Author Topic: Swarms of Smallcraft  (Read 3483 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Tregonsee (OP)

  • Sub-Lieutenant
  • ******
  • Posts: 104
Swarms of Smallcraft
« on: June 04, 2012, 08:22:20 PM »
What is the best way to defend against swarms of ast and pinnances trying ram my fleet?
 

Offline Tregonsee (OP)

  • Sub-Lieutenant
  • ******
  • Posts: 104
Re: Swarms of Smallcraft
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2012, 08:22:52 PM »
It is using 3rd ed rules.
 

Offline Starslayer_D

  • Lt. Commander
  • ********
  • S
  • Posts: 217
  • Thanked: 2 times
Re: Swarms of Smallcraft
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2012, 06:58:58 AM »
If you have room to maneuver, CT, FG and DD with point defenses and lasers. They have the speed to stay at distance and whittle away.

If the hordes show up when your BB's just reach point blank range.. good luck.

Later, fighters eat them up like candy.
 

Offline Tregonsee (OP)

  • Sub-Lieutenant
  • ******
  • Posts: 104
Re: Swarms of Smallcraft
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2012, 07:33:44 PM »
Are force beams just as good as lasers in this regard?
 

Offline Charlie Beeler

  • Registered
  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • Posts: 1381
  • Thanked: 3 times
Re: Swarms of Smallcraft
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2012, 10:14:12 PM »
Are force beams just as good as lasers in this regard?
Nope.  Force beams don't have an entry on the fighter kill tables (28.03). (both SM2 and UTM)
Amateurs study tactics, Professionals study logistics - paraphrase attributed to Gen Omar Bradley
 

Offline Paul M

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Swarms of Smallcraft
« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2012, 05:39:18 AM »
Force beams can kill them but a force beam armed ship needs Xr (a laser armed ship does not).  Yes F is on the fighter to kill table.  All beam weapons and all sprint missiles can be used in anti-small craft work.  N is the longest ranged weapon but L is pretty much as effective and lower tech and cheaper.

Wa works also but only at close range, still it can lay down a lot of fire.

As was said fast D equipped escorts is in my mind the best solution.  Dc and D is a good mix as you cover the full range.  Also it is hard to ram a ship that moves as fast as the small craft and can turn as good so make sure your escort ships have as low a turn mode as possible.

Fighters are the best option all things considered.  They will take losses though and you do need to have a reasonable number of them.

Speaking personally I am not a fan of this small craft swarm stuff.  The whole kamakazi rules were added in to make the game "War in the pacific in space" and show remarkably little coherence with the rest of the rules.  A battleship so long as its drive field is active should plow through the small craft without significant problem.  After x small craft impacts it should loose and engine, and only after the last engine fails should anything like the damage the small craft do be done.   Unless the small craft are loaded with warheads which would increase their cost and make this a much less cost effective tactic.  But oh well...the above should get you through.

 

Offline MWadwell

  • Commander
  • *********
  • Posts: 328
  • Thanked: 1 times
Re: Swarms of Smallcraft
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2012, 06:37:12 AM »
Fighters are the best option all things considered.  They will take losses though and you do need to have a reasonable number of them.

From memory (and is very dependant on the fighter generation and armament), you need to have at least 50% of the numbers of small craft in fighters to beat them (i.e. 100 st is roughly eaqual to 50 fighters).

 
Later,
Matt
 

Offline Paul M

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Swarms of Smallcraft
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2012, 06:56:10 AM »
yes the number of fighters you need is very dependent on the generation.  You also can only target per squadron 6 small craft, the question is more how many of those 6 do you hit?

The sequence will be:  6 fighters fire, 1 small craft fires back, 6 fighters, 1 small craft,..., last 6 fighters fire, all remaining small craft shoot back.  All fire will be first directed at a squadron that has not fired, and then a la carte I'd say.

The number of fighters that survive the small craft fire is stronly dependent on how many movement points you can stick into evasion, and the chance you kill a small craft is determined by if you use guns (though that means you must enter the envelope of the small craft) or if you try and use fighter laser and stay at extreme Db range, but that means you must target the Pn first to get their D out of the equation.

I don't like using fighters for this because you are trading expensive fighters for effectively dirt cheap small craft.   But it is hard to argue that the fighters aren't your best way to deal with them assuming you have enough fighters that is.

I also agree that before you commit your fighters except as a last ditch defence a rule of thumb of 50% of the small craft isn't too far off.  The fighters only real advantages are you fire on 6 small craft at a time, and the +1 to hit you get for firing on a small craft.  It is one of those brutal attrition battles governed by the equations:  the loss rate of side 1 is proportional to the strength of side 2, and the loss rate of side 2 is proportional to the strength of side 1.  


example:  assume F1 with fGx3 x60 against 120 ast.  Chance of a fighter to kill the small craft is 95% or so.  Chance for the small craft to kill the fighter is 30%.  Assume 0 range.

Round 1
60 fighters will kill 57 small craft (Ignoring in this case fighter losses during the fighter fire phase)
120-57= 63 + 9 (for small craft that fire during the fighter fire phase) = return fire of 72*0.3= 22 fighters lost

Round 2
38 fighters will kill 36 small craft (...)
63-36= 27 + 6 (for small craft that fire during the fighter fire phase) = return fire of 33*0.3 = 10 fighters lost

Round 3
28 fighter will kill 26 small craft (...)
27-26= 1 + 4 (for small craft that fire during the fighter fire phase) = return fire of 5*0.3 = 2 fighters lost

so 60 F1 with gun packs engage 120 ast at range 0 and in 3 rounds the fighters should win with 26 fighters surviving...I would say this is + or - one round and losses should be good to the tendancy of 20-30 fighters survive.  But you can do something similar with differening numbers to see what you can maybe get away with.  However in reall rolling this will be governed by binary statistics and well odd stuff can happen.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2012, 07:25:22 AM by Paul M »