[FT] Fighter discussion

Your math is a little out to start with:
6 mass, 18 pts for fighters on top of the 3 mass & 27 points for the
hanger.
Total cost: 9 mass (bay); 27 pts (bay) + 18 pts (fighters).

Fighters only become dangerous when there are a lot of them; even then
it's
not reliable against KV who don't care *how many* fighters you throw at
them, due to the disposable nature of their pds.

With regard to (1), you can't build an equally effective ship for the
same
mass, but for the points/cost you get a more versatile & ftl capable
vessel
with unlimited endurance.

Regarding (2), 9 PDS with wipe out a fighter squadron on average & make
a
major dent in 2 or more squadrons attacking at the same time.  If you
use 7
pds & 1 adfc instead, it becomes suicide if there are several ships in
support range of each other.

As an advocate of fighter operations, I've had entire flights wiped out
before firing a shot against a good pds grid & on another occasion
annihilated an SDN in 2 turns when it had no support.  With fighter
morale
being *necessary* to use with the new KV rules, fighter effectiveness
nearly
halves as soon as the squadron takes any casualties.
Eg: a sqd of 6 takes 2 casualties; 6 die * 4/6 (morale check) * 4/6
(remaining fighters) = 2 2/3 die on average effectiveness, which is only
2.1
pts average against an unscreened ship.

Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[Pirates] Dame Captain Washalot
[NPJB] Absorbent Sponge Sheesh'Ka'Baab
[MKW2] Admiral Peter Rollins - Task Force Zulu-Beta

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian Burger [SMTP:yh728@victoria.tc.ca]
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 10:25 AM
	RE: [FT\DS2] Fleet and Army sizes for games

> I've not done the design work or math, but fighters are basically 6
> all-arc B1s, with (effectively) near-tabletop range, and they're far,
far
> tougher than any other method of transporting 6xB1, because you can
only
> kill them *after* they can already shoot at you. Not only that,
they're
> the only 6xB1 delivery system that bigger guns cannot kill at greater
> range than the B1s can reach. You've got to have specialized
anti-fighter
> systems to deal with them.
> 
> 1. With 9 Mass & 18 NPV, what sort of ship could you build, and would
it
> be anywhere near as fast, dangerous or survivable as a basic fighter
> squadron? (My strong feeling is No, most totally No...There is, after
all,
> no ship that's totally unhittable if it's over 6" from your ship...)
> 
> 2. Can 18pts & 9 Mass of ADFC/PDS do a good, quick job on a standard
> fighter squadron? (Probably, but I'm not sure...)