The Close Escort: not viable?

[Reynard]

The point being Gazelles on escort with larger ships are not acting alone. They form an anti-fighter screen in conjunction with other defenses. Its sensors, weapon mix, armor and software times the number of Gazelles operating together should give most fighters the goodbye. They aren't meant to tackle swarms of fighters or gunboats alone or in small numbers.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The close escort, even when new, was not intended to stand up to combat vessels; rather it was envisioned as an anti-piracy and revenue patrol ship. In that role, it has performed well, but when pressed into combat duties it has invariably suffered disproportionate losses.

Without defences, aka armour, it will be crushed by any combat craft, even a fighter.

It is not intended to engage anything that is likely to shoot back, or go anywhere near actual warships.

 

[dragoner]

Is it now unarmored? What edition?

 

[paltrysum]

Is it now unarmored? What edition?

It's lightly armored in MgT2 with a value of 3, less than a Type S Scout. :shock:

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Quite, like in CT it has armour 3, very light armour.

In CT that was quite useful in preventing internal explosions and critical hits.

In MgT2 it is quite useful against point defence (aka lasers), but no match for military weapons designed to penetrate heavy armour. Also very useful against infantry weapons.

 

[dragoner]

1e it had 8 iirc, it is sort of funny in that over the last nearly 40 years it has seen a lot of permutations, the JTAS version had Nuclear Dampers even.

 

[paltrysum]

It's too bad it sucks so badly. The Gazelle has a sharp look.

 

[dragoner]

I've used it in 1e for a player's ship, it wasn't so bad. I think in CT, one reason it was considered bad is that it's agility 0.

It is sharp looking, a graphic I made:

 

[Reynard]

What I want to know is why are fighters and gunboats not concentrating on destroying the battleship Gazelles are normally assigned to protect when pressed into fleet duty? There's a huge target firing at the other side's priority assets but the enemy fighters prefer to use round after round to SLOWLY pick off the small stuff that are more than likely picking off many units with a bigger array of weapons which is their function as well as the battleship defense batteries. You would figure the destroyers and destroyer escorts accompanying fleets would be worth more attention.

How many Heavy Fighters can a squadron of Gazelles with their two Particle barbettes take out at range before they would be destroyed by the fighters' single beam laser and missile rack (which can be countered with the two triple beam turrets). The Gazelles may go down but they did their job, if this is the case, to reduce fighter numbers and waste their finite missile loads.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A Gazelle has no business "escorting" battleships. It might escort a few Free Traders.

... it was envisioned as an anti-piracy and revenue patrol ship. In that role, it has performed well, but when pressed into combat duties it has invariably suffered disproportionate losses.

It might do well against improvised pirates of the current kind, but is a sitting duck against a proper warship.

In current terms it is more like a River-class patrol vessel than a small warship like a corvette.

 

[Condottiere]

Particle accelerators are a little bit aggressive, if they manage to plant a hit.

You may have to sit down and think it out.

If you want to keep up with the Imperium Navy, you'd need jump four capability; but does the Gazelle?

If it's an escort for merchantmen convoys, two probably are enough.

If it's to escort support units, three would be a good compromise.

There's no compelling reason to give it five parsec range.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Lets see what happens in a fight against a proper fighter, say a of these:
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?p=901993#p901993

The fighter is 35.5 Dt, Armour 15, Hull 17, and armed with a Fusion barbette. It has a 9G manoeuvre drive and a 16 G reaction drive. MCr ~40.
The Gazelle has Armour 3, Hull 176, 6G, and is armed with 2 Particle barbettes and 2 Laser turrets. MCr ~250.

The Gazelle will open fire at Very Long range, so the fighter will have to endure some fire before it can reach Close range and shoot back.
At 23 G (+dodges) against the Gazelles 6G it will close in with 17G, allowing the Gazelle to fire twice at VLong and once at Long range before dogfighting range.

VLong: PartBarb: ToHit: +5[crew] +3[fireCont] -4[range] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = -3, Hit on 11+ => Average damage 0.4 per weapon. 2 weapons for 2 rounds is 2 × 0.09 = 0.36 damage, negligible.

Long: PartBarb: ToHit: +5[crew] +3[fireCont] -2[range] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = -1, Hit on 9+ => Average damage 0.4 per weapon. 2 weapons for 1 rounds is 2 × 0.4 = 0.8 damage.

Laser: ToHit: +5[crew] +4[Beam] +0[fireCont] -2[range] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = ±0, Hit on 8+ => Average damage 0.0 per weapon. 2 weapons for 1 rounds is 2 × 0.0 = 0.0 damage. (The beam laser turrets will do 1D+2-15[armour]+Effect damage, basically always 0)

The fighter will have suffered on average 0.36 + 0.8 + 0.0 = 1.16 damage while closing in.

Now the dogfight starts...

