Fighters and Fighter Screena

Hello all -

  I'm sending this to both lists since my question is regarding the ship
combat system and is therefore as FT-related as it is B5-related.
Hopefully Jon or Zeke can answer this..

We recently played a TBP-based ship battle and had a problem
interpreting the fighter screen rules.	First, here's what happened:

Ship A had a screen of 4 fighter groups (24 fighters) and was attacked
by a swarm of 8 fighters groups (48 fighters) from enemy Ship 1 and Ship
2.  Allied Ship B sent 4 fighter groups (24 fighters) to assist.  Ships
1,2, and B were too far away to be a factor in combat except for their
fighters. Antifighter weapons from Ship A fired, taking out 3 fighters
(not fighter groups).  Fighter screens for Ship A took out 0-1 enemy
fighters per group.
Needless to say, Ship A died in short order.

Now, first question:  Ship B's fighters are not a screen.  Can they
dogfight the fighters attacking Ship A?  If so, do the enemy fighters
get to shoot back at B's fighters and still get to attack the ship?

I don't think the enemy fighters should be allowed to fire twice, so it
seems they have the choice:  break off the attack entirely or just suck
up the damage from B's fighters and continue on the capital ship.  One
reading of the rules suggested that since the enemy fighters are
involved in an attack with a ship, they cannot be part of a dogfight -
and therefore B's fighters cannot engage at all.  But this makes no
sense:	B's fighters are going to just fly around and watch?  But if B's
fighters can attack, then fighter screens are pretty useless. You can do
the same damage without fear of counterdamage by simply bringing in a
non-screening fighter group.  Or better yet, the entire attack might be
blocked rather than just the one or two fighters that you might kill in
a dogfight with your screen.

How should this have been handled?  Our other problem was more
philosophical:	capital ships were almost unnecessary in the two battles
we played.  The fighters went out, swarmed each ship in turn and usually
destroyed it in a single turn.	Aside from the fact this never occurs in
B5 (but I won't start THAT debate), I enjoy FT because of the capitals,
not because of the fighters.  Here's how we resolved it, and it works
quite well:

B's fighters can attack the enemy fighters and the enemy fighters must
decide to continue the attack or break off and engage the fighters.
Fighter screens work slightly differently, however.  If the enemy
fighters do not break off, they face the fighter screen, and will roll
on the dogfight table as usual.  Now, however, before rolling the
dogfight, every screening fighter (not fighter group) will completely
block one attacking fighter (not fighter group).  For example, suppose
both the attacking fighter group and the screening group have six
fighters each.	This turn, no fighters may attack the ship - they are
too busy with the fighter screen.  They dogfight and the attackers kill
two screening fighters while the screening fighters kill one of the
attacking fighters.  The attackers now have 5 fighters to the screen's
4.  Next turn:	one attacking fighter is unmolested, so will attack the
ship.  The remaining fighters dogfight as usual, eliminate any fighters
as appropriate, and then the unblocked fighter rolls against the ship.

Essentially, the only rule change is that before the dogfight with the
fighter screen, attacking fighter fighters are blocked
fighter-for-fighter by the fighter screen.  Only unblocked fighters will
actually attack the ship.  One possible variant is to match
fighter-for-fighter AFTER the dogfight.  In this case, the enemy
fighters would have had one fighter attack the first turn since they
killed two fighters to the defender's one.  My problem with this is that
it means one attacking fighter both fought a defender, killed him, and
still had time to attack the ship.  Not likely, IMO.

This does -dramatically- reduce the effectiveness of fighters, but
that's essentially the point:  fighters (in general) should fight
fighters, ships (in general) should fight ships.  I realize in the
modern carrier-based navy, fighters really do take down capital ships,
but all my experience with FT has led me to believe that the ships are
not just carriers for fighters.  But maybe we misinterpreted the
screening rules completely?

Opinions?

Second question:  when declaring targets for fighter groups, shouldn't
this declaration alternate among the players as with movement?	Often
times a fighter group will have the option of assisting an allied ship
(as B's fighters did above), attacking an enemy ship, or dogfighting.
The person who declares his target first is somewhat at a disadvantage.
We couldn't find this written anywhere, but seemed to be in the spirit
of FT.

Thanks..
Keith