Re: When is a Dreadnought ... [LONG]

After I commented that FASA's _Renegade Legion_ "is perhaps the only
game I 
have run across that is consistant in its explanation as to why both
fighters 
and battleships are used in large numbers," Aaron Teske asked for more 
explanation.  The following is from the essay presented in _Prefect_.

Let's start with some of the salient features of the _Renegade Legion_ 
universe.  Specifically:
* a ship moving under FTL drive can only move in straight lines;
* ships moving under FTL drive cast a spherical disruption pattern with
a 
radius measured in light-years; 
* the faster a ship moves, the larger its disruption pattern;
* the greater the mass of a ship, the larger its disruption pattern;
* the disruption pattern can be detected by special detection stations;
* the larger a ship's disruption pattern, the farther away it can be
detected;
* ships have a limited endurance of air, food and other consumables;
* FTL communications exist, and allow system commanders to call in 
reinforcements;
* the FTL communication arrays are HUGE, far too large (and fragile) to
be 
carried on a ship.

As a result of these factors, a capital ship which wishes to make it to
a 
target system before its consumables run out is forced to approach at a
high  
speed.	Between the ship's high mass and high speed, it casts a very
large 
disruption pattern.  In turn, this large disruption pattern assures that
the 
ship will be spotted and its course plotted in sufficient time for the
system 
commander to request and recieve reinforcements from the theater reserve

maintained for exactly this purpose.  Since the size of the pattern is 
determined by the mass and speed of the incoming ship(s), and the speed
can be 
determined if the pattern is detected by multiple detection stations,
the 
defenders usually have a a pretty good idea of exactly what is coming
in, 
whereas the attacker is jumping in blind.

In other words, capital ships are for pitched battles to take systems,
not 
hit-and-run raids or recon.  Those jobs are left for fighters.

Fighters, on the other hand, can be carried to a system on relatively
small 
ships which, because of the decreased mass of the ship, have a much
smaller 
disruption pattern.  In many instances, they can approach at a slower
speed as 
well, further decreasing the size of the disruption pattern  [The effect
of 
mass and speed on the disruption pattern is such that sometimes you need
to 
increase speed to cut down on the warning time that they would have
anyway 
based on the mass of your ship; with smaller craft this isn't necessary.
 It's 
confusing without the examples and illustrations presented in the essay;

you'll have top trust me on it (or read the essay).]   

If done right, even if the system commander detects the incoming ship,
he will 
have insufficient time to receive reserves from his theater commander,
and 
will thus be forced to deal with the threat with the forces on hand. 
These 
forces are usually smaller ships (capital ships are too precious to
waste 
garrisoning systems -- they are needed for the theater reserve), and
while the 
system commander may have more ships, they are often spread out to cover

several possible targets.  Thus, while the attacking force may be
smaller than 
the total defending force,  the attackers may be able to achieve local 
superiority.  For this reason, incoming attack forces often try to
obscure 
their actual target until they absolutely must commit; oftentimes, the 
defender won't know the actual target until some of the defending ships
are 
already out of interception range.  The attackers conduct their strike
(or 
recon mission) and move towards the outer system, where their carrier
(which 
may be very small, i.e., corvette-sized) is waiting, having itself made
a 
high-speed pass through undefended portions of the system.

The essay discusses the above in terms of a ship's "maneuver sphere",
which 
can be defined as a sphere encompassing all the possible final locations
of a 
ship after a given amount of time.  The size of this sphere is
determined by 
the ship's maximum thrust, with the location of the sphere centered on
the end 
of the ship's current vector arrow.  Note that since we are talking
about the 
volume of a sphere, the size of the sphere increases as a cube of the
thrust, 
i.e., a ship with a thrust of 1 has a maneuver sphere of (R^3 x pi), or
in 
this case, 1pi; a ship with a thrust of 4, on the other hand, has a
maneuver 
sphere of 64pi.  In order for the defenders to guarantee an
interception, 
their manuever sphgere must totally encompass the attacker's maneuver
shere.

Fighters have three primary roles: reconaissance raids, stopping
reconaissance 
raids, and hit-and-run strikes.  The first two put a premium on fighters
with 
higher thrust ratings, which are generally smaller.  The last mission
usually 
calls for heavier fighters.

Thus, both capital ships and fighters have their own unique missions. 
Neither 
is particular suited for the missions of the other, although in a
general 
system-wide melee involving capital ships, there is usually plenty of
work for 
the fighters to do as well.

Overall, the essay hangs together very well, with few inconsistencies;
it 
explains both the strategic and tactical implications of the technology,
and 
hence the significant (but different) roles of both fighters and capital

ships.	It by-and-large avoids the problems of other science fiction
games 
where incompatible tactical models of warfare (e.g.,
offensive-battleship-
dominance vs. offensive-carrier-strike-dominance) are forced into a
common 
system, such as occurred in _Traveller_, where the Imperium had huge
numbers 
of fighters and fighter carriers, but fighters were fairly ineffectual
weapons 
compared to battleships.

BTW, now is a good time to put in a plug for one of my favorite books on
this 
subject, _Fleet Tactics_ by Wayne Hughes, published by the US Naval
Insitute 
Press.	While the book is rooted firmly in the Real World(tm), it does
look at 
some topics which are relevant to a science fictional setting, such as
how 
sensors affect tactics, and when you should divide your carriers and
when you 
shouldn't.  I'm rereading it now; it's very good.

--Chris Weuve
caw@wizard.net (h)    caw@intercon.com (w/day)	  chrisweuve@usa.net
(perm) 
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There are 8 million stories in the naked city -- and 15 million in the
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