The B-Wing

[CRMcNeill]

Since the K-Wing thread got me talking about starfighters, I figured I'd throw out this little idea I've had bouncing around about the B-Wing

The B-Wing's rotating hull design always struck me as very cool, but I could never come up with a practical reason for how it would benefit the ship in flight. The official write-ups on the B-Wing state that the rotating hull was actually one of the reasons the ship never fully replaced the Y-Wing in the Heavy Assault role. Ultimately, it seems as though the rotating hull did more harm than good.

With the B-Wing/E and its two man crew, I had an idea that would incorporate the rotating hull into weapons targeting. The A-Wing is equipped with swiveling mounts on its laser cannon that allow them to angle up or down up to 60 degrees off center. My idea is to combine the two and essentially turn a B-Wing into a flying turret.

Here's how it works. The B-Wing's ion cannon, heavy laser cannon and proton torpedo launchers are all swivel mounted so that they can angle up or down parallel to the long axis of the B-Wing's airframe. The rotation of the airframe around the cockpit is controlled by the gunner, so that he controls azimuth rotating the airframe around the cockpit and elevation by angling the guns along that azimuth for precision targeting.

The pilot, meanwhile, is responsible for keeping the rotating airframe from locking up because of sudden maneuvers, flying an evasive course to avoid defensive fire, and engaging targets of opportunity with the ship's Auto Blasters (the only weapons he controls; all others are run by the gunner).

This allows the gunner to engage any target in the forward fire arc with precision fire from the laser, ion cannon or proton torpedoes, regardless of whatever course the B-Wing may be flying. All he has to do is rotate the ship around the cockpit until the wing is lined up with the target, angle the guns and open fire.

Thoughts?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

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[garhkal]

I always thought it was cause no matter how you rotated the ship, your cockpit would stay straight with the target(s)..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[jmanski]

And remember the thing flies straight up and down but lands on its side.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Guardian_A]

[garhkal]

One of my home made ships takes the best parts of the B wing (the sfoils and rotating cockpit) and improves on the weak spots (slow, less maneuverable and the engines are not around the cockpit like with all other ships...
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

[Ankhanu]

[CRMcNeill]

Yeah, I know... I'm just offering up my idea as a possible practical use for a design that seems to have no real in-game effect apart from making the ship more vulnerable to damage than it would be otherwise.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Spartikis]

I was under than impression that it flew on its side during landing and crusing flight. But during combat it roating vertical, just like during combat the x-wing would open up the s-foils but didnt regularaly fly like that. Atleast thats how i deal with the bwing issue

[vanir]

Pilot visibility. +1D Perception rolls for initiative within visual range combat (inside of 2-5 spaces for a starfighter sized craft).

A rotating cockpit doesn't affect manoeuvrability in the slightest, not in physics. The vessel manoeuvres through the thrust line.

In this the B-Wing is like German inline fighters of WW2 with inverted Vee engines. People say all sorts of crazy reasons why the engineers decided on inverted vees instead of an upright like the Merlin, but the reason listed in technical documentation is quite simple. It streamlined the frontal mass (improving dive and climb characteristics), and it improved pilot view front/down. Spits had a big cowl and a bunch of wing trying to look front/down, overall it gave the messer terrific advantages in boom and zoom out of all proportion to its actual engine performance.

You can't discount things like pilot view and craft handling characteristics. Often how a craft handled determined whether you win or lose given at several points during the war both sides used perfectly contemporary models. The smallest advantage could win the day, and things like pilot appointments cannot be understated in real world warfare.

Guenther Rall (275 confirmed victories) stated his favourite Allied plane was the Mustang. He test flew all the captured models for the Luftwaffe. During the interview several enthusiasts asked about the Thunderbolt, famed for its cannonball dive, bulletproof construction and heavy armament.
"What would you do in 1944 if you're in an Me-109G and a Thunderbolt dives on you?" he was asked.
He laughed and shook his head with a confident shrug, "Shoot it down of course."
"Which was your favourite Allied aircraft then?" they asked.
"The Mustang."
"Why?"
"It had a very roomy cockpit, very comfortable to fly. The Messerschmitt was very cramped and uncomfortable, but the Mustang was built to fly for 8hr missions, the Messerschmitt only flies 1hr missions so it didn't make any performance difference. They were the same. But if I had to fly a long mission I would prefer the Mustang."

They're important points. Enthusiastic GMs should try to bring these elements of real world combat into the game. And I think the B-Wing's rotating cockpit (which is off centre, keep that in mind when visualising piloting it), well I think it falls into this category. Pilot view.

Consider this, you're piloting a B-Wing at thousands of kilometres per second in deepspace. How the craft manoeuvres is orientated to the centre of thrust, the centreline of the frame. The engine. The cockpit is an outrigger. So the vessels is flying around, you're manoeuvring, you rotate the cockpit as you do. What happens? The vessel does the same manoeuvre, but you in the cockpit watch the stars rotate laterally from the cockpit, you are being rotated off centre to the craft direction of thrust.

Yup, absolutely I think pilot view. Initiative bonuses in visual combat.

Doesn't help you BVR though, where sensors are used to lock enemy targets, not your eyes. You could have no windows and it wouldn't matter.

So maybe that's why it is sometimes used, sometimes not.

[CRMcNeill]

[Fallon Kell]

Personally, I think the rotating cockpit on a B-wing is a useless gimmick generated by a concept artist who had no idea what was helpful and what was hurtful in a dogfight. (Sorry, ILM, but nobody's perfect...)

I don't like to break from canon, but if my player ever runs across B-wings, they will fly vertically and land horizontally, like in the old X-Wing games, (Not because that's how they did it in X-Wing, but for exactly the same reason they did it in X-Wing. Anything else lies somewhere between a major disadvantage in combat, and completely unflyable.)
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Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

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[garhkal]

Perhaps the cockpit does Aleviate some of the Gforces pilots normally experience.. hence why its called a Gyroscopic stabilizer.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]