RE: Fleet Composition - What more should I get?

>>> From: ~ On Behalf Of Ryan Gill
>>> Sent: 04 January 2004 03:53
>>> Subject: Re: Fleet Composition - What more should I get?

>>> The thing I don't like about the typical FT BC is
>>> that they're the same speed as the BBs in the
>>> same fleet.

>> At 2:42 PM +0000 1/4/04, CS Renegade wrote:

>> That may date back to the FT2 construction system when
>> a fast capital-class ship wasn't cost-effective. <snip>
>> The construction system was fixed in FB1.

> From: ~ On Behalf Of Ryan Gill
> Sent: 04 January 2004 16:48
> Subject: RE: Fleet Composition - What more should I get?

> Actually, they were built w/ FB1 specs under the NAC guidelines.

I don't quite follow. I checked FB1 before posting, and only
the NAC BC Majestic seems to have the speed problem. The NSL
are all slower than their opposite numbers but the Maximillian
and the Richthofen can keep up with NSL destroyers, the FSE BC
Ypres is as quick as any cruiser and almost all of the ESU
designs travel at the same speed. Four very distinct design
philosophies.

>>> BCs should be faster that the BBs and as fast as the
>>> lighter stuff.
>>
>> I think the traditional niche was "faster than a BB
>> and sufficiently nasty to see off anything else".
>
> Exactly, either designed to swoop in and blow the 
> crap out of something your bbs couldn't normally 
> catch (commerce raiding) or as fast scouts that 
> can beat the crap out of CAs that are normally 
> being used to scout your force.

I've always thought the ideal raider to be the pre-war
French supercruisers; long range, high speed, mediocre
guns and no armour. As fighting ships they were useless.

BC raiders are pests simply because it takes so much
effort to put them down. It's not the impact they have
on shipping that's the problem (though that can't be
ignored), it's the commitment required to find them,
trap them and then sink them.

> The critical thing to remember is that they're 
> not line of battle ships

But here the BB is not the heaviest vessel around.
There are also BDNs and SDNs to worry about. For that
matter, defensively there's little difference between
the Majestic and the Victoria. The BB has two PTs in
place of a missile launcher and an extra B3 so I took
the Majestic to be a cut-price BB. In a one-on-one
encounter she's inferior, but put equal points on the
table and that's a different matter.

Nathan "now a veteran of North Cape" Girdler