TCS Midway
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The Midway-class Heavy Fleet Carrier ("Megacarrier") is a fictional starship in the Wing Commander universe. The first operational ship of this class, TCS Midway was commissioned in 2680(1).
The Midway was conceived by Commodore Christopher Blair around 2675(2) as a lower-cost alternative to the expensive Vesuvius-class heavy fleet carrier then entering the fleet. Unlike the Vesuvius, which was dedicated entirely to naval combat, the Midway carried a complement of 1500 marines and a dedicated science team.(3)
Midway represented a radical change in Confederation carrier design. Unlike the classic through-deck hanger design that marked many previous carriers, Midway had six launch tubes and two receiving bays for flight operations. This meant that the large internal hanger void was no longer exposed, but this configuration could not launch fighters as quickly and was initially unreliable. In addition, she only carried some 252 fighters (4), as compared to 400 on Vesuvius. (5) She was 1,830 meters long but displaced only 200,000 tons (as compared to the 1,600 meters, 250,000 tonne Vesuvius).(6)
Also, unlike Vesuvius, Midway's armament was almost entirely defensive in nature. Twenty-five laser turrets and six image-recognition missile launchers were emplaced to ward off all but the heaviest fighter strikes. Several capital ion cannon launchers were installed (7), but saw little action in the Nephilim campaign; the Midway's fighter launch tubes doubled as launchers for Capital Ship Missiles. (8) During the Nephilim campaign, Midway captured and installed an alien fleet plasma gun -- capable of destroying enemy fleets in single hits -- but the technology was not fully understood. Only one shot could be fired safely; afterwards the gun became dangerously destabilized.
To demonstrate the prestige of these ships, they received the designation "CVX," presumably in reference to their nature more as mobile starbases than heavy fleet carriers. In common parlance, they were called "megacarriers."
CVX-01, TCS Midway fought the Nephilim in her first campaign and with aid from the Vesuvius-class carrier TCS Eisen managed to defeat that first invasion wave. The second Midway-class ship, TCS Mistral Sea, entered service in 2681(9) and saw combat during the second wave of Nephilim attacks.
A total of ten Midway-class ships were built or planned:
- CVX-03 TCS Tafanda Bay
- CVX-04 TCS Coral Sea
- CVX-05 TCS Jutland
- CVX-06 TCS Ptoloman's Rift
- CVX-07 TCS Enyo III
- CVX-08 TCS Bataan
- CVX-09 TCS Tripoli
- CVX-10 TCS Port Broughton
References
- (1) ICIS (Wing Commander Prophecy Supplement)
- (2) Prima's Official Guide to Wing Commander Prophecy.
- (3) ICIS (Wing Commander Prophecy Supplement)
- (4) Prima's Official Guide to Wing Commander Prophecy.
- (6) Ibid.
- (7) ICIS (Wing Commander Prophecy Supplement)
- (8) Wing Commander Prophecy.
- (9) ICIS (Wing Commander Prophecy Supplement)