Search for historical presence: Small vessels and the Wall or Line of Battle

As part of an on-going discussion of the efficacy of smaller units
(DDs, FFs) at a Wall of Battle meeting, I am searching for historical
antecedents to this type of action.

I assume that in historical times (WWI, WW2, modern, other times), the
Line of Battle has fought with smaller vessels. I am interested in any
information regarding these events, such as dates, places, and brief
recountings of the events. Especially the meeting of two main battle
lines with the smaller vessels playing any kind of a noteworthy role
other than dying under the cruiser or BBs guns....

Specifically, I'm attempting to consider these things:

1) Should one send the small ships away when two walls meet? That is,
they exist for use outside these situations and are vulnerable and
dangerous enough to draw fire that destroys them consistently so
therefore their inclusion is pointless in terms of the resources that
get destroyed when they are wiped out by the bigger vessels. That
doesn't mean you would not build them - they still exist for convoy
escort, attacking wounded and vulnerable ships, etc. But it does mean
they would not stand in front of or with the WoB. No point in getting
them killed stupidly.

2) What reasons would one have for having these smaller ships present
at a big FT battle (and keeping them)? My current working assumption
has it that

	A) used as fast attack squadrons with the right armaments (SML,
SMR,
MT missile, PT), they can extract
	a decent return for any risk and disengage if injured and not
destroyed. If not so armed, they really
	might want to think twice about being in weapons range of the
enemy
while outside their own weapons
	envelope - a common scenario when beam-2 armed escorts cling to
their
beam-3 or beam-4 capitals.
	(Here is a case where I wonder if historical destroyers assisted
their larger brethren in attacking
	the enemy LoB with torpedos - but I don't know of many cases -
so if
anyone does, it might help
	address this point)

	B) manufacture of such vessels is easier and requires smaller
shipyards so these are produced not instead-of
	larger ships but in-addition-to and therefore having them
present at
a historical or campaign battle (not an
	artificial pick-your-points-even-point-value battle) is the
difference between having extra firepower or
	not having it since you can't just trade the 50 DDs for the 10
DNs
(or whatever the exact ratio is) because
	your shipyards couldn't build all SDNs. But you keep them with
your
WoB due to the extra FP and the
	light-cavalry like ability to harry the flanks and to attack the
wounded and pursue the fleeing. Of course,
	if playing just a straight points value battle, it seems these
might
be worth leaving behind. This is perhaps
	the difference between a one-off game with no context, and a
game
within a historical or campaign framework.

So if anyone has any historical anecdotes or references to support or
disprove either viewpoint (bring the popcorn/send it away), I'd be
most interested to hear it. And of course, feedback, argument,
discourse and such are welcome as well.

Thomas Barclay
Software UberMensch
xwave solutions
(613) 831-2018 x 3008