[GZG] Monster ships

If you are building 'rather large' ships, why would they not have
correspondingly larger primary armaments?

Class 5+ Beams, bigger K-guns, etc.

Particularly the larger class beams make for quite a difference. Once you
outrange the opposition, you can do some serious damage even before they get
in their outer range band.

> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 6:50 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:

> Particularly the larger class beams make for quite a difference. Once

Somewhere in my FT notes I have a few designs and more notes for a fleet where
everything down to the cruisers has at least one B4 mounted, and the SDNs had
B5s. The number crunchers tell us that the
B3 is the most efficient shipkiller in a damage/mass calculation, but
having a squadron with a dozen damage dice way out at 36"-48"+
rangebands was sweet.

"Reach out and touch someone"... keep in mind these were
vector-optimized ships, ie narrow arcs, and I used assymetric arcs and
the "rolling" maneuver to increase effective arc coverage. They're
also "dreadnaught" designs - big guns, point defence, and not much in
between. No wild mix of weapons like too many of the FB ships have.

The NAC & NSL are the worst for this. The FB1 NAC Victoria battleship, and
it's NSL Maria von Someone counterpart, both have higher beam throw weight
than the SDNs on their side, IIRC. The NSL SDN in particular is a "let's take
one of everything" mess. I know the FB
ships are deliberately non-optimized (and they're cinematic designs,
so the arcs are wider than they need to be), but the NSL SDN is a bit OTT in
this regard.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI thought the
NAC ship designs were a reflection of political/corporate purchasing. By
including a system from as many different corporations and political
territories as possible you make it attractive to vote for the procurement.

The ESU ships all look like they come out of the same industrial complex and
have very standardised components.

The NSL ships look like they are hamstrung by lack of decent engines so make
up for the lack of engines with wider weapon arcs and more weapons to
compensate.

But the calibre of weapons doesn't produce anything like the performance
variation of naval weapons. A 16" naval weapon has much longer range and
hits much harder than an 8" weapon. In FT terms the weapons would have Â
range and damage proportional to their size class and a rate of fire inversly
proportional to their size.

That would make battleships able to track and kill their opposite numbers but
could make them vulnerable to being swarmed by multiple smaqller ships with
rapid fire close range weapons.

________________________________
From: Brian Burger <blurdesign@gmail.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tue, 5 January, 2010 4:07:36 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 6:50 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:

> Particularly the larger class beams make for quite a difference. Once

Somewhere in my FT notes I have a few designs and more notes for a fleet where
everything down to the cruisers has at least one B4 mounted, and the SDNs had
B5s. The number crunchers tell us that the
B3 is the most efficient shipkiller in a damage/mass calculation, but
having a squadron with a dozen damage dice way out at 36"-48"+
rangebands was sweet.

"Reach out and touch someone"... keep in mind these were
vector-optimized ships, ie narrow arcs, and I used assymetric arcs and
the "rolling" maneuver to increase effective arc coverage. They're
also "dreadnaught" designs - big guns, point defence, and not much in
between. No wild mix of weapons like too many of the FB ships have.

The NAC & NSL are the worst for this. The FB1 NAC Victoria battleship, and
it's NSL Maria von Someone counterpart, both have higher beam throw weight
than the SDNs on their side, IIRC. The NSL SDN in particular is a "let's take
one of everything" mess. I know the FB
ships are deliberately non-optimized (and they're cinematic designs,
so the arcs are wider than they need to be), but the NSL SDN is a bit OTT in
this regard.

Brian
warbard.ca/games.html
(redesigning that website is somewhere on my 'real soon now' list, I
promise...)

> On Tuesday 05 January 2010 02:50:18 Tom B wrote:

As far as my ISD designs went, it was because they were designed for FT2,
where an AA beam was the biggest available. They were also direct conversions
from the SW RPG, where ISDs had 60 heavy turbo laser batteries, which
converted into 60 A or AA beams.

I have always had a fondness for grasers. They are massive and expensive, but
if you allow them to reroll 6's, they can be worth it. The 18 range brackets
are also nice. IIRC, grasers are about four times the mass of a beam battery,
but (with rerolls) only do 3.5 times as much damage. The longer range brackets
are offset (not necessarily balanced) by grasers being mass*4, instead of
mass*3 cost weapons.

It is not bigger k-guns that are needed, but longer range k-guns.  If
the long range p-torp (double the cost for 50% greater range) is
balanced, than long range k-guns are equally balanced

> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:

> Brian Burger wrote:

> Somewhere in my FT notes I have a few designs and more notes for a

...in Vector. In Cinematic, the B2 is better unless your gaming table
is pretty big and/or your ship both is big enough to have lots of
DCPs to repair thresholded batteries with and has enough time to repair
anything before it is destroyed...

> but having a squadron with a dozen damage dice way out at 36"-48"+

As long as you can keep the range open, yes. If the enemy manages to close the
range though, you risk trading a dozen beam dice or so in your opening salvo
for the enemy's two dozen extra dice up close...
again a table size + movement system thing.

> The NAC & NSL are the worst for this. The FB1 NAC Victoria battleship,

Not quite. Beam for beam the Valley Forge outguns or matches the Victoria at
all ranges, and in the NSL case you'll need to include
the BB's P-torp but ignore the SDN's missiles (and of course both
SDNs also carry fighters). The FB1 *B*DNs are rather weak, though -
spending enough mass on fighters to weaken their own combat power,
but not enough to make the fighter force very useful :-/

Regards,

> Richard Bell wrote:

> I have always had a fondness for grasers. They are massive and

Only if you compare them to beam batteries of the same *class*, and even that
goes out of kilter if you look at the bigger Grasers (eg.
G3-1 at Mass 24 vs B3-1 at Mass 4, ie. 6 times as big). It is far
more useful to compare weapons of the same *max range* (and the same
number of fire arcs), and there the ggrasers are usually 2-3 times
the Mass of the corresponding beam battery - eg., the closest beam
comparison for a G2-1 (Mass 9) is a B*3*-1 (Mass 4) since both have a
max range of 36mu, while the G3-1 (range 54mu, mass 24) falls between
the B4-1 (Mass 8) and B5-1 (Mass 16) in range.

> The longer range brackets are offset (not necessarily

Er, no. The longer range brackets are primarily offset by part of their
greater Mass (the rest of the extra Mass offsets the higher damage per beam
die, of course). The extra 1*Mass points cost is just
fine-tuning, and is only paid if you allow Grasers to reroll '6's.
Grasers without rerolls cost 3*Mass.

> It is not bigger k-guns that are needed, but longer range k-guns. If

Yep. Works reasonably well the other way too (for both P-torps and
K-guns) - half the Mass for 2/3rds the range band (ie. 4mu bands), at
least in Cinematic. In Vector I'd expect them to be a bit too
short-ranged to be really useful though... and for many of the
K-guns, rounding errors are a bitch :-/

Regards,

----- Original Message ----
From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tue, January 5, 2010 12:59:30 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

> ...in Vector. In Cinematic, the B2 is better unless your gaming table

> As long as you can keep the range open, yes. If the enemy manages to
again >a table size + movement system thing.

This makes me think that FT can do Ship combat quite well. It sounds exactly
like the range bands of Cruisers and such from late 1800s through 1940s.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThe challange
with converting FT to simulate ship classes and speeds. In FT it is possible
with an open table (ie one that keeps rolling) rather than a fenced arena a
battlship can have thrust 4 and can easily be as manouverable as a cruiser so
it can sail away and maintain the range.

In FT you would need a more complex engine formula that is say engine mass =
thrust * mass^1.5 so that it's harder to produce high thrust capital ships...

Generally if the two fleets start moving towards each other it makes long
range weapons very limited in utility. The weight of fire from massed beam
twos is much more useful than a few long range dice.

________________________________
From: Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Wed, 6 January, 2010 7:49:07 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

----- Original Message ----
From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
To: gzg-l@mail...csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tue, January 5, 2010 12:59:30 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

> ...in Vector. In Cinematic, the B2 is better unless your gaming table

> As long as you can keep the range open, yes. If the enemy manages to
again >a table size + movement system thing.

This makes me think that FT can do Ship combat quite well. It sounds exactly
like the range bands of Cruisers and such from late 1800s through 1940s.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Tue, Jan 5,
2010 at 12:49 PM, Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>wrote:

> This makes me think that FT can do Ship combat quite well. It sounds
One of these centuries I should publish what I did with FT for the
Russo-Japanese War...

--
Allan Goodall            http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com awgoodall@gmail.com

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
> One of these centuries I should publish what I did with FT for the

Yes you should. I've been toying with getting Japanese and Soviet Aeronefs to
game the fight in the air.

D.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lJohn,

That is the trick to keep the top speeds realistic along with more realistic
accelerations. I guess you could convert and list hull speed
for each non-planing hull based on the waterline length.  Then your
formula for engine mass with perhaps some sort of calibration factor would
work.

Oh and we need armor belt and the effects of plunging fire vs horizontal fire.
<G>

________________________________
From: John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tue, January 5, 2010 2:38:09 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

The challange with converting FT to simulate ship classes and speeds. In FT it
is possible with an open table (ie one that keeps rolling) rather than a
fenced arena a battlship can have thrust 4 and can easily be as manouverable
as a cruiser so it can sail away and maintain the range.

In FT you would need a more complex engine formula that is say engine mass =
thrust * mass^1.5 so that it's harder to produce high thrust capital ships.

Generally if the two fleets start moving towards each other it makes long
range weapons very limited in utility. The weight of fire from massed beam
twos is much more useful than a few long range dice.

________________________________
 From: Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Wed, 6 January, 2010 7:49:07 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

----- Original Message ----
From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
To: gzg-l@mail...csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tue, January 5, 2010 12:59:30 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

> ...in Vector. In Cinematic, the B2 is better unless your gaming table

> As long as you can keep the range open, yes. If the enemy manages to
again >a table size + movement system thing.

This makes me think that FT can do Ship combat quite well. It sounds exactly
like the range bands of Cruisers and such from late 1800s through 1940s.

And this is where the 'realism vs playability' debate starts and
we're all spinning off into debate land.  (8-)

JGH

> Robert Makowsky wrote:

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lWell you need
to change how armour works.

Say you change the damage to 1d6 per hit and armour acts as a reduction
to damage so armour 4 is a -4 DRM then most light calibre shells bounce
off. larger guns would do more damage per hit say one d6 per 4" of calibre.

You could also have a simple rule that said that fire over half range is
plunging and fire at short range is direct and into the belt if it hits the
hull.

IIRC much of the superstructure wasn't heavily armoured so you would need a
different kind of SSD to show what systems were inside the belt and which had
armour like turrets and which didn't.

Could make for a more complicated ship design but might not make play that
much slower or more detailed.

But then there are many sets of naval rules that have already done the job
that converting FT would do.

Â

________________________________
From: Jerry Han <jhan@warpfish.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Wed, 6 January, 2010 10:57:16 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

And this is where the 'realism vs playability' debate starts and
we're all spinning off into debate land.  (8-)

JGH

> Robert Makowsky wrote:

-- ** Jerry Han - jhan@warpfish.com - http://www.warpfish.com/jhan -
TBFTGOGGI ** My heart has been worn, but it ain't broke;It may hiccup and
cough black smoke It may seem old, but it still runs; My love has laces that
won't come undone
                            -- Jason Plumb, "Satellite"

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
 Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 19:07:36 -0800
From: Brian Burger

> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 6:50 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:

> Particularly the larger class beams make for quite a difference. Once

Somewhere in my FT notes I have a few designs and more notes for a fleet where
everything down to the cruisers has at least one B4 mounted, and the SDNs had
B5s. The number crunchers tell us that the
B3 is the most efficient shipkiller in a damage/mass calculation, but
having a squadron with a dozen damage dice way out at 36"-48"+
rangebands was sweet.>>

That sounds like my homegrown Midgard Herding fleet, the designs are loaded
down with long range beams and Heavy Missiles and fighters to hopefully engage
at range and force you to disengage. Of course we play in cinematic style of
battles. If it gets to a Knife Fighting range we do have some B2 for “close
work” and PDS and ADFC for small targets.

But I have to admit when I dropped a Superdread with a B5 and 2 B4 down and it
opened up at 60mu on an enemy cruiser and broke it.. the look on my enemy face
was priceless.

In Memory of Russ Manduca 7/22/67-1/8/08

Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have
hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else
thereafter. ~ Ernest Hemmingway

"I'm a Member of Red Sox Nation"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc3CevHgms

When I had suggested longer ranged weapons, I wasn't thinking of the
ISD (by the way, love the SSD, got a mass and NPV/CPV to go with it?
And are there any rules for special damage as I see you appear to have
sectioned up the SSD..?), more the 'dreadplanet' (read: arbitrarily large
ship).

