A grudging respect for UFP destroyers....

[cowboy40]

Situation: USS Constellation MK. I (FASA variant) on a boarder patrol being excortred by two Charger Mk. I destroyers encounters a force of three Klingon cruisers consisting of a D-10H, a D-7S, and a D-7M. The Federation ships are in a loose escort type pattern with Constellation in the lead and the destroyers spread three hexes apart and one hex back, one on each flank of lead. The Klingon force are in tight formation with the D-7S up front, the D-10H one hex back and one hex to the right flank, and the D-7m has a similar position to the D-10H.

Both forces close each other....to a medium range on each other....and the first salvos of the battle upon up...the leads of the force obviously target each other and exchange salvos....The D-7S falls back and holds fire, while the D-7m targets the Federation lead. The two Federation destroyers target the D-7m...

after the exchange The Constellation is knocked out, becomes dead in space...lucky hits by the Klingons brings her crew to a point she can't stay in the fight. But Constellation delivers enough damage to D-10H to bring her sensors down and knocks out her weapons grid. Both the D-7m and D-10H concentrated fire on Constellation

The forces adjust to knew situation and the Chargers line up and continue to deliver blows to the D-10H taking her out (superstructure collapses) The D-7S hits one of the chargers with disrupter fire and gains enough crew loss on the charger to make her weapons unable to hit anything...

Even though one of the Chargers might as well be throwing bricks...she still keeps the pressure on the D-7S, taking fire and allowing the other Charger to gain a position to attack the rear of the Klingon. This leads to a chase with the UFP maintaining a rear attack on the Klingon cruiser until they wear her down and takes out their engines.

Due to lucky salvos on both sides in the opening of the fight, It allowed these little destroyers to show their metal and well they became the stars of the action. Recovery on the field would most likely allow the Feds to retrieve the barely damaged Constellation and take two D-7 type cruisers as prizes.

These action shows those damn little destroyers can make one hell of a stand if you understand how to use them

[tinker]

The reason why these destroyers do so well is because they are overarmed fan ships - not comparable to other destroyers.

Find me one...just one...destroyer in any of the SRMs that is equipped with torpedoes that that can inflict more than 10 points of damage?

Also, find me one ship in any of the SRMs below Class XIII that has torpedoes capable of firing through multiple arcs?

[cowboy40]

Actually Charger are considered FASA vessels..they were released through Stardate Magazine. They were a part of the Warp 10 Navy that the UFP was starting to develop in the FASA story line..Just as the Constellation was an official FASA variant of the time. Also another ship from that source that is interesting to play is the Ticonderoga class light cruiser...almost a pure gunship with its 10 phasers of the FH-10 type.....makes a good covering ship for Andor class cruisers

Another ship from the source that is fun to play as well is a Klingon D-12 Death Boot cruiser....these ships were very good vessels that gave the game some interesting twists. also believe the Romulan V-24 made an appearance in Stardate Magazine.

Fact of the matter some of the ships that are in the SRM's made their first appearances in the Stardate magazine....case in point....The Larson class destroyer was fully fleshed out in Stardate Magazine.

[rabid]

A group of larsons isn't to be underestimated either. The trick is usually to keep them out of the long range fight.

When we set up I pick 2 capable ships and fill out the rest of the WSF with destroyers to match my opponent. Seems to work well especially with terrain in play.

[tinker]

Jan 16, 2019 9:37:01 GMT -7 cowboy40 said:

Actually Charger are considered FASA vessels..they were released through Stardate Magazine. They were a part of the Warp 10 Navy that the UFP was starting to develop in the FASA story line..Just as the Constellation was an official FASA variant of the time. Also another ship from that source that is interesting to play is the Ticonderoga class light cruiser...almost a pure gunship with its 10 phasers of the FH-10 type.....makes a good covering ship for Andor class cruisers

Another ship from the source that is fun to play as well is a Klingon D-12 Death Boot cruiser....these ships were very good vessels that gave the game some interesting twists. also believe the Romulan V-24 made an appearance in Stardate Magazine.

Fact of the matter some of the ships that are in the SRM's made their first appearances in the Stardate magazine....case in point....The Larson class destroyer was fully fleshed out in Stardate Magazine.

You are correct - but the articles in the magazine were submitted by non-FASA fans. In some cases, they were adopted by FASA, in other cases, not so much. The Charger is anything but a typical destroyer. As I stated before, compare to ANY of the other official destroyers and you can see that it is broken.

The other unofficial ship from the same article - the Indomitable - is broken as well. It was built before the Excelsior Class, yet had multi-arc torpedoes - which is interesting since they were not available until the Excelsior Mk. II was introduced. Not only should it not have had this option, but it should not have been allowed for every single torpedo it carried to be able to do this.

Both ships are broken.

[cowboy40]

In the order of projects....this is the wonderful thing about Sci-fi...both of these ships were developed as projects as an alternate to the Excelsior. I don't see them as broken. Both ships were being prototyped for service in a time when a cold war looked like it was going to go hot...both ships were used to test systems that were being designed for future use.

It makes since that these ships would be well over gunned at the time. Charger developed tech for a Warp 10 cruising engine, that in many cases cold be retrofitted to other ships from the 2270's generation of tech. It makes since you would test new concepts in weapons layout on one of the classes before you committed it to you "new" shinny technological monster.

I should point out even Excelsior Mk. I was a test bed for engineering purposes...and she was used to test new tactical theory on combat in many ways. Weapons and defense tech don't happen in a vacuum, therefor these classes served a purpose for the Star Fleet...not broken...just different from the usual....advances in tech....!

[walrusguy]

I'd bet that a Baker MK IV would hold up under these conditions...not quite as much firepower - but with the 1/3 shields - more power to the weapons!

[cowboy40]

Jan 17, 2019 7:30:30 GMT -7 walrusguy said:

I'd bet that a Baker MK IV would hold up under these conditions...not quite as much firepower - but with the 1/3 shields - more power to the weapons!

Baker is another unique Star Fleet solution. The Baker class started off as being designed for use as a research cruiser, but during design work, it was decided the UFP needed what could be termed a "heavy" destroyer so her armament was down graded to fill the destroyer role. It was a good decision because it gave Military Operations a very tough destroyer in the long run....