Agility - thoughts

[Tobias]

Zho fleets are different from Impie fleets. Different strategic mobility, different options for combat strategies. Designing a TL-15 fleet to primarily fight TL-14 fleets and vice versa is a lot more interesting than just TL-15 across the board. See the Old Islands Campaign where powers are distributed from TL-11 to TL-13, with vastly different budgets, a lot more interesting than everyone are the same.

TL 14 fleets are generally inferior to TL 15 fleets in fighting power. That is of course as it should be and it is reflected in FFW and HG2 - although the difference is IME more pronounced in the latter.
And of course, battles between forces of different TL are good, they're part of the appeal of the TU. It's just that if you make the TL differences even more important than they already are by piling on relational DMs, that appeal is lost. Because there won't be any real battles, just higher TL forces effortlessly slaughtering nearly-unlimited numbers of lower TL ones.

At a guess, you are talking about fragile civilian shipping, not defended warships?

I was, for effect, but it probably holds true (maybe not the "combined" and "ever" parts) for warships. If you take capital ship sinkings (other than scuttling) in WW2, you'll find that most of them were due to torpedo attacks (usually by aircraft or submarine.)

But I fully agree with you that missiles in space combat do not directly compare to torpedoes.

 

[Tobias]

Yes, but they still feared torpedos... Note Missile are effectively Torpedos...

As for one hit one kill... Consider your average Battleship will have heavy armor, meson screens and the like.

Thinking about this a bit more, while missiles are not analogous to torpedoes in the strict sense (no waterline, as mentioned), they could maybe be reconceptualized to make them so. After all, they do work differently than all other weapon types, which are all lightspeed or near lightspeed beams.

 

[Rupert]

They are different in a number of rulesets (Mayday, TNE for example).

 

[Marcatlas]

TL 14 fleets are generally inferior to TL 15 fleets in fighting power. That is of course as it should be and it is reflected in FFW and HG2 - although the difference is IME more pronounced in the latter.
And of course, battles between forces of different TL are good, they're part of the appeal of the TU. It's just that if you make the TL differences even more important than they already are by piling on relational DMs, that appeal is lost. Because there won't be any real battles, just higher TL forces effortlessly slaughtering nearly-unlimited numbers of lower TL ones.



I was, for effect, but it probably holds true (maybe not the "combined" and "ever" parts) for warships. If you take capital ship sinkings (other than scuttling) in WW2, you'll find that most of them were due to torpedo attacks (usually by aircraft or submarine.)

US planes in the Pacific sunk more IJN ships with bombs by far, than torpedoes.

 

[Spinward Flow]

But I fully agree with you that missiles in space combat do not directly compare to torpedoes.

 

[Tobias]

That is very true. TBT I don't think the tiny Book 2 missiles make a lot of sense as viable spacecraft weapons. They are smaller than a sidewinder (about the size of an AIM-4 Falcon I think).

 

[Tobias]

US planes in the Pacific sunk more IJN ships with bombs by far, than torpedoes.

Large ships? (I was talking about tonnage.) I don't think so. For example, all four Japanese carriers lost at Midway were disabled by bombs, but sunk by - Japanese - torpedoes.

 

[Marcatlas]

Large ships? (I was talking about tonnage.) I don't think so. For example, all four Japanese carriers lost at Midway were disabled by bombs, but sunk by - Japanese - torpedoes.

They were only sunk by Jap torps because the Japs didn't want to wait for the sinking and risk intel from getting into US hands, they were in the process of sinking. They would have sunk without them. So, they do count as bomb sinkings.

 

[Marcatlas]

That is very true. TBT I don't think the tiny Book 2 missiles make a lot of sense as viable spacecraft weapons. They are smaller than a sidewinder (about the size of an AIM-4 Falcon I think).

Completely agree. In Mgt (1st Edition I think) Torps do 3D hits per.

 

[Tobias]

They were only sunk by Jap torps because the Japs didn't want to wait for the sinking and risk intel from getting into US hands, they were in the process of sinking. They would have sunk without them. So, they do count as bomb sinkings.

None of them was in danger of sinking in the short or arguably medium term. They were scuttled because the Japanese were retreating (with almost their entire air power lost and two US carriers still around), they were far from their bases, and towing them was unfeasible.

 

[Marcatlas]

None of them was in danger of sinking in the short or arguably medium term. They were scuttled because the Japanese were retreating (with almost their entire air power lost and two US carriers still around), they were far from their bases, and towing them was unfeasible.

Nope. I studied the damage reports for all 4 carriers from IJN & USN reports from the battle. ALL would have sunk in the short or medium term.

 

[Tobias]

Nope. I studied the damage reports for all 4 carriers from IJN & USN reports from the battle. ALL would have sunk in the short or medium term.

I've read the exact opposite from people who read the same reports. What exactly would have sunk them?

 

[Marcatlas]

I've rea

I've read the exact opposite from people who read the same reports. What exactly would have sunk them?

You should read them. They were ALL burning down to the waterline with explosions going on below the waterline and burning engine spaces and fuel. No ship stays afloat like that

 

[Tobias]

They did stay afloat like that and showed no signs of sinking any time soon, which is precisely why the Japanese scuttled them. None of them were taking on water. What would have sunk them?

 

[Marcatlas]

They did stay afloat like that and showed no signs of sinking any time soon, which is precisely why the Japanese scuttled them. None of them were taking on water. What would have sunk them?

I already answered that question. If you don't believe me read the reports

 

[Tobias]

As I said, I've read secondary sources, none of which come to the conclusion you do. I'm not going to bother with more work than that to disprove a statement that is a.) counterfactual, b.) not relevant to even the original point, which was c.) entirely tangential to the discussion anyway.

 

[Marcatlas]

As I said, I've read secondary sources,

Yes, I don't bother with secondary sources.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Ah yes, the "my secondhand opinions trumps your directly reported firsthand evidence" claim.

Might I be able to sell anyone in this thread a cherry picker crane, since there seems to be a market for buying one?

 

[Marcatlas]

Ah yes, the "my secondhand opinions trumps your directly reported firsthand evidence" claim.

Might I be able to sell anyone in this thread a cherry picker crane, since there seems to be a market for buying one?

It's not up to me if you don't want to pursue primary sources.

 

[atpollard]

While there are few subject about which I have both less knowledge and less interest than the details of EXACTLY how long it would have taken the Japanese ships at Midway to sink, I can offer two "points of information":

1. citing claims [primary or secondary sources] without citing any actual sources is technically an "appeal to authority" fallacy since it can neither be confirmed, refuted, nor directly addresses the actual facts of the "debate".
2. this conversation is heading in the WRONG direction. Have some green tea (there is enough caffeine in the conversation) and try to drift back towards TRAVELLER.

Nobody has gotten close to crossing any lines yet, but a friendly reminder of RULE 1:

1) No personal attacks. You may attack ideas, subjects, or documentation. However you will not get personal at all.