On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 4:11 PM, Jeffrey Schwartz <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

If the fancy missiles raise that to a 20% hit rate, you've (sort of)
added another ship to your side.

So long as the missiles are cheaper than some percentage of another
ship (and it's associated operating costs), you're ahead.

The Fancy Missiles also make a big difference in the effectiveness of
smaller ships.

David Weber uses both these points in his Honorverse series. But even then more is still better, since Weber also deploys "pod dreadnoughts" . . . capital ships which are hollow armored containers for missile dispensers, designed with over-sized stardrives for towing enormous unpowered pods containing even MORE missile dispensers.

I'd suspect the proportional difference is even more
pronounced there.

Weber's Light Attack Craft and Super Light Attack Craft . . . waves of small ships which are deadly against lower-tech opponents but fairly useless against those with technical parity.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville (1843)

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester

"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.