"Fuzzy Wuzzy" Kra'Vak (Was: KV 'house' rules for FB)

On Thu, 1 Oct 1998 17:21:55 +0100 Oerjan Ohlson 
<oerjan.ohlson@nacka.mail.telia.com> wrote:

> Chad wrote:
>> For my money the Rail Gun still has concept problems.  
The Class 1 is no different from the Class 3. <<
 
> There are two differences: 
 
> First, if you have 3 Class 1 instead of 1 Class 3, the 
risk of losing *some* of your armament to threshold checks 
go up but the risk of losing *all* your firepower in a 
single go goes down dramatically. You're also a lot less 
vulnerable to needle beam fire (...though I've only seen 
one successful use of needle beams against Kra'Vak so far 
<g>).
 
> Second, 3 Class 1 inflict the same *average* damage per 
Mass as 1 Class 3 Railgun, but the Class 3 is more "all or 
nothing." <

This is a good explanation of what is known in military 
circles as the "Fuzzy Wuzzy Fallacy", i.e., if you take two 
identical troopers/units and double the firepower of one of 
them (but nothing else), what you get is not a unit that is 
twice as valuable as the other one, because each unit is 
still equally vulnerable to an attack; it has been worked 
out that the additional firepower only increases the combat 
value of the "heavy" unit by a factor of the _square_root_ 
of 2 -- or approx 41%. To truly double the value of the 
unit, its defences must also be doubled.

I've never seen this argument taken further than doubling
but, assuming that the principle holds good, then a Class-3 
RG could be considered to be sqrt(3) (= 1.73) times as 
effective as a single Class-1, all else being equal. It 
shows how long it's been since I looked at the KV rules 
that I can't remember if RG units have different ranges, 
but ISTM that they don't -- in which case, the above 
calculation applies. 

It also provides a good case for packing your KV ships with 
as many Class-1 RGs as you can stuff in: same firepower (if 
it hits), but a lot more damage-tolerant design. You may 
have to nibble the enemy to death rather than take one big 
bite, but it works for rats and pirhana....

Phil, certain that someone's going to tell me that I got it 
wrong <g>
------------------------------------------------------------
"I think... I think I am!     |        I think _I_ am:
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