Re: Fw: Carriers and other updates

G'day Schoon,

>Agreed completely on "wasting" space for weapons whose long range punch
>comes completely from fighters.
>However, does this work on the tabletop - where generally your carrier
must
>be on the table and evade rather than being safely tucked away "off the
>board."

Without knowing how big your tabletop area is, the answer is yes. Our
tabletop is probably about 80" by 50" and on that sized area I have been
able to get away with carriers which are fighter hangers with a few PDS
for
self defense. However, as I said before you need a good taskforce to go
with them, something the oppostion can't just ignore in an effort to
concentrate on your carrier. To give you some idea of what I mean, a
fleet
I've been using a bit lately basically looks like this:

CVH - fighter base only (few PDS for self protection against MT missiles
etc) this sits back near the table edge.

Main battle line of 2 'ranks'
SDN, BB, CH - this are the guys with the punch (weak hulls, low thrust,
some armour, double screens, mainly one arc 3s, 4s, pulse torps and a
few
SMRs or MT missiles)
2xCE, CL - these guys stay between the enemy and the '2nd rank'
(strong/super hulls, screen, ADFC, tonne of PDS, class 2s, pulse torps)

Fast attack wing - these are my one shot wonders (DD or less in size)
that
sit back or off to the side until there's an opening then they sprint in
dump their mines/missiles/submunition packs and then get the heck out of
there, but as they have thrust 6 or 8 and there's usually a few of them
about the opposition can't just ignore them either.

This combo works well as long as you keep your wits about you and make
sure
you slide etc with the enemy so you always have a situation that looks
like


CVH		  BIG GUYS	 CEs			   OPPOSITION

with your fast boats hanging around the edges and the fighters
cooridinating their attacks with each other or missile strikes.

Based on my experience, I don't think a 'wet navy' carrier would work if
you were more inclined to have it closer to the action or had a VERY
limited tabletop area which prevented you from having enough room to
keep
the carrier out of harms way as much as possible.

Cheers

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART 
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax (03) 6232 5199 International +61 3 6232 5199

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au