It also depends on the mix of ships involved. I don't see it as a BB+fighter vs BB+fighter. Although that is possible, I see it as a mix of ships from fighter on up to BB. I see a lengthy opening phase where the smallest ships make initial contact & the battle progresses from there w/ larger & larger ships engage. So, if A has more fighters than B that means he 'll have some avail to engage the 'next-size-up' . Now this progression could result in stalemate (maybe B has enough superiority in the 'next-size-up' category to come out ahead) but it could also end in one side having some ships (CA's?) that can assist his BB/BR's while the other side does not. Which could very well determine the end result of that battle. -------------------------------------------- On Thu, 10/9/14, David Shaw <xxxxxx@btconnect.com> wrote: Subject: Re: [TML] Why do those big ships carry so many fighters? To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com Date: Thursday, October 9, 2014, 1:49 AM It's still a rules problem. So the nuke damper means nuclear missiles are useless and you're reduced to using lasers? So what? Sure, one laser won't hurt a battleship. Two won't be any better, nor will three, four or five. But 300? I don't care what armour your ship has, that's gonna hurt. Except that the rules don't allow it. (Checking the rules, the RTT flight/barrage rules do allow a flight of light fighters to hurt a Tigress - just - but they'd have to be flown by truly exceptional pilots who were also very lucky.) Still, the 3I has large amounts of fighters tooling around because, IRL, a tiny, little, insignificant fighter, weighing several orders of magnitude less than a battleship, *can* pose a very real threat to, well, pretty much anything if deployed in large enough numbers. As the Italians discovered at Taranto, the Americans at Pearl and the British off Malaya. But not according to Traveller rules. David Shaw On 08/10/14 22:42, Ian Whitchurch wrote: > David, > > The thing is though, the weapon system on a Kate can really hurt a > battleship if it hits it. Many point defense weapons make this unlikely, > but you can counter this with many small craft, leading to an ecosystem of > torpedo boat kills battleship kills cruiser kills torpedo boat destroyer > kills torpedo boat. > > But the TL12 nuke damper pulled the teeth of the only weapon in Trav that > could hurt a proper, armored, military ship. ----- The Traveller Mailing List Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml Report problems to xxxxxx@travellercentral.com To unsubscribe from this list please goto http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=EwREIRgLK8vaUEhNlnoNdSGKwnjoID8a