It seems to me if you are building the 'death orb', big beams are your thing.
If you are in vector with fast rotation, you can probably get
away with narrow arc. Get a bunch of beams with range 60"+. Get enough
thrust to maintain distance with standard enemy units or to at least make
their closure rate slow. Be prepared to use jump to evade if they
close with you. If you can limit closure rates and/or use jump
evasion, then you can pretty much pound the daylights out of the enemy before
they get to you.

Of course, that ignores a number of factors which can shoot down such a
design. One is superfast enemy locust swarms with short range beams.
Another is a non-compliant enemy, who, recognizing you are holding
open range to pound him, adjusts vector away.... he can 'refuse to play' your
game and force at least a stalemate. And of course, some battles will be over
geography, so simply jumping out when the enemy closes may not be workable.

However, if your enemy is foolish enough to chase, and if you can
thrust-rotate-shoot-rotate-thrust in fairly quick order to limit
closure, then you will pulverize the foe. It's like a poor man's Kaufman
Retrograde (without any actual retrograde thrust).

The thing about FT is you can almost always envision situations where a given
design is optimal or useful and scenarios where it gets owned by other types
of design. And, with certain assumptions, you can make
a campaign work one way or another - fighters dominant/useless, big
ships only/small ships required, etc. You can justify most flavours
with a little thought.

Me, I still miss old Kra'vak armour.:)

> On Wednesday 06 January 2010 04:46:09 Tom B wrote:

Rules, details and some other designs here:

http://www.glendale.org.uk/ft/starwars/index.html

I did do some smaller ships, but never got around to uploading the designs. I
used the oversized ships rules in FT2 for sectioning them up.

> Damond Walker wrote:
wrote:
> One of these centuries I should publish what I did with FT for the

That sounds cool!

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Wed, Jan 6,
> 2010 at 6:05 AM, Jon Davis <davisje@nycap.rr.com> wrote:

> Damond Walker wrote:

Yes. I have some Japanese 'nefs.

Mk

> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 7:42 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes. I have some Japanese 'nefs.

Really....

D.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Wed, Jan 6,
> 2010 at 7:47 AM, Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 7:42 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

Some are even poorly painted and based!

Mk

> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

> Some are even poorly painted and based!

Hmmm. How about I get some Russian 'nefs and we plot a game for next year's
ECC. Unfortunately I won't be at this years.:(

Damo

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Wed, Jan 6,
> 2010 at 8:01 AM, Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

I've been wanting to do an FT/'Nef game for a few years now. I have more
US and German that I can fly than Japanese right now, but hopefully I can work
the Jap fleet up some more.

Mk

Well, a lot of this comes down to what kind of game you want to play. I
generally like to play custom games (and have been doing so long enough that
fleet book ships just feel worse and worse to me when I have to go back), but
I also like being able to play on a living room floor. I mean, if I really
wanted to I could go twist the IJN rules around like a balloon animal and make
sure that my dreadplanet is covering the entire play board in three meter
diameter wavefronts from a class 97 hyperspatial distortion cannon fired from
the next house down every other turn for about 40 turns before it even shows
up at my end of the board... but I'm not convinced that's a game I still want
to play.
There does come a point _somewhere_ where I think the general weapon
types in the game ought to stay at least somewhat close to what's provided in
range and firepower. The game plays better that way. Sprinkle in PSB for why
nobody does it as necessary. (Active scanning range is only 36 MU in most
versions, so it could be as simple as, "if you can't scan it, you can't fire
control accurately on it either.")

On the other hand, I don't mind making a bit more use of class 4 beams or
class 3 grasers as the ships get bigger at all. There's a lot of different
game that can be played rather creatively, and still have a decent story
behind it, if one digs for it.

As for me, I just went and decided that K-guns can have their chances to
do double damage reduced by 1 for each layer of armor there is on the target
ship, rather like how old Kra'Vak armor used to work. Somewhere between that
and Cross Dimensions' advanced screens, that end of the design universe is
pretty well filled in for my tastes.

E

[quoted original message omitted]

Eric said:

Well, a lot of this comes down to what kind of game you want to play. I
generally like to play custom games (and have been doing so long enough that
fleet book ships just feel worse and worse to me when I have to go back), but
I also like being able to play on a living room floor. I mean, if I really
wanted to I could go twist the IJN rules around like a balloon animal and make
sure that my dreadplanet is covering the entire play board in three meter
diameter wavefronts from a class 97 hyperspatial distortion cannon fired from
the next house down every other turn for about 40 turns before it even shows
up at my end of the board... but I'm not convinced that's a game I still want
to play.  There does come a point _somewhere_ where I think the
general weapon types in the game ought to stay at least somewhat close to
what's provided in range and firepower. The game plays better that way.
Sprinkle in PSB for why nobody does it as necessary. (Active scanning range is
only 36

MU in most versions, so it could be as simple as, "if you can't scan it, you
can't fire control accurately on it either.")
-------

Tom:

The 36" limit doesn't work for me based on the weapons already in the game
with more than 36" range.

To me, scanner range and deceleration or course alteration capability should
also serve to limit board speeds (I'm talking about vector here). No one not
suicidal (general a trait frowned on in ship captains) is going to fly blind
(moving too fast to be able to see a potential hazard and avoid it with
surety).

I sort of agree with your 'somewhere there has to be a limit' and I've always
taken that limit around roughly what the major powers did. If I'm going to
take that limit as being X size of weapon when the rules would more or less
allow me to build bigger ones, I think I should be
doing the same with mass. If nobody is building mass 300+ ships, there
is probably a good (perhaps campaign universe related
economic/logistic/technical) reason.

To each his own, but to me, once you throw the doors open to custom fleets
with unique weapons combinations of alien and human tech, soapies, and ships
of unusual sizes (mandatory Princess Bride reference), then I would expect
people to also want to build big weapons with looooong ranges as well. That's
why I generally avoid the
whole custom home-brew thing. It's Pandora's Box.

But as long as a group enjoys a given set of implicit or explicit constraints,
that's good enough for them!

Well... the way I see it, there's an implicit series of limitations that's
being placed just by the size of the table and the way this game is played.
Namely:

1. The size of the table represents the maximum useful range at which one may
detect enemy ships at sublight speeds. 2. The size represents the maximum fire
control range that a fleet may engage and fire upon enemy ships. 3. The size
represents the maximum distance at which a carrier may exercise command and
control of its fighters, and furthermore, the carrier must do so directly and
may not use its escort ships sent ahead with the fighters as a proxy.
Otherwise, there'd be no reason to ever put the carrier on the table. 4. The
size represents the navigational limits of ships at sublight speed, and a
greater speed than one could take and still stay on the table is not safe.

Further extrapolating this reasoning to the Fleet Book ships, you have one
more critical implicit limitation at least as it pertains to the GZGverse
powers:

5.  The GZGverse powers do not possess the technology and/or capability
to build and/or logistically operate larger ships, faster ships, longer
ranged weapons, or more fighters/missiles than what they show in the
Fleet Books. All of these things represent material advantages that at least
one of the powers could have made use of to exploit obvious weaknesses in all
the others, and they haven't. If they haven't, the only reasonable explanation
is that they can't.

So if you play custom games, it depends greatly on how you apply limitations
to whatever fictional powers you're playing. Namely, you should have answers
to the following questions...

1. How big can they build ships? 2. How fast can they drive them? At what size
is their ability to build drive power to move their ships at any decent speed
going to start to taper off? 3. How much carrier command and control do they
have? 4. What fighters are they capable of using? (Standard fighters are the
basic stuff... interceptors, torpedo bombers, long range fighters, heavy
fighters, and swing-role fighters are all different levels of
protection, weapon optimization and miniaturization that not all powers might
have.)
4.  What, if any, advanced armor/drive/hull/screen technology do they
possess? (If they have any at all, it should be either because they're an
advanced power or they have highly optimized research in these areas, and only
very, very advanced powers should have access to more than one of them, or
advanced screens at all.) 5. What kind of fire control limitations do they
have? 6. What point defense capabilities do they have? PDS only? Scatterguns
(or something like them)? 7. Given the answers to all of the above, what is
their fleet doctrine?

For each GZGverse power, and for each custom fleet I've built, there's an
answer to these questions. For any custom game, I would recommend at
least implicitly having an idea of what these answers are.  You _can_
theoretically go completely munchkin, but the story and game is usually more
interesting if you don't.

E

[quoted original message omitted]

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Fri, Jan 8,
> 2010 at 2:32 PM, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:

> Well... the way I see it, there's an implicit series of limitations

Changing the "mu" from inches to centimeters will easily allow for those
desired longer-ranged weapons (and in Oerjan's case, higher speeds) to
be employed.

But how many people play in centimeters?  ;-)

Mk

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Eric:

1. The size of the table represents the maximum useful range at which one may
detect enemy ships at sublight speeds.

[Tomb] So, if this theory is true, I can detect (for instance) 72 MU
in one axis, but only 48 in another? <*grin*> If we assume an MU to be 1000 km
and say we can detect out to a maximum of 72 (or 96) MU, that means combat
should be rare except at geographic points because you'd just never see the
other fleet most places in your system.

2. The size represents the maximum fire control range that a fleet may engage
and fire upon enemy ships.

[Tomb] So, if I can fire 72 or 96 MU one way, you allow fire off the
side of the board, or does my max range scale to the smallest board axis?

3. The size represents the maximum distance at which a carrier may exercise
command and control of its fighters, and furthermore, the carrier must do so
directly and may not use its escort ships sent ahead with the fighters as a
proxy. Otherwise, there'd be no reason to ever put the carrier on the table.

[Tomb] The way the game's carriers are designed does suggest that they
are expected to be on the game table. Nothing in the fighter rules expresses
this limitation, but the carrier construction does suggest that this is the
expectation. Why would the not be able to have at least several light seconds
or a light minute worth of distance from the fighters? If they are filled with
humans, you would think ops
within 30-240 light minutes ought to be feasible (depending on life
suppot assumptions). The only limit of 'command and control' is the
ability to redirect a force. If the unit has pre-written orders and
the unit commander has discretionary power, then you don't need the carrier to
exert moment to moment control. If the fighters are RC drones, then yes, a
control radius makes sense. It also explains why the ludicrous fighter loss
rates are considered acceptable.

4. The size represents the navigational limits of ships at sublight speed, and
a greater speed than one could take and still stay on the table is not safe.

[Tomb] On a 4"x8" table scaling in CM, that could still yield speeds
of 60 MU+ in cinematic (or am I selling Oerjan short?).

Further extrapolating this reasoning to the Fleet Book ships, you have one
more critical implicit limitation at least as it pertains to the GZGverse
powers:

5.  The GZGverse powers do not possess the technology and/or
capability to build and/or logistically operate larger ships, faster
ships, longer ranged weapons, or more fighters/missiles than what they
show in the Fleet Books. All of these things represent material advantages
that at least one of the powers could have made use of to exploit obvious
weaknesses in all the others, and they haven't. If they haven't, the only
reasonable explanation is that they can't.

[Tomb] I think I would substitute 'cannot do so in an economically
advantageous way'. It may be that shipyard expense scales non-linearly
with cost. A slip for a mass 80 ship costs 10 * CPV. A slip for a mass 240
ship costs 100 * CPV. (Just making up numbers, but you see my point). That
would serve to make construction of smaller ships more common. Fighters... if
we assume carriers are likely to have to be within gun range of the enemy and
that they must survive, that might explain a lot of the canonical designs
somewhat (it doesn't explain BDNs at all). Longer ranged weapons are
expensive, perhaps out of proportion to utility (if B2 or B3 is the sweet
spot) unless the advantage is so pronounced that the enemy has no reply (B7
good thrust vs. B3 ships). Even then, the cost of shipyard slips may deter
building the big weapon ships. Maybe campaign economic point costs
(EPV) make constructing large ships and/or weapons expensive and maybe
if the fighters are crewed by humans, you just can't afford to lose them in
waves all the time and the pilot shortage is what limits fighter counts in
fleets. But yes, some aspect of the economic or tactical reality has to limit
a 'better design' from dominating. The best design will tend to dominate
*during wartime*. In peacetime, bureaucracies can really hurt the combat value
(best combat capability
for the $$$) by being more about pork-barrelling and who gets the
contract than about the best system. In a serious war, that attitude gets
short shrift.

