Re: Boarding Ships and Landing Ships

>  Write All movement orders for cloaked ship (including launching
order)

> Seems to me to be quite effective.

> Brian Bell
> pdga6560@csi.com
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pdga6560/fthome.html

Seems to me hard to read.  Maybe it is my computer.

Okay, here is the problem:

LRDS and MBS cloak ~200" from planet for, I dunno, 10 turns.
Turn 1	Cloak and accel to planet  +8 towards planet
turn 2	stay cloaked and accel to planet  +24 to planet at 16
turn 3	""				  +48 to planet at 24
turn 4	""				  +80 to planet at 32
turn 5	stay cloaked and coast		  112 to planet at 32
turn 6	stay cloaked and decel		  136 to planet at 24
turn 7	stay cloaked and coast		  160 to planet at 24
turn 8	stay cloaked and decel		  176 to planet at 16
turn 9	stay cloaked and decel 4	  188 to planet at 12
turn 10 stay cloaked and decel 6	  194 to planet at 6

turn 11  Write Movement orders for Turn 11
	 Fire Missiles
	 Resolve Movement, ie,
Decloak and enter Atmosphere on Turn 11

I may be out on a limb here, but it seems to me that all status
changes for Shields, Cloaks, Reflex shields and weapon's disabling
for Wave Guns and Nova Cannon should take place at the beginning
of the Resolve Movement phase.

This particular tactic does make minefields somewhat more attractive,
as they will be able to hit the decloaking ship the instant it moves
into weapons range for them.  There is always the Farragut approach
of course...  (Hopefully famous naval quote left out so that some
people will feel clever  :) :) :)

The most efficient minefield-clearer is a Wave Gun, I don't know
why people use expensive special equipment to remove mines if
they damage the ship half the time anyway!  But if someone were
to have mine removing equipment and a wave gun on the same ship,
at the beginning of their movement phase when they prepared to
fire the wave gun, their mine removal equipment would no longer
protect them from the mines.

Adding a cloaking device to a Merchant Ship increases its cost by
about 50%.  That is way more expensive than almost any other protection
put on merchant ships.	Merchant ships with cloaking devices aren't
going to be able to contribute anything to a convoy battle, but they
practically insure the safety of the cargo, which is the important
thing.

Cloaks are one of the most problematic aspects of Full Thrust.
For example, the requirement for taking a system in The Lafayette
Incident, 2178 (FT 2nd Ed, pg 36-38) requires all mobile forces
be destroyed or forced to withdraw.  It is very difficult to force
a cloaked ship to leave.  If you decide to send ships into low
orbit anyway, you had better hope that the defender has no
16 Mass Non-Ftl  Thrust 8
Cloak
Wave Gun
126 point Wave Gun Cloak Escorts 

in their system.  All of a sudden, 4 WGCE decloak and fry everything
in low orbit.  Taking out the ESU Monitors and Troop Transports would
_seriously_ cripple Admiral Illyevich Grisheva's offensive!  Who
needs Pulse Torpedos when Wave Guns don't miss?

I am having a hard time coming up with a fleet that could do well
against a WGCE defended system.  The book disadvantages for the
Wave Gun don't really help since the WGCEs have no shields or other
weapons anyway.  If the Wave Gun is lost in a threshold check the
ship is pretty much lost anyway.  Sure, you could defeat them, but
the cost could be quite high.

Example:
Encounter at 54", WGCEs initial closing at 10", move 18" closer and
fire all wave guns in a spread at ~36".  Next turn, all ships cloak
and recharge.

10 WGCEs can swamp a 40" base at 36".  That should kill most of the
attacking fleets escorts right away, most of the ships fast enough to
catch the WGCEs.  And the poor fighters!

I am at a complete loss for good attacking fleet composition and
tactics versus this sort of hit and run defense.  It appears to
get worse the larger the fleets are on both sides.

Here is my best shot at it:
Mass 10  AA Destroyer
Thrust 8
Ftl
Damage 5
FCS
DCM
Port-Arc AA Beam.
Cost: 65

AA Destroyers fight Parthian style, always maintaining 36-54" from
their opponent, attempting to keep the enemy in their 8.  Three of
them can average a threshold roll on a WDCE at >36".  But there is
a problem of spacing.  The WGCEs can wipe out a whole squadron of
AA Destroyers while the AA Destroyers have to target one WGCE at
a time.  To maintain a spacing such that 1 Wave Gun will hit at
most one AA Destroyer they need to be 4" apart.  At that spacing
you aren't going to be able to get 3 to 1 on the WGCEs.  A ship
big enough to carry more AA Beams is going to be spending huge
amounts on its drive system.

The other alternative I see is a whole bunch of Submunition ships
willing to fire at 18".  An 18 Mass Thrust 8 Submunition ship would
inflict ~6 points and cost about the same as a WGCE.  If the
WGCE side makes a mistake and lets the Submunition ships close
to 18" (and fire is simultaneous), then all the Submunition ships
would take 3d6 and probably die, and an equal number of WGCE
would be hurt bad, or half as many would be destroyed.

Without using Cloaks, Wave Guns, or Nova Cannon yourself, and
a 2-1 point advantage, how do you destroy, say 10 WGCE with
less than 50% casualties?

Please note whether you are using Cinematic or Vector Thrust rules
in your assumptions!  Please note any applicable house rules that
you play by as well.

Michael Sandy