Re: Strike Boats...

Imre A. Szabo wrote:

>Fought a 4,000 point battle last night.

Which movement system?

>I had to mass 180 tenders and 36 mass 10 gunboats. 

The tenders must've carried some light armament, but they can't have
had very much.

>I used two types of guns, based on the same mass 10 hull and cost 37
>points each (including weapons).  No FTL, Thrust of 4, 

*Much* too slow for a strikeboat IMO, regardless of which movement
system you used. I consider thrust 6 to be the absolute minimum for
non-missile strike boats attacking a mobile enemy.

>1 hull, 1 armor, 1 FC, and 1 PDAF (wasted, he had no fighters).  Torp
>varrient had one single arc pulse trop.  The other had two needle
>beams.  DO NOT USE NEEDLE BEAMS.  I had never tried them before >and
don't recommend them...  

Depends what you're going to shoot at :-/ In this particular case,
I'd've favoured taking out the drives of those Komarovs (since you
didn't have many beam weapons, otherwise screens would've been the
priority) in order to sit in his rear arc for the rest of the battle
:-/ 

FC shots are good against DDs (mission-killing them with one hit) and
sometimes against cruisers, but doesn't work too well against ships
with many FCs.

'Course, if you can't roll a '6' to save your life needles aren't a
very good deal anyway <g>

>I like the torp varient, it is a little pain in the neck that will
kill you in large >numbers...  I don't think that a SBM version would
be a good idea.  >Although it would have the same arc, and massive
damage within 6", 

Reasonable damage within 12mu. OK against lighter units, but not enough
against 4 Komarovs.
 
>I ended up losing the battle (my co-commander had a force of 4 NAC
>BB's, opposition had 4 ESU SDN's, 3 ESU CA's (the SMR CA), and 3 >ESU
DD's...) 

>Are force came went at the ESU gunline in two waves...  Strike Boats
and
>Tenders in the first, 

The *tenders* closed with the enemy?? Why? The main reason to use
tender/strikeboat combinations is that you can keep the tender tucked
away somewhere reasonably safe!

>BB's in the second (I wanted it to be one wave, but my co-commander
>refused).

Two-wave strikes with needle units in the first wave can work OK, but
it depends a lot on which systems you try to target (and what weapons
the follow-up wave use).
 
>1 SDN was crippled, 1 SDN damage, 1 SDN lost 2 FC, and the other
>suffered no damage despite having 12 needle beems shooting at it's
fire
>controls.  Losses were 10 strike boats and 1 tender destroyed
>(Reacter...), and 1 tender damage, and the ESU expend all his SM's.  

No damage at all to the Gorshkovs and Warsaws? 

>The 4 NAC BB's went in and were all crippled and only achieved
crippling >one DD, and crippling the damaged SDN.

<chuckle> Sounds like a fairly normal NAC performance to me <g>

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry