Re: [GZG] John's Shipbuilding

[Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx>]

John Atkinson wrote:

> >Basically, this match-up hinges on how many missile boats the SDN can
> >cripple before the boats get into missile launch range. [...] Given the
> >fragility of a missile boat - eg., on the design you posted even the first
> >damage point inflicted has a 30% chance of neutering the boat by damaging
> >either or both of the FCS and the SMR - and the amount of firepower that
> >SDN can put out even at ranges >24mu, that is seriously bad news for the
> >missile boats.
>
> ???  4 beam dice, 3 pulse torps that have a 1 in 6 chance of hitting.
> That's not exactally overwhelming.

Not in a single turn, no - but when each of those beam die has something 
like 20% chance of knocking a missile boat out, and a pair of beam dice 
more like 70%, even that firepower whittles down the missile swarm 
surprisingly fast. It gets even worse inside range 24, of course. Been 
there, done that several times over.

> >Of course, as Laserlight wrote the outcome of this battle depends heavily
> >on the set-up. If the starting range and/or the initial velocities are too
> >low, the SDN won't be able to shape its vector appropriately before the
> >missile boats range on it - but if the SDN's captain has allowed 30+
> >unidentified ships to get that close without even beginning to do something
> >about it, I'd say he deserves to lose his ship!
>
> True.  And a lot of that goes into campaign assumptions--specifically,
> the range at which the SDN captain can spot 30+ bogies.

Yep. But when active sensors have a 54mu *identification* range (FT2 p.21), 
detection range is likely to be longer than that... and detection cuts both 
ways: the missile boats can't begin to shape their vector either until they 
detect the SDN.

> >Basic premises are reasonably OK - though note that neither torpedoes nor
> >SSMs/ASMs are necessarily single-hit-kill systems against today's warships!
>
> To be fair, SSMs or ASM may not sink a ship, but they will very likely
> mission kill them.

Depends on the exact type of missile we're talking about. The bigger modern 
ones most likely will, that's true.

> >...but in Full Thrust even a tiny B1 battery can damage a 
> superdreadnought - and a
> >lot of B1s can destroy an SDN with a hundred tiny cuts. This fact alone
> >severely upsets comparisons between Full Thrust and historical wet-navy 
> fleets.
>
> You need a LOT of B1s, and I wouldn't want to try it with real human
> beings under my command.

Sure, I need a lot of B1s to kill an SDN, and the swarm will most likely 
take massive casualties (unless the SDN screws up badly so all those B1s 
manage to get into close range very quickly). If the alternative is to lose 
a planet/critical shipyard/insert high-value strategic target of your 
choice, even real-world armed forces would go into such a battle. Cornered 
rats, backs against the wall, desperate last stands, and all that.

The point is that since the small Full Thrust ships *can* damage and even 
destroy SDNs, there is a finite balance point between these two types of 
ship which the tactical points system can measure. The tactical points 
system does not care about the morality of sending a swarm of tiny ships to 
near-certain death (that's a campaign issue, not a tactical one); all it 
cares about in this match-up is how many B1-armed scoutships it takes to 
get a ~50% chance of destroying the SDN before all the scouts have been 
destroyed.

FWIW I have seen some campaign systems which did take crew casualty rates 
into account in various ways - some iterations of StarFire, for example. 
(It was pretty difficult to build more ships than you could find crews for, 
but I vividly remember occasions where I couldn't man the ground forces 
necessary to maintain control over conquered planets :-( )

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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