So if you play custom games, it depends greatly on how you apply limitations
to whatever fictional powers you're playing. Namely, you should have answers
to the following questions...

1. How big can they build ships? 2. How fast can they drive them? At what size
is their ability to build drive power to move their ships at any decent speed
going to start to taper off? 3. How much carrier command and control do they
have? 4. What fighters are they capable of using? (Standard fighters are the
basic stuff... interceptors, torpedo bombers, long range fighters,
heavy fighters, and swing-role fighters are all different levels of
protection, weapon optimization and miniaturization that not all powers might
have.)

[Tomb] Can they station independent fighter squadrons on planets,
moons, battlestations, asteroids, etc?

4.  What, if any, advanced armor/drive/hull/screen technology do they
possess? (If they have any at all, it should be either because they're an
advanced power or they have highly optimized research in these areas, and only
very, very advanced powers should have access to more than one of them, or
advanced screens at all.) 5. What kind of fire control limitations do they
have? 6. What point defense capabilities do they have? PDS only? Scatterguns
(or something like them)?

[Tomb] Do all ships have implicit ADFC? Can primaries engage fighters
and how well? Do PDS fire at all incoming fighter groups? etc.

7. Given the answers to all of the above, what is their fleet doctrine?

[Tomb] You missed:
8. What role do smaller (popcorn) ships serve? Are they necessary for
strategic level surveillance of systems or exploration and scouting of enemy
locales? Do they ever appear at battles? Is there any economic advantage to
building them? (Cheaper shipyards so better CPV to EPV, giving a combat power
advantage for constructing these)? 9. What is the relationship between space
and ground operations? Does controlling space mean there is no point in a
ground fight?

Eric: For each GZGverse power, and for each custom fleet I've built, there's
an answer to these questions. For any custom game, I would recommend at least
implicitly having an idea of what these answers are. You
_can_ theoretically go completely munchkin, but the story and game is
usually more interesting if you don't.

[Tomb] I agree that this would be a wise idea.

I think one of the more interesting things is to try to come up with
sufficient collected justifications to explain why the FB designs are the best
designs for the job (or at least 'good enough') if playing standard FT. You
have to be able to explain all of the points you've outlined plus the ones I
think I added and maybe some we are forgetting. It sheds some interesting
light on what must be some of
the basic economic/strategic realities of the GZGverse.

Indy:
But how many people play in centimeters?  ;-)

Tomb:

All interior ballistic experts who have changed last names, participate in SCA
events and have Starfire related credits. The entire lot of them.:)

(I'm Canadian and I still can't imagine playing in cm....)

Besides, when OA gets old, he'll either have to give up or play in inches...
the eyes will start to make reading cm measuring tapes challenging....:0)

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lIn our
campaigns we assigned each technology a "strategic cost" and allowed fleets to
purchase a set number of technology points. In general weapons that had more
strategic options, beams and K guns and pulsars, had a higher strategic cost
than did single option technologies like Submunition packs.

This allows fleet commanders to determine their own doctrine and select
technologies accordingly.

One of the things that suggests to me that there there is indended to be some
practical limits in ship speeds are the fixed speeds for ordnance.
If ships are moving 30+ MU it makes it very hard to use ordnance and
impossible outside of a closing engagement.

In our campaigns we get a lot of situations where players need diverse power
projection accross a number of objectives at the same time. A battleship can
only be in one place but 3 destroyers can be in 3 places. Some of our generals
have also demonstrated that 3 destroyers can be more resiliant than a cruiser
and are effectively the same ship running as a networked ship across 3 hulls.
You could even have different destoyers specialising in different areas, and
by varying the mix get a more flexible squadron design than remoddling a
cruiser. Logistics are also simplified. Destroyers and lighter ships are
usually binary state (OK or dead) so you don't need to worry about remote
supply so much. A damaged cruiser is an expensive asset and needs to be taken
back to the shipyards for a refit. Such a vulnerable target then needs
protecting and escorting, thus tying up more assets.

We typically run campaing with starting fleets at around 4000 points,
4+borders, 6+ internal territories and maybe 1500 points/turn  economy.
With those sort of numbers you need a fleet that will be able to divide up
into multiple useful battlegroups. Having one deathstar ship means you might
be able to hold one territory or win one battle but you would find that your
empire would collapse because you can't defend it effectively.

As a result many of our battles are smaller squadron actions with cruisers vs
packs of marauding destroyers.

In an ordnance poor environment like the FT universe seems to be I can see why
ships don't bother with much point defence. It looks like ships have to return
to base to get replenished and so ships that rely on ordnance have to keep
making return trips back to base to resupply. I can't see how the FSE could
sustain a campaign. They might win the first battle but then their ships need
to RTB to rearm making it difficult for them to hold territory they captured.

________________________________
From: Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Sat, 9 January, 2010 10:51:13 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

Eric:

1. The size of the table represents the maximum useful range at which one may
detect enemy ships at sublight speeds.

[Tomb] So, if this theory is true, I can detect (for instance) 72 MU
in one axis, but only 48 in another? <*grin*> If we assume an MU to be 1000 km
and say we can detect out to a maximum of 72 (or 96) MU, that means combat
should be rare except at geographic points because you'd just never see the
other fleet most places in your system.

2. The size represents the maximum fire control range that a fleet may engage
and fire upon enemy ships.

[Tomb] So, if I can fire 72 or 96 MU one way, you allow fire off the
side of the board, or does my max range scale to the smallest board axis?

3. The size represents the maximum distance at which a carrier may exercise
command and control of its fighters, and furthermore, the carrier must do so
directly and may not use its escort ships sent ahead with the fighters as a
proxy. Otherwise, there'd be no reason to ever put the carrier on the table.

[Tomb] The way the game's carriers are designed does suggest that they
are expected to be on the game table. Nothing in the fighter rules expresses
this limitation, but the carrier construction does suggest that this is the
expectation. Why would the not be able to have at least several light seconds
or a light minute worth of distance from the fighters? If they are filled with
humans, you would think ops
within 30-240 light minutes ought to be feasible (depending on life
suppot assumptions). The only limit of 'command and control' is the
ability to redirect a force. If the unit has pre-written orders and
the unit commander has discretionary power, then you don't need the carrier to
exert moment to moment control. If the fighters are RC drones, then yes, a
control radius makes sense. It also explains why the ludicrous fighter loss
rates are considered acceptable.

4. The size represents the navigational limits of ships at sublight speed,
and a greater speed than one could take and still stay on the table is not
safe.

[Tomb] On a 4"x8" table scaling in CM, that could still yield speeds
of 60 MU+ in cinematic (or am I selling Oerjan short?).

Further extrapolating this reasoning to the Fleet Book ships, you have one
more critical implicit limitation at least as it pertains to the GZGverse
powers:

5.  The GZGverse powers do not possess the technology and/or
capability to build and/or logistically operate larger ships, faster
ships, longer ranged weapons, or more fighters/missiles than what they
show in the Fleet Books. All of these things represent material advantages
that at least one of the powers could have made use of to exploit obvious
weaknesses in all the others, and they haven't. If they haven't, the only
reasonable explanation is that they can't.

[Tomb] I think I would substitute 'cannot do so in an economically
advantageous way'. It may be that shipyard expense scales non-linearly
with cost. A slip for a mass 80 ship costs 10 * CPV. A slip for a mass 240
ship costs 100 * CPV. (Just making up numbers, but you see my point). That
would serve to make construction of smaller ships more common. Fighters... if
we assume carriers are likely to have to be within gun range of the enemy and
that they must survive, that might explain a lot of the canonical designs
somewhat (it doesn't explain BDNs at all). Longer ranged weapons are
expensive, perhaps out of proportion to utility (if B2 or B3 is the sweet
spot) unless the advantage is so pronounced that the enemy has no reply (B7
good thrust vs. B3 ships). Even then, the cost of shipyard slips may deter
building the big weapon ships. Maybe campaign economic point costs
(EPV) make constructing large ships and/or weapons expensive and maybe
if the fighters are crewed by humans, you just can't afford to lose them in
waves all the time and the pilot shortage is what limits fighter counts in
fleets. But yes, some aspect of the economic or tactical reality has to limit
a 'better design' from dominating. The best design will tend to dominate
*during wartime*. In peacetime, bureaucracies can really hurt the combat value
(best combat capability
for the $$$) by being more about pork-barrelling and who gets the
contract than about the best system. In a serious war, that attitude gets
short shrift.

So if you play custom games, it depends greatly on how you apply limitations
to whatever fictional powers you're playing. Namely, you should have answers
to the following questions...

1. How big can they build ships? 2. How fast can they drive them? At what
size is their ability to build drive power to move their ships at any decent
speed going to start to taper off? 3. How much carrier command and control do
they have? 4. What fighters are they capable of using? (Standard fighters
are the basic stuff... interceptors, torpedo bombers, long range fighters,
heavy fighters, and swing-role fighters are all different levels of
protection, weapon optimization and miniaturization that not all powers might
have.)

[Tomb] Can they station independent fighter squadrons on planets,
moons, battlestations, asteroids, etc?

4.  What, if any, advanced armor/drive/hull/screen technology do they
possess? (If they have any at all, it should be either because they're an
advanced power or they have highly optimized research in these areas, and only
very, very advanced powers should have access to more than one of them, or
advanced screens at all.) 5. What kind of fire control limitations do they
have? 6. What point defense capabilities do they have? PDS only? Scatterguns
(or something like them)?

[Tomb] Do all ships have implicit ADFC? Can primaries engage fighters
and how well? Do PDS fire at all incoming fighter groups? etc.

7. Given the answers to all of the above, what is their fleet doctrine?

[Tomb] You missed:
8. What role do smaller (popcorn) ships serve? Are they necessary for
strategic level surveillance of systems or exploration and scouting of enemy
locales? Do they ever appear at battles? Is there any economic advantage to
building them? (Cheaper shipyards so better CPV to EPV, giving a combat power
advantage for constructing these)? 9. What is the relationship between space
and ground operations? Does controlling space mean there is no point in a
ground fight?

Eric: For each GZGverse power, and for each custom fleet I've built, there's
an answer to these questions. For any custom game, I would recommend at least
implicitly having an idea of what these answers are. You
_can_ theoretically go completely munchkin, but the story and game is
usually more interesting if you don't.

[Tomb] I agree that this would be a wise idea.

I think one of the more interesting things is to try to come up with
sufficient collected justifications to explain why the FB designs are the best
designs for the job (or at least 'good enough') if playing standard FT. You
have to be able to explain all of the points you've outlined plus the ones I
think I added and maybe some we are forgetting. It sheds some interesting
light on what must be some of
the basic economic/strategic realities of the GZGverse.

John,

Not sure the FSE would need to return to base. They would need fleet colliers
to carry missile and fighter spares. Then again, every fleet needs some of
these to carry food, extra fuel (depends on PSB), medical staff, etc. FSE need
more. SMs and other ordinance should probably (to balance this) have a lower
strategic cost, because it will have a higher logistical demand.

The early destroyers in our real world would not have had the range and
capability of cruisers... this is why (I believe) cruisers got that name.
Destroyers were good to bring to a fight, but could not sail around
independently projecting the political power and military
power of their nation - that was the role of the cruiser. If a game
universe tracked that, destroyers could be good attritional units with fleets
and as escorts or as local defense, but you'd still need the bigger ships of
the line for the fighting and cruisers or BCs for independent operations. Of
course, nothing says one has to have this sort of justification, but it would
make for an interesting role for cruisers. Destroyers would still be valuable
as the eyes and ears of a fleet, but only within some range of resupply which
is shorter than a cruisers.

30+ MU speeds are harder to aim at in cinematic than vector. In
vector, your endpoint is still known, within a probability sphere that is a
result of your thrust. Velocity doesn't matter, just your ability to change
it. Of course, you are probably talking cinematic. Vector games (for reasons
of the physics) tend to be jousts anyway, unless there is a handy moon to
slingshot around.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lTom

The RTB to rearm is something I took from the description of the ESU ship that
has the missile racks.

I agree that the any and all fleets can take logistics ships to the area of
operations, they then need to be defended by escorts, if brought near the
combat zone or the fighting ships have to pull back to rearm leaving the
battle area to beam armed ships. It all depends on how you want to run your
supply PSB.

With ww1 and 2 era ships I agree that smaller ships were more limited in
range, with FT spacecraft there's no reason why the endurance of destroyers is
less than that of a dreadnought. If everyone is using fusion reactors to
generate power then they would last for a long time and using the FT drive
formula a ship would use up reaction mass at the same rate.

