Re: [FT] Re: Small vessels and the Line of Battle

> 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.

Not true.  Several German DD's were hit by heavy guns during the
withdrawl.

>
> 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.

The reason for bring the DD's, etc., along was to have screens.  These
screens would protect you from enemy DD's and in certian situations, his
battle line...	Basically, if the enemy was withdrawing, your DD's would
dash out to attack him with torpedoes.	Any hits would slow down his
ships so they couldn't get away.  If you were withdrawing, your DD's
would turn into the enemy battle line and make torpedo attacks.  This
would force him to either break off the attack, or accept damaged ships
that would be able to pursue effectively...

The DD's in the Fleet Book are actually DDE's designed to escort convoys
and to protect against tropdeo boats, etc.  A real DD would have one or
two class 1 beams and as many submunitions as possible.  4 to 6
submunitions can do a lot of damage at short range...

IAS