Dueling Whales - Support Planes vs Shuttles?

[Weirdo]

I was looking at air transports for my RotS stuff, when I noticed that between the Zugvogel and Caerleon, both birds are well armed and armored, and neither has any business getting into a fight with an asf if it has any choice in the matter. But how do they compare against each other?

This lead down a couple rabbit holes, and the end result is the real question: If you assume both have identical armor, weapons, thrust, etc, and knowing your opposite number will be using whatever you don't choose, would you rather use a Support Aircraft or a Small Craft? Small Craft seem to have the obvious advantage of being able to reach very high altitudes and space itself, but I was wondering if there were any other factors that were eluding me.

[truetanker]

Flight unstable for the Caerleon...

Would prefer the Condottiere myself.

TT

[Giovanni Blasini]

Are you bombing or attacking directly?  A small craft needs quirks to have access to a bomb bay, whereas a support aircraft has access to bomb hardpoints directly under its construction rules.

[Weirdo]

We're talking about idealized near identical units fighting each other, so neither the Caerleon's quirk nor any bomb bays will be relevant.

[Daryk]

Small Craft all the way under those circumstances.  The ability to go where the other air frame can't is priceless.

[RunandFindOut]

Under the circumstances here?  Small craft every time, control the ability to engage and disengage and you will control the fight.

[Giovanni Blasini]

We're talking about idealized near identical units fighting each other, so neither the Caerleon's quirk nor any bomb bays will be relevant.

If we're pulling out all the stops on theoretical units using all the construction options available to them, and all the quirks, then an aerodyne small craft wins over a support aircraft in nearly every way except one we'll get to in a moment: small craft can do suborbital hops to put themselves anywhere on a planet rapidly, can go transatmospheric, and can make system transits.

At that point, I think the only advantage support aircraft have are fission or solar prop aircraft, which can have unlimited range.  As I recall, VSTOL options for aircraft are also nicer and safer than small craft.

[Alan Grant]

Small craft get ECM automatically. I'm not sure how it works in atmosphere though.

[Weirdo]

Long story short, it doesn't.