[FT] Small ships

Perils of small ships:

Die easily before they are in range to do damage

Take thresholds very easily and lose combat effectiveness with a very minimal
amount of damage

Make crappy escorts because they make stripping away ADFC protection very easy
for long ranged sniping fleets

How to address these threats:

1) Mount weapons on them that reach. SMRs
(ER) and PTs and K-1s are good choices.

2) Mount ADFC on minimum light-cruiser sized
hulls. Heck, if I was to refight the last CanAm FT, I'd have utterly
depopulated the weapons of a Komarov to give me 70 more PDS.

3) If you have standard FB escorts, have them follow 13" behind your line of
battle. Your line of battle tends to be able to make it to the enemy usually
even through a couple of rounds of fire, and causing meaningful thresholds on
the bigger ships will take a bit of work. Whereas if the small ships are as
close or closer, killing or crippling them is waaay easy and can be done
before they come into weapons envelope. Come in behind your fleet and your
fleet will draw the fire. They can then be used to 1) savage cripples and 2)
rip apart enemy ships that end up between your two lines who will try to focus
on your LoB. Thus they get into range to do damage and their NPV is not wasted
(as badly as it is if they die before doing so).

I have found this tactic quite effective. Also, on the round where your fleets
will meet inside RB1, you will find that you can punch up the thrust (well,
give one turn of prep acceleration, so you have to plan it two moves out) and
arrive more or less at the same pointblank range with your line of battle.
This flexibility is an asset as well.

You can also divert the escort swarm to go after flankers, strikeboat tenders,
or fighter carriers that aren't joining the bruhaha capital ship furball.

I thank Oerjan for some of this advice originally, he made the unserviceable
ships useful to me. Although I still prefer escorts with range 30 weapons.

Tomb.