Re: Re: OUDF design Qs

Alan Brain wrote:

> >OK. This might be a good time to point out that the Tuvalu Block II
is the
> >widest-arced of all the BORON ships when fitted with beam modules,
while
> >the Vandenburgs (both variants), Voroshilev, Markgraf and Furious
designs
> >are five of the ten narrowest-arced designs in FB1 (the other five
being
> >the ESU BC, BB and SDN, plus the SMP-armed strike variants of the 
> Falke >and Lenov scouts).
>
>There you have it: all but the FSE have their heavy cruisers having
narrow 
>fire arcs. And in local games, heavy cruisers make up a large part of
most 
>fleets. Now in other parts of the world, the situation may be
different. 
>For example, should the local norm be for no ships over mass 50, then 
>things will be quite different.

Or if the local norm uses more capitals, or more light cruisers than 
heavies. In fact, as long as the local norm fleet mix emphasizes
anything 
*else* than CHs, the fleet's combined firing arcs immediately get wider!

> >IOW, these playtests don't really say anything about how the *other*
BORON
> >ships (which have narrower arcs than the Tuvalu Block IIs) compare to
the
> >*other* about sixty FB1 designs (which have wider arcs than the ten
> >narrowest designs).
>
>You have a point: perhaps the local norm isn't universal. Our fleets
tend 
>to have about 1/3 of pts values in each of the old "Capital", "Cruiser"

>and "Escort" categories. As you've pointed out, for all except the FSE,

>this means that 1/3 of the ships have exceptionally narrow firing arcs.

Only if you equate "Cruiser" with "Heavy Cruiser". The CLs OTOH have
quite 
wide firing arcs, comparable to or wider than BORON ships with Gunpack 
modules, and so is the NSL medium. The ESU medium cruisers (Beijings and

Gorshkovs) are narrower, but not very far behind.

>You might note that in the "numbers in service", the Tuvalus outnumber
the 
>Numbats quite significantly - they're the mainstay of the fleet.

Sure. But 40% of the Tuvalus (ie., the Block Is) are "usually" used as 
"self-escorting troop transports" etc., whereas the only Numbats
mentioned 
as non-combat units are the two VIP transports. 17 Tuvalu Block IIs
don't 
seem to outnumber the 15 non-VIP Numbats all that significantly...

> >>The FSE is equally good as the OU when it comes to firing arcs,but
has
> >>half the hull boxes.
> >
> ><snort> So the BORON ships all use 60% of their Mass for hull boxes,
then?
> >They'd have to, in order to have twice as many hull boxes as the FSE.
> >
> >The FSE match the Numbats and frigates in hull boxes on an 
> equal-cost >basis, and have about 75% the hull boxes of the Rivers and

> Tuvalus. What >they *do* have half as much of is beam batteries, but 
> those missiles of theirs >might even the odds out a bit if they're
lucky <g>
>
>OK, for "hull" read "hull and armour", for "50%" read "43-48%" or some
such.
>  Let's see, a 267 pt Tuvalu Block II vs what, an FSE Heavy Cruiser or 
> Battlecruiser?. It is a bit larger (81 mass) than one, and a bit
smaller 
> (94? 96?) mass than the next.  It has 50% in hull and 3 armour vs
what, 
> 30% hull and no armour?
>
>Depending on your exact comparisons, you get something like twice the 
>number of hull+armour as the nearest comparable ship.

Alan, here you're just pulling figures out of thin air - you didn't even

get the hull strength of your own Tuvalu Block II right :-(

The Tuvalu Block II has 40% percent hull (not 50%) and three armour.
That 
gives it 32 hull and 3 armour, for a total of 35 damage points.

The FSE CH, the Jerez, is TMF 88 (which is usually considered to be
*more* 
than 81, not less), and has 26 hull boxes. Last time I checked, 35 was
not 
"something like twice the number" of 26; in fact 26 is almost exactly
75% 
of 35 - which was the percentage I gave in my previous post.

If you instead look at it on an equal-mass basis (which, since all the 
ships involved have about the same cost/mass ratio (3.3), is essentially

the same as an equal-cost basis), the Tuvalu Block II uses 35/81 =  43%
of 
its total Mass for damage boxes while the FSE ships use 30%. In other 
words, the Tuvalu has about 45% more hull boxes than the same cost (~=
same 
mass) of FSE ships - or, conversely, the FSE ships have about 70% as
many 
hull boxes as the Tuvalu Block II. Slightly lower than the 75% I wrote 
previously; sorry about that.

('Course, compared to a Block II the Jerez doesn't have only half as
much 
beam firepower - that comparison applied to the Tuvalu Block *I* with
twin 
GunPack or Standard modules, but that configuration has very nearly the 
same number of damage boxes as the Jerez (27 vs 26).)