Cruisers have proved to be very valuable in most of the campaign games. They
are big enough to take on an enemy ship and have a chance at surviving. Light
cruisers have a key role in hunting down enemy destroyer groups without being
prohibitively expensive to field in numbers.

Most admirals don't bother with large numbers of large ships, they are
expensive to build and risky to use. They represent a major commitment of
resources and clearly signal the intentions. No one sends a super dreadnought
to the border "to visit the colonies". Sending the dreadnought to the side of
you territory also means you invite attack from people on the other side of
your territories.

Destroyers don't really have any role in fleet actions. They go pop really
quickly in fleet actions so unless you allow them to be raiders they really
have little or no role in the game. Scouts would be mass 3 sensor drones and
then you just build fleet ships.

All our games use cinematic movement. We would rather play space opera type
games than get too tied up in the real physics.

> On Friday 08 January 2010 21:54:35 Tom B wrote:

We've played in centimetres on occasion. It's especially useful if we have
planets on the table and want to use gravity wells as terrain.

John,

Operational ranges won't solely be determined by life support or reactor fuel
consumption. They may be determined in part by the number of system spares a
ship can store (cruisers probably have more
inherent storage), food supply (not accounted directly in the game -
you can presume it to be equal or unequal on ships as your tastes run), and
the other sorts of facilities on ships. Cruisers will have a full fledged
doctor and a decent sick bay, a DD may well have a physician's assistant or
medic and a very limited sick bay, as one example. Certainly if we look at the
modern carrier, it is a virtual city with all sorts of services like
laundries, various messes, probably a store or two, medical and dental
facilities, a chaplain or two, psychologist (maybe integrated with medical
staff), and so on.

The smaller the ship, the less likely the ship is to contain such things. You
build attritional units very barebones and the DD generally fits that role.
Does not have to, but can easily be seen as such. Cruisers, on the other hand,
have a purpose in showing the flag and projecting an image. They can also
stand in the line of battle. So the end result is they are not built as
attritional units generally and are more full featured. This may translate to
longer operational ranges and durations.

Also, note that showing the flag is going to be a role for cruisers because
they can have a wardroom worthy of hosting someone of some importance on a
local planet. Destroyers may well not have such a facility.

It is totally a stylistic choice, but there are reasons for larger ships being
built with additional facilities not inherent in smaller ones. This is another
reason that salvaging damaged big ships is
important - they aren't meant as attritional units.

One last point: With the exception of the last few years, fleet C4I isn't
usually vested in smaller ships. The Canadians are actually using their old
destroyers in the command role because they have more space than the newer
patrol frigates. Similarly, cruisers and other bigger ships have better space
to accomodate fleet command or diplomatic roles.

[quoted original message omitted]

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lEric

Im't not really sure what you mean by your first point. All fleets need a
doctrine against missile defence and our gaming group has had several people
that have made fleets based around the MT capitol missiles (like the islamic
fleets only moreso inspired by Honour Harrington type universes).

If a fleet is primarily missile armed it will run out of ammo and need
to get resupplied in ways that a beam, PT or K-gun fleet won't.

If facing a missile armed fleet, i'ts much more cost effective to have a cloud
of mass 3 missile attracter scout drones in close proximity to your capital
ships to protect them from missile strike than it is to use destroyers... They
still die after absorbing the same number of missile strikes and you get a lot
more scout drones than you do destroyers.

Destroyers get used in our campaigns a lot like light cavalry. They are best
for raiding the enemy backfield and engaging in supply route interdiction.
They are also good for securing lines of supply to ensure that the enemy
doesn't simply try to interdict with drones and frigates.

________________________________
From: Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Mon, 11 January, 2010 11:40:23 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

[quoted original message omitted]

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lIn reality MT
missles are hard to kill, (PDS, Class ones and skatter packs need a 6 to kill
it) with its mixed war heads makes them a great first strike weapon. I still
put beam batteries on the mid sized to large sized vessles so they are able
maintain fire fight. I beleave the inclusion of MT (or smart) missles make
those cheap escorts a pain to the enimy and capitals afraid. I beleave the FCT
would use the MT missles to bolster their fire power with attack boats that
can long range selective strike to keep the the other major powers honest.

> --- On Sun, 1/10/10, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

From: John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Sunday, January 10, 2010, 6:06 PM

Eric  Im't not really sure what you mean by your first point. All fleets need
a doctrine against missile defence and our gaming group has had several people
that have made fleets based around the MT capitol missiles (like the islamic
fleets only moreso inspired by Honour Harrington type universes). Â If a fleet
is primarily missile armed it will run out of ammo and need
to get resupplied in ways that a beam, PT or K-gun fleet won't.
 If facing a missile armed fleet, i'ts much more cost effective to have a
cloud of mass 3 missile attracter scout drones in close proximity to your
capital ships to protect them from missile strike than it is to use
destroyers. They still die after absorbing the same number of missile strikes
and you get a lot more scout drones than you do destroyers. Â Destroyers get
used in our campaigns a lot like light cavalry. They are best for raiding the
enemy backfield and engaging in supply route interdiction. They are also good
for securing lines of supply to ensure that the enemy doesn't simply try to
interdict with drones and frigates.

From: Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Mon, 11 January, 2010 11:40:23 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

[quoted original message omitted]

> Charles Lee wrote:

> In reality MT missles are hard to kill, (PDS , Class ones and

Eh. No. You're thinking of the More Thrust rules, but FB1 changed that more
than ten years ago.

So:

The More Thrust PDAF and "C" batteries needed a '6' to kill MT missiles.
(There were no "PDS" in More Thrust, BTW.)

The FB1 PDS needs a '4' or better to kill any missile, including an MT one.
FB1 Class 1 batteries need a '5' or better. A Fleet Book 2 scattergun kills an
MT missile automatically, since it can't roll less than "1" on 1D6.

***
FWIW the Mass-3 missile sponges are themselves surprisingly
vulnerable to long-range beam fire (or suicide strikes from other
small ships)... and MT missiles ignore them entirely, since unlike
SMs an MTM (or HM, using the beta-test terminology) doesn't have to
attack the closest target.

Regards,

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lCharles

Our gaming group dropped the penalty to PDS hitting the MT missiles a long
time ago. A couple of players made fleets whose doctrine was Missiles, Beam 2
and PDS, very like a modern naval fleet. With the increased protection agaisnt
PDS fire they were a very superior weapon system especially when compared to
Salvo missile weapons.

Unfortunately massed missiles and fighter squadrons make for a rather boring
game. The ships sit at opposite ends of the table and moves waves of counters
at each other.

I agree that missile armed destroyers especially if equipped with stealth
technology to protect against long range sniping are pretty effective strike
ships

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lMT missles were
like the mass distruction weapons in FB1 - FB2. I think the fact I'm
throwin a 2 mass missle at you and 4+ kills it without even sweatin,
dispite the fact I can't use the PDAF to shoot at a ship. The salvo
missles are 1/6 mass each and aren't capible Â
obsorbing damage. I like the rules in More Thrust stating all defensive
fire requires 6+ to kill it. Also most people use a modified roll
against salvo missles making them even stronger.
> --- On Mon, 1/11/10, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:

From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Monday, January 11, 2010, 2:20 PM

> Charles Lee wrote:

> In reality MT missles are hard to kill, (PDS , Class ones and skatter

Eh. No. You're thinking of the More Thrust rules, but FB1 changed that more
than ten years ago.

So:

The More Thrust PDAF and "C" batteries needed a '6' to kill MT missiles.
(There were no "PDS" in More Thrust, BTW.)

The FB1 PDS needs a '4' or better to kill any missile, including an MT one.
FB1 Class 1 batteries need a '5' or better. A Fleet Book 2 scattergun kills an
MT missile automatically, since it can't roll less than "1" on 1D6.

***
FWIW the Mass-3 missile sponges are themselves surprisingly vulnerable
to long-range beam fire (or suicide strikes from other small ships)...
and MT missiles ignore them entirely, since unlike SMs an MTM (or HM,
using the beta-test terminology) doesn't have to attack the closest
target.

Regards,

OerjanÂ

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lWe found it too
powerful with heavy missiles to have them only killed by point defences on a
6. A 100 mass battlecruiser in a missile based fleet could easily
have 10+ missiles and would only need 3-4 hits to kill an opposing ship
of equal mass. Unless you run ships with masses of point defence and engines
the missiles will always find their target given the can potentially have
several goes to aquire their targets.

Also we don't play with the standard heavy missiles having the capabilty to
choose targets. Again we found that to be too good and too far ahead of salvo
missiles.

It gets very hard to talk about the game and experiences when different gaming
groups are running different versions of the game and different rule sets.

We don't require missiles to use fire controls individually maybe that's you
limiting factor.

Not really sure what you mean by banzi jammers and it depends on your rules
about mixed and on table hyperspace assaults. We don't allow mixed on table
and hyper assault games because it makes it too easy to just jump accross the
table and do you might as well equip all ships with close range weapons if you
can tactical jump.

Â

________________________________
From: Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tue, 12 January, 2010 2:58:27 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

Yeah, I've been somewhat pondering what to do with this. On the one hand, I
think it's not a bad idea to treat MT missiles sort of like plasma bolts for
point defense fire, because if you treat them the same
as individual salvo missiles then they get a little _too_ easy to shoot
down and they'll have no effectiveness at all. At the same time, I think it's
a good idea to let fighters shoot at them as well, which wasn't possible in
More Thrust. We wound requiring each MT missile to use an individual fire
control partly because of this. Area defense got a lot better in the fleet
books, though, although we wound up mostly using salvoes in the old group. Â
Resupply for missile ships and carriers is a potential issue, but a lot of
this depends on how easy you make it to resupply them. The decoy drones
aren't going to work very long if the other side's even the slightest bit
balanced or inventive, though. Even if there's way too many of them to ever
reasonably shoot them all with conventional beam support, it's still so easy
to just send a similar swarm of drones into the midst of the banzai jammers
and FTL bomb the lot of them, even if you don't feel like actually arming
them. Different variants of this can pretty much trash anything that tries to
exploit the design rules with 1 hull point, really. Take a few scatterguns
and ruin soap bubble carriers too, for instance. Â There's really a lot of
different things that can work in battles if you've got the logistics to
support it, though, but you usually have to
have at least a semi-credible Plan B for it to work.  Good carriers and
missile ships still usually need to keep it semi-honest with beams or
K-guns at some point, because sometimes it takes a lot of work to get
through point defense. Â E
[quoted original message omitted]

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Mon, Jan 11,
2010 at 10:00 PM, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>wrote:

> Not really sure what you mean by banzi jammers and it depends on your

Banzai Jammer was a termed coined years ago for small, usually
nigh-worthlesss ships (scouts, corvettes, etc) to surround larger
targetable
ships to self-intercept salvo missiles. Given the current rules for
salvos (attacking closest target, irregardless of targets in the attack
envelope),
sacrificing a 6- or 10-mass ship to several swarms of salvo missiles is
highly cost-effective in saving the larger ship, which could, in turn,
blast the snot out of the salvo missile firing ship.

If I understand Eric's paragraph correctly, I believe he was suggesting that
while banzai jammers are easy to kill with anti-ship (i.e., beam) fire,
having a bunch of them means not all may be killed off in one turn by
direct-fire ships. So the easiest way to eliminate the horde of banzai
jammers would be to send a similar horde of dinky ships into point-blank
range and having them fire up their FTL drives, blowing all the tiny ships
(including the banzai jammers) to smithereens.

Mk

PS: amusing to see the number of replies in this thread and the subject line
of the thread; I think this has become one of the larger/largest
on-going
threads we have had here in a long, long time

> ------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lAhhh yes Missle
sponges, let the admiral relying on Missle Sponges against someone with More
Thrust missles and watch him move his command to a cutter as the big boys and
cruisers go mision killed. At 54 plus 6 movement units away the launch
cruisers are ready to take out the small boys. Missle sponges are old and
obsolite today with smart cruise missle. Compare Cruise missles with MT
Missles while Salvo missles are likened to short range dumb missles carried by
lesser navies.

> --- On Tue, 1/12/10, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 11:34 AM

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:00 PM, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>
wrote:

Not really sure what you mean by banzi jammers and it depends on your rules
about mixed and on table hyperspace assaults. We don't allow mixed on table
and hyper assault games because it makes it too easy to just jump accross the
table and do you might as well equip all ships with close range weapons if you
can tactical jump.

