Actually, they were DD's opposing him. They came within VERY close range. There was no mistaking them for Cruisers or above. The aircraft attacking were clearly not really set up for taking out capital ships. Also, this was a last ditch plan. His mission was to destroy the force before it could lodge itself on land. "Preserving" his force and failing meant total, unrecoverable failure. To this day, his running is attributed to his bad state of mind and physical health (US Naval intel assessment) as it was not logical within other context...
They were a mix of DDs and DEs. I don't recall saying anyone mistook them for cruisers. The escort carriers sent up planes with whatever they happened to be loaded with, and the planes fought just as furiously as the DDs and DEs; in some cases aircraft continued to make attack runs after they'd run out of ammo, to draw fire away from the armed aircraft and to keep the Japanese off-guard.
The plan was for the northern fleet and its carriers to lure off Halsey and his force with the promise of Japanese carriers to sink. Theirs was a suicide mission, since their carriers had nowhere near the fighters they'd need to defend themselves against the American force. They succeeded - Halsey took the bait, persuaded in part by the drubbing Ozawa had taken the previous day and intel showing Ozawa's force withdrawing. However, the ferocity of the attacks and the losses he sustained - three
Japanese cruisers, to that point - convinced Kurita that the lure had failed and that he was facing Halsey's carriers.
You're right that the events of the previous day clouded his judgment - very badly. Some of his orders during the battle indicated confusion, and the decision to withdraw is strategically indefensible even considering what he thought he was facing. After the war, he made the excuse that he'd become convinced the war was unwinnable (perhaps as a consequence of his drubbing the previous day) and that it was pointless to sacrifice the men under his command.
Still, "panicked" is a bit harsh. "Defeatist," perhaps - they'd broken him.
...Getting back to the OP's fighter, I cannot stress enough that that craft is nothing more than an unreal game artifact. It works in HG2 because of the Line/Reserve rules and nothing else. It does not work in LBB:2, Mayday, MT, Brilliant Lances, Battlerider, Power Projection, or any other ship combat system in Traveller because none of those systems has Line/Reserve rules like those in HG2.
Yup. Other than the exceptions noted by Aramis, which is a somewhat porous and more - dare I say it - realistic approach to the screening problem, that screening bit is unique to High Guard, and a decidedly unrealistic rule to boot. So's that bit about how the queen and bishops and such move in chess.
My favorite use for High Guard is as a quick-and-dirty way to run space encounters with players. Unless they're really into moving pieces across a mapboard, the abstract nature of High Guard lets us flow through the encounter without getting bogged down. "You feel a sickening thump vibrate through your ship, and your board lights up with trouble lights from your now-unresponsive number one turret. However, your last salvo seems to have done some good - the attacker's no longer accelerating or maneuvering, and you're pulling away."
Other than that, High Guard is to space war as Monopoly is to business.
...The OP's fighter is a lovely design. However, it's a orchid that can only thrive in the environment of HG2. Set it down in any other system and it's intended role vanishes.
Thank you. And, yes, its role utter nonsense in other systems. It might manage to shoot down a couple of missiles or lay sandy "smoke", but it isn't going to keep an attacker from having his evil way with the innocent freighter - especially if there's more than one attacker. On the other hand, in some of those systems it's got more bite to it.
