Re: [FT] SMLs and Banzai Jammers

Alan wrote:

> > Good luck closing the range on the SM ships before they want the 
> > range to close.
> 
> > > Doesn't really work that way, in order to keep distance you must
run
> > > away from your opponents.
> 
> > > You don't hurt them much when you are waving your rear in their
> > faces.
> > 
> > As long as you wiggle your behind a little and have weapons
covering
> > the AP and AS arcs, you're quite able to hurt any pursuers.
> 
> ...just not hurt them _much_. Let's see, you get to fire maybe 4 SMs
in
> a turn from a 3000 pt fleet, and I have 20 PDs and ADAFs.
> Feel free to empty your mags in this way.

4 SMs a turn through rear arcs? I can do better than that, even with an
FB FSE fleet. With an IF fleet, I could hit you with each and every SMR
in the fleet in one single salvo even if I'm running away from you.

However, I wasn't talking about firing *SMs* behind me. If you recall
the previous posts, the reason you're chasing me at all is that you
want to nail my SM ships before I've removed enough of your
granaatscherven with long-range beam fire; the reason I run is to
prevent you from doing that. I don't *need* to hurt your
granaatscherven very much in order to kill them, and I'm definitely not
going sweep them with SMs.

> And on a floating table + cinematic movement, assume the pursuers
> retreat. 

Um... Alan, if the pursuers *retreat* they are no longer pursuers, and
unless I've been careless enough to let them slip in between me and any
fixed or slow-moving objectives I need to protect, I'm quite happy to
see them off without a fight. I believe this is called something like
"winning on walk-over" <g>

> As soon as you get to 30 speed or so, your SMs become
> completely useless, as they have a 24" range

Do you really want to bet on that? :-) Not that I'd even try to fire
SMs at targets flying at those speeds - I know how good I am at dodging
the things when flying that fast <g>

> a) Banzai Jamming is a 100% defence against SMs, when combined 
> with some ADAFs and PDs

...unless countered by long-range beam fire or other tactics to sweep
the jammers. The arms race isn't quite as fast in the official GZGverse
as it is among us, though, so the FSE hasn't yet deployed very
efficient scherven-sweepers.

> b) This is a Bad Thing
> c) SMs are too powerful if Banzai Jamming is completely removed, All
> other things being equal.

> I've had some comments that b) isn't true, that without such a
defence
> the NSL (slow, unmanouverable) is disadvantaged. My reply to that is,
> that a) Rocks-Paper-Scissors: perhaps the NSL ought to be 
> disadvantaged vs the FSE, as it certainly seems advantaged over 
> everyone else!

Powerful but unmaneuverable. Around here they tend to lose to the ESU,
though - and the rock-paper-scissors effect only applies as long as you
don't design your own ships.

>  b) Since the NSL has probably the most cost-effective SM launcher in
> anyone's fleet, the Waldberg-M

Please spell the name correctly. On this list, and on the web
(including the ship registry), I've seen it misspelled in at least
three different ways... but only very rarely (10% of the time, maybe?)
correctly.

The Waldburg/M is cost effective only if you use several of them - as
you noted, small numbers of SM salvoes aren't very dangerous even if
you remove the jammers - and don't have them shot at to early... them
little buggers are *brittle*. I consider the Jerez the best overall SM
unit in FB1: tough enough to deliver all of its payload, well enough
armed to do something once the magazine is empty (or defend itself
against enemy light units) - and fast enough to get away if its
secondary armament turned out to be insufficient :-/ The Waldburg is
cheaper per launcher than the Jerez, but not fast enough to get away,
nor sturdy enough to ensure that both salvoes actually get away, nor
armed with back-up weapons.

> I've had no comments about c) being untrue (AFAIK).

On large enough tables in Cinematic, it is. When the ships fly at 20+,
an entire battlegroup can dodge even a large SM salvo - unless they are
thrust-3 or less, but my ships rarely are that slow... However, most
people don't use large enough tables and not everyone plays Cinematic,
and any fix must work in both movement systems.

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry