[FT] (LONG) The Balance of Power -- Fighters and a Defense

In any wargame involving naval units (or space 
units) there is a balance of power between 
large and small units. This balance of power 
involves among other things armor, shields 
(where available), and the quality of defenses 
against small units (missiles and fighters).

Can a small unit carry a weapon large enough 
to affect a warship? Is shooting down such a 
unit easy or difficult? If an effective enough 
weapon can be carried by a small unit, how 
many such hits will incapacitate or destroy 
the larger ship?

We've all heard speculations of how ships 
from two different SFgenres would interact. 
How would the Battlestar Galactica come 
out against the Enterprise? The clash wouldn't 
be so much a clash of ships as concepts. The 
BG could overwhelm the Enterprise with
fighters, but how effective would they be? 
Perhaps they would whittle the shields down 
while being agile enough to make themselves 
difficult to destroy with the larger phasers on 
the Federation ship. Or perhaps it would turn 
out that the weapons the Vipers carried would 
be largely ineffective against the shields of 
the Federation ship. Perhaps the Enterprise 
would sail on serenely and destroy the 
Galactica with it's shipkilling weapons. The 
fact is, we don't know because we don't know 
where the balance of power would be.

We have grown up in an era where the airplane 
is king. Yes we have sophisticated air defenses, 
but the core of them are actually other aircraft. 
Let's look at how a CVN group works today (you 
real experts out there feel free to correct me -- I 
was in the Air Force not the Navy).

The CVN sits in the middle of a large group of 
distributed and specialized escorts. Some of 
these escorts deal with submarines, but 
unless there are some rule changes involving 
cloaked ships in FT, let's forget about those 
for now.

It's generally acknowledged that an attack on 
a CVN battlegroup is most effective when it's 
defenses are saturated and this is the 
accepted tactic. One deluges the defenses 
with massive waves of fighters and missiles, 
some get through and deliver their weapons.

The first line of defense is of course the 
aircraft. The Tomcats go up with their warloads 
of 4 phoenix and 4 AA missiles (sparrow,
AMRAAM, sidewinder, whatever) and snipe 
at the massive waves of fighters and missiles 
with the phoenix. These interceptions take
place at up to 100 miles away from the carrier. 
The Tomcats are themselves at a considerable 
distance away from the carrier as they have to 
be OUTSIDE the next layer of defense so that 
they don't get shot down by their own side.

The survivors keep coming. The Tomcats and 
the F18's now act as interceptors firing short 
range dogfight AA missiles and guns. Some
of the missiles and aircraft get through this 
ring of defense however if there are enough 
of them.

Then Aegis and the various SAM's available 
in the fleet go to work. At about 20 miles or so, 
ships like the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke
with their vertical box launchers and other SAM 
launchers on the cruisers and destroyers all 
begin launching at the targets that Aegis and 
the people running it feel are the most 
dangerous targets. The SAMs account for 
more of the attackers. By now the F14's and 
F18's have turned away since they have to stay 
out of CVBG missile range.

The survivors attack the ships, preferably the 
high value ones. The last ditch defense is the 
CIWS (close in weapon system, effectively
a radar controlled gatling gun). A few of the 
survivors will be shot down by these weapons. 
The rest? BOOM.

If enough survivors get through to cripple the 
carrier (and the Aegis ships) the group is in 
big trouble and the attack has been a success.

One can't envision a modern task force that 
would consider the idea of building only 
missile defenses around a battleship. It 
wouldn't work because our missile defenses, 
though very good, aren't up to repelling that 
kind of massive attack without the range and 
power available with a carrier air group. The 
balance of power is with the airplane.

How does it work in Full Thrust? Well this is 
a matter of opinion. I'll give you mine, but I 
admit there are others. To me it looks as if
the PDS's are the equivalent of the last ditch 
CIWS system. Fighters are of course fighters. 
ADFC is kind of a weak Aegis system, though
all it's able to coordinate is CIWS systems. 
What's missing is the shorter range SAM's 
that are such a useful addition to the defenses
of the fleet. ADFC's are not prohibited from 
firing on fighters flying overhead without 
attacking, but that makes sense if they're 
really CIWS type weapons. 

Because of this fact, I think the balance of 
power is more on the side of the fighter than 
they should be in FT. To redress this, to give 
ships what they should have to help defend 
themselves (at least as well as we can today) 
I recommend a new human space weapon
system. We'll call it the Small Unit Missile 
System (SUMS).

SUMS costs the same as a salvo missile 
launcher to install (3 for the launcher and 2 
each for each reload). Point cost is 3xthe 
mass of the weapons (as standard). The 
symbol is a circle containing a salvo missile 
symbol and the letter S, with a line to the
magazine.

Maximum range is 50". Since the objective is 
to intercept them while they're out there, the
range has to be outside the range of 1 
movement turn of a fighter. Missiles can be 
targeted only against other missiles (MT or 
salvo missiles) or fighters of any kind. 1D6 
missiles will be on target. Each missile on 
target destroys a single fighter (no rerolls).

Missiles are launched from the ship as a 
single high thrust unit. When they get close, 
they break apart into 6 highly agile AI 
controlled missiles. Because this is true, 
SUMS cannot be targetted at any target at 
or below 6" (as measured after a fighter 
completes movement). Because of their 
agility, SUMS move after all fighter movement. 
The target of a SUMS is at the discretion of 
the targetting player and may be decided at the 
time of intercept (the AI is programmed with
the player's preferences and is able to make 
intelligent choices). Movement need not be 
plotted.

Fighters (not missiles) can attempt to throw 
off a missile salvo. To do this, they may jink 
(move erratically). This subtracts 1 from the 
number of fighters destroyed by the missile 
salvo, but the fighter squadron may not attack 
that turn AND it burns 1 CEF in the evasion.

There are extended range versions with a 
range of 70". Mass is 3 per salvo and 3xmass 
for point value. An ER SUMS is really only of 
use on a very large board.

So what do you all think? Surely a system like
this is not out of the technological reach of the
particpants.

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