Correct me if I'm wrong, but some list-ite of inestimable worth
indicated that he or she figured the FB destroyer designs were really DDE
designs. Which makes sense if you look at the weapons loadout.
Also, it seems to me Jon the Tuffleymeister went out of his way to
preserve a historic feel - that is to say the caps carry bigger guns
and hit further away. So destroyers carry 2's and 1's mostly. That replicates
the smaller guns vs. the bigger guns flavorwise.
As a consequence, FB destroyers do have trouble engaging caps - since
the cap can pound them before they even enter their RB. If one wanted to
design destroyers to menace the big boys, it seems to me SMRs, dual 3's,
single 4's or 5's, dual PTs, or MT missiles would be good equipment. Mix this
with a PDS or two (thus making them capable of defending themselves versus
things like fighters and pirates) or a 1, and you have a capable little ship
that can menace a big boy either in his max range band or beyond it (since Jon
has refrained from deploying 4s, 5s and 6s in the standard designs very much).
At least with ER SMR, PTs, MT missiles, or dual 3's (if you don't like the
idea
of overgunning small hulls or just don't like 4/5/6 class bats on
principle), the DD is a menace to the cap in the caps max range band, which
means bands of them can rip a cap apart in exchange for him killing a bunch of
them.
Or am I way off base somewhere here?
My armaments packages would see a destroyer still on small hull, but capable
of menacing a cap in a useful way. The ships could still
engage in their normal operations (separately deployed). A 4/5 or dual
3s will punch up a pirate just as fast as 2 2s and 2 1s will. In fact,
probably faster because you can fire at far farther ranges. And the PDS or 1s
can be fired if the enemy vessel closes, or to sweep mines, or to engage
hostile fighters.
The type of destroyers I'm talking about are less DDE and more DD(Torpedo).
Travelling in packs, they can really rip up their targets. And with thrust 6,
they can insure that the BBs and BCs don't close with them. So if they pack a
longer range weapon, they can pick apart the ships from range without a
reciprocal threat. If they pack an equal range weapon, a swarm of them can
close quickly with an enemy and do lots of dice damage. And fire at all RB as
they come... but come fast enough that in theory the enemy only gets 1 or
maybe 2 shots off total.
Anyway, just my latest ponderings.
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Also, it seems to me Jon the Tuffleymeister went out of his way to
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Yes, the FB DDs all carry C1s and
C2s; that's mainly because the bigger weapons require bigger hulls if you want
to fit things like engines or hull as well.
> As a consequence, FB destroyers do have trouble engaging caps - since
<chuckle> Get a bigger gaming board so you can fly faster, or play
Cinematic instead of Vector :-/ With average independent (ie, not tied
to capital units) DD speeds about 20-ish (Vector) or 30-ish
(Cinematic), it is very rare for my small fry to take more than one
turn of long-range fire before they get to reply. Often they don't even
take that one turn.
> If one wanted
Um. Your DDs need to be either low-thrust, weak-hulled, or mass about
40 in order to fit that kind of payload (assuming that you want those
PDS but use single-arc main mounts). The first is bad if you want them
to maneuver (which they want if they're to keep the range open), the second
bad if you want them to survive when breathed at, and the third makes them
what I think of as light cruisers (or even heavier, in the C5 case). They're
no longer "small units" to me.
I don't see how a DD could fit a C5 battery and still be both
maneuverable and reasonably survivable. A C5-1 is 16 Mass. A Markgraf-
or Voroshilev-class CA carries 16 Mass of offensive weaponry; a
Huron-class CL carries 16 Mass of *equipment* (ie anything except
engines and hull).
Make sure your weapons are mounted in the AP or AS arc. That way you
can run from the enemy and still shoot at him :-/
While a DD with long-range weapons can harass enemy capitals, they take
a *very* long time inflicting any serious damage. They also cost quite a bit.
For example, take this design:
Mass 28 Cost 98 Weak hull (6 hull boxes) FTL drive Thrust 6 1 FC 2 PDS
1 C4-1 (AP)
Eight of these cost about as much as one Komarov- or Theuerdank-class
SD with a Heavy fighter squadron. If the DDs stay in RB4, all of them fire
every turn and neither the SD nor its fighters ever manage to
shoot back at them, it'll take them 20-25 turns to kill the Komarov, or
about 16 turns to kill the Theuerdank... It's more like "Death of a thousand
cuts" than anything else.
PTs have potential to inflict damage fast from fairly long range
(unlike the long-range beam weapons). Unfortunately even C3 batteries
outrange them (and out-shoot them, unless the PT ship is screened).
Regards,
> On Tue, 15 Sep 2020, Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but some list-ite of inestimable worth
Well not really. It depends on which navy you are talking about.
The NAC Ticonderoga is a gereral purpose DD. It works well in union with
other DDs and a Cruiser to act as a Leader.
The ESU escorts are more of the line of the recent Russian/Soviet navy.
Some ships that were really one shot rocket carriers.
In WWII escorts were generally slower and fitted with light weapons. During
WWII the escorts were mostly corvettes and smaller DDE's. The DD
Remember the term Frigate didn't mean what it does now until 1975. Before then
the USN had Frigates that were larger than cruisers.
> As a consequence, FB destroyers do have trouble engaging caps - since
A group of DD's fitted with Pulse torps or SMs that fire them in groups would
more than make a bit of trouble for a capital ship.
Just like the ESU craft.
> The type of destroyers I'm talking about are less DDE and more
Yep.
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
> > Correct me if I'm wrong, but some list-ite of inestimable worth
Which means that the main DD designs of the other navies - the NSL
Waldburg, the FSE San Miguel and the ESU Warsaw/Volga - do so as well,
since they all have virtually identical armaments...
> The ESU escorts are more of the line of the recent Russian/Soviet
You mean "The FSE escorts are...".
The ESU escorts are almost exclusively beam-armed (except for some
Lenov refits), while most of the FSE ones have expendable munitions -
but the FSE DD shown (the San Miguel class) has a pure beam armament and no
missiles... It has an SMR variant described in the text, though.
Regards,
> On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
> Which means that the main DD designs of the other navies - the NSL
Its hard to make any real distiction given the simplified weapons.
Were there 6 types of missiles, then there'd be more variance.
> You mean "The FSE escorts are...".
Doh, Confusing the Froggies with the Russkies...
> The ESU escorts are almost exclusively beam-armed (except for some
This is the crux of it. The "escorts" only fill this one role is really pretty
moot as the different navies have different design concepts.