Re: FT-Banzai ships

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:39:04 +0100, Oerjan Ohlson
<oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
> Thomas Westbrook wrote:
> 
> >However I has been my experience FT that "jammers"
> >refer to ship systems and terms like "missile sponge"
> >and "missile bait" refered to smaller ships that
> >absorb [missile] damage before the prime ships
> 
> The term "Banzai Jammers" is not specific to Full Thrust; it comes
from
> today's US Navy (slang, not doctrine :-/ ).

The idea behind the "Jammer" bit is that modern cruise missles try to
attack bigger targets rather than smaller ones.  But if the smaller
ships use deceptive jamming to look like bigger ships, then they will
divert off the missles intended for the carrier.  Thus they dilute the
effectiveness of the strike.  But it is kind of rough on the smaller
ships sometimes.  Since FT missles aren't quite as smart as modern
cruise missles (granted, they have much longer distances to deal with
and more complex ECM environment) you do this by physically
positioning your small ships.

John
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani