[FT] Re: Small vessels and the 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....

In Napoleonic times you'd bring a frigate to a fleet action
in order to read the admiral's signals and repeat them, but
that's not relevant to modern communications unless you want
to build rules to make it happen that way.

Jutland had destroyer and light cruiser squadrons engaging
each other, if I recall--the big boys were preoccupied with
each other, and probably would have had trouble hitting the
small fry anyway.

There was an action in WW2 in which the Americans had an
ambush.  Japanese fleet came steaming through a channel, USN
DD's on either side engaged with torpedoes while the
American heavy ships crossed the Japanese T and obliterated
them.

I can't think of an occasion (which may mean nothing as I'm
not a naval historian) when DD's were worth bringing to the
party--except for the threat of torpedoes.  The equivalent,
I'd say, is a rack of SM's, capable of doing heavy damage in
one punch--but torps don't take up as much space on a real
DD as a SMR would on a FTFB ship.  But if you allocated each
DD a MT missile, or figured out some way to split a SMR rack
among a DD squadron, you could make it work.