Posted by: vonduus
« on: November 16, 2013, 04:08:43 PM »I agree again, note that in my book only beam fighters are classified as fighters . If there is missiles involved it is quite another ball game.
Basically my problem is that I have figured out a useful doctrine for missile warfare, but I haven't yet found a good way to use beam weapons offensively. Not to my satisfaction, that is. But I have also seen what can happen to an all-missile fleet that runs out of missiles. In this situation beam fighters can be handy. But so can FACs. So my current fleet is a missile-based fleet with a strong back-up of beam FACs, and no fighters.
Here my interest in fighters is not so much how they perform in serious battle as it is the way they can be utilized as very cheap tour of duty platforms for otherwise unemployed officers. I am always short of senior officers for my big ships, and the only way I know of to get more is to have a lot of officers employed.
And because I don't trust beam fighters as weapons (they always get shot down), they will probably never see battle anyway, and consequently I could let their design be based, not on sound military principle, but on a cost-hype factor calculation. What will impress the public that is cheap? The only military specification that has to be met, is that it must have a motor strong enough to allow for tactical training missions.
Basically my problem is that I have figured out a useful doctrine for missile warfare, but I haven't yet found a good way to use beam weapons offensively. Not to my satisfaction, that is. But I have also seen what can happen to an all-missile fleet that runs out of missiles. In this situation beam fighters can be handy. But so can FACs. So my current fleet is a missile-based fleet with a strong back-up of beam FACs, and no fighters.
Here my interest in fighters is not so much how they perform in serious battle as it is the way they can be utilized as very cheap tour of duty platforms for otherwise unemployed officers. I am always short of senior officers for my big ships, and the only way I know of to get more is to have a lot of officers employed.
And because I don't trust beam fighters as weapons (they always get shot down), they will probably never see battle anyway, and consequently I could let their design be based, not on sound military principle, but on a cost-hype factor calculation. What will impress the public that is cheap? The only military specification that has to be met, is that it must have a motor strong enough to allow for tactical training missions.