FW: Big Guns

Perhaps in a campaign setting the current system is self equalizing. In
our experience, the little
 guys almost always get waxed unless there is greater than a 5:1
advantage (in points). 

I do agree that in the future it could be silly to think "big guns"
couldn't hit as well as "small guns",
 but then again, if they can miss at all then why not say the big guns
have a higher chance of
 missing?

Paul
 
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From:  Phillip E. Pournelle [SMTP:pepourne@nps.navy.mil]
Sent:  Wednesday, March 26, 1997 11:08 AM
To:  FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Subject:  Big Guns

At 09:55 PM 3/25/97 -0800, Paul Calvi wrote:
Even with modern fire control a BB would have a heck of a time hitting a
DD with its main guns (pick any historical battle).
Historically BBs were very distructive when they were in range to make
their attacks.	When German Battle Cruisers engaged British
Dreadnaughts, they were very effective.  The same occured when Japanese
Battleships engaged British and Dutch ships in the Eastern Pacific. 
This is why Yamoto wanted to use his Battleships to destroy the American
Task forces once his carriers neutralized the American Carriers.  The
trouble was he was not able to get his BBs into position.  Had he, the
outcome of the war in the Pacific may have been very different...
Torpedoes are very deadly but so is a battlewagon with heavy guns, even
today the Russians have some very accurate and heavy guns on their
ships.	We can assume in the B5 universe that weapons direction systems
are pretty effective and so I'm not sure that adding size vs. targeting
rules to the game gains us anything except confustion.
I have often destroyed large battlewagons with Destroyer squadrons,
because I'm very mobile and have a lot smaller infrastructure cost for
each ship.
Phil P.