Re: [FT] Ship morale

JMO, but you paint a tad too extreme picture of military discipline.

If a ship is no longer an effective fighting unit (i.e. massive damage)
then I
would see an admiral not only not denying the request, but ordering it
if
necessary.  A ship is a very expensive piece of equipment and if it was
the
difference between saving a ship to repair and having a bunch of
wreckage to
clean up, I would expect that everyone involved (except for the guys
shooting at
them) would rather have a ship.

I believe you are the one that mentioned the Honor Harrington series and
stated
that you could only think of one instance where a ship broke from
formation and
ran for it.  You are partly correct.  There is only one example of a
comparatively undamaged ship breaking out, the Pavel Young incident. 
There are
however numerous mentions of SD's and DN's dropping out of the wall due
to
battle damage.	Presumably without orders, but required by the
situation.  I
would also humbly submit that however important the battles are that are
portrayed in the books they are a small fraction of the number of 
battles that
would have actually had to take place.

I guess my motivation for this is that I have a philosophical problem
with a
ship ALWAYS staying in the fight until it's dead.  The people running
that ship
have the same self-preservation instinct as any ground-pounder, and it's
captain
knows that while a ship may need to be sacrificed for victory staying in
a fight
when you no longer have anything to contribute is foolish and wasteful.

I also think that the "Strike the Colors" rule is perhaps too harsh in
that you
have a one third chance of losing a ship at every threshold check (I'm
guessing,
but I would surmise from your comments you don't use that rule) and I
would find
that withdrawing from the battle would be much more likely than
surrendering.
Another problem with it, IMO is that it makes no allowance for the
quality of
the captain.

Well I guess I'm just going to have to test my ideas and see if they go
too far
or not far enough.  Those of you who are happy with the perfect control
over
your  fleets are welcome to ignore them, but IMO it's not terribly
realistic.

Brushman

Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> on 07/19/99 10:18:00 AM

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Admiral, you must let me leave.  I'm down to one point defense system,
the engines are fluttering on and off and I only have one type one left.
This isn't a cruiser anymore, it's a frigate.  One more hit and it's
space dust.

Captain, you are relieved.  Your XO is now in command.