Re: Salvo Missles vs. MT missiles

Thomas Westbrook wrote:
> 
> As player of Full Thrust and new to the GZG mailing list 

Greetings, Thomas, and welcome to here.

>(I apologize if this
> is a redundant topic). Why does the Fleet Book use salvo missiles
instead of
> the more potent, in my opinion, MT missiles.	
[...]
>  With Salvo
> missiles, while they pack a punch (rebutted further) they are one shot
> whiz-bangs and, in my opinion, not worth the mass they soak.
> 
> Statistically speaking, the salvo missile pack will lock on with about
3.5
> missiles and the defender's PDS will shoot down 3.5 missiles,
therefore
> hitting on average with NONE.  MT missiles, that are shot down on a 6
on 1D6,
> will be shot down 17% of the time and hitting 83% of the time. 
Further, the
> range difference and seeking distance are drastically different.  MT
missiles
> can hit up to 54mu away (in theory) and salvo missiles can hit up to a
total
> of 12-18mu, nearly a factor of 2/3 or more LESS.

I'm not going to argue statistics with ya (I'm not the statistician
here; Oerjan Ohlson, on the other hand, is ;-), but I can give you
a little input for reasons for using salvos.

First, a PDS can only target one salvo at a time. Overwhelm the
defenses,
and you can potentially get some hits in. 

Secondly, while you could argue that you can buy more PDS' than the
opponent carries salvos, at what point do you draw the line? PDS's
cost mass, too, and the mass you put into anti-missile defenses means
that much less mass you have for anti-ship weaponry. What if your
opponent trades out salvos for, say, beam weapons in a given scenario?
Your PDS-laden ships are likely going to be outgunned.

Third, salvos do more than *damage* an opponent. Unless you want to
run straight through them, and risk taking it on the chin, you will
very likely maneuver your ships so that the salvos launched are
"wasted";
i.e., don't hit *any*thing. But what if that is what your opponent
wants?
He has just taken the initiative away from you, forcing you to move
where
he wants you to, maybe not necessarily where you wanted to (this can be
used to break up fleets into two or more smaller parts, allowing one to
be defeated in detail while the other attempts to come about to engage).
So in *this* capacity, salvos can be used as terrain to force an
opponent
to maneuver elsewhere from where they might have originally intended.

So, there are three reasons why one might use salvos. But you have to
make sure you use enough of them. Too few and it's not worth it.

Mk