Banzai Jammer was a termed coined years ago for small, usually
nigh-worthlesss ships (scouts, corvettes, etc) to surround larger
targetable ships to self-intercept salvo missiles. Given the current
rules for salvos (attacking closest target, irregardless of targets in
the attack envelope), sacrificing a 6- or 10-mass ship to several swarms
of salvo missiles is highly cost-effective in saving the larger ship,
which could, in turn, blast the snot out of the salvo missile firing ship.

If I understand Eric's paragraph correctly, I believe he was suggesting
that while banzai jammers are easy to kill with anti-ship (i.e., beam)
fire, having a bunch of them means not all may be killed off in one turn
by direct-fire ships. So the easiest way to eliminate the horde of
banzai jammers would be to send a similar horde of dinky ships into
point-blank range and having them fire up their FTL drives, blowing all
the tiny ships (including the banzai jammers) to smithereens.

Mk

PS: amusing to see the number of replies in this thread and the subject
line of the thread; I think this has become one of the larger/largest
on-going threads we have had here in a long, long time

Â

Â

Â

From: Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>

To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tue, 12 January, 2010 2:58:27 PM

Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

Yeah, I've been somewhat pondering what to do with this. On the one hand, I
think it's not a bad idea to treat MT missiles sort of like plasma bolts for
point defense fire, because if you treat them the same
as individual salvo missiles then they get a little _too_ easy to shoot
down and they'll have no effectiveness at all. At the same time, I think it's
a good idea to let fighters shoot at them as well, which wasn't possible in
More Thrust. We wound requiring each MT missile to use an individual fire
control partly because of this. Area defense got a lot better in the fleet
books, though, although we wound up mostly using salvoes in the old group. Â
Resupply for missile ships and carriers is a potential issue, but a lot of
this depends on how easy you make it to resupply them. The decoy drones
aren't going to work very long if the other side's even the slightest bit
balanced or inventive, though. Even if there's way too many of them to ever
reasonably shoot them all with conventional beam support, it's still so easy
to just send a similar swarm of drones into the midst of the banzai jammers
and FTL bomb the lot of them, even if you don't feel like actually arming
them. Different variants of this can pretty much trash anything that tries to
exploit the design rules with 1 hull point, really. Take a few scatterguns
and ruin soap bubble carriers too, for instance. Â There's really a lot of
different things that can work in battles if you've got the logistics to
support it, though, but you usually have to
have at least a semi-credible Plan B for it to work.  Good carriers and
missile ships still usually need to keep it semi-honest with beams or
K-guns at some point, because sometimes it takes a lot of work to get
through point defense. Â E
[quoted original message omitted]

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI was never,
ever a fan of the "salvos are dumb and attack closest" camp. But my voice was
small on the playtest list on that issue. <shrug>

Mk

> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ahhh yes Missle sponges, let the admiral relying on Missle Sponges
fire,
> having a bunch of them means not all may be killed off in one turn by
gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu<http://us.mc513.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?t
o=gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu<http://us.mc513.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?t
o=Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
> http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu<http://us.mc513.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?t
o=Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
> http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI keep hearing
MT missles are simply bigger and more fragile versions of a salvo missle. My
answer is who has served in the modern military and why are smart weapons so
denied. These are people that think a defensive weapon is so great while in
reality defence lags behind offence in weapon technology.

> --- On Tue, 1/12/10, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 12:13 PM

I was never, ever a fan of the "salvos are dumb and attack closest" camp. But
my voice was small on the playtest list on that issue. <shrug>

Mk

> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com> wrote:

Ahhh yes Missle sponges, let the admiral relying on Missle Sponges against
someone with More Thrust missles and watch him move his command to a cutter as
the big boys and cruisers go mision killed. At 54 plus 6 movement units away
the launch cruisers are ready to take out the small boys. Missle sponges are
old and obsolite today with smart cruise missle. Compare Cruise missles with
MT Missles while Salvo missles are likened to short range dumb missles carried
by lesser navies.

> --- On Tue, 1/12/10, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 11:34 AM

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:00 PM, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>
wrote:

Not really sure what you mean by banzi jammers and it depends on your rules
about mixed and on table hyperspace assaults. We don't allow mixed on table
and hyper assault games because it makes it too easy to just jump accross the
table and do you might as well equip all ships with close range weapons if you
can tactical jump.

Banzai Jammer was a termed coined years ago for small, usually
nigh-worthlesss ships (scouts, corvettes, etc) to surround larger
targetable ships to self-intercept salvo missiles. Given the current
rules for salvos (attacking closest target, irregardless of targets in
the attack envelope), sacrificing a 6- or 10-mass ship to several swarms
of salvo missiles is highly cost-effective in saving the larger ship,
which could, in turn, blast the snot out of the salvo missile firing ship.

If I understand Eric's paragraph correctly, I believe he was suggesting
that while banzai jammers are easy to kill with anti-ship (i.e., beam)
fire, having a bunch of them means not all may be killed off in one turn
by direct-fire ships. So the easiest way to eliminate the horde of
banzai jammers would be to send a similar horde of dinky ships into
point-blank range and having them fire up their FTL drives, blowing all
the tiny ships (including the banzai jammers) to smithereens.

Mk

PS: amusing to see the number of replies in this thread and the subject
line of the thread; I think this has become one of the larger/largest
on-going threads we have had here in a long, long time

Â

Â

Â

From: Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>

To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tue, 12 January, 2010 2:58:27 PM

Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

Yeah, I've been somewhat pondering what to do with this. On the one hand, I
think it's not a bad idea to treat MT missiles sort of like plasma bolts for
point defense fire, because if you treat them the same
as individual salvo missiles then they get a little _too_ easy to shoot
down and they'll have no effectiveness at all. At the same time, I think it's
a good idea to let fighters shoot at them as well, which wasn't possible in
More Thrust. We wound requiring each MT missile to use an individual fire
control partly because of this. Area defense got a lot better in the fleet
books, though, although we wound up mostly using salvoes in the old group. Â
Resupply for missile ships and carriers is a potential issue, but a lot of
this depends on how easy you make it to resupply them. The decoy drones
aren't going to work very long if the other side's even the slightest bit
balanced or inventive, though. Even if there's way too many of them to ever
reasonably shoot them all with conventional beam support, it's still so easy
to just send a similar swarm of drones into the midst of the banzai jammers
and FTL bomb the lot of them, even if you don't feel like actually arming
them. Different variants of this can pretty much trash anything that tries to
exploit the design rules with 1 hull point, really. Take a few scatterguns
and ruin soap bubble carriers too, for instance. Â There's really a lot of
different things that can work in battles if you've got the logistics to
support it, though, but you usually have to
have at least a semi-credible Plan B for it to work.  Good carriers and
missile ships still usually need to keep it semi-honest with beams or
K-guns at some point, because sometimes it takes a lot of work to get
through point defense. Â E
[quoted original message omitted]

Points:

The adaption Oerjan talked about for MTMs/HMs to FB rules is required
to keep their points value somewhat adequate. I'm not sure what an appropriate
cost for a behaviour and resilience more like the original
MTMs would be, but I'm darn sure it is more PV. Otherwise the MTM/HM
is unbalanced in a FB world.

As to Indy's point: I sort of agree with you, but again it would come down to
costing. The concept was that the sensors of the missile are small and limited
versus the EW environment they are operating in,
thus making them lucky enough to hit *something*. Metagame-wise, you
have one type of missile that hits a single target accurately (MTM/HM)
and one that hits a somewhat random target (still must be in range of
acquisition) (Salvo Missile). If they had selective targeting, they'd have to
be much more expensive.

I don't know if anybody recalls SFB drone warfare, but I always used to play a
Klingon. Drones were my bread and butter. Swordfish, spearfish, armoured, ECM
and so on. But you had control limits (IE the firecon limitation). And the
effective, survivable, larger drones
(MTM/HM equivalents) were rather sizably expensive in point value as
they needed to be to balance things. It tended to keep the number of armoured,
fast, size IV, spearfish drones (you had a big enough payload on a IV to put
two different sorts of payload module on a size IV) to a minimum on the board.

If you didn't put reasonable point costing on HTM/HMs (and I haven't
heard OA or anyone say what that would be) but kept the old-school
behaviours, then you've got a very long range, very selective weapon for an
overly cheap price. Even *WITH* the firecon limit. Squadrons of missile
destroyers with 2 HMs help get around the firecontrol limit but still let you
deluge the battlefield with these very accurate, destructive weapons outside
of even class 4 beam range.

I was pleasantly surprised by the idea of FTL-bombing banzai jammers.
That's a technique I hadn't thought of. Mind you, for that matter, you can use
this technique beyond just engaging banzai jammers... you can use it to
actually attack big ships. It is going to be (I think) far more lethal in
vector than in cinematic (as far as getting the hits in), but you could use
this approach in place of conventional weapon attacks. Swarms of small ships
all attempting to open FTL windows blanketing an enemy fleet.

Was there not a change at some point to let the ship doing so die but fail to
damage others just to avoid this sort of thing? If you allow it for
neutralizing banzai jammers, then it really does become the carpet bombing
tool.

Tom

> Charles Lee wrote:

> MT missles were like the mass distruction weapons in FB1 - FB2.

They wouldn't have been quite so much so if you had used the actual FB1 rules
for them instead of the MT rules...

> I think the fact I'm throwin a 2 mass missle at you and 4+ kills it

You're using pre-FB1 systems again. The FT2 PDAF could not damage
ships; the FB1 PDS OTOH *can* do so. Not as well as a beam battery, but
still...

> I like the rules in More Thrust stating all defensive fire requires

Using house rules is fine, of course - but please be aware that you
*are* using house rules. Stating things like "the reality is that system X
works like THIS" when you are in fact talking about your group's house rules
easily leads to misunderstandings, since that "reality" doesn't apply to
anyone using other rules (like eg. the published ones).

> Also most people use a modified roll against salvo missles making

That's interesting, for the only SM modification I've seen described by more
than one group is to allow PD overkills to count against the
next incoming salvo instead of being wasted - but that makes the SMs
*weaker*, not stronger... What modification are you thinking of here, that
makes the *SMs* stronger?

Regards,

> Charles Lee wrote:

> I keep hearing MT missles are simply bigger and more fragile

I haven't served (too poor eyesight), but I work with anti-tank and
support weapons development with a side task of keeping track of what
our products' potential targets are up to tech-wise - particularly
wrt countermeasures. Does that count?

> and why are smart weapons so denied.

In Full Thrust? Because we don't want a page of extra rules and
oodles of die-rolls to handle the ECM-vs-ECCM cycle in Full Thrust
when "SMs attack nearest target" combined with the "1D6 sub-missiles
on target from each salvo" comes pretty close to the result such rules would
create anyway.

> These are people that think a defensive weapon is so great while in

You've chosen an... interesting time to make that claim, you know.
Twenty years ago you would've been kind-of right; nowadays the
defence side is catching up at a pretty high rate. Some examples:

Naval ships have had pretty effective ECM, point defences and area defences
for decades already; they just haven't been seriously tested
in any major naval wars yet. The RN didn't have up-to-date defences
in '82 (and many of their ship losses were from dumb air-dropped
bombs anyway), the Iran-Iraq war usage of ASMs was mostly directed at
civilian oil tankers and platforms, and the Israeli corvette hit during the
latest Lebanon fracas had its defensive systems turned off (not that two
missiles fired against a single ship counts as a major naval war, of course).

Recently some of those point defence systems have been morphed into
land-based anti-artillery systems (used operationally in Iraq and
Afghanistan), and although AQ&co. don't have anything larger than mortar
rounds for these defences to knock down they nevertheless retain the ability
to take out much larger guided weapons too. Some modern SPAAGs are
surprisingly good against small numbers of
precision-guided bombs and big missiles too, though their magazines
are too small for a sustained defence so they're easier to overwhelm.

The Russians have had crude but reasonably effective vehicle-mounted
PDS systems at least since the early '80s, but haven't had the cash to deploy
them on a larger scale. They did use such systems operationally in their
Afghanistan war; it reduced tank losses to RPG attacks for the units so
equipped by around 80% (and would've done a similar number on ATGMs had the
Mujahideen had any). There are plenty
of anti-ATGM ECM systems for armoured vehicles both east and west
too, though they go out-of-date pretty fast (Iraq's anti-ATGM ECM
systems were rather too old to do much good in 2003, for example). At
least five western nations are developing their own vehicle-mounted
PDS systems too, though AFAIK only Israel has gotten theirs into service so
far.

The THEL and similar laser-based anti-missile systems are a bit
further from operational deployment, but they're coming along quite nicely.
The tests have been a mixed bag of successes and failures, but we have lasers
today that are powerful enough to shoot down even
big ballistic missiles. 'There is also a whole bunch of missile-based
anti-missile systems that can take down incoming ballistic missiles.

