RE: Maritime Strike Bombers

At 5:20 PM +1000 5/30/01, Robertson, Brendan wrote:
>Being so expensive, you want a little bang for the left-overs.  A 5-6 =
1
>kill against both fighters and ships is a trade-off.  You might not
have
>good manoeverability for dogfighting, but you can fit more guns and
bigger
>guns on the large frame.  It's guaranteed that you'll want to use these
to
>finish off cripples after the missile salvoes.  (one reason I prefer
attack
>fighters over torp fighters is you can hang around longer).

Oh, aye, I do like the Attack fighters for their endurance and 
extended utility. I just didn't want to make the bombers "god" when 
it came to air combat....

>Shipboard, SML salvoes and MT missiles are 2 mass on their own, so if
you
>want a fighter capable of delivering the full shipboard effect, your
fighter
>is going to need to be 3-4 mass (which defeats the purpose of
fighters).
>It's cheaper to send in a missile destroyer with SMRs/MT missiles once
you
>get into these mass / costs (plus the added benefits of FTL).

Well, there isn't a need for magazines, handling gear and all the 
armoured box stuff that they need shipboard. Compare what is needed 
to fire a Harpoon from the air with what they use on the ground. Also 
the ground based missiles usually need a booster.

The DD is cheaper, but does it have the at once throw weight?

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