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Originally posted by Zzap212:
**I love frigates as well...
If I lived during the Napoleonic wars, I'd either have a 56 gun American-built frigate, a 28 gun Yankee-built frigate or a 20-gun sloop of war (aka corvette).
Fast, powerful, beautiful (you haven't seen a ship until you've seen a flush-decked 18-gun brig of war).
But there is a reason they have those huge battleships. Everybody else built them, Captain Phillips.
In the plugin I'm writing (which takes very close cues from the Napoleonic Navy), sloops, frigates and cruisers are the mainstay of the fleet and the big ships are only used in MAJOR fleet engagements (it'll be fun when it's complete and I get to lead a force of 20 ships-of-the-line into battle against 30 enemy ships...).
If you've ever read Patrick O'Brian's Fortunes of War, HMS Java has a run-in with the USS Constitution. The Americans were both skilled sailors, gunners, shipwrights and fighters. The Yankees were feared because in the war of 1812, Commodore Perry's fleet, which had just been built in the Great Lakes, was the fastest collection of ships in the world. We were known for good ships. The Constitution never fell after many engagements.
Our frigates took 4 British frigates of comparable size within the first few months of the war. In decades of fighting with Napoleon, the British regularly sent 14-gun brigs fighting against 32-gun frigates.
We truly have a unique history, especially in the age of sail. During the brief time I toyed around with making an Age of Sail TC, I thought about making the American fleet small but incredibly powerful, like the Polaris in EVN.
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Glad to see somebody agrees with me. I've read plenty about the Constitution, even been aboard her. I never got to see the lower decks though, some VIP's were sceduled to arrive and they hustled my group out after we saw the lower Gun Deck. :frown:
I remember quite well that Two Frigates "or their twin sisters, the Destroyers" can take down the largest of cruisers. Two UE Destroyers in EVO easily take out Voinian Cruisers. But on reversed tables, two Voinian Frigates can take out a UE Cruiser or Carrier, more often it takes three frigates to knock down a Cruiser. A host of smaller, faster ships do more damage to the enemy than several large, unweildy battleships. I have noticed that the Fed Carriers are usually among the first to get scrapped in a big battle. Auroran carriers are vulnerable once their fighters are gone. More than once I've seen a Carrier launch it's fighters at a Destroyer, and while the destroyer is fighting them off the defence fleet arives. The Carrier frantically calls back it's fighters only to get one or two badly damaged Firebirds or Phonix's. The Fighters and destroyers gang up on the ship and it's all over. Cruisers last even less time I've discovered. Without any sort of fast fighters a pair of Destroyers along with some help from a standing off Carrier's fighters usually do the job without any losses to anything but the stormed Fighters. (point defences are nice when you need to concentrate on the big guys but have fighters swarming around you. ;))
I still think that a Faster fighting ship is better than a slower heavily armed ship, and any smart government would regognise that. Actually, the Federation and UE governments are smarter than their enemys, they have Destroyers, fighters, carriers, and in the case of the Feds, two other fast well armed ships. Though the UE did get themselves a clunker. :rolleyes:
In fact, I've noticed that the Federation, UE, Voinians, and Aurorans are all exactly the same almost. Same fighting styles, and in the case of the Voinians/aurorans, same looking ships. What a shame. :frown:
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Cmon people, the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=20&SUBMIT;=Go")Chronicles(/url) are worth looking at.