[FT] Small ships

Perils of small ships:

Die easily before they are in range to do 
damage

Take thresholds very easily and lose combat 
effectiveness with a very minimal amount of 
damage

Make crappy escorts because they make 
stripping away ADFC protection very easy for 
long ranged sniping fleets

How to address these threats:

1) Mount weapons on them that reach. SMRs 
(ER) and PTs and K-1s are good choices. 

2) Mount ADFC on minimum light-cruiser sized 
hulls. Heck, if I was to refight the last CanAm FT, 
I'd have utterly depopulated the weapons of a 
Komarov to give me 70 more PDS. 

3) If you have standard FB escorts, have them 
follow 13" behind your line of battle. Your line 
of battle tends to be able to make it to the 
enemy usually even through a couple of rounds 
of fire, and causing meaningful thresholds on 
the bigger ships will take a bit of work. Whereas 
if the small ships are as close or closer, killing 
or crippling them is waaay easy and can be 
done before they come into weapons envelope. 
Come in behind your fleet and your fleet will 
draw the fire. They can then be used to 1) 
savage cripples and 2) rip apart enemy ships 
that end up between your two lines who will try 
to focus on your LoB. Thus they get into range 
to do damage and their NPV is not wasted (as 
badly as it is if they die before doing so). 

I have found this tactic quite effective. Also, on 
the round where your fleets will meet inside 
RB1, you will find that you can punch up the 
thrust (well, give one turn of prep acceleration, 
so you have to plan it two moves out) and 
arrive more or less at the same pointblank 
range with your line of battle. This flexibility is an 
asset as well. 

You can also divert the escort swarm to go 
after flankers, strikeboat tenders, or fighter 
carriers that aren't joining the bruhaha capital 
ship furball. 

I thank Oerjan for some of this advice originally, 
he made the unserviceable ships useful to me. 
Although I still prefer escorts with range 30 
weapons. 

Tomb. 
---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site
"In God We Trust... on Cold Steel We Depend."