Yes, the defence *has lagged* behind, past tense, for some decades now.
Doesn't mean it is still lagging behind today, much less that it will remain
lagging behind in the future. Heck, a century ago the defence was very much
ahead of the game at least wrt land warfare...

Regards,

> TomB wrote:

> If you didn't put reasonable point costing on HTM/HMs (and I haven't

If you kept the old-school *manoeuvrability* for
the MTMs as well (ie. "launch straight ahead and
make a single up-to-60° course change at the
mid-move point each game turn") and played on a
largish or floating table, you'd also have a
system that is relatively easy for a thrust-4
Cinematic ship to outmanoeuvre - either by flat
out outrunning them, or by overflying them so your ships end their move >6mu
behind where the missiles began the turn (ie., >6mu behind where the missiles
are when you write your movement orders). In my experience MTMs were only
really
lethal against targets with thrust-2 or less, or
on tables small enough for them to pin their
targets against an impenetrable table edge - and
that was with the MT rules for shooting them down :-/

> I was pleasantly surprised by the idea of FTL-bombing banzai jammers.

Only discussed on that other mailing list AFAIR...

Regards,

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l1. As to MT
missles dying 50% to Anti-air defences is like sayin lets use a 50
caliber machine gun to kill a inbound Scud. Ain't a real set of odds. The MT
missles were smart and bigger than a fiter. 2. They use fighter kill rolls on
salvo verses whats in the book.
> --- On Tue, 1/12/10, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:

From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 2:44 PM

> Charles Lee wrote:

> MT missles were like the mass distruction weapons in FB1 - FB2.

They wouldn't have been quite so much so if you had used the actual FB1 rules
for them instead of the MT rules...

> I think the fact I'm throwin a 2 mass missle at you and 4+ kills it

You're using pre-FB1 systems again. The FT2 PDAF could not damage ships;
the FB1 PDS OTOH *can* do so. Not as well as a beam battery, but
still...

> I like the rules in More Thrust stating all defensive fire requires 6+

Using house rules is fine, of course - but please be aware that you
*are* using house rules. Stating things like "the reality is that system X
works like THIS" when you are in fact talking about your group's house rules
easily leads to misunderstandings, since that "reality" doesn't apply to
anyone using other rules (like eg. the published ones).

> Also most people use a modified roll against salvo missles making them

That's interesting, for the only SM modification I've seen described by more
than one group is to allow PD overkills to count against the next
incoming salvo instead of being wasted - but that makes the SMs
*weaker*, not stronger... What modification are you thinking of here, that
makes the *SMs* stronger?

Regards,

Oerjan

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lHow much is a
reasonable price fer a one shot fiter (AKA MT Missle as in FT / MT)? And
the Salvoi missles have a potional of 6 Die 6 in direct impact.

> --- On Tue, 1/12/10, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:

From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 3:23 PM

> TomB wrote:

> If you didn't put reasonable point costing on HTM/HMs (and I haven't

If you kept the old-school *manoeuvrability* for the MTMs as well (ie.
"launch straight ahead and make a single up-to-60° course change at the
mid-move point each game turn") and played on a largish or floating
table, you'd also have a system that is relatively easy for a thrust-4
Cinematic ship to outmanoeuvre - either by flat out outrunning them, or
by overflying them so your ships end their move >6mu behind where the missiles
began the turn (ie., >6mu behind where the missiles are when you write your
movement orders). In my experience MTMs were only really
lethal against targets with thrust-2 or less, or on tables small enough
for them to pin their targets against an impenetrable table edge - and
that was with the MT rules for shooting them down :-/

> I was pleasantly surprised by the idea of FTL-bombing banzai jammers.

Only discussed on that other mailing list AFAIR...

Regards,

OerjanÂ

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThank you for
responding with logig and fact. The fact that so much has come to lead this
time is evidence that missles and guided munitions are powerful. But think of
the fact it took over two or three decades to come closer. Missle designers
aren't sittin on their laurals. Offence is easier to design and build than
defence. This fact is ferever been proven. A sdad fact of man's mind.

> --- On Tue, 1/12/10, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:

From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 3:04 PM

> Charles Lee wrote:

> I keep hearing MT missles are simply bigger and more fragile versions

I haven't served (too poor eyesight), but I work with anti-tank and
support weapons development with a side task of keeping track of what
our products' potential targets are up to tech-wise - particularly wrt
countermeasures. Does that count?

> and why are smart weapons so denied.

In Full Thrust? Because we don't want a page of extra rules and oodles
of die-rolls to handle the ECM-vs-ECCM cycle in Full Thrust when "SMs
attack nearest target" combined with the "1D6 sub-missiles on target
from each salvo" comes pretty close to the result such rules would create
anyway.

> These are people that think a defensive weapon is so great while in

You've chosen an... interesting time to make that claim, you know.
Twenty years ago you would've been kind-of right; nowadays the defence
side is catching up at a pretty high rate. Some examples:

Naval ships have had pretty effective ECM, point defences and area defences
for decades already; they just haven't been seriously tested in
any major naval wars yet. The RN didn't have up-to-date defences in '82
(and many of their ship losses were from dumb air-dropped bombs anyway),
the Iran-Iraq war usage of ASMs was mostly directed at civilian oil
tankers and platforms, and the Israeli corvette hit during the latest Lebanon
fracas had its defensive systems turned off (not that two missiles fired
against a single ship counts as a major naval war, of course).

Recently some of those point defence systems have been morphed into
land-based anti-artillery systems (used operationally in Iraq and
Afghanistan), and although AQ&co. don't have anything larger than mortar
rounds for these defences to knock down they nevertheless retain the ability
to take out much larger guided weapons too. Some modern SPAAGs
are surprisingly good against small numbers of precision-guided bombs
and big missiles too, though their magazines are too small for a sustained
defence so they're easier to overwhelm.

The Russians have had crude but reasonably effective vehicle-mounted PDS
systems at least since the early '80s, but haven't had the cash to deploy them
on a larger scale. They did use such systems operationally in their
Afghanistan war; it reduced tank losses to RPG attacks for the units so
equipped by around 80% (and would've done a similar number on
ATGMs had the Mujahideen had any). There are plenty of anti-ATGM ECM
systems for armoured vehicles both east and west too, though they go
out-of-date pretty fast (Iraq's anti-ATGM ECM systems were rather too
old to do much good in 2003, for example). At least five western nations
are developing their own vehicle-mounted PDS systems too, though AFAIK
only Israel has gotten theirs into service so far.

The THEL and similar laser-based anti-missile systems are a bit further
from operational deployment, but they're coming along quite nicely. The tests
have been a mixed bag of successes and failures, but we have lasers today that
are powerful enough to shoot down even big ballistic
missiles. 'There is also a whole bunch of missile-based anti-missile
systems that can take down incoming ballistic missiles.

Yes, the defence *has lagged* behind, past tense, for some decades now.
Doesn't mean it is still lagging behind today, much less that it will remain
lagging behind in the future. Heck, a century ago the defence was very much
ahead of the game at least wrt land warfare...

Regards,

Oerjan

So much depends on your movement mechanics. Narrower arcs are more
feasible in fast-rotation vector (1 thrust = unlimited rotation).
Conversely, apparently MTMs would be much more dangerous to vector
ships than to thrust 4+ cinematic ones as I understand OA's point that
they can easily dodge the missiles given the limitations of the missiles.

If you play cinematic vs. vector or FB vs. original FT, you'll see very
different outcomes. If you play household homebrew fleets (esp with tech
mixes) versus standard fleets, you'll see rather different outcomes. (Note I
mean versus here in the 'as opposed to' sense, rather than saying you have
both sorts of fleet on the same table... thought that would only illustrate
the point....)

You'll also find different flavours ensue from allowing main batteries to fire
at fighters, for allowing all PDSes on a ship to engage any attacking fighter
group (makes FB designs do okay even against mass fighter waves), etc.

So much is dependent on your assumptions about rules in use and movement
system in play before you even get to personal bias as to how you think the
game should play (battleship duel, submarine hunt, carrier strikes, etc).

Which brings me to my point: Arguments about 'how it should be' or 'how it is'
are kind of pointless. Most of the regular FT playing groups toss out or add
in something (house rules) and are thus not playing rulebook FT. Even that
'rulebook' idea is a bit fuzzy... FT, FB1, FB2, Cross Dimensions, etc... So
arguing about 'how it is' or 'how X works' also requires you to stipulate a
lot of your assumptions and constraints. And you never convince anyone else
just because your group does it one way. Similarly, arguing how it should be
has all of the flaws of arguing about how it is and adds on suppositions about
what might make it better. I say both of these are pointless and can lead to
frustrated people (in some cases).

It's generally better just to say "Our group does X (using rules A, B and C,
movement system M, and house rules R, S, T, and Q) and we have round (insert
conclusions)." People can take from that what they think is applicable to
them. All one can ever do is hopefully provide
something useful for a fellow gamer and that's mostly luck - they have
to be using a fair portion of the same sorts of rules to get much direct use
out of something.

One thing this discussion has done has gotten me interested in running a minor
FT campaign of my own at some point this year, just to try *my* set of
assumptions and biases out all together in one place to see if the game I like
to play is actually good and fun and balanced.

TomB

I've been following the 'Monster ships' thread... and I've got to be honest,
it really is impossible to follow. I say this for three reasons:

1) Rules There are different rule sets people are using (FT, MT, FB1, FB2,
house rules) regarding MT Missiles and Salvos. My group used some beta fighter
rules:
http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/200403/msg00286.html
I'm sure we're pretty odd in that regard.

2) Campaign vs One-offs
If logistics, namely missile rearming and replacement aren't part of the
design decision... all missile ships are great. Otherwise, after one battle
you're spent and that's no good for a campaign.

3) Ending the Battle In our campaign we included B5 style jump engines, that
required charging... thus you could jump out (ie disengage) but not instantly.
There was no jumping across the table, which was allowed to scroll in one
direction. If you can jump in, fire all your missiles at long range, then jump
out...
missile attacks against static 'death stations' are possible.

This isn't meant as an attack on anyone... simply my view, when I read many
responses is - what are their answers to the above three questions?
Group style is another obvious difference.

Simon

P.S. For next christmas, I'd like a copy of FT3.

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 7:52 AM, Simon White
> <mintroll-gzg-ft@2-72.co.uk> wrote:

> P.S. For next christmas, I'd like a copy of FT3.

I'd be happy with a completely edited FT2.5 integrating the rules together.

D.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lMake that
two.Dear Santa

> --- On Wed, 1/13/10, Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Damond Walker <damosan@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 9:00 AM

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 7:52 AM, Simon White
> <mintroll-gzg-ft@2-72.co.uk> wrote:

> P.S. For next christmas, I'd like a copy of FT3.

I'd be happy with a completely edited FT2.5 integrating the rules together.

D.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lHere's our
forum thread with our consolidated set of rules and associated design
spreadsheets.

http://www.warlords.org.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?t=229

I wouldn't call them 2.5 because some of our decisions about rules were not
informed by the work being done by the playtest groups.

People are welcome to use these rules and could join our club forum to observe
and particiapte in our discussions.

We mostly play campaigns because line up fleets accross other sides of the
table and smash into each other is rather boring after a while.

We have typically kept the supply situation rather simple, because we are by
inclination combat admirals rather than combat accountants. Ships that can
trace a line of supply back to one of their bases get their expendibles
replaced and can repair their hull and armour damage if it was less than 50%.
Ships that are cut off (hence destroyers and raider frigates are popular,
ships can't be replenished and can't repair damage, in addition they have an
increasing chance of suffering a critical breakdown.

We do allow ships to jump onto the table but it's risky with an ordnance based
attack. You arrive onto the table in the movement phase, so you can't launch
ordnance in the same turn as arrival. It is possible to jump onto the table,
launch ordnance, activate FTL engines and then jump.

We also have 2 types of engagement normal space where we play on a scrolling
table and hyperspace where we play on a fixed 48" diameter board. We did this
to create different types of games and make it harder to have one trick pony
fleets.

Mostly our battles last until one side is destroyed or flees by leaving the
table by outrunning the opponent on conventional drives or by FTL jump. We
don't do tactical FTL jumps around the table.

I agree that it is more difficult to discuss rules and situations when
everyone is doing it their own way.

