Re: OUDF design Qs

First, my thanks to OO for his very useful comments. He's put a lot of
work into not just picking nits (anyone can do that) but exposing any
and all flaws in my thesis. It's too bad we're at opposite ends of the
planet, I could do with an engineering partner like him. Hopefully one
day we can meet.

Anyway, on with the motley.


> 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.

I don't have FB1 to hand at the moment, so am working off unreliable
memory.
But let's try and find comparisons with a River class with Gunpack for
example. These are 40 mass.
Reasonable comparative designs would be:

NSL - Kronprinz Wilhelm CL
FSE - Trieste (very close indeed)
ESU - Tibet CL
NAC - Huron CL

Note that apert from the Trieste, all are significantly larger, and
classed as Light Cruisers rather than (Super)Destroyers. It's not stated
in the OUDF page, but the OU uses Rivers in the Destroyer role (ie in
flotillas like Triestes) as well as light cruiser role (individual ships
or as close escorts in fleet action like Kpz Wilhelm) out of neccessity,
the Numbat class being rather specialised fast ships - then again, I
spose the Huron is the same. 

In every case, either the River is significantly cheaper ( being
significantly smaller) with equal- or slightly-superior- toughness in
terms of hull + armour, OR it has better firing arcs, OR it has more
firepower at short range, *while retaining equality in all other
respects*. Any design can be made to be superior in one respect
providing others suffer. For the OU the one that suffers is long range,
which means that you either have advantages in toughness, cost, firing
arc, or close-range firepower, or some combination, depending upon your
opponent. Agreed you won't have all of the above vs all possible
opponents.
 
> >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...

A lot of the Numbats have Raider modules for use in defended areas,
their speed gives them protection. More are used for high-value cargoes.
The remainder are "Chasseurs", designated to pursue commerce raiders,
pirates, and FSE ships. Reading between the lines, you can see that the
OU really wanted to have them have a speed advantage over Thrust-6
ships, and that before the KV came around they were deemed costly
failures, with production pretty much halted.
 
> 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 :-(

Comes from operating without either FB1 or even my OUDF page in front of
me.

> 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.

Fair enough. For something like twice, read something like 150%. Yes, I
know that in this case its 133%, but in other cases 150% is understated.

> >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?

3.5 * 3.5 where I made an arithmetic mistake. 24.5 it is. In practice,
most SMs will be faced with something like 1 PDS each, so I plan
"average damage" of 10.5 per SM when figuring out how many to allocate
to targets. It works.

> > >>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>

Exactly. I think that I've gotten my point across, however poorly I
might have expressed it. I also think you agree with much of what I say,
just won't let me get away with over-generalising. For which I thank
you, it keeps me on my mettle.

> >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.

Once you take out the Freemantles for patrol duties, the Snakes for
chasing down pirates, a Tuvalu or 2 for exploration, Numbats for
ferrying round covert forces, the OU peacetime fleet is pretty
stretched. In wartime, maybe 70% of the Freemantles would become Rivers
and get transferred to the main fleet, The Snakes would be supplemented
by Spiders unless there were some Big Targets around, the Tuvalus would
come back home, and Numbats would stop junketing and get on with
independent raids. And all those Scientific Research stations would get
a visit every 6 months instead of weekly.

> 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.

No there isn't. The OU categorically denies having any covert ops
capability.

Oerjan, I know it's a dirty trick to spring on you, but please believe
me when I say that I'm not using a despicable trick to "win" an
argument.

Please read between the lines. 

Some things you have to deduce. Now there's bound to be many things I
haven't thought through, or have made mistakes in numbers with, or have
just gotten plain wrong. But other things a reader has to infer from
what's NOT said. And some things I want to leave deliberately ambiguous
so different players can have their own fleets, some basically civilian
with a thin military venire, others wolves in sheep's clothing.

> 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).

Exactly the kind of thing I was talking about above. It's pretty certain
that the OU doesn't have enough modules for all the Freemantles. But how
many? Even I don't know :-)

> 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).

The intention was that the 33 reserve Rivers would have civilian modules
on, with a few with military modules to ambush pirates.

> (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?)

"It was found early on in the Lee-Lu Type 459's service that due to the
usual beureaucratic stuff-ups, a virtually unarmed Patrol Vessel would
be sent to do a Destroyer's job, or a Destroyer would be told off to
chase a smuggler that it couldn't catch. In 2168 then, the OU decided
that Type 459s without modules would be known as the Freemantle class,
those with modules the River class. So a single hull could belong to
either at any particular time." -- Unpublished manuscript, Cdr Tam
Nguyen, OUDN(Retd)

> 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>

Well spotted.

> >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?).

NAC Carriers & Star Bases too. Remember that the OUDF tactics are
particularly vulnerable to level-2 screened ships, especially ones with
lots of fighters.

> >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".

Fair enough. But try using them in battle, and you'll see what I mean.

> >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.

a) If the OUDF had more of em, maybe it could afford to squander them on
other targets. As it is, there's barely enough.
b) No Battle Plan ever survives contact with the enemy. There have been
times when they've been used in an emergency.

> >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.

Even I don't know the answer to this one.

> >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>

Using atypical fleets, yes. Try to find an FB1 force with more SMs than
one consisting of nothing but Waldberg-Ms.
Of course there are what, 10 Waldberg-Ms in the whole NSL
Kriegsraumflotte?
> >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.

Nope, I can never repair all the B-1s on board anyway.

> The problem with this scenario is that if you take a threshold at 4+,
that
> was your third threshold.

Or your first, where you've just taken 2 rows of damage in one hit. 

> Unless you use Phalon-style Weak hulls, you need
> TMF 161+ to have three DCPs alive after taking the third threshold.

See above.

> 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.

I'll give this some thought, you may be correct. Thanks for the
comments, they were not just good to read, they did wonders for giving
me an appropriate sense of humility :-)