IDEW and Gunboats

[Paul M (OP)]

Well Starslayer and I were looking at this topic and there is a bit of a rules mess here....

04.18.02.1 says "IDEW of the laser buoy and IDEW types may only fire at large units and cannot engage fighters or small craft."
28.01 Weapon Range and Hit Probability Table has a (1) in it and that (1) says "GB are engaged at -3 to hit except with AFM types which use the AFM vrs other line."  IDEW to hit is listed in this table.
The rules for GBs (27.14.06.5 in the UTM 1.11) specifically state they may be engaged by anti-starship weapons at a -3 to hit number (table 28.01).
The definitions in 01.05.02 are:
Gunboat is a type of small craft.  It is targeted differently from a small craft and has its own rule section in ISW4.
Large units are any large spacecraft pus PDCs.
Large spacecraft include Starships, Warships, Freighters, Carriers, Bases, Space Stations and Asteroid Forts.
Starships include any large spacecraft which can have engines installed in it.
A Gunboat is defined as being a small spacecraft.

Based on the books and on 04.18 there seems to be nothing against a SBMHAWK pod firing on Gunboats.
In the scenario for 5th Justin in ISW4 it states that the IDEW-aP and DSB-L treat the gunboats as starships not fighters.  But the bases in question have DCS2 and DCS2 says you can engage like a pod can (by hull type).

What do people think?

1.  Can DSB-L, IDEW-x and IDEW-ax engage GB at -3 to hit?
2.  Can the above do so only if controlled by DCS2?

[davidb86]

I always played assuming DSB-L, IDEW-x and IDEW-ax engage GB at -3 to hit because a GB engine is so over powered compared to other small craft. (and because I read the books and ISW4 information that showed using DSB-L and IDEW to thin out gunboat assaults.

[ZimRathbone]

From memory when this came up at the 3DG the consensus was GB are always engaged as starships by automated weapons (with the -3 mod).  I'll check my version of the consolidated rules later ( gotta go work!)

[Paul M (OP)]

I figure the end result is: DSB-L/IDEW are able to engage large units...and starships are part of the units defined as a large unit then "anti-starship weapons" include DSB-L/IDEW and GB can be targeted by "anti-starship weapons" at -3 so DSB-L/IDEW can engage them at -3.

Until DCS2 comes along though...as Starslayer was saying...a BB squadron can drop off 72 GBs when they transit so as far as the DSB-L/IDEW protecting the warp point are concerned there is now 78 targets to be engaged.   That makes the AW defending the WP pretty much useless in terms of damaging the BBs...the GBs are likely to take a good hit.

[Shinanygnz]

Looking in my copy of the draft 3DG rules
04.18.02.1 Target selection...IDEW of the laser buoy (DSB-L, see 27.05.04), IDEW (27.08.03) and IDEW-a (27.12.20) types may fire only at large units or gunboats, and cannot engage fighters or small craft. When firing at gunboats they suffer the normal penalty of -3 for anti-ship weapons firing at gunboats.

[Paul M (OP)]

yeah that is what is missing in the existing rules...that one short bit so one doesn't have to go through 4 different definitions to determine what a starship is and see that IDEW are anti-starship weapons and thus can engage gunboats even though the specific rules for them state they can't...*thumps head into desk* Thanks!

Now to figure out if a ship rearming GB weapons has to drop their drivefield...I think this is likely...as it is essentially re-loading an XO rack on the ship.