On 08/10/14 21:57, Ian Whitchurch wrote:
> Phil,
>
> If, for some reason, the Navy absolutely insists on carrying non jump
> capable craft that arent useful in the line of battle, then the Navy should
> commission some sort of close structure platform for them that can sit
> somewhere safe while it's fighters do the best they can to replace the Type
> S.

The problem, I think, is a rules one, rather than a setting one.  I have
a feeling that the designers had the battlewagons carrying huge numbers
of fighters because, well, fighters are cool 'n' stuff.  Then they
forgot to include a rule allowing you to gang those fighters up and
treat them as a single unit.

The argument that 'fighters in Traveller are (all but) useless because a
fighter can't hurt a battleship' has always been one that rather grates
on me.  By that argument, since one Japanese Kate bomber couldn't do
much damage to a battleship, Pearl Harbor never happened.

I don't know about other versions of Traveller, but RTT High Guard
*does* include such a rule and fighters are most definitely no longer
useless in the line.

David Shaw