Re: FT Fleet formations was Re: [GZG] FT vector movement systems

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http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn 3/5/07, John
Lerchey <lerchey@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>
> There is no indivdual order that accomplishes this.  You get to give
> orders to each ship, like everyone else, and try to manuever them
> appropriately to your plans.
>
> Then again, if there IS a "group order" that maintains formation, you
give
> each formation appropriate orders so that your screen goes where you
want
> it to.  If the enemy doesn't cooperate and outmanuvers your screen,
then
> you suffer.
>
> Or do you maintain the screen is omniscient enough to always know
where
> the enemy will be, so that you can give it an order like, "Screen us"
and
> they will then always be in position?

You have nicely hit the point that I was trying to make.  If you have
not
experimented with it beforehand and "drilled your ship handlers" (by
writing
down what actually worked onto a reference card), you are not going to
get
it right during a battle, without immense amounts of luck  or analysis
paralysis.  The most important word in your first paragraph is "try".

Expanding my point somewhat, I was taking issue with the claim that the
FT
rules for movement and order writing were hands-down better than trying
to
handle a fleet than the AV:T rules.  The FT rules, as written, lack the
granularity for some kinds of finicky formation handling.  Shifting the
relative bearing of the screen to the core and rotating the screen's
line is
no easier in FT than any other system (except Fear God and Dread Nought,
which conveniently provides examples of many of the coordinated
maneuvers
that a formation of WWI warships would execute[which are easier to port
to
AV:T than FT, but still rather difficult]).  The only advantage FT has
is
that each order is easier to write and the results of each order are
easier
to predict.  The sticking point is working backwards from the desired
endpoint of a formation to orders needed to get there from the current
point.	Being able to predict what each possible order will do is of
marginal utility if none of them do what you want.

Useless trivia:  the order given by the german admiral to the High Seas
Fleet  of "Combined Turn, [180 degrees] to starboard" , at Jutland was
an
act of desperation, as no one expected that it could be pulled off in
poor
visibility, while under fire, without somebody ramming someone else.
However, the consequences of doing a turn in succession of the entire
battleline, under the guns of the British Grand Fleet, were too horrible
to
contemplate and everything else took too long to organise and
communicate to
each ship.