Re: SM battle report - "Death of the Decoys"

Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> 
> Fought this battle today. Cinematic movement on a floating table

> Alan and Roger, I hope this report answers some of your questions
about
> dealing with BJs :-/

Indeed it does, very useful.
 
> NSL fleet:
> 1 Von Tegetthoff SDN, carrying 1 Interceptor sqdn
> 1 Szent Istvan BDN, carrying 1 Interceptor sqdn
> 1 Maria von Burgund BB
> 2 Kronprinz Wilhelm/E CLEs
> 3 Waldburg/M DDGs
> 16 Stroschen CTs

Try the same thing with 3 Marias, 4-5 Wilhelms, maybe a CA or two or
Waldburg/Ms, and 15 or so Falkes as BJs.
  
> Total: 2999 pts, 752 of which (25.1%) were used to buy banzai jammers.
Seems a bit high. In fact very high. I'd use smaller, with the points
being used to get CLEs. Yes, the BJs can be taken out by fighters: but
if you have more than a very indequate number of CLEs, the fighters get 
taken out instead, and the BJs remain.

> The BJs were deployed 4 to each capital and 2 covering each CLE, but
> they moved around a bit during the battle.

2 per big fella's enough. The rest should cower behind, using their
great movement factor to zip in front in the next movement phase to
replace losses from plinking. Any marauding FF/DD must therefore run the
gauntlet of great numbers of beams before getting within 12". While
fighters, who don't have this problem, should face 4+ ADAF PDs on each
fighter group.

> FSE fleet:
> 1 Bologna CVL, carrying 1 standard, 1 Interceptor and 2 Heavy Attack
> sqdns
> 3 Roma BBs
> 2 Jerez CAs, each with 2 SM-ER and 1 normal salvo
> 9 Ibiza FFs
> 2 Mistral/A SCs (the /A variant replaces 1 C1 battery with 1 subpack).
> 
> Total: 3000 pts. This fleet was explicitly designed to beat a
> BJ-protected fleet.

4 Bolognas would have done it better though! The NSL fleet was very very
under-escorted.

>It worked.

Try it against double the number of CL(E)s and slightly fewer (and
smaller) BJs.
 
> Deployment saw the NSL in a tight formation, heavies in front, CLEs in
> the middle so all ships was covered by at least one CLE, and the DDGs
> bringing up the rear (about 6mu behind the heavies). Each CT was
> deployed 0.5mu from the ship it protected - it was physically
> impossible to get it closer than that.

Faultless. Except that the BJs should have been covered by 4 CL(E)s and
I'd forget about the fighters, but the latter is a minor issue. Oh yes,
and BJs are "ablative armour", you keep most in reserve (6mu behind),
not all up front. Remember that by the sequence of play, you can strip
off every BJ around a heavy, but before your SMs reach the target, more
can arrive. Usually by accelerating 6 and 5 from 6 MU behind while the
big guy decelerates 0.5 (and maybe turning). Don't know about you, but I
find it very difficult getting enough missiles within 0.25 MU of the
target consistently. I have done it once vs this type of defence, and a
Maria ate 6 SMs. Which made it very ill.  
  
> The FSE deployed in two groups: one consisting of the FFs and CTs
> moving slightly to starboard, and the other of the heavies which
veered
> off sharply to port.
 
> The FSE small fry accelerated as hard as they could towards the NSL,
> who turned their entire fleet to meet them. The FSE interceptor group
> managed to engage both the NSL squadrons in a furball, and although it
> was wiped out itself only 4 NSL fighters survived the experience.

Par for the course. One reason I have either Lots of fighters, none at
all, or keep em in the bays until enemy fighter strength is comparable.

> The
> other FSE fighter squadrons nailed one BJ each, while the Ibizas and
> Mistrals did in another three and crippled two for the loss of three
> Ibizas and both Mistrals.

How many fighters did you lose to the CL(E)s? Would twice the number of
PDs firing have made a significant difference (ie if the BJs had been
Falkes, would the Mistrals etc have killed many more) Also remember if
using Falke/S that they get to shoot back pretty nastily, and could
easily take out the (damaged) small fry sent against them, should they
get a chance to fire before evaporating (unlikely, I'll admit)
 
> Meanwhile, the FSE heavies had swung around in a wide arc and now
> closed in from the NSL's starboard side. The germanics launched
> missiles in their path, but only one salvo hit a BB and all its
> missiles were shot down. The other salvoes locked on to the
withdrawing
> Ibizas instead, and killed two more of them.

ie Banzai Jamming (just a note).

