Colonel Wolfe wrote:for the Protector: its longest Range weapons is 1000 miles for its LRM.s (optimal range is 1-3 miles), its Main + secondary guns have a range of 100 miles. other systems range 2-16 miles... the Top sunlight speed of the Protector is Mach=9= 6,850 mph (11,024 kph)....
Ouch... talk about being brutally outclassed! I guess this just goes to show the difference in scale between the settings being discussed, since 1,000 miles would actually be short by Robotech 2nd Ed. or Macross II standards. Typical anti-ship turrets on Zentradi ships in RT2E max out at 11,000 miles, which seems almost paltry when you remember that those same turrets have a reach of 200,000 miles in the Macross II RPG.
KLM wrote:You might be suprised to open DMB3 on page page 108 - > force fields regenerate 5% per melee. Oh, and 3G ships can fire thru their own shields (unlike the SDF-1 for example).
Ah, 3G shields are polarized then? I can't say I'm surprised, since having a shield you can't shoot thru is pretty rare in SF. Still, being able to regenerate 5% of its shielding a melee is not exactly going to help much when the enemy's average damage per melee is going to be over 3x the shield's full strength, and they can do it from 11 or 200 times farther away.
KLM wrote:Also, there are a few sentences on TGE and CAF fleets, which are updated in DMB13 - 193.000 subcapitals (frigates and cruisers) and 19.000 capitals
I'm assuming those are meant to be commas... so 193,000 escorts and light warships, and 19,000 capital ships? By the standards of most SF titles, that'd be a massive fleet. But, I would like to point out, Macross and Robotech do things on a MUCH larger scale where the Zentradi are concerned. Boddole Zer's 118th Main Fleet was described as being fairly typical, and it numbered 4,795,122 ships and a mobile fortress. (Outnumbering those 3G forces about 23 to 1)
KLM wrote:Now, the Explorer has 135K MDC main body, 6*10.000 shields, M13 sublight (DMB2 states that ships can reach 3 times their normal maximum speed with some risks and
with reduced manouverability). 4d6*1000 MD from laser batteries, twice per melee, plus cruise missile launchers, plus LRM launchers
... and all at substantially shorter ranges than the comparable Zentradi weaponry ranged against them, to say nothing of probably being outnumbered hundreds to one when you're talking about fighters.
KLM wrote:Which is not being generous to the 3Galaxies.
Actually, it's pretty fair... at least, based on Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Robotech, as shall now explain:
KLM wrote:DMB3, on page 104 mention that the 3Galactic ships are smaller and have more advanced targeting systems.
More advanced than what? In the animation, we clearly see the Zentradi are capable of astonishing feats of accuracy at ranges of hundreds of thousands of miles... that's really the reason the ranges are listed the way they are in Macross II. Fairly early on, we see them carrying out precision bombardments against targets hundreds of thousands of miles away, hitting surface targets around a grounded ship or destroying a fleet flying in close formation without hitting the ship at the center of that formation...
KLM wrote:Furthermore, the "sluggish approach while the Zentraedi having a turkey shot" scenario seems funny, but only applicable under specific circumstances - namely if the ships are in a gravity well.
Amusingly enough, at the ranges specified, the Zentradi don't exactly need to be right on top of the 3G ships to unleash hell on them... they can do it just as easily from thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of miles away, with the above-mentioned considerable precision.
Also, where folding inside a planetary gravity well is concerned, I would ask that you please remember that "impossible" and "inadvisable" are not the same thing. Macross II: Lovers Again (as well as other Macross titles) indicates that it's perfectly possible to fold into or out of a planet's atmosphere safely if your fold drive is working properly.
KLM wrote:First and foremost, if fold drives are not functioning (and it is still looks like so) main guns might as well not function if they draw power from the hyperspace.
As I and others have pointed out many times in this thread, whether that particular caveat actually applies to Zentradi ships is dubious at best, since Macross and Robotech fold drives operate on marginally different principles from 3G fold drives, and neither use any kind of antimatter power source.
KLM wrote:Second CAF (and TGE) doctrine calls for massed PA/fighter/robot (and even shuttle and frigate in the case of the TGE) attacks against capital ships.
Third, judging from the radius of the Aranea interdictor, CG drives can bring ships within a hundred miles of the opponent - ie. well within range.
At which point the 3G ships will learn the hard way that the Zentradi rely every bit as much on swarming tactics, and that the Zentradi are much better at it by virtue of having a huge advantage in numbers. Plus, I would expect that the 3G ships would probably regret getting that close fairly quickly... after discovering that they've placed themselves inside the range of a multitude of secondary weapons systems on each and every Zentradi ship, multiplying the firepower the numerically superior Zentradi fleet can bring to bear on them from simply excessive to downright astronomical.