Re: FT: Ship designs

2B^2 wrote:

>1.  I was considering a new class of ship, the Destroyer Escort (DE). 
It 
>would be in the same mass range as the DD or CL, and would sacrifice 
>offensive firepower for increased PDS and ADFC capability.  Has anyone 
>tried this before,

Yes. There's even one in the FBs - the NSL CL in FB1, the Kronprinz
Wilhelm 
class, has a more specialized ADFC version with 5 PDSs.

Remember that the area defence ship can only protect one friendly ship
per 
ADFC per turn.

>and if so, how well does it work?

Generally speaking I'm not too impressed by ships which drops *all* 
anti-ship armament for PDS+ADFC - an enemy which *doesn't* rely on
fighters 
or missiles will simply ignore it. DDEs armed with some anti-ship
weapons 
in addition to the point defences are a lot more flexible.

How well they work, well... in small battles there usually aren't very
many 
fighters or missiles around, so a DDE can work well. In larger battles 
small ships make themselves priority targets (eg. by demonstrating ADFC 
capability when the enemy wants to use fighters) tend to not last very
long :-/

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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