The Gazelle will suffer a massive negative DM to the dogfight roll and will nearly always be outmanoeuvred by the agile fighter. The fighter wins the dogfighting roll.

Gazelle: PartBarb: ToHit: +5[crew] +3[fireCont] -6[ShipInDogf] -2[lostDogf] -5[dodge] = -5, Hit on 13+ => Average damage 0.0 per weapon. Can't hit...

Fighter: FusionBarb: ToHit: +5[crew] +3[fireCont] +2[wonDogf] -5[dodge] = +5, Hit on 3+ => Average damage 18.1 per weapon (with high effect and low armour). The Gazelle is killed in 176 / 18.1 ≈ 10 rounds or about a minute.

Without Radiation Shielding the Gazelle's crew will have been cooked by the radiation from the fusion hits.


Conclusion: Outside of an unlikely lucky hit the fighter will hardly notice the Gazelles fire. Once into Close range the fighter will destroy the Gazelle in about a minute.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The problem is the Gazelle was designed to be effective under a LBB2/HG79 combat paradigm.

It was not very good once you switch to HG80.

MgT changes the ship combat paradigm yet again and the authors who redesigned the Gazelle made some very odd choices with their re-imaging.

Re-design the Gazelle with full knowledge of the new MgT ship combat paradigm and it is much better at swatting fighters.

 

[dragoner]

Particle accelerators are a little bit aggressive, if they manage to plant a hit.

You may have to sit down and think it out.

If you want to keep up with the Imperium Navy, you'd need jump four capability; but does the Gazelle?

If it's an escort for merchantmen convoys, two probably are enough.

If it's to escort support units, three would be a good compromise.

There's no compelling reason to give it five parsec range.

Originally It's J2M5 w/o the drop tanks, J4M4 retaining them, and J5M5 dropping them. The Navy used to try to keep everything to J5, so it is a bit slow.

 

[Condottiere]

It might be pointless trying to retcon the Gazelle.

Also, class definitions may also be outdated.

I suspect the reason you had one thousand tonners defined as close escorts, was due to their lack of bay weaponry.

If the Gazelles are supposed to be the Flower and Black Swan class equivalents, their real purpose was to keep U-boots at a respectful distance.

 

[Reynard]

"If you want to keep up with the Imperium Navy, you'd need jump four capability; but does the Gazelle?"

According to HG2e it has Jump 5.

 

[Reynard]

"Conclusion: Outside of an unlikely lucky hit the fighter will hardly notice the Gazelles fire. Once into Close range the fighter will destroy the Gazelle in about a minute."

It still sounds like people are assuming Gazelles in a fleet are operating solo chasing targets. Your fighter looks to be built as a one on one Gazelle killer in open space in the example. When these CEs are pressed into naval service they are there to protect a ship. Squadrons of Gazelles operate in the shadow of its host that normally have impressive secondary and tertiary batteries. If your Gazelle killer is that deadly, why isn't it ignoring the Gazelles and shooting at the capital ship or at least any destroyer screen nearby? Is the Gazelle killer a common standard fleet fighter or a specialty fighter that should be concentrating on capital ships?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

"If you want to keep up with the Imperium Navy, you'd need jump four capability; but does the Gazelle?"

According to HG2e it has Jump 5.

If it drops the tanks, after which it then stuck at J-3 until it can gat new tanks.

It has J-4 if it retains the tanks, which is fairly good.

 

[Condottiere]

If you built the Gazelle around a jump three capability, you save sixty tonnes that could be allocated to turn one of the hardpoints into a fifty tonne bay.

Why would anyone need the Gazelle to jump five parsecs, and be handicapped there to jump three? There has to be dedicated reconnaissance and courier vessels for that.

If the Gazelle is useless in a general engagement, it doesn't have to have fleet range.

That leaves us with a three parsec range, and an upgrade to the armament carried.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It still sounds like people are assuming Gazelles in a fleet are operating solo chasing targets. Your fighter looks to be built as a one on one Gazelle killer in open space in the example. When these CEs are pressed into naval service they are there to protect a ship. Squadrons of Gazelles operate in the shadow of its host that normally have impressive secondary and tertiary batteries. If your Gazelle killer is that deadly, why isn't it ignoring the Gazelles and shooting at the capital ship or at least any destroyer screen nearby? Is the Gazelle killer a common standard fleet fighter or a specialty fighter that should be concentrating on capital ships?

No. It was just a bog standard reasonably cheap medium fighter demonstrating what a proper combat craft would do to Gazelles, and how effective Gazelles would be as a screen against fighters.

If you tried to use a squadron of Gazelles to protect a proper warship, they would be totally ineffective and would be destroyed a minute or so after the "protected" warship was destroyed.

As High Guard notes Gazelles have nothing to do in combat, they are police vessels that can patrol civilians.