Re: Vector Movement and SML's

G'day,

>"Misses most of the time", you said.

OK different definition of most (that's the lumps you get for using a
word
with a subjective meaning) - I meant misses more often than that.

>Encourages you to pay attention, doesn't it?  

Pay attention, is that what you're supposed to do. Oh drat it, knew I'd
been doing something wrong.... ;P

>SMR's are for gamblers.  You
>win big, or you lose big.

I agree, I just personally think (well the group here thinks) that the
3"
range means that the returns aren't worth it so we opted to go for the
6"
and it doesn't seem to have busted the balance, that's all I'm trying to
say :)

>You rarely get a "one shot, one kill" with a beam, though.  

Not one beam maybe, but a barrage from a whole ship (especially one of
those big boys is pretty hard to ignore) and you also get the option to
hang around and around and around whereas SM ships can't do that. So you
get the one big bang (SMs) or the lots of little bangs (beams).

>SMR's can put a
>mission kill on just about anything.

If your get on target, they don't have heaps of PDS escorts in range etc
etc etc.

>6 salvo = 36 missiles, of which 21 on average will be on target.   

Once you've got them into the 3" - how often do you manage that out of
interest?

>Each PDS
>kills 0.8 missiles on average.  Most ships only have 3 PDS, and there
aren't
>a lot of FB ships with ADFC. 

Not in the book maybe, but I can assure there's quite a few home
designed
ones down here ;)

> Let's say you have two escorts, they're both
>ADFC rigged, and you have everything in tight formation so they
mutually
>support (and are easier to get SMR hits on).	Assuming you assign your
PDS
>perfectly and don't waste anything from overkill, you're going to kill
about
>11 missiles, 

Are you counting rerolls here?

>meaning 10 get through and inflict on average 35 points of
>damage, which will cause dismay to any ship in the book.  I'm not able
to
>work out all the numbers right now, but the missiles should actually do
a
>bit better than this due to your having to allocate fire before you
know how
>many "on-target" missiles there are.

I'll believe you, but I still think the most important factor is the
'getting them on target in the first place'. We don't play any house
rule
saying that you can designate size class of target so you can see your
prized missiles going in, but on the smegging FF so you've got about 31
points of overkill - I guess that's why we don't think using the 6" is
unbalancing as you still rarely see any of the big ships get vaporised,
some do get mangled, but a heap more SCs and FFs cop it instead.

>Only if you get missed do you laugh..unless your esteemed opponent has
>Kochte Missiles--I understand a fleet with those has been stationed in
your
>area?	: )

I think its the manufactures, they must be sending me duds ;)

>Six SMR's against a Maria von Burgund (using Class 1's as PDS also), I
>inflicted 81 points of damage.  As I recall, the first three salvoes
were
>enough to kill it: 13+19+15 points.  It's not just Aaron.

How many of your salvos missed (i.e. did you only fire 6 and then pick
correctly with all 6)? What was the opponents speed?

>Now, I wouldn't use _only_ SMR boats--when I play Islamic Fed Navy, I
>usually take about 1/3 missile ships and the rest beam ships, because
when a
>_Qaws_ launches its missiles, it is then useless except as a
distraction.

And that's the crux of the matter in my opinion, we feel that if you use
3"
than your making it too costly for something that could have no effect
and
then be a sitting duck in 10 secs time. Using the 6" instead just seems
to
give it the right feel for us.

>But missiles, used well, can be devastating, and I don't think a 6"
radius
>in Vector is required.

I think I'm just going to have to agree to disagree here (again) ;)

Cheers

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART 
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax (03) 6232 5199 International +61 3 6232 5199

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au