[FT] Re: Tin Cans versus Dreadnoughts

> >

This is an interesting topic considering the History Channel was running a
series called "Battleships" all week. It got me to thinking about the ways
different games model the "naval" battles in space. It also got me to thinking
about why all those different types of ship classes really exist in the first
place. This got me thinking about how it all fits together in FT, and well,
its kinda a snowball effect from there...anyways.....

For the first part, I think the FT game, and even the "official" history model
well the BB vs. CV issue. Its my opinion that each has its place, and that the
BIG superships would rules the "skies". I tend to the of the CV in pretty much
the same way as a BB, except that her weapons are really just a bunch of
little ships.

For the second part, the reason for all the little ships to exist. One reason
is deployment and economy. Its just impossible to build enough battleships to
put ships everywhere you need a presence. Another reason to have those little
ships, is so that they can protect the big ships from things like fighters,
missiles, and all those little ships carrying that one cheap weapon that can
sink your BB. (In WWI and WWII it was the torpedo, nowadays its missiles). In
FT, as someone just mentioned in the last day or
two, a small ship armed with needle-beams can render a supership useless
just by taking out the Firecons. Instead of wasting space on the Big ship for
lots of PDS systems, make small ships with area defense systems and PDS
systems to keep missiles and fighters off (thus more room for big guns on the
big ship) and also use the small ships to keep the small needle armed ships
away.

An earlier discussion said the big ships in FT are truly the queen of battle,
and they are, and should be, but only as long as they have the escorts to keep
those needle armed raiders off!

In my mind, those are two good reasons for the existence of small ships in
any FT fleet, even though the economics/deployment issue is really a
matter of scenario. IN a campaign game, I truly believe there would be lots of
smaller ships in battle.

An interesting thing to note in both WWI and WWII is that Navies were loath to
risk their dreadnoughts. The darn things were so powerful and expensive that
to lose one meant a major shift in the balance of power. Another reason for
all the little ships. You have to have something to actually fight with!

Anyways, just some random thought on the subject...

George

> Even Worse <grin> we cannot (try over on the sfconsim list for a BIG

I think Full Thrust does a fairly good job of leaving that decision to the
players.

> Plus there is all that detritus from Star Trek, Star Wars, Baby-lon 5,

I wouldn't call all of those things "detritus", after all without them, there
wouldn't be any science fiction wargaming.

George

> stranger wrote:

In traditional WWII naval doctrine, there was a reason for the small ships. It
was called "torpedo boats".

Battleships could blow any lesser ship of the line right out of the water, but
those pesky torpedo boats were too fast to be hit by any gun mounted on a
battleship.

And a couple of well placed torpedo boats could send a battleship to Davy
Jone's locker.

> --- Nyrath the nearly wise <nyrath@clark.net> wrote:

Actually, TB's speed did not prove to be that much of a protection against
BB's gunfire, particularly since the latter usually had fairly strong
batteries of
anti-TB QF guns. Their best ally was night, rather
than speed, which made the superior range of battleship guns irrelevant (you
can't hit what you can't see) and made it possible for torpedo boats to get
within torpedo range of their prey relatively unmolested. Night actions at
Tsushima and Jutland, where destroyers really came into their own, are good
examples of that. Given short ranges of night-time
combat and the impossibility of holding torpedo boats
at arms length at night, an anti-torpedo boat screen
became the only effective way of fighting them.

> In traditional WWII naval doctrine, there was a reason for the

That is exactly the point I was trying to make, though you put it a bit
better!

George