> Charles Lee wrote:

> 1. As to MT missles dying 50% to Anti-air defences is like sayin

Nope. It is however very much like using a ~30mm autocannon to kill
an inbound ASM, which is exactly what today's gun-based PD systems
do. (OK, some of them use 25mm or 40mm autocannon instead, but you get the
point.)

Also note that an MTM is only about as big as a Full Thrust fighter,
which is destroyed by PDS on a 4+. The missile itself is not Mass 2;
a fair bit of that Mass is the missile hardpoint mounted on the ship. For a
comparison, look at the Mass 4 SMR where we know that the missile salvo itself
is only Mass 2 (since that's how big an SML
reload using identical missiles is) - leaving 2 Mass, ie. 50% of the
system's total Mass, for the rack part of the salvo missile rack.

> 2. They use fighter kill rolls on salvo verses whats in the book.

Interesting. Haven't seen that one described at all before, actually...

Regards,

Simon had asked what different groups use for rules.

My group is mostly an SG group, but I've been on and off the playtest lists
and have talked to a lot of people who have played a lot more FT. I have the
good luck of having a gaming group from when I was in university and one from
my first job (to characterize roughly where the core membership of each lies).

Group 1: Vector (because it just makes sense to us, fast-rotation), 3
or 4" burst for SMs, FB fleets (we used to use FT/MT and do miss KV
armour), heaviest ship purchases were in ESU, NSL, NAC, FSE and KV. No
MTM/HMs. Standard PDS and fighter rules, but without custom ships, no
soapies or mass fighter swarms. Fleet compositions started very evenly
distributed between ship classes, but the reality of the Fist of Death as the
dominant formation (no weapons to disrupt it really) and the
reality of the small ships getting killed by long range beam or K-gun
fire resulted in a shift away from so called 'popcorn'. Those ships
are considered to exist in fleets but avoid line-of-battle
engagements. I don't recall us ever playing with terrain. We did not tend to
campaign or run linked scenarios.

Group 2: Cinematic(66%) Vector (34%), FB rules, no MTM/HMs, large
fleet formations from UNSC, FSE, NAC, SV, KV, smaller NSL, FSE, Phalon. When
we played FT a lot, we played with a variety of terrain and FB ships. We
played a number of human vs. alien (esp SV) games. The UNSC hasn't gotten as
much exercise as its massive fleet would suggest... we tapered off on FT at
some point. We did not tend to campaign or run fixed scenarios. I think in
this group we've played at
times with fast-rotation vector and slow-rotation vector. People like
ponderous rotations.

I've also run a few 'one off weekend' using fast-rotation Vector, some
home built ships to add to FB ships for infantry landers or similar sorts of
things. I've designed some fleets for some micropowers but never put them on
the game board yet. I've bought a bunch of the OUDF ships and got them painted
up in a dreamtime scheme but they've never hit the table yet, though I like my
friend Brain's designs. I've tried
the FB MTM/HMs on destroyers against FB light cruisers and destroyers
a few times.

At ECC, I've played several vector games (including PP:E/PP:F, EFSB,
and the original Can Am which stands out both for a graphic demonstration of
where fighters overwhelm FB rules and for the great use of a gas giant as a
major part of the game board). I try to avoid cinematic because I can fly
vector well and intuitively and I never end up where I expect to in cinematic.

But that latter stuff is all tinkering or one offs.

If I'm going to run a campaign, I'm going to try to draw in some new folks.
I'm going to try to setup something that will start small and stay small,
using something like the Imperium model of a conflict in a small chunk of
space between two powers that will be influenced by outside happenings but not
terribly important to them. This will serve to limit geographic area as well
as limit resupply and construction.

I think I'd like to do this, but I'm going to have to do some thinking
about campaign rules that make sense. I read Roger Burton-West's
updated FB compatible rules and like about 80% of them so I may 'borrow
liberally' from that source (with attribution). I appear to need to find Beth
and Derek's sensor rules too.

Tomb

> Charles Lee wrote:

> Thank you for responding with logig and fact. The fact that so much

Of course they are. If they weren't, no-one would bother buying them.

> But think of the fact it took over two or three decades to come closer.

Except that it didn't. What took most of those two or three decades was for
the (western) defence politicians to decide that the threat was serious enough
to spend the money to develop a specific
counter-technology. Once the money was granted, actually developing
the counter-tech has usually taken around *one* decade, or less - and
that's in peacetime. War tends to speed things up considerably. Also,
Soviet/Russian and Israeli defence politicians have historically been
*way* quicker to open their purses for defence tech developments -
though their purses aren't as big as the western ones, and many of their
achievements haven't been widely published in the west until recently.

In the ATGM case, the first major use of ATGMs in combat was the Yom
Kippur war in 1973. The Soviets used their first tank-mounted PD
system in combat no later than 1982 (may have been earlier), and the Israelis
fielded reactive armour in Lebanon in 1982. (Note that this
was *combat* use, indicating that the respective counter-systems had
finished development earlier than this.) The bigger western powers
didn't really appreciate the ATGM/LAW threat (or rather, thought that
their ECM systems and passive armours were sufficient to deal with it) until
their own troops started running into insurgents equipped
with half-decent AT weapons - mostly in the wake of 9/11, which was
less than ten years ago... and the western hard-kill PD systems are
coming online now.

For ships, the first ASMs were deployed during WW2 - but being
radio-controlled, they were countered by dedicated ECM systems within
a year. (Like I noted above, war does wonders for defence tech
development :-/) The first reasonably autonomous ASM used in combat
was the Styx (sinking of the Eilat, 1967). At most six years later the
Israelis already had effective ECM systems in place to counter it (used in the
battle of Latakia, 1973), and the USN deployed their
first Phalanx gun-based PD system in 1978.

> Missle designers aren't sittin on their laurals.

Correct.

> Offence is easier to design and build than defence. This fact is

Not true at all. Defence only lags behind because it is pointless (or at least
considered so by the politicians) to develop a defence
against a non-existant threat. Once a threat is taken seriously
enough by the people who control the money however, it rarely takes long until
a defence tech against it has been developed. (Getting that tech into the
field can take longer, particularly if there's no ongoing war at the time.)
Once the new defence tech is in place, we on the offence side have to work our
butts off to either come up with some way of outsmarting this new defence tech
or come up with a completely different threat that requires a completely
different
defensive counter-tech. Merely outsmarting the new defence tends to
be fairly easy for the defence tech to counter with minor adjustments of their
own; coming up with a completely new threat is *very* difficult, and even when
we succeed we can only expect to keep the upper hand for a decade or so if
we're lucky.

To return to the tank-vs-ATGM example, it is surprisingly easy to
design and build something that detects an incoming missile and
throws a cloud of shrapnel into its path - the Soviets did that in
the late '70s - but it is difficult as hell to build a missile
capable of avoiding or surviving such a cloud of shrapnel. OK, if you know
exactly how the specific enemy defence system you're up against works you can
exploit its particular weaknesses; eg. the Hellfire and Javelin both dive onto
their targets exploiting that the current Russian PD systems cover the horizon
but can't fire straight up... but all the newer tank PD systems under
development today (including
the next-generation Russian ones) *can* fire straight up, removing
that particular vulnerability. And so on.

So no, I very emphatically disagree with your notion that it is easier to
develop better weapons that it is to develop defenses that
counter them :-/

Regards,

> Charles Lee wrote:

> How much is a reasonable price fer a one shot

You're asking about two rather different systems here.

As a one-shot fighter, you're basically comparing
it to a slower, shorter-ranged Torpedo fighter
with a heavier warhead - killed by PDS on a 4+,
but with a *much* better manoeuvrability than an MTM as described in MT. Throw
in the ability to pick its target and let it keep the 2D6 warhead, and it ends
up being worth about half as much as an SM salvo using the FB1 rules. Which is
a good thing, since that allows us to keep the current
Mass (2 for the MTM, 4 for the SMR) :-/

The MT missile *as described in MT* OTOH, ie. only hit by rolls of '6' but
very poor manoeuvrability, varies enormously in value depending on the
movement system and table size used. It is awesome in Vector where its targets
usually can't generate enough of a side vector to get out of its 60° tracking
cone, and nearly as good on cramped tables where a Cinematic target don't have
enough room to dodge it. Like I wrote earlier though, on a larger table in
Cinematic
even thrust-4 ships can outfly it fairly easily;
and under those circumstances it suddenly turns
from a ship-killer into an area-denial weapon
whose main use is to make your opponents fly where you want him to (usually
somewhere where
you can use your direct-fire weapons to destroy him)...

Regards,

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lSo present cost
is acceptible in vector movement?

> --- On Wed, 1/13/10, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:

From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 5:52 PM

> Charles Lee wrote:

> How much is a reasonable price fer a one shot fiter (AKA MT Missle as

You're asking about two rather different systems here.

As a one-shot fighter, you're basically comparing it to a slower,
shorter-ranged Torpedo fighter with a heavier warhead - killed by PDS on
a 4+, but with a *much* better manoeuvrability than an MTM as described
in MT. Throw in the ability to pick its target and let it keep the 2D6
warhead, and it ends up being worth about half as much as an SM salvo using
the FB1 rules. Which is a good thing, since that allows us to keep
the current Mass (2 for the MTM, 4 for the SMR) :-/

The MT missile *as described in MT* OTOH, ie. only hit by rolls of '6' but
very poor manoeuvrability, varies enormously in value depending on the
movement system and table size used. It is awesome in Vector where its targets
usually can't generate enough of a side vector to get out of its 60° tracking
cone, and nearly as good on cramped tables where a Cinematic target don't have
enough room to dodge it. Like I wrote
earlier though, on a larger table in Cinematic even thrust-4 ships can
outfly it fairly easily; and under those circumstances it suddenly turns
from a ship-killer into an area-denial weapon whose main use is to make
your opponents fly where you want him to (usually somewhere where you
can use your direct-fire weapons to destroy him)...

Regards,

Oerjan

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI wish I could
meet you in person. I'ld shake your hand. A calm and logical debater. We may
not agree but I think both are lookin at the others evidence and thinkin.

> --- On Wed, 1/13/10, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:

From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 5:36 PM

> Charles Lee wrote:

> Thank you for responding with logig and fact. The fact that so much

Of course they are. If they weren't, no-one would bother buying them.

> But think of the fact it took over two or three decades to come

Except that it didn't. What took most of those two or three decades was for
the (western) defence politicians to decide that the threat was serious enough
to spend the money to develop a specific
counter-technology. Once the money was granted, actually developing the
counter-tech has usually taken around *one* decade, or less - and that's
in peacetime. War tends to speed things up considerably. Also,
Soviet/Russian and Israeli defence politicians have historically been
*way* quicker to open their purses for defence tech developments -
though their purses aren't as big as the western ones, and many of their
achievements haven't been widely published in the west until recently.

In the ATGM case, the first major use of ATGMs in combat was the Yom
Kippur war in 1973. The Soviets used their first tank-mounted PD system
in combat no later than 1982 (may have been earlier), and the Israelis fielded
reactive armour in Lebanon in 1982. (Note that this was *combat*
use, indicating that the respective counter-systems had finished
development earlier than this.) The bigger western powers didn't really
appreciate the ATGM/LAW threat (or rather, thought that their ECM
systems and passive armours were sufficient to deal with it) until their
own troops started running into insurgents equipped with half-decent AT
weapons - mostly in the wake of 9/11, which was less than ten years
ago... and the western hard-kill PD systems are coming online now.

For ships, the first ASMs were deployed during WW2 - but being
radio-controlled, they were countered by dedicated ECM systems within a
year. (Like I noted above, war does wonders for defence tech development
:-/) The first reasonably autonomous ASM used in combat was the Styx
(sinking of the Eilat, 1967). At most six years later the Israelis already had
effective ECM systems in place to counter it (used in the battle of Latakia,
1973), and the USN deployed their first Phalanx
gun-based PD system in 1978.

> Missle designers aren't sittin on their laurals.

Correct.

> Offence is easier to design and build than defence. This fact is

Not true at all. Defence only lags behind because it is pointless (or at least
considered so by the politicians) to develop a defence against a
non-existant threat. Once a threat is taken seriously enough by the
people who control the money however, it rarely takes long until a defence
tech against it has been developed. (Getting that tech into the field can take
longer, particularly if there's no ongoing war at the time.) Once the new
defence tech is in place, we on the offence side have to work our butts off to
either come up with some way of outsmarting this new defence tech or come up
with a completely different
threat that requires a completely different defensive counter-tech.
Merely outsmarting the new defence tends to be fairly easy for the defence
tech to counter with minor adjustments of their own; coming up with a
completely new threat is *very* difficult, and even when we succeed we can
only expect to keep the upper hand for a decade or so if we're lucky.

