RE:

A couple of points - I listed one example since you asked how many big
guns vs. fighters lost, I did not make it the "only" possible example
and I made it as clean as possible (one or two large ships) so that an
effective comparison could be made.  The point of the example was to
show the idea of how to cripple a fleet with an equal number of points
of fighters.

Your counter-example was a perfect example of what people dislike about
fighters - unless you build completely anti-fighter, you will get
reamed.  The 2000 point fleet you described, if taken to a tournament
would have it's head handed to it by beam or torp heavy fleets. Whereas,
the 2000 point fighter fleet is going to kill anything but a totally
anti-fighter fleet.  In a single elimination tournament, you can guess
which would probably advance further.

In your description, you note that best case, for the fighters, only 6
groups would be taken down by ADFC,PDS and Beam 1. You forget to include
the fact that PDS and beam 1 can only attack fighters attacking that
ship. This means your 2-3 ADFC might take out 1 group, not 6.	The only
real threats to my fighters are the ADFC and the interceptors.	Assuming
that only 18 squadron made it through, 6 squadrons will cripple the CVE
and 6 for each of the light cruisers (about 21 points of damage on
each).	The escorts are impotent unless they are all equipped with ADFC. 

Assuming your idea of a single anti-ship attack, I would send the
fighters back and call it a victory based on NPV.  Loss of 18 fighter
squadons - 216 NPV (mostly from interceptors)

Loss of one CVE, two light cruisers - 600 NPV plus interceptor losses.

Note that the interceptors caused most of the casualties, not the PDS. 
Which means most fleets will be forced to have a carrier with
interceptors of some sort.  This is a big minus in tournament games
since interceptors have no anti-ship capability and are wasted if the
opponent has no fighters.  The point here is that it takes fighters
(interceptors) to defeat fighters, not ADFC/PDS/Beam 1.  The one of the
points that people are making is that they want a viable SHIP defense
against fighters, and not have to be forced to mount large fighter
forces every time they play.

--Binhan

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Bilderback [mailto:bbilderback@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 8:24 AM
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: 

I haven't read the rest of the posts from last night and this morning,
and I 
forgot to keep B Lin's post to reply to it, but I'll try to remember the

gist so I can make a suggestion.

His point was that for a 2000 point battle, his 30 squadrons' worth of 
fighters and soapbubbles could take apart a squadron of 1 800 NPV ship
and a 
passle of escorts.  I actually spent some time on my response, but I can
be 
corrected if wrong.

The first of Binhan's assumptions which I think are wrong is also one
that I 
could have taken as an insult, if I truly believed he actually meant to 
assume that I am too stupid to employ ANY anti-fighter defenses at all. 
But 
I don't assume that.  I'm guessing he just forgot to take that into
account 
(he talks about how much damage 30 intact squadrons can do).  The second
is 
about that 800 NPV Gorilla.  If I know the composition of his fleet, and
a 
SB fleet implies a certain level of predictable munchkinism, I'm not 
bringing a gun to the knife fight.  I'm going to send in my light
squadron - 
a CE, maybe at 250 points, a couple of 175 NPV range CL's, and 4-5 each
DD, 
FF, and CT.  One of the Cruisers will be an ADFC-heavy Aegis type
variant, 
and everyone will be armed to the teeth with Beam 1's and PDS (The CE
and 
CL's will have heavier beams of course -- I want these ships to be
useful in 
other scenarios too).  Maybe even an occasional ADFC on a DE.  Oh, wait,

that's only about 1600 points.	Ok, I'll throw in ummm.... a couple of 
lighters or Jeep carriers or one CVE.	According to the calculations B 
used, that's about 400 NPV to bring in 6 squadrons.  I'll make them 
interceptors, just for grins.  And the squadron will go in in a tight 
formation so that the ADFC's intermesh.

so he sends his 30 fighter squadrons after me.	Only it won't be 30
intact 
squadrons.  As soon as they get close to my ships, I'll send those 6 
interceptor squadrons out to meet them (Now B said 30 fighter squadrons.
 IF 
he then decides to devote some of that number to his own interceptors,
fine. 
  That's less anti-ship capability anyway.  and I may ignore them and go

after the regular fighters anyway).  Let's say he swarms them and
devotes 
enough fighters to killing them.  That's time not spent killing my
ships, 
time spent getting closer to the carriers.  And let's assume the 
interceptors only get a 1-1 kill ratio (Pessimism).  That means he's
down to 
24 squadrons WORTH of fighters.  Or let's assume he ignores them and
presses 
the attack.  With that +1, they're still going to kill about 5-6
squadrons' 
worth of fighters, and still be around to dish out more.  Now he hits
the 
ships themselves, with 24 instead of 30 squadrons, and runs into the
B1's, 
PDS and ADFC.  I haven't done the math on how many fighters he'll lose,
but 
let's be pessimistic and assume ony 6.	Now he's down to the 18 he WAS
going 
to send against my largest ship, only now they're spread out amongst the

whole 18 ships of the squadron.  Or he CAN focus on the CE, but that
still 
leaves a lot of ships in fighting trim.

Now about those tactics.  He said he'd pe running parallel to me at
around 
20, but that's assuming I let him.  I picked the light ship option for
this 
very reason - Thrust.  I'll start the game at around 10-20 thrust
myself, 
increasing it as I get a bead on his fleet.  As his fighters close, I'll
be 
increasing to 24 or so.  once they close, I'll start thrusting even
harder.  
Now his fighters have a choice - burn Endurance to beat me back to the 
carriers, or let me at them.  And if he scatters his carriers, fine. 
I'll 
pick them apart piecemeal, and it will be that much harder for his
remaining 
fighters to regroup.

3B^2

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