RE: Salvo Missiles (was UN Ship Nomenklatura)

Hello

My experience of SLM's is the exact opposite of this. In our games using
the FSE
 we have found them to be a joke weapon. First you have to get within 3"
of the
target, then see how many hit, then see how many are shot down, then see
how
much damage they do; 4 chances for things to go wrong! We have found
that it's
very hard to guess where the enemy is, spreading slavoes increases the
likelyhood but wastes salvoes; in a recent game my battleship's six(6)
salvoes
did 1 point of damage! Once the ships have fired them off they are very
vulnerable, being typically lightly armed. One other abuse is to have
major
ships accompanied by several couriers, any salvoes that get near the
major ship
head for the nearset target, the couriers, and blow them to bits, but
miss the
big ship.
As a result, the  FSE have lost every battle I have seen  them used in,
I think
that more testing should have gone into these weapons.

Cheers
GJS
________________________________________________________________________
_______
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
From: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk on Mon, 17 Aug 1998 12:46 PM
Subject: Re: Salvo Missiles (was UN Ship Nomenklatura)
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Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 21:28:11 -0400
From: laserlight <laserlight@mci2000.com>
Subject: Re: Salvo Missiles (was UN Ship Nomenklatura)
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
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> I was recently on the receiving end of a demonstration on how to use
SML's.	En
> Masse.
> My opponent had cruiser sized vessels with multiple missle launchers
(but
only
> 2 loads per launcher).  He could, and did, throw out enough SML's in a
single
> turn to overwhelm any defence on any ship.  My big tough BB's died in
a
single
> turn.  When he ran out of missiles, his escorts closed in and cleaned
up
what
> was left.

Average number of missiles reaching an undefended target = 3.5
Avg dmg/missile = 3.5
Avg dmg/salvo = 12.25
Each PDS on average shoots down .8 missile (includes rerolls) or 2.8 avg
damage points.
Therefore, to stop a salvo, you need 4.375 PDS (call it 4 or 5 depending
on
how optimistic you are).
Multiply by the number of salvos you expect to receive at a time.
(The largest PDS suites I see in the Fleet Book have 6).
Bear in mind that shields don't help and only half the damage is reduced
by
armor.

Each fighter kills 0.4 missile on average.  Each interceptor kills 0.6
on
average.  Therefore an interceptor squadron should on average knock out
a
complete salvo (of course, you also lose one interceptor, on average, 
each
time you try this).

Let's say you want a hard kill on a Szent Istvan (60 hull, 14 armor, 4
PDS).
1 salvo is absorbed by the PDS suite.
Approximately 2 salvoes will each be half absorbed by armor, but we're
going for the whole things, so let's add armor and hull together for
74pts.
 Divide by 12.25 damage/salvo and you get approximately 6 salvo rounds.
Therefore if you sling 7 salvos simultaneously (and hit, but given that
a
Szent has a Thrust 2, how could you miss?), you will in all likelihood
see
a small dense nebula where the BDN used to be--or at the very least, one
ensign and three ratings will be frantically applying duct tape and
superglue to the few remaining chunks of bulkhead.
On the other hand, if you toss in one salvo at a time, you will probably
scratch its paint but not much more.

(The numbers above are not absolutely exact as I ignore the effects of
overkill against a salvo--if a salvo only turns out to have 1 missile,
the
extra kills you'd get from your interceptors or PDS don't carry over. 
Insofar as I can tell, this effect is detrimental only to the target,
not
the firer).

Fortunately most of the FB ships don't seem to be able to generate more
than two or three salvoes at a time.  In a design-your-own competition,
though, I predict we'll see a batch of missile racks.