Figher Balance Issues - Replies...

Grouped together for your reading pleasure or torture... (8-)

Thomas Barclay wrote:
> > Second of all, let us make the assumption that in order to be a
useful
> > weapon of war, fighters must have the ability to damage warships
relatively
> > efficiently.  It is through warship damage that the fighter can most

> > directly influence the outcome of battle.	It is assumed that all
other
> > 'fighter' functions - recon, defence, etc are either derived from,
or 
> > are in response to this type of threat.  
> 
> If you're just talking FT yes. If you are including the functions in 
> a 'complete' universe, you'd have to concede that ground attack, 
> tacair, etc. were functions not covered under the above stipulation. 
> But you might (if we wish to differentiate these from fighters), call 
> these 'ground attack craft'.	

Oh agreed.  I just assumed naval power projection missions for the
planes 
involved.  There may be universes where fighters are not useful for
naval 
power projection, but extremely useful in planetary assault, garrison,
and defence duties.  

Fabet@aol.com wrote:
> >For example, in current times, fighters have much higher speeds than
their
> >target ships, are fairly survivable against ship based weapons and
are only
> >vulnerable to other fighters, and carry relatively cost effective
weapons
> >that can severly damage or even sink ships.
> 
> Modern ship weapons are actually very effective against A/C. The
"fighters"
> ability to survive is mostly because they don't even try to get close.
Instaed
> A/C with antiship missions rely on long range stand off weapons like
Harpoon
> or Exocet launched from over the horizon.

This is a very recent phenomenon.  In World War II, the main anti-ship
weapons
of the time (airplane bombs, torpedoes, large calibre shell fire) and
the main
air defence weapons (small calibre gun, air defence fighter) were
largely 
ineffective against other targets.  Indeed you can argue that this
dichotomy 
continues to this day, as large scale anti-ship missiles are ineffective
against
fighters, and SAM/AAMs and CIWS systems are ineffective against major
warships.
(This isn't a strong as in pervious generations, since today's navies
depend
heavily on active defences, and have little in the way of passives.)

But the development of stand-off weapons is a perfect example of the
changing 
nature of offense/defence.  The development of reliable, accurate fire
control
for small-calibre weapons (culminating in CIWS systems), and the
development of
reliable surface-to-air missiles means the day of close in attacks
against a 
modern fleet are over.	(They are still viable against a fleet not
completely
modernized - for example, Argentina vs UK, Falklands, 1982.)

John Leary wrote:
> Third, The only way to 'solve' the items you have mentioned is to 
> go the route of the dreaded 'house rule'.

I actually wasn't looking at solving anything.	(8-)  My only purpose in
this
was
to attack the issue of balance.  One of my pet peeves is when elements
are 
'shoe horned' into a Universe just for the coolness of it all, with not
even a 
consideration as to whether or not this makes sense.  (Some Anime is an
example
of this.)

I do like 'no-brainer' movies just like everybody else (well, maybe not
everybody
else (8-) ); I just like a higher level of sophistication in my game
universes.

Apologies for the length of ramble,
J.
--
Jerry Han -  CANOE Canada - jhan@canoe.ca - http://www.idigital.net/jhan
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