New Helicarriers in Battle of New York

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Pretty much what the title says, how would the new Helicarriers seen in TWS fare if they were present when the battle in the Avengers takes place?

Admittedly their design would at least have been inspired by the types of enemies seen in NY so of course they already have an advantage, but would they have been sufficient given the size and strength of the Chitauri invasion force, or would it ultimately still take the actions of the Avengers to finish the job. This assumes that no-one thinks to fire on the portal or level Stark Tower in order to halt Loki's plan before it gets underway of course

[SCRawl]

We know that their targeting was supposed to be good enough to take out individuals from altitude, so blasting the Chitauri soldiers should be easy enough. Attacking the mother ship would still have been outside their capabilities, and I don't know if they would have had an answer for those leviathans.

[Vendetta]

They have large vulnerable engines and would have been attacked from above. So they would almost certainly have made things worse by having engines disabled, by suicide attacks if nothing else. (Since the Chitauri soldiers all got turned off when the mothership exploded and/or portal closed they're almost certainly expendable drones which no-one would give a fuck about ramming into the engines on their glider whatsits, let alone just landing on and assaulting the helicarriers directly)

Which means they crash into New York massively multiplying the destruction. Nice job breaking it, Hero.

I mean FFS Hawkeye crippled the first helicarrier with a bow and arrow.

And I know he's Hawkeye and all, but still, a single arrow that couldn't have packed in that much explosive was enough to put the entire thing in imminent danger of crashing.

[FaxModem1]

The new helicarrier engines weren't turbine based engines, as the original helicarrier is. The main reason for that is that Tony Stark spent several nerve wracking minutes fixing the damn things. The new ones are based on the same repulsor tech the Iron Man suits have.

[Ted C]

While the helicarriers could target people from at least a few thousand feet, I don't know if that includes fast-moving targets. The flying sleds might not be easy to hit. Falcon certainly dodged them.

The anti-personnel guns could presumably have picked off the Chitauri foot troops in large numbers, but most of the guns on those helicarriers have a downward field of fire. If attacked from above, most of the helicarriers' firepower wouldn't be usable.

It would probably take sustained fire from the biggest guns on the helicarriers to kill one of the Leviathans. The Leviathans could very likely disable a helicarrier just by ramming it. I'd say that's a pretty likely result. The Chitauri obviously still had a substantial reserve force on the other side of the portal, so they could just direct some Leviathans to attack the helicarriers to remove them from the battle.

[Darmalus]

One of the better uses for them might to to surround and cut off any Chitauri reinforcements from coming through the portal. This would free up Thor to take down hard targets like the leviathans. The helicarriers would also bring their aircraft along, I assume. This would be a significant boost in securing the HCs top side and add to the friendly forces defending New York.

IIRC, the HCs did have some top-side guns, but not many. They wouldn't be able to do much shooting up into the portal, but they could fly above it and shoot anyone coming out in the back.

[Havok]

Most of their guns were concentrated on the bottom. They would be wiped easy from above and fall on Manhattan.

They are CARRIERS. Carriers try to keep the battle as far away from them as they can so that their escorts, fighter and missiles can do the damage for them. One strafe of their runways and they are floating piles of scrap that can only shoot down.

[Darmalus]

Most of their guns were concentrated on the bottom. They would be wiped easy from above and fall on Manhattan.

They are CARRIERS. Carriers try to keep the battle as far away from them as they can so that their escorts, fighter and missiles can do the damage for them. One strafe of their runways and they are floating piles of scrap that can only shoot down.

They're called carriers, but they seem to be designed more like the hybrid battleship-carriers that showed up in WW2. Those guns weren't defensive like a CIWS on modern carriers, they were pretty clearly intended to be offensive weapons to engage the enemy directly.

I only saw the movie once, but I think they circle of death when they reached their operational height was something like half the eastern seaboard, and that was human sized targets. They could probably cover the New York portal in a rain of death from over Boston, no need to get within plasma rifle distance. Assuming the guns were as accurate as implied.

[Havok]

Yeah, and it was all facing downward.

[Darmalus]

Yeah, and it was all facing downward.

Yes, the main guns were on the bottom of the helicarriers. They didn't have any trouble shooting side to side when they blew each other up. They had a decent arc of fire, and being able to fly they can probably just gain altitude until they are shooting down at the portal.

