RE: Fighters and Defense

From: "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" <Brian.Bell@dscc.dla.mil>

>[snip]
>> It is in fact better, because one Interceptor group can neutralize or
>> compromize the effectiveness of up to 3-6 fighter groups.[snip]
 
> Noam

>Would you explain this?
<snip most of example>
>Result: 3 fighter groups compromized/neutralized. After 3 dogfights,
the
>interceptors will be of limited use and unlikely to pass morale to
dogfight
>again).

Even in this lopsided 6:1 ratio, the interceptors fare pretty well, I
think.
though in this scenario, Group A at least will be destroyed on average,
so
breaking the dogfight will be unnecessary. I'd probably have the
interceptors dogfight each squadron to death before moving on to the
next. 

In reality, howver, I don't think you'd have many 6:1
fighter:interceptor
melees, expecially if the primary antifigher defense was interceptors.
With
6:2 and your starting scenario, on average 2-ish groups of the original
6
make it in to attack any ships, and a halfway decent PDS net will
destroy
them, scare them off, or at least reduce their damage to far less than
crippling. If interceptors are primary fighter defense, then the
attacker:interceptor ratio would likely be 6:3 or lower.

Oerjan's comments make the above somewhat superfluous, though. 

Either way, it's pretty clear to me that an interceptor group + bay (9
mass,
36 pts) does pretty much what David Griffin wants a SUMS to do
(Launcher+3
rounds is 9 Mass, 27 pts), if not in exactly the same way.

Noam