I think that time constraints probably prevented their designers from giving them the relevant action points and animations that would have been needed to make them fire, whereas this work had already been done for the carriers. I suspect that these craft were created in a hurry for inclusion near the end of the series. Observed Behaviour While these vessels appear to be armed, none are ever seen to fire, even when under attack and, strangely, seem to rely on the carriers for protection. Two engines are mounted in an interesting, diagonal configuration, while the third engine, below, is mounted horizontally.
The three engines are integrated into the hull, rather than into separate pods. Lastly, there appear to be two small guns or antennae at the back, directly behind the bridge. The ship appears to feature a number of medium-size guns underneath the bow and two similar guns, facing rearwards, roughly midships. There are two small missile launchers turrets along its spine, situated between the main gun and the bridge at the back. The ship clearly features a large gun on its deck and four small turrets around the bow, flanking the main gun at the top. It has a broad, heavily-armoured twin bow and a slender tail section. Type-C - Destroyer This the most distinctive of the three. The two engine pods are attached directly to the hull and feature more rectangular engine ports, an intake on the front and a running light on the top.Ībove this, an interesting-shaped, wide, flat bridge module is attached directly to the hull. The front half of the ship and and weapons pods are well illuminated with several bright exterior lights. On the deck are two smaller long pods, which again appear to be weapons, along with a number of other greebles. These look to be the right size to be torpedo launchers. Near the front, is a pod on either side of the hull, supported on upward-sloping pylons. The ship has a much flatter, alligator-like snout. This ship is condiderably flatter, with a much more compact profile and appears to be slightly smaller and more compact in general. Type-B - Stealth Cruiser From a distance, this ship can be confused for the one above but on closer inspection there are a number of differences. This appears to have two exhaust ports facing rearwards. There is also a pod or structure underneath the hull. The rectangular engine pods feature four intakes at the front and a circular engine port with 24 individual thrusters. Two small domes are visible on each side of the bow possibly point-defence guns or sensors. This makes sense in terms of protecting the crew from head-on attack. Interestingly, the window lights are all towards the back of the ship. While this ship is a tiny fraction of the size of a carrier, it is still a very substantial size, judging from the number of decks indicated by its window lights. The hull has a large hangar bay door in its side towards the bow, apparently large enough for an ISSCV to enter. On the deck are a large number of protrusions, which appear to be missile doors or small, pop-up turrets. The front of the ship is covered with many forward-facing yellow antennas. This makes me think that this ship may be a guided missile cruiser with a vertial launch system. They clearly have a large number of protrusions on their decks possibly small turrets or missile doors. Type-A - Missile Cruiser / Electronic Warfare Vessel The Type-A has a mostly rectangular hull with a steeply sloping front, two large engine pods on downward-sloping pylons and a large, raised bridge module at the rear. In many cases, Photoshop had so little contrast and to work with that the image just became scrambled, at which point, I tried to boost the contrast by a lesser degree manually.
In order to get a better look at them, I took some screen captures from these scenes in Media Player Classic and boosted the contrast in Photoshop. Unfortunately, the appearances of these ships are very brief, the craft are seldom in the foreground and the footage is very dark, making the ships very difficult to discern. « Other / Ships - Space Above and Beyond Escort Ships Overview In the final 3 episodes of Space: Above and Beyond, three new, unnamed Earth Force ships can be seen, escorting the much larger carriers. X-Bomber Homepage Search SFXB Forum search »