their targets (check the opener of Episode 22 vs Reuenthal). That shouldn't be possible for a rail gun. The round is a solid projectile that can only impact at one point. The beams in MCISS also blink intermittently in exactly the same fashion as those of capital ship guns seen elsewhere throughout the battle. Vympel 14:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't see any tracking in Episode 22. I see 3 shots impacting the dorsal engines of an Imperial battleship, in close succession, but still 3 distinct white glowing impact points as opposed to any burned furrow as one sees in Episode 79 when Poplin burns one into the hull of an Imperial cruiser. Three shots impacting in close succession can be still be clusters of rail guns firing one after another. By the way, which behaviour about the tank cannons are you referring to? Iracundus 15:22, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Watching frame by frame you're right, there' three impacts, but they're all coming from the same beam playing along the hull. If that's a rail gun it implies a very high rate of fire- it could just as easily be the beam is fluctuating in intensity, same as the intermittent blinking beam intensity in MCISS. If that's a railgun, they're hiding it really well. Meanwhile the ONW weapons are obviously projectiles, and may well be the railguns referred to in the licensed material. As for the tank cannon behavior, in Silver-White Valley, we see that the tank shells don't propagate instantly (presumably at c) like LOGH space weapons no matter the distance- they take time to reach a target. Watch the attack on the Imperial base at the end of Chapter 3 of Silver-White Valley, its the most obvious there that they're distinct "bolts" rather than the instantly propagating beams of LOGH energy weapons (Kircheis shooting at whatshisface on Reinhard's command as well). Vympel 01:49, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Point taken. I've edited the article to mention a beam weapon armed variant. Personally from a real life perspective I suspect the beams were more commonly shown because they were easier to draw and animate compared to the projectile firing seen in ONW. Iracundus 03:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

One possibility I thought of was that given the differences in production (for some reason the gunship wasn't seen again after Season 2) is that maybe when they made ONW they were aware of the licensed material talking about projectile weapons and decided to add them in? That would depend on publication dates and stuff though. LOGH's energy weapons are one of my favorite tech things about the show - its a refreshing change from the barely supersonic bolts of most sci-fi. Vympel 03:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The Databook came out in 1999 so it is well after the main series. Aside from the additional effort to aninmate and track a projectile as opposed to just painting in a beam, perhaps another reason is that the Empire has never really been that attack craft focused compared to the Alliance. In the Databook stuff there is some suggestion that the Empire's development of carriers for example was a reactionary move to the Alliance after the Alliance showed their usefulness, however even so most of the Imperial characters (aside from Merkatz and Kempf before his promotion) seem to be capital ship focused. Thus after Merkatz had gone over to Yang, the gunships may still have been in use in later seasons but just never occupying as key a role or amassed into such numbers as Merktaz seemed to do, and so never got any more camera time focused on them. The miserable performance of the Valkyries at the Eleventh Battle of Iserlohn, and the fact there is only 1 Imperial ace mentioned (after Kempf is promoted), also perhaps suggests the Imperial fighter pilots do not enjoy the same flamboyance or prestige of their Alliance counterparts.

The existence of non-energy weapons in LOGH at all is I suspect due to in-universe cost and power considerations. Instead of another energy guzzling beam weapon, a projectile weapon (even if a railgun using powered rails to accelerate its projectile) may be a cheap cost effective way to increase damage output when power and/or internal space (for more power supply) is limited. The downside would of course be the range and accuracy. Iracundus 04:51, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI, Japanese Wikipedia seems to reference this class name: 砲艦（ガン・シップ）  ♥ kine @ 15:50, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I did a little searching and found out that "雷撃" as mentioned in the DVD features sketch can mean "torpedo attack", and that the torpedo bomber is "雷撃機" in Japanese. Granted, the actual torpedo boat class is translated as "水雷艇" in Japanese, but it is not hard to see that this ship class is supposed to be the equivalent of torpedo boats. Any thoughts? Glacierfairy 06:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

This is a tricky thing. 水雷 is actually mine. Torpedo is 魚雷 and torpedo boat is 魚雷艇. However, I would argue that the English connotations of the phrase torpedo boat implies use of guided munitions, which we see the craft do once only, in the movie. At other times it is firing beams, railguns, or dropping what seem to be unguided bombs. It appears to be more of a multi-role strike craft rather than just a "torpedo" carrying craft. Iracundus 07:12, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I see. That's a fair enough observation, I guess. Glacierfairy 22:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Gallery

Alliance tank round

Imperial tank round