What with the Gazelle?

[Condottiere]

Circumstantial evidence shows, nine out of ten admirals disagreed with his reloading arrangements.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I liked the version of the Gazelles from PoD's Treasure ships, with missile turrets instead of particle barbettes (holdover from MgTv1?). Seems more practical (well, they also had nukes, which is the same radiation problem, but, whatever).

It's an official variant from CT, e.g.:

Spinward Marches Campaign, p31:
AL MORAI STARSHIPS
_ Al Morai maintains a homogeneous fleet of 53 type MK Mora c!ass cargo carriers. The quantity 53 allows one ship to be present at each world along Al Morai's routes, as well as one ship in maintenance at each of the two overhaul facilities.
_ Al Morai also protects the ships on their routes with a squadron of four Route Protectors. Cruising the trade routes on a random basis, these ships maintain an armed presence for the line and act as a deterrent to piracy against Al Morai.

_ Route Protectors: A l Morai's route protectors are privately constructed Gazelle class close escorts.
_ The 400-ton close escort was originally designed as an anti-piracy vessel and is better adapted to that role than to large scale naval combat. In Al Morai service, the close escort is used as a piracy deterrent and as a fast messenger.
_ These 400 ton ships are capable of jump-4 and 4G. With drop tanks installed and dropped, jump-5 and 5G. With drop tanks not installed, jump-2 and 5G. Cargo capacity is 6 tons. There are eight staterooms for the crew of 12.

S7, p47:

I.e. with two laser turrets and two missile turrets in single batteries.

Think of it as a demilitarised version for the private sector.

 

[tytalan]

As pointed out already, the Gazelle is designed to look like a ship designed under significantly different ruleset with many fewer options for optimization.

I disagree that it is bad at its job, though. But that depends on what you think its job is. Charted Space fiction has generally posited that the significant majority of pirates are operating from converted merchantmen. The Gazelle can absolutely wreck a converted merchantman with those long range particle barbettes and its thrust 5, which makes it a serious threat to most pirates and to anyone objecting to a revenue inspection.

More importantly, anti piracy and revenue cutter work are about deterence. Even if you have a pirate ship that is tougher than a Gazelle, are you actually going to attack a target when a Gazelle is nearby? If you are purpose built commerce raiding warship, maybe. But a pirate? Not likely. Those barbettes have a serious chance to do more damage to you than any profit you might make from the raid, even if you can beat the Gazelle and still capture the prize.

Destroying pirates and their bases is what full warships are tasked to do.

You kind of miss the point no one argued that it couldn’t blow most pirate vessels away( tho I disagree that most pirates run merchant ships if that was the case you wouldn’t have the Corsair and other pirate vessels). The argument is any type of stealth will basically make the pirate invisible to the gazelle. A close escort is supposed to have very good sensors so it can spot the pirate in time to give the merchant’s time to run. You don’t give a scout or escort subpar sensors.