> >The FSE match the Numbats and frigates in hull boxes on an equal-cost
> >basis, and have about 75% the hull boxes of the Rivers and Tuvalus.
What
> >they *do* have half as much of is beam batteries, but those missiles
of
> >theirs might even the odds out a bit if they're lucky <g>
>
>Luck has little to do with it, it's skill <g>. Actually, skill just 
>determines how many SMs get to hit, the damage that they do is very
variable.

The luck with the dice was what I was thinking of, yes <g>

>I've been hit with 2 SMs that did a total of over 40 pts before now, vs

>the 21 that would be the average.

<scratches head> The average of 2 completely unopposed SM salvoes is
24.5, 
against a single PDS it is 22, and against 2 PDSs (one opposing each
salvo) 
it is 19.5. How did you get an average of 21 on 2 salvoes?

> >The only way to simultaneously talk about fleets *and* compare like
> >cost/size with like is if you force ships of similar size to pair off
> >against one another and ignore the rest of the battle. I don't think
that
> >that's what you intended.
>
>My thesis was based upon what has happened in actual battles,

which were fought against a quite specific enemy fleet mix, heavily 
featuring some the narrowest-arced FB1 ships available. See the top of
this 
post.

> >>And remember that every OU ship has good firing arcs.
> >
> >In that case you're saying that a Spider, Snake or Numbat, or just
about
> >any BORON ship carrying an SMR or P-torp module, is *not* an OU ship.
>
>Mumble mumble quibble mumble mumble. Fair enough. Yes, a ship with an 
>uncommon module is "not an OU ship" by this definition, any more than a

>Waldberg-M is an NSL ship. I should have inserted the word "typical".

Fair enough. The Snakes, Spiders and Numbats only make up about 40% of
the 
active-fleet BORON combat (as opposed to VIP-, Survey-, Cargo- etc)
ships, 
so I guess they don't qualify as "typical" :-/

> >>Whereas, say, a reasonable mix of Tacomas, Hurons, Furious, 
> Vandenburg->>Ts have some ships with excellent dogfighting ability,
and 
> some that are >>Hell On Wheels in the forward arc, but not so good SA
and PA.
> >
> >A reasonable mix consisting exclusively of Rivers and Tuvalus with
Standard
> >or Defence modules will indeed be "unusually wide-arced" compared to
the
> >above NAC force. That is very true.
>
>I'll even extend that to cover NSL and ESU fleets.

ESU? That's nice. A force consisting mostly of Volgas and Tibets out-arc

even a Tuvalu Block II/Standard. Just don't bring any Voroshilevs <g>

>But maybe that's because the Radetsky isn't a popular design here, most

>people prefer a mix of light- and heavy- cruisers to escort cruisers.

The Kronprinz Wilhelm is crippled by having only one FCS, but its fire
arcs 
are quite OK. Better than the Rad, same as a River/Gunpack <shrug>

>The point is, that many typical OU fleets actually do consist of
nothing 
>but Rivers and Tuvalus, with maybe a Waikato for support, and a Snake
or 
>Numbat for pursuit duties. There are more Tuvalus than (combat- rather 
>than VIP- or Raider- )Numbats and Waikatos put together, and more
Rivers 
>than all other designs combined. ... Even Snakes are relatively rare.

That's not what the numbers and notes on your web page suggests.

The Tuvalu Block Is are described as "usually carrying two different
types 
of pod, one military, one not, so they become self-escorting troop 
transports, self-escorting cargo carriers and so on" which suggests that

they're not normally used as combat units any more than the VIP Numbats
or 
Raider Waikato. It is the Tuvalu Block IIs which are the mainstay of the

cruiser squadrons, and there are only 17 of those in the active fleet.

There are about as many non-VIP Numbats (15 active, 2 in reserve) as
there 
are Tuvalu Block IIs (17 active, 1 in reserve) - there's no mention on
the 
page of the non-VIP Numbats being used as Raiders or non-combat units.

If you include all the Freemantles in the reserve fleet in the "River" 
category, then yes there are more Rivers than anything else in the fleet

(220 in all). The classification of these ships as "Freemantles" rather 
than "Rivers" kinda suggests that there aren't enough modules to equip
all 
of them though (much like the NZ Mekos today). There are more "all other

combined" in active service (89) than there are ships *listed* as Rivers

(as opposed to Freemantles) in either active or reserve service (45+33 =
78).

Furthermore, if the "reserve fleet" refers to the OUPF the 33 reserve 
Rivers are described as "Most ... are fitted with either cargo, survey,
or 
research payload modules, ...", in which case they're not going to go 
looking for trouble (at least not trouble bigger than a pirate
corvette).

(Curious: If the distinction between Freemantles in reserve and Rivers
in 
reserve doesn't relate to the number of modules available, what
determines 
which category a Freemantle/River ship goes into and why are the two 
classes listed separately?)