> Once again, the FSE
> managed to lock both the NSL squadrons in a dogfight, this time with
> their own standard squadron, while their attack fighters nailed
another
> two BJs.

There were surviving fighters? Oh yes, only 2 CL(E)s. And you weren't
using Morale, fair enough.

> The FSE battleline also concentrated all their guns at the
> BJs, killing three; now only five BJs remained in action - three of
> them covering the Maria von Burgund. NSL return fire was fairly
> ineffective since most of their weapons were out of arc, but they
> managed to inflict two threshold checks on one of the Jerezes.
> Unfortunately the only important damage was one of the SMLs, and it
was
> repaired almost immediately.

> So, what happened to the "impregnable" BJ defence? Well, basically the
> FSE used their superior maneuverability to limit the number of weapons
> the NSL could bring to bear.

I've found this to be nearly impossible: by "weaving" , ie having half
the force turn port 1 pt while the other half turns starboard, at least
half the weapons get to bear on one target, the other half aren't
wasted, they just have to plink at the other. Speed 2-4 is about right,
to give you the option of spinning in place.

> In hindsight the NSL should have taken a Der Theuerdank-class carrier
> instead of the Von Tegetthoff and replaced the Waldburg/Ms with two
> more Kronprinz Wilhelms; this would have provided better firepower
> against both missiles and ships.

I'd delete the fighters altogether, and just triple the firepower for
the same points. Keep the same number of Waldburg/Ms, but have Falkes
instead of Stoschens, and double the number of Wilhelms.

> The Stroschens did all you could ask of them, which was to die
> horribly, but they didn't live long enough to stop the missile
> onslaught.

Their one and only aim in life is NOT to die horribly, but to stop the
missiles! In this case there were not enough ADAFs to stop maraunding
fighters from taking em out.

Now try the same battle, but with all the Waldburg/Ms replaced by
Wilhelms and see what happens.

Summary: A very sub-optimal NSL fleet, with slightly sub-optimal
tactics. Enough in either to invalidate your main point, since I'm sure
similar tweaking could have been done with the FSE? Not sure. The idea
was to prove whether the BJ tactic is invincible or not. It appears not.

OTOH....
Though do try it with a few more CL(E)s. I should have made this a bit
clearer, you need enough in any fleet vs any opponent to keep the flies
away. 2 CL(E)s in a 3000 pt battle isn't enough - supposing the FSE had
taken, say 4 Bolognas? Heck, if I was taking NSL vs an unknown FSE
fleet, I'd take 4-5 of em, just in case I hit a Carrier group. But then
again, no fighters of my own if playing NSL.

Another point: Any reason why the NSL didn't just annhihilate the Ibizas
at 12" with their massed class 3s on their Big Platforms before the
Ibizas could fire? No point in long-range plinking if the opposition
still has missiles in the mags and you don't have any BJ protection.
Expendable doesn't mean Disposable. The BJs are there to absorb
missiles, and should be protected adequately to do that job.
Fortunately, this is not difficult. Without effective SMs, it doesn't
matter if the FSE big stuff is cherry and your big stuff slightly
plinked.

Summary:
NSL fleet severely, even fatally, unbalanced as it had nowhere near
enough ADAFs against any carrier fleet (whether said carrier fleet used
SMLs or no).

NSL tactics should be to keep the BJs in a reserve behind the main
fleet, and to zap any charging FFs/DDs that attempt to strip away BJs,
and not plink the FSE big guys. After the FFs are disposed of, THEN go
after the main force. And if they don't close, then by all means plink
away as you have "Plink Superiority".

FSE tactics were superb: The left-right split like this makes keeping
the BJs in reserve (as above) problematical at best. Not merely that,
but the use of Ibizas as Banzai Jammers against the Waldburg/Ms was very
good tactics (though maybe a bit wasteful, try to absorb more than one
SM salvo next time <g>)

All in all, and despite the caveats above, food for thought. 
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