[Havok]

THOSE are carriers. They have guns, but they are not battle ships.
And unless those big giant guns can point straight up, they are going to stay MILES away from Manhattan and launch fighters and shoot their big ass guns. If they get anywhere close the sleds will fuck them up or worse the troop transport space whales.

[Darmalus]

One of the better uses for them might to to surround and cut off any Chitauri reinforcements from coming through the portal. This would free up Thor to take down hard targets like the leviathans. The helicarriers would also bring their aircraft along, I assume. This would be a significant boost in securing the HCs top side and add to the friendly forces defending New York.

IIRC, the HCs did have some top-side guns, but not many. They wouldn't be able to do much shooting up into the portal, but they could fly above it and shoot anyone coming out in the back.

THOSE are carriers. They have guns, but they are not battle ships.
And unless those big giant guns can point straight up, they are going to stay MILES away from Manhattan and launch fighters and shoot their big ass guns. If they get anywhere close the sleds will fuck them up or worse the troop transport space whales.

I'm glad we agree. The helicarriers are far from an ideal general purpose design, but far from useless in this scenario. The leviathans would probably still be the single biggest problem, but we have the Hulk and Thor to take care of them.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I don't think the sleds will pose that much of a problem unless a whole lot of them swarmed the carriers at once, remember from what Hawkeye observed "Well they can't bank worth a damn, find a tight corner". Since Falcon was a lot more agile, it follows that while the sleds are fast they'd be far easier to hit.

While damage to the runways would keep the conventional fighters on the deck, aren't the Quinjets VTOL-capable?

[Ted C]

While damage to the runways would keep the conventional fighters on the deck, aren't the Quinjets VTOL-capable?

Quinjets are definitely VTOL.

[Kojiro]

I think your concern with the carriers will be how durable the engines are. We know the original HC needed 3 working to stay in the air and these are probably similar. Maybe they can stay up with 2 engines if they're diagonally opposite (smaller, emergency repulsors in the hull maybe?) but the loss of any two would almost certainly be fatal. I'm not sure how the Chitauri guns would go shooting at those engines but they're not going to be hard targets. For what it's worth the Chitauri did carry 2 types of gun- a fold up bayoneted rifle and a heavier forearm gun. In the one shot Item 47 we see that the heavier gun at least really packs some punch. They also carry some sort of explosive (the one we see in the bank) which may or may not be sufficient if attached.

I don't think the guns are going to do a great deal of work *in the air*. They are certainly *not* designed to hit targets moving at those speeds and lets not forget it's still over NY- raining down large calibre rounds is likely to cause significant unintended damage for comparatively few kills. The carriers Insight guns are more or less snipers, intended to pick off humans at significant distance. They are not AA which is essentially what you'd want against fast moving individual targets (killing ground forces notwithstanding). Overall I'm sure the carriers could show up, would look really cool doing so but ultimately only the one with more than one named character on it would stay up/not utterly explode. Those engines are just too big and obvious targets.

[Ted C]

I think your concern with the carriers will be how durable the engines are. We know the original HC needed 3 working to stay in the air and these are probably similar. Maybe they can stay up with 2 engines if they're diagonally opposite (smaller, emergency repulsors in the hull maybe?) but the loss of any two would almost certainly be fatal. I'm not sure how the Chitauri guns would go shooting at those engines but they're not going to be hard targets. For what it's worth the Chitauri did carry 2 types of gun- a fold up bayoneted rifle and a heavier forearm gun. In the one shot Item 47 we see that the heavier gun at least really packs some punch. They also carry some sort of explosive (the one we see in the bank) which may or may not be sufficient if attached.

I'm going to venture an opinion that the repulsor-jet engines are more robust than the turbines on the first helicarrier. I'm pretty sure that Stark gave SHIELD the technology mainly to make the turbines less vulnerable to attack. Not indestructible, of course, but I'd be willing to bet that just one of Hawkeye's explosive arrowheads couldn't take one out.

[Simon_Jester]

Stark's repulsors seem pretty resilient on the small scale- he can walk around with them built into the soles of his boots without damaging them, punch cement walls without breaking the ones on his hands, and so on. They're tough, they can be armored, or both.

[Kojiro]

Oh I have no doubt they're more durable but the Chitauri heavy gun is depicted blowing bank vaults open. I'm honestly not sure what kind of firepower that is but it's considerable for a hand held weapon.

