Re: [FT] Re: Small vessels and the Line of Battle

Laserlight wrote:

> In Napoleonic times you'd bring a frigate to a fleet action
> in order to read the admiral's signals and repeat them, but
> that's not relevant to modern communications unless you want
> to build rules to make it happen that way.
>
>

(Snipped historical examples.)

> I can't think of an occasion (which may mean nothing as I'm
> not a naval historian) when DD's were worth bringing to the
> party--except for the threat of torpedoes.  The equivalent,
> I'd say, is a rack of SM's, capable of doing heavy damage in
> one punch--but torps don't take up as much space on a real
> DD as a SMR would on a FTFB ship.  But if you allocated each
> DD a MT missile, or figured out some way to split a SMR rack
> among a DD squadron, you could make it work.

If you think about it, the "wet navy" torpedos don't do all that much
actual damage to a "wet navy" ship.
All it takes is a small hole to sink a "wet navy" ship.  In space, a
small hole may kill a few unprotected
crew, but otherwise will do nothing to the functioning of the ship.
Unless it hits some equipment or the bridge...

Donald Hosford