To return to the tank-vs-ATGM example, it is surprisingly easy to design
and build something that detects an incoming missile and throws a cloud
of shrapnel into its path - the Soviets did that in the late '70s - but
it is difficult as hell to build a missile capable of avoiding or surviving
such a cloud of shrapnel. OK, if you know exactly how the specific enemy
defence system you're up against works you can exploit its particular
weaknesses; eg. the Hellfire and Javelin both dive onto their targets
exploiting that the current Russian PD systems cover the horizon but can't
fire straight up... but all the newer tank PD systems
under development today (including the next-generation Russian ones)
*can* fire straight up, removing that particular vulnerability. And so on.

So no, I very emphatically disagree with your notion that it is easier to
develop better weapons that it is to develop defenses that counter
them :-/

Regards,

Oerjan

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThat Mass four
is a reloadable system. MT is only ons shot rack unless you use one persons
idea. I'll see if I can find it. Maybe lost to internet malstrum.

> --- On Wed, 1/13/10, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:

From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 3:11 PM

> Charles Lee wrote:

> 1. As to MT missles dying 50% to Anti-air defences is like sayin lets

Nope. It is however very much like using a ~30mm autocannon to kill an
inbound ASM, which is exactly what today's gun-based PD systems do. (OK,
some of them use 25mm or 40mm autocannon instead, but you get the point.)

Also note that an MTM is only about as big as a Full Thrust fighter,
which is destroyed by PDS on a 4+. The missile itself is not Mass 2; a
fair bit of that Mass is the missile hardpoint mounted on the ship. For a
comparison, look at the Mass 4 SMR where we know that the missile salvo itself
is only Mass 2 (since that's how big an SML reload using
identical missiles is) - leaving 2 Mass, ie. 50% of the system's total
Mass, for the rack part of the salvo missile rack.

> 2. They use fighter kill rolls on salvo verses whats in the book.

Interesting. Haven't seen that one described at all before, actually...

Regards,

Oerjan

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lCharles,

One thing to keep in mind in your discussions with Oerjan:, he works in the
weapons development field. He knoweth very well what he speaketh. He was
also our number one front line man in working up mass/cost points in the
FB material when it was being developed, so his numbers will usually be spot
on.

:-)

Mk

> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 6:41 PM, Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I wish I could meet you in person. I'ld shake your hand. A calm and
Once the
> money was granted, actually developing the counter-tech has usually
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu<http://us.mc513.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?t
o=Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
> http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lBut I asked a
question to one person's complaint about the cost to effective power of the MT
MIssles, What would be a reasonable cost. I was an operations specialist in
the US Navy, A weapons user and studier.

> --- On Wed, 1/13/10, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 8:14 PM

Charles,

One thing to keep in mind in your discussions with Oerjan:, he works in the
weapons development field. He knoweth very well what he speaketh. He
was also our number one front line man in working up mass/cost points in
the FB material when it was being developed, so his numbers will usually be
spot on.

:-)

Mk

> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 6:41 PM, Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com> wrote:

I wish I could meet you in person. I'ld shake your hand. A calm and logical
debater. We may not agree but I think both are lookin at the others evidence
and thinkin.

> --- On Wed, 1/13/10, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:

From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 5:36 PM

> Charles Lee wrote:

> Thank you for responding with logig and fact. The fact that so much

Of course they are. If they weren't, no-one would bother buying them.

> But think of the fact it took over two or three decades to come

Except that it didn't. What took most of those two or three decades was for
the (western) defence politicians to decide that the threat was serious enough
to spend the money to develop a specific
counter-technology. Once the money was granted, actually developing the
counter-tech has usually taken around *one* decade, or less - and that's
in peacetime. War tends to speed things up considerably. Also,
Soviet/Russian and Israeli defence politicians have historically been
*way* quicker to open their purses for defence tech developments -
though their purses aren't as big as the western ones, and many of their
achievements haven't been widely published in the west until recently.

In the ATGM case, the first major use of ATGMs in combat was the Yom
Kippur war in 1973. The Soviets used their first tank-mounted PD system
in combat no later than 1982 (may have been earlier), and the Israelis fielded
reactive armour in Lebanon in 1982. (Note that this was *combat*
use, indicating that the respective counter-systems had finished
development earlier than this.) The bigger western powers didn't really
appreciate the ATGM/LAW threat (or rather, thought that their ECM
systems and passive armours were sufficient to deal with it) until their
own troops started running into insurgents equipped with half-decent AT
weapons - mostly in the wake of 9/11, which was less than ten years
ago... and the western hard-kill PD systems are coming online now.

For ships, the first ASMs were deployed during WW2 - but being
radio-controlled, they were countered by dedicated ECM systems within a
year. (Like I noted above, war does wonders for defence tech development
:-/) The first reasonably autonomous ASM used in combat was the Styx
(sinking of the Eilat, 1967). At most six years later the Israelis already had
effective ECM systems in place to counter it (used in the battle of Latakia,
1973), and the USN deployed their first Phalanx
gun-based PD system in 1978.

> Missle designers aren't sittin on their laurals.

Correct.

> Offence is easier to design and build than defence. This fact is

Not true at all. Defence only lags behind because it is pointless (or at least
considered so by the politicians) to develop a defence against a
non-existant threat. Once a threat is taken seriously enough by the
people who control the money however, it rarely takes long until a defence
tech against it has been developed. (Getting that tech into the field can take
longer, particularly if there's no ongoing war at the time.) Once the new
defence tech is in place, we on the offence side have to work our butts off to
either come up with some way of outsmarting this new defence tech or come up
with a completely different
threat that requires a completely different defensive counter-tech.
Merely outsmarting the new defence tends to be fairly easy for the defence
tech to counter with minor adjustments of their own; coming up with a
completely new threat is *very* difficult, and even when we succeed we can
only expect to keep the upper hand for a decade or so if we're lucky.

To return to the tank-vs-ATGM example, it is surprisingly easy to design
and build something that detects an incoming missile and throws a cloud
of shrapnel into its path - the Soviets did that in the late '70s - but
it is difficult as hell to build a missile capable of avoiding or surviving
such a cloud of shrapnel. OK, if you know exactly how the specific enemy
defence system you're up against works you can exploit its particular
weaknesses; eg. the Hellfire and Javelin both dive onto their targets
exploiting that the current Russian PD systems cover the horizon but can't
fire straight up... but all the newer tank PD systems
under development today (including the next-generation Russian ones)
*can* fire straight up, removing that particular vulnerability. And so on.

So no, I very emphatically disagree with your notion that it is easier to
develop better weapons that it is to develop defenses that counter
them :-/

Regards,

Oerjan

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn 14/01/2010
> 10:41 AM, Charles Lee wrote:
In a naval context... Sunburns still give me the willies.

They come in so quickly, you can usually distract/seduce them, they just

don't have time to sort out the wheat from the chaff (so to speak). But
shooting them down is tricky. Too many chances to get it wrong, too many

chances for a bad sea state, or someone being 3 seconds slow on the uptake,
or..

Hypervelocity kinetic missiles ditto. No point in filling the air full of
shrapnel in front of them if you do so at a range of 3cm, because it takes you
0.5secs to slew and fire.

Victory often goes to the side that gives the other side more opportunities to
make mistakes. Many of the more successful military
tactics, doctrines or weapons do just exactly that - give the enemy lots

of opportunities to screw up. Things that are easily dealt with in
theory may work rather better in practice.Or vice-versa - kit that looks

formidable on paper may be ineffective.

The "pop-up" Emerson turret that allowed a TOW missile to be fired from
turret-down locations was a really good idea... but with some 40+
hydraulic lines in a real birdsnest, maintaining it was a nightmare, and

its serviceability was as close to zero as makes no difference. Move
1-2km cross-country and the crew would be certain to get a bath of
hydraulic fluid from one hose or another. Taking hours to fix.

Getting back on topic....

One system I would like to see - an advanced anti-missile fire control.
Its effects are simple - instead of allocating dice to missile/fighter
targets then rolling to hit, you roll to hit and then allocate.

As regards time of turns etc - 15 mins works well. You assume that about

every 15 mins you'll get a fleeting targeting solution in the background

ECM environment. Weapons are thus designed not for continuous fire, but

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOhhhh  my
freind, I think that explains difference in the scales, Man portible to
Vehical (Smaller than 20 meters) to Ship (100Â tons and bigger).

> --- On Thu, 1/14/10, Zoe Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au> wrote:

From: Zoe Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 7:36 AM

> On 14/01/2010 10:41 AM, Charles Lee wrote:

I wish I could meet you in person. I'ld shake your hand. A calm and logical
debater. We may not agree but I think both are lookin at the others evidence
and thinkin. In a naval context... Sunburns still give me the willies.

They come in so quickly, you can usually distract/seduce them, they just
don't have time to sort out the wheat from the chaff (so to speak). But
shooting them down is tricky. Too many chances to get it wrong, too many
chances for a bad sea state, or someone being 3 seconds slow on the uptake,
or..

Hypervelocity kinetic missiles ditto. No point in filling the air full of
shrapnel in front of them if you do so at a range of 3cm, because it takes you
0.5secs to slew and fire.

Victory often goes to the side that gives the other side more opportunities to
make mistakes. Many of the more successful military
tactics, doctrines or weapons do just exactly that - give the enemy lots
of opportunities to screw up. Things that are easily dealt with in
theory may work rather better in practice.Or vice-versa - kit that looks
formidable on paper may be ineffective.

The "pop-up" Emerson turret that allowed a TOW missile to be fired from
turret-down locations was a really good idea... but with some 40+
hydraulic lines in a real birdsnest, maintaining it was a nightmare, and its
serviceability was as close to zero as makes no difference. Move
1-2km cross-country and the crew would be certain to get a bath of
hydraulic fluid from one hose or another. Taking hours to fix.

Getting back on topic....

One system I would like to see - an advanced anti-missile fire control.
Its effects are simple - instead of allocating dice to missile/fighter
targets then rolling to hit, you roll to hit and then allocate.

As regards time of turns etc - 15 mins works well. You assume that about
every 15 mins you'll get a fleeting targeting solution in the background ECM
environment. Weapons are thus designed not for continuous fire, but bursts at
high output. After the ether has been filled with incoming and outgoing
salvoes, all solutions are lost, and it takes about 15 mins to
find them again. Hence the "turns", where you have to pre-plan your
movement rather than continuously updating every few seconds in accordance
with enemy moves, and the phenomenon of "overshoot" where you're out of range
at one firing opportunity, and behind the enemy at the next. Weapons would be
designed to have about a 10 min recycle time.

It's PSB to justify the game mechanics, but it's plausible.

Zoe (sometime Spaceflight Avionics Designer and Naval Combat System Architect)

-----Inline Attachment Follows-----

> Charles Lee wrote:

> Also note that an MTM is only about as big as a Full Thrust

No, the Mass 4 SMR (Salvo Missile Rack) is just as single-shot as an
MTM. The reloadable version is the Salvo Missile Launcher+Magazine
combo, which is Mass *5* for a single shot (3 for the launcher, 2 for
a single standard-range salvo).

Regards,

> Charles Lee wrote:

> So present cost is acceptible in vector movement?

If the FB1 point defence rules are used (PDS hitting all types of
missiles on rolls of 4+, each MTM counting as a separate "salvo"),
then yes. That is to say, with those rules in use the MTMs are about as
dangerous as the same Mass worth of Salvo Missile Racks; so then the answer to
your question depends on whether or not your group
consider SMs to have acceptable costs - not all groups do <g>

With the *MT* point defence rules (MTMs only killed on rolls of "6") they're
far too cheap in Vector, inflicting roughly three times as much damage as the
same Mass worth of Salvo Missiles against the same target would.

Regards,

> Zoe Brain wrote:

> In a naval context... Sunburns still give me the willies.

In a land-vehicle context, if it takes you 0.5s to slew and fire
you'll rarely be able to stop even an average LAW/RPG/CG round, and
they're strictly subsonic! <g> The latest tank-mounted PD systems are
able to intercept APFSDS darts coming in at 1500+ m/s (ie., even
faster than a Moskit) - though whether or not they can also disrupt
the darts enough to save the target vehicle is another question
entirely, of course ;-)

Later,

> On 15/01/2010 6:19 AM, Oerjan Ariander wrote:

I was thinking of this -
http://40yrs.blogspot.com/2007/12/swedish-company-tests-hyper-velocity.h
tml

And this -
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/hatm.htm

Both on the order of 1500 m/s