Finally, in the previous post I specified "A reasonable mix consisting 
exclusively of Rivers and Tuvalus with Standard or Defence modules" as 
being unusually wide-arced - ie., not a mix using Gunpack modules,
because 
the Gunpacks are themselves relatively narrow-arced. The comments on the

Module and Examples page suggest that the Standard modules are usually
only 
used on the carriers unless you're fighting a missile-heavy enemy. Your 
comments below about the NAC not being missile users apply just as much
to 
the NSL (which have fewer missile-armed ships listed in FB1 than the NAC

has), which suggests that the Standard modules only feature heavily if 
you're fighting the FSE.

So, to summarize: Going by what is written on your web page there are
about 
as many combat Tuvalus (Block IIs) as there are combat Numbats, there
seems 
to be nearly one Snake for every pair of combat Rivers (22 Snakes, 45 
active + "a few" reserve Rivers), and the Standard modules necessary to
get 
the BORON ships past FB1-average arc width are usually not used on the 
dogfighting ships - instead they seem to favour the narrower-arced
Gunpack 
module.

Of course, this *is* an OU page. You can't really rely on the data given

there, can you? The Oceanics are known for deliberate misinformation,
after 
all <G>

>Spiders are used when the opponent could have an SDN or Super-Carrier
with 
>Screen-2s, and otherwise don't appear.

OK. That means that they're only ever fielded against ESU, since they're

the only FB fleet which uses level-2 screens (IIRC your gaming group
don't 
use non-FB ships other than the OU?).

> >However, once you mix in some Numbats or Snakes (or Spiders!) in 
> the >BORON force, or you put SMR or P-torp modules on some of the
ships 
> (even >on Tuvalus or Rivers) - then all of a sudden the BORON force
has 
> firing arcs
> >which are quite similar to those of the NAC fleet.
>
>True. They do have this option. The background though states that the 
>P-torp modules were unsuccessful,

No, it doesn't. It states that it was an interim measure before the
Spiders 
were built, but it says nothing about whether or not the modules were 
successful - and I've seen far too many solutions that were intended as 
interim measures but which turned out successful and were made permanent
to 
automatically assume that "interim" equals "unsuccessful".

>the Spiders hunt in packs

Yes

>and only go for things like Komarovs which have class-2 screens,

It says that this is what the Spiders were *designed* for, not that this
is 
the *only* thing they do. Considering how badly stretched the OUDF is,
I'd 
be very surprised indeed if they didn't use Spiders against ships with
mere 
level-1 screens on occasion.

>and the SMRs are used for additional fire support when operating with 
>carrier groups.

Used *mainly* for additional fire support, but not exclusively according
to 
the Modules page. There's no mention about how often the carriers go
into 
action though, so it is hard to tell from the web page how often the 
missile modules get used.

>By the same token, you could say that an NAC fleet uses lots of SMs
since 
>it's possible to refit Furious and Valley Forge class with them, and 
>Majestics have them.
>But by my standards, the NAC doesn't use SMs, and the fleet tactics 
>against them wouldn't take massed SM fire into account.

The NAC has more SML-armed units listed than the NSL has... a year or
two 
back you said something to the effect "IMO the NSL is the best SM-armed 
fleet in FB1" <shrug>

> >>The OU would LOVE to get its hands on Pulsar-Cs. The problem they 
> have >>at the moment is too many systems to repair, they'd like to be
able to
> >>consolidate.
> >
> >Build a module with six B1s. That's pretty much the same thing as an
> >all-arc Pulser-C <shrug>
>
>It has 2 important differences: one is that it's better vs fighters,
but 
>more importantly, repairing it is less easy than a pulsar-C. If you
take a 
>threshold at 4+, you have a 50% chance of losing the pulsar-C, but a 
>reasonably good chance if you have 3 DCPs of repairing it quickly (and 
>having the DCPs ready for repairing other things, like manoeuvre
drives, 
>fire cons etc).
>
>But on a 6-B1 module, you'll probably lose 2-4 B1s, and take much
longer 
>to fix things. So long, in fact, that you probably won't even bother
after 
>the first B1 (if that).

Have you actually *tried* this in combat now? I have. Last time I asked
you 
about this, you hadn't.

The problem with this scenario is that if you take a threshold at 4+,
that 
was your third threshold. Unless you use Phalon-style Weak hulls, you
need 
TMF 161+ to have three DCPs alive after taking the third threshold. On a

smaller ship (and all current BORON ships are smaller than TMF 161),
you're 
not very likely to repair even the Pulser before you're blown out of 
existance - and if the enemy manages to push you over all three
thresholds 
before you get to close range, you've already lost the battle.

IME, for the first two thresholds the B1s give you a considerably better

chance of having *most* of your firepower operable when you get into
range 
than the Pulser does - especially when the ship has as few DCPs as the 
BORONs have.

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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