Missile Tactics

Roger Myhre [email removed] writes:
> First if you are to deliver a lot of missiles at one target, the turrets
> and barbettes for these has to be better. Something like the VLS system
> to USS Ticonderoga. And missiles take up premium space. And the rapid
> firing laser thingie mentioned later will stop almost anything that
> approaches of missiles. Do you see any use in missiles with 200 armor
> points? It leaves precious little space for controls, warhead and drive.

The question is, are missiles of any use at all.  In the context of GDW's rules
(which is what I plan to go by) it is easy enough to armour capital ships over
the penetration limit off the 500Kt det-laser.  However, I do not think that the
potential damage to sensors and shields can be ignored, so some form of
point-defence is needed.

The benefit is that, by launching a missile attack against my opponent, even if
I cannot penetrate his defences, I am forcing him to either (1) use his main
weapons (which could otherwise be punching holes in my capital ships) to defeat
the attack or (2) allocate resourses at design time to either point defence or
specialized zone defence ships.

I am going to want some more BL experience before I commit myself to where the
tradeoff lies.

I think its a tautaulogy  that enough missiles can saturtate any defence.  You
just have to define enough as 1 + the number of missiles that could be destroyed
by 100% effective point defence fire.  I think your point is that it might not
be worth it, which is true.

> Why must the nuke impact? I believe the electromagnetic pulse generated
> will do enough damage to most ships within several hundred kilometers.
>
Good question.  Much the same as the question Why Can't My Nuke Ever Impact.
Damned if I know, I didn't write the rules :-)

>
> The discussion has taken a very militaristic slant. What about the
> traders and pirates? I don't believe merchants will have access to the
> best missiles possible. Those available might even be built in a way
> that prevents them from detonating in a gravity well, or close to it.
> Else any crazy nut can hold a planet for ransome.
>

Well, chances are any crazy nut CAN hold a planet for ransom.


> >From the designs of missiles I have seen from GDW to date are more
> suited for civilian crafts than military crafts. Military crafts need
> missiles with longer duration and more stealthy one too. Emission
> masking on missiles, what are your thoughts about that?

I do plan to play with these rules a bit.  None of the weapons I have seen in
TNE (I am still wating for BL) seem to rate very highly for fleet use.  Most of
the ships seem to be equivalent to light cutters with machine guns, and the
pirate equivalents.  I think major combat units will be quite a bit different.
One of the criteria I am using for hull design is the armour to defeat
penetration by any basic game laser.

Les Howie
Prograph International