Re: [OFFICIAL] Missile Ideas

On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:

>   In the strait itself, the battleships only got involved pretty late,
> after the destroyers had pounded most of the Japanese ships into
> snot.  I don't recall exactly what ships the Japanese had at this
> point but some of them were fairly heavy.  Cruisers and the like.

It seems the obsolete BB Fuso indeed did get torpedoed, along with one
cruiser and three DDs. Whether the gunfire had started by that point and
how damaged she was previously are somewhat unclear. I'll check this a
bit
further. 

In any case, one must not discount the American superiority in numbers 
nor the very favourable strategic position. The Japanese HAD to get 
through the strait, and fast. That and the proximity of the shore are
the 
things that let the yanks get close enough.

It's a bit like this: Of all the people bitten by rattlesnakes, how many

saw the snake in advance AND had an option not get close to it?

>   At the same time as this battle was taking place, a second Japanese
> force was trying to kill the American task force 54 

That's the "Battle off Samar" I mentioned earlier. The small force had
about 20 CVEs and their about 500 planes. I'd say those planes had
something to do with Kurita's decision to withdraw. 

>   Yup.  However they may or may not be as flexible as in the real
> world, where DDs played an important role as scouts, communication
> vessels, fleet pickets, ASW ships, AA defense, night attack boats,

> armored cargo carriers (!), 

DDs are not armored, but they *are* much faster than real cargo ships.
Thus the "Tokyo Express" use.

> rescue ships etc, etc, etc.  Most of these
> missions don't come into play in a typical FT game

Yup.

> (or campaign) so

They *should* come up in campaigns.

To reach some sort of a conclusion: DDs are much more a "strategic" than
a 
"tactical" ship. Which value do we want the points cost to reflect?

If the points system was perfect, X pts of ships would always equal X
pts 
of ships. But that's impossible.

I think the current balance is pretty good. With subpacks and pulse
torps 
smaller ships have a fairly good chance of taking out bigger foes of 
equal value.

Sure, they can't really win a gunnery duel, but they don't have to
engage 
in one either. Don't play the other guy's game.

But a big ship threatened with equal points in dedicated missile ships 
can neither win nor escape. At best it can survive and force an 
inconclusive draw.

Having yammered this much about missiles, how about a slight change of 
subject?

Does anyone else think mines are underpowered, especially wrt missiles? 
>From the point/mass side of things, two mines equal one missile. Yet
they 
have average damage of only 2.66 points compared to the missile's 7. 
Against shielded targets the difference is even greater.

Heck, dumping stationary missiles would probably much more of a
deterrant.

How to make mines more usable? Some ideas:

1) More ammo for the price. Allow laying more mines per layer/turn.
2) More damage for mines. 1d6/no shields would bring them in line with 
missiles, but I'm not 100% sure I want to see this.
3) Permanent minefields. Minefields stay and damage all comers until 
cleared by a minesweeper or maybe fighters.

Strategically speaking, it's currently impossible to lay anything like 
usable minefields without a huge fleet of dedicated mine-layers.

Assume you want to protect one quadrant (90deg) of a space station, make
anyone coming within bombardment range (36") risk 5 pts of damage. That
takes about 39 mines, costs 130 pts and requires a total of 78 mass in 
strictly mine-laying ships.

Lower cost for pre-laid minefields? What *does* it cost to refill the 
mine rack?

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