Posted by: Paul M
« on: May 05, 2021, 12:36:11 PM »A question that has bothered me for a while: would it be worth the effort to arm gunboats with standard anti-mine missiles and send them through to clear minefields? I can see that it would be a fast way to clear mines, since a gunboat can carry 16 standard missiles, therefore 16 standard anti-mine missiles. A squadron of 6 gunboats would thus be able to fire 96 missiles. This would be a fast and cheap way to clear minefields, but I'm not sure it would be better than using missiles launched from warships. The advantage would be to clear mines without risking your warships. Any thoughts or comments?
You have a lot of wrong numbers...a standard gunboat carries 4 standard missiles which could be anti-mine missiles sure...and 4 gunboats in the squadron could launch 16 missiles but you need a bunch of missiles to actually take out a pattern so while this would work you would need a bunch of squadrons...no reason to not do it if the enemy is not protecting the mine field. But it is likely faster to just have the gunboats move through the minefield as that kills mines fast too. The higher tech gunboats would have 6 in line racks and 6 gunboats per squadron they could launch 36...
The question is more what is there protecting the mines. Gunboats can die in job lots to fire so this works against a defended field only if you can simul-transit in a bunch of GBs. And then well once they punch through the minefield they aren't much use as they don't have any other weapons. except their onboard laser.
