“Would you look at that,” O’Neill said, shaking his head with a smile. “Hard to believe this is even something we’re putting together, huh?”
“I quite agree, sir,” Major Davis agreed. “First a fighter, and now this.”
“Exactly,” O’Neill nodded. “See, you get it, right? Six years ago we just had a big ring and no idea how to turn it on, and now we’ve got… this.”
He waved his hand at the under-construction X-303, a huge mass of alloy and heavy equipment, ensconced in its hidden hangar bay. “Our own all-up spaceship. And if Carter’s done anything like as well as she normally does, it’s going to be one hell of a ship, as well.”
Davis coughed.
“Bomber,” he said.
O’Neill glanced at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Bomber,” Davis replied.
“Bomber,” O’Neill repeated. “And what makes you say that, exactly?”
Davis raised a hand, then lowered it as O’Neill kept talking. “We are talking about six hundred feet of battlecruiser, with twelve missile tubes and sixteen railguns, eight fighters on board, a crew of over a hundred… the damn thing’s got a transporter ring station on it!”
“I don’t see how that makes it not a bomber, sir,” Davis replied. “There’s no actual maximum size on a bomber aircraft… I’m sure you’re familiar with, for example, the B-36?”
“Yeah, you know what they say about assumptions, but I’ve heard of it,” O’Neill conceded. “It wasn’t this big, though.”
“Whatever you say, sir,” Davis disagreed. “In addition, I should point out that there is no maximum size on what qualifies as a bomber crew, either. A crew of one hundred and fifteen is large, but the technical definition of bomber doesn’t have an upper limit.”
O’Neill shook his head.
“See, if you were Teal’c then I’d know if you were joshing me,” he said. “All right, then, if you’re going to insist… what about the weapons? If it’s a bomber, where are the… bombs?”
“I’ve been assured that the fighter bay doors open, and it’s possible to drop bombs out of them,” Davis said, with a slight shrug. “Early bombers didn’t have dedicated bomb bays-”
“-yeah, yeah, whatever,” O’Neill said, rubbing his temples. “I was going to get to those fighter bays, but first – doesn’t a bomber have to at least carry bombs?”
“First of all, there is precedent for designating an aircraft by a capability that isn’t the primary use capability,” Davis pointed out. “The F-117 is, by any reasonable definition, a bomber or an attack aircraft, but it can carry air to air missiles.”
O’Neill nodded.
“So, what, you’re saying this should be a fighter?” he asked. “The F-303?”
“No,” Davis said. “Because the bomber classification includes aircraft equipped with cruise or even ballistic missiles as primary weapons. For example, Skybolt was intended to be launched by the B-52 and that didn’t make it not a bomber, and the AGM-86 is launched from the B-52.”
O’Neill looked at him suspiciously.
“How long have you been preparing for a conversation like this?” he asked.
“I couldn’t possibly comment, sir,” Davis answered, with a shrug.
“Whatever,” O’Neill decided. “But what about the fighter bays? If anything they should make this a carrier.”
Davis made a face.
“Not at all,” he said. “It’s more esoteric, but the XF-85 Goblin was a parasite fighter design intended to be launched from the B-36, and-”
“And that didn’t make them not a bomber,” O’Neill parroted, making an opening-and-closing gesture with his hand and rolling his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. And I guess you’re going to say that bombers have defensive turrets, too. But enough of that. Tell me why this isn’t a battlecruiser.”
“Because, sir,” Davis replied, quite matter-of-factly. “We’re the Air Force, not the Navy.”
O’Neill considered that for about five seconds.
“Good point,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Davis. “Good point, well made. B-303, then.”
“Actually, we’re considering giving it the Tri-Service designation of Bomber, Cargo, 303,” Davis stated, deadpan. “Since it can carry so much materiel… BC-303, that is.”
O’Neill chuckled.
“Just make sure someone gets a photo of the Secretary of the Navy when he hears about this,” he requested.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Borderlines
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ensemble Cast - BAN
Additional Tags: The Lost Era (2293 - 2364), Weekly Challenge: Boot Up
Series: Part 38 of Borderlines: Missing Scenes and Preludes
Summary:
Introduction
Joint warfare is a military doctrine that places priority on the integration of the various branches of a state’s armed forces into one unified command. Joint warfare is in essence a form of combined arms warfare on a larger, national scale, in which complementary forces from a state’s army, navy, air, coastal, space, and special forces are meant to work together in joint…
Introduction
Interservice rivalry is rivalry between different branches of a country’s armed forces. This may include competition between land, marine, naval, coastal, air, or space forces.
Interservice rivalry can occur over such topics as the appropriation of the military budget, prestige, or the possession of certain types of equipment or units. The latter case can arise, for example, when a…
Who caught the Army vs. Navy game? I didn’t, but you bet I checked the score afterward!
Just the mention of other branches of the military is usually enough to kick off a discussion on the interservice rivalry. In some ways, these rivalries are deeper than the competitiveness associated with professional sports teams. As the child of a military service member (brat), that carries down.