Also I think Stark's repulsors are largely protected from attack rather than durable. The only time we've seen one directly hit was when Whiplash struck one in his race track assault, rendering it inoperable. Those whips weren't able to penetrate the weaker MKV armour- which is still Iron Man armour- but they did destroy a repulsor.

[NeoGoomba]

Weren't the three carriers combined supposedly able to kill a few million people in their opening salvo? The rate of fire on all of their downward guns must be ridiculous. The chitari portal opened downwards onto NY, so by default the invaders are going to have their backs to the carriers as they rain down a constant stream of pain. Sure, the surrounding blocks of the area are going to be flattened, but so will the majority of the invaders before they can spread throughout the city. The big question is whether or not the carrier's rounds can penetrate the big leviathans.

[Ted C]

Weren't the three carriers combined supposedly able to kill a few million people in their opening salvo? The rate of fire on all of their downward guns must be ridiculous.

While the HYDRA "hit list" was in the millions, the initial salvo was only going to get a couple hundred thousand (which is still a LOT).

[Ted C]

In the images above, I count at least three gun turrets on the deck of the carrier: two near the bow and one forward of the conning tower. Not sure if there are more.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I missed most of the Movie Review thread so.…
Did anyone do the calculations on just HOW those Three ships were supposed to kill HUndreds of Thousands or even Tens of thousands of people in just a few seconds???

[Elheru Aran]

I missed most of the Movie Review thread so.…
Did anyone do the calculations on just HOW those Three ships were supposed to kill HUndreds of Thousands or even Tens of thousands of people in just a few seconds???

Because computers are magic. Don't you know that.

I think they were just coming up with a few numbers out of their ass based upon there being like a thousand multi-barreled guns on the bellies of those carriers...

[Simon_Jester]

Pretty much what the title says, how would the new Helicarriers seen in TWS fare if they were present when the battle in the Avengers takes place?

Admittedly their design would at least have been inspired by the types of enemies seen in NY so of course they already have an advantage, but would they have been sufficient given the size and strength of the Chitauri invasion force, or would it ultimately still take the actions of the Avengers to finish the job. This assumes that no-one thinks to fire on the portal or level Stark Tower in order to halt Loki's plan before it gets underway of course

I'm honestly not sure blowing the tower out from under the Tesseract would have closed the portal. It would seem logical, but once that machine was operational nothing penetrated the shield around it. It might just stay hovering in place after the building collapses from under it, though admittedly that's unlikely.

They have large vulnerable engines and would have been attacked from above.

The engines seem more resilient than on the original helicarrier. Especially against attacks from above. Also, they have plenty of defensive AA gun armament, though it does nothing against Falcon in the movie. It should have worked, though, if it weren't for the fact that Hollywood doesn't understand how flak works. More on that later.

While the helicarriers could target people from at least a few thousand feet, I don't know if that includes fast-moving targets. The flying sleds might not be easy to hit. Falcon certainly dodged them.

Given how flak shells work, he should have been dead dozens of times over. In real life, those neat little black puffs aren't the zone of effect of the shell, they're the smoke from bursting charges. Imagine hand grenades exploding as close to Falcon as those shells from the carrier guns did- he'd be 50% shrapnel by body weight by the end of that scene.

Although in-story, yeah, if Falcon could survive the carrier's AA armament, so could aliens on hoverboards and hoversleds.

I missed most of the Movie Review thread so.…
Did anyone do the calculations on just HOW those Three ships were supposed to kill HUndreds of Thousands or even Tens of thousands of people in just a few seconds???

I don't think they were. The point was that they'd cause a rapid decapitation and spread out fast enough to kill all those people quickly, faster than any realistic response could mobilize in the face of Hydra manipulating US defensive responses through SHIELD. Not that they could do so instantly.

[Tsyroc]

Given how flak shells work, he should have been dead dozens of times over. In real life, those neat little black puffs aren't the zone of effect of the shell, they're the smoke from bursting charges. Imagine hand grenades exploding as close to Falcon as those shells from the carrier guns did- he'd be 50% shrapnel by body weight by the end of that scene.

Although in-story, yeah, if Falcon could survive the carrier's AA armament, so could aliens on hoverboards and hoversleds.

That was the only part of the movie I really hated. He should have been so dead, and it was clear that that specific part of the movie was there for the "little kiddies" and to be 3D porn. I didn't see it in 3D so I could be wrong about that last bit but it's still annoying that scene is in a movie that had been so incredibly good up to that point.