Re: Retrograde skirmishers

> >You're making something of a straw man argument here.

> >There is a role that can be filled by skirmishers:  harassment.  You
can
> >try to cut off supply lines, you can interfere with logistical
supports for
> >a war effort... and that's basically it.  If you can't bring any meat
and
> >potatoes to the table to back it up, that is not going to win any
sort of
> >war by itself.  (See also the Atlantic naval theatre of either World
War.)

> See the Pacific campaign, starring US subs vs Japanese shipping.
> Even in N Atlantic, it's not that "raiders can't destroy
> you"--the lesson was that convoys with air support can work.

Ooooooo, mommy mommy, I just caught myself a REALLY BIG FISH!  :>

Okay, here's the difference between the Atlantic and the Pacific, in
simple
terms.

The German U-Boat scare, while formidable in the early stages of the
war, was
all but useless by the end phases.  Why?  Because they had no other
recourse
other than the U-Boats... which meant that once the Allies figured out
how
to sink them effectively, they were horribly ineffective.  Suggestion
for a
sobering thought:  get yourself a copy of "Das Boot" and read that
opening
text of the movie good and hard, stating how many sailors aboard German
U-boats
actually survived the war.  (Hint:  about 25% of them.)

In the Pacific, on the other hand, the United States had somewhere
between mild
and overwhelming surface fleet superiority at just about all times after
June
of 1942.  The Japanese didn't have the luxury of focusing on antisub
warfare
because, increasingly, the greatest threat to them was land- and
naval-based
aircraft.  By the time we actually got around to Hiroshima, the outcome
of the
war was already a foregone conclusion:	we had dropped somewhere around
a
million tons of bombs on the Japanese home islands.  By comparison, the
A-bomb
that hit Hiroshima was the equivalent of only twenty thousand tons of
those
bombs or so.  The submarines had their role, but their role was simply a
small one behind a formidable force of aircraft carriers.  Thus, the
nickname
for the Navy's submarine fleet during the war:	the "Silent Service".

In simple terms:  the Germans relied solely upon skirmish tactics and
their
navy lasted about as long as it took to answer them, while the United
States
had a far more powerful weapon at their disposal and thus had the luxury
of
using skirmish tactics far more effectively, because they didn't leave
the
Japanese the same luxury that the Germans left us.

My suggestion for the role of skirmishers is closer to how the United
States
did it:  a marginal one, behind a more powerful straight-up fleet. 
Noam's
suggestion is closer to how the Germans did it:  rely on it exclusively.

> >And no, overstocking your PDS is a _suicidal_ countermeasure.  As you
can
> >see, they have both their own ships that would shred such tactics, as
well
> >as numerous slave-allies whose ship-to-ship tactics are far more
focused
> >than their own.  If you overstocked your PDS against the master race,
they'd
> >thank you for making it easy and let their slaves draw straws to
choose which
> >one gets to hand your butt to you.  (Read:  it's been tried.)

> You're changing the universe again.

Laserlight, this will make _four_ times that I've attempted to point out
on
this mailing list that I _do_ fly battleships at random in our
pseudo-campaign,
partially for the express purpose of annihilating those who get too
zealous in
stocking their PDS by swapping on them unexpectedly.  (And partially
because
I like to just play a wide variety of tactics for the sheer enjoyment
value
alone.)  Don't accuse me of "changing the universe" because you weren't
paying
attention the first three times.
-- 
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 The Stilt Man		      stiltman@teleport.com
   http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/stiltman.html
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