RE: IJN Tugs

Doug Evans wrote:

>Even ocean going tugs are not usually carrying their charges INTO
battle,
>and tend to stay away from battle entirely. Also, the FT tugs are
>transporting all the way, not pickup a distressed ship and dragging
back to
>nearest safe harbor.

>My foggy remembering of most battle descriptions have warships towing
>disabled warships out of battle until they can be met by ocean tugs.

I suppose it would be nice to have large, armed tugs for the job in
hand,
but how likely is it that a space faring power would put resources into
such
a design when they could build a conventional warship instead? Why not
just
send in a bare-bones conventional tug with a light escort?

During the Battle of the Atlantic, especially in the early days, the
Royal
Navy was so short of dedicated escort craft that Ocean going tugs were
frequently used on the convoy runs. Occasionally they even got to carry
out
the role they were intended for, towing crippled ships back to a
friendly
harbour, however in such instances the Convoy commander could not afford
to
release further escorts to accompany the tg and its charge, leaving them
to
head home alone for blighty (or Canada/USA) and run the risk of
encountering
U-Boats, surface raiders and aircraft. So though ideally the standard
"tug"
concept is not the most appropiate vessel to send in harms way "reality"
can
often have different ideas. :-)

If I have the battlerider concept understood correctly, tugs tow in
larger
non-FTL craft. Given the way FTL works in the Tuffley verse wouldn't the
tugs jump into real space be dispersed anyway, that is to say the ships
they
tow would unhitch from the tugs and make way to the redevouze point
independently, leaving the tugs safely out of harms way.

Regards,

Matt Tope.