RE: [FT] Crew quality house rules

Brendan wrote:
>Most of those examples relate to Damage Control (for which automation
can't
>yet make a "leap of faith" to fix a problem).
>
>In the automation of FT, crew quality doesn't matter once the
targetting
>solution is locked into the computers.  Where it does matter is in the
>maintainance of the systems, damage control and initiative.

I've read that in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war crew quality
made a big difference in combat between missile boats.
The Arab/Syrian missiles needed several minutes warm up
time for their internal gyros. The Israelis correctly
guessed that a badly trained crew would fire as soon as
they got a missile lock. Their boats charged in quickly,
the enemy boats fired, the missiles crashed into the
water. This also shows the advantage of well trained
crews: it must take a lot of confidence in your officers
and intelligence to deliberately let the enemy shoot
first.

The Isralie boats also had ECM for the missiles which
did fly straight, but again this relied on the operators
staying at their consoles as the missile came in.

	Hugh