Guantanamo Class Carriers Fan fic/fact check

[Sabre]

Can anyone tell me of the Guantanamo class carrier is capable of landing on a 1 gee planet, perhaps an emergency landing? In our fanfic world, is a crashlanding possible?

[InfernosCaress]

As in to actually touch down? They are not designed to, no. The Guantanamo is diamond-shapped. The bottoms are not smooth, either. They care covered in equipment blisters and antennae.

That said, the Guantanamo does have a weak anti-gravity drive. It is mainly used for maneuvering in low orbit. Coupled with the pin-point barrier, it could probably crashland without too much structural damage. It would still lose the blisters and the antennae. The insides would be pretty torn up, too. The Guantanamo is a carrier and construction vessel. All of that equipment is going to be thrown around at pretty good speeds.

A best case scenario would be to close the hanger bay doors and aim for the ocean or a large lake. The PPB could cut through the water ahead of the ship and provide it with a longer (but still significant) deceleration period. Second-best would be to use a forest and let the trees slow them down a bit.


On an unrelated note, I wrote a reply three times. The board ate the first two. Let's see if this one makes it through.

[studiootaking]

(...) The bottoms are not smooth, either. They care covered in equipment blisters and antennae.

Those big pyramid shapes at the rear back are fuel tanks for the Valkyries. Pretty sure the captain doesn't want to smear something so explosive over the countryside during touchdown.


In our fanfic world, one could probably have them hovering and lumbering around... like the Star Destroyer over Jedha in "Rogue One". There's a bit of a precedent for that, too. The player character's base in the game "Macross 30" is a (modified) Bolognese Frigate, that remains stationary, hovering in the sky.

[Buran]

As Otaking said, there is written FUEL in englisch between the japanese text pointing to those romboid shapes on the bottom.

[InfernosCaress]

Those big pyramid shapes at the rear back are fuel tanks for the Valkyries. Pretty sure the captain doesn't want to smear something so explosive over the countryside during touchdown.

That would be bad. They could focus some of the PPBs over the fuel blisters to spare them from the impact. Maybe it could crashland inverted. I am assuming that in this scenario all of the ordinance is properly secured and won't get thrown around in the crash. If not, there is a good chance that the ship would go BOOM.

[Kosh]

Have you considered a water landing?

On a serious note, is it a recoverable crash or just to make it down and end as a wreck without going Nova?

[InfernosCaress]

Have you considered a water landing?

Yes. I covered it in the first reply.

[Sabre]

I was thinking in terms of a survivable wreck. By survival I mean some people alive. By wreck I mean, the ship is wrecked, never fly again.

[Cobalt]

I think a controlled crash would look something like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpgyrIlhoyw

The ship materials are much stronger than ground so I think it is very survivable.

[InfernosCaress]

I am going to have to disagree with you, my good fellow. Star Trek ships are way more durable than Macross ships.


https://youtu.be/bXq3dytL6ZA?t=87


In that scene, the Enterprise is traveling at Full Impulse. That is 74,770 km/s. I assume that the video is slowed down so that you can see it, but it specifies that it is traveling at Full Impulse. Ramming, even at relatively slow speeds, in Macross sheers straight through another vessel (or into in the case of Macross Attack). The two shows have very different impact resistances.

[Kosh]

I hate to put on 'the cap of reason', especially when there is a sci-fi technical geek out brewing, but I would think its safe to say both scenes (and Star Trek as a whole) are shot for their visual impact rather than the technical merit.

I see no reasons to believe why a Guantanamo could not survive a controlled crash landing, enough to see some of the crew alive. As long as you don't nose dive it into a mountain, let's make it work for us. The could have burned the ventral thrusters to the point of failure all the way down, they could have over-driven the gravity drive in a last ditch effort to survive hitting the ground, they could have brought it down on the water at a coastline, beaching the ship on the beach etc.

As you pointed out Sabre, it is 'our' fanfic world.

[InfernosCaress]

Reason? In sci-fi? Never! Clearly the answer is that the Enterprise has Hero Armor, which greatly increases its survivability.

As for the Guantanamo, crashlanding landing belly-side down would almost certainly be a bad idea, at least on land. The fuel containers would take the brunt of the impact, spark off and detonate. If the PPB was used to protect those, then nothing would be left for the rest of the ship. If it landed on one of the top angles, it would have more flexibility with use of its shielding. If it used the water, it could skid (as mentioned in the earlier posts) with the PPB acting as a water break.

If you want it on land, you consider having it slide across the surface of the water to slow it enough that the ship could survive once it ran out of water, passing along the beach and a short ways beyond.

[Sabre]

Thanks guys, I've finalized my plan. Now you just have to wait and see what I do.

[Buran]

Just an idea....... I mean putting the Fuel Tanks on the outside from the start is a bad idea, if combat ensues and such they are like big easy targets to blow up the ship......unless! those Fuel Tank can be jettisoned, like external fule tanks on planes. That would make some sense and would augment the liklyhood of survival in a crash-landing.

[Gerhard]

My thoughts are that if they’re on the outside like that, they can either be jettisoned in an instant, or they’re “fuel” in the sense that they’re tanks of reaction mass.

There’s a similar concept in some tanks AFVs. Ammo, and fuel are in separate compartments that are designed to blow out, instead causing damage to the crew inside.