Quote:
Originally Posted by swaghauler
We lost 75 aircraft during the WHOLE campaign. I just don't see the losses that the Devs were predicting actually occurring. It's more likely that those ships are simply sitting idle through a lack of fuel and munitions.
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Yeah the 80% casualty rate always struck me as goofy. It's not like modern navies sail around like this waiting for a small nuke to take out a battle group:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...group_2006.jpg
I'd buy that 20% of naval forces were
combat capable with another 20-30% laid up in port for lack of fuel or supplies to get back to their home port. Even then ships sitting around with no fuel strikes me as an author fiat situation. A military vessel outguns any random commercial vessel(s) and can acquire through gun barrel diplomacy the fuel and supplies they need to get to a friendly/home port. The same sort of logic that works for ground-based forces setting up cantonments also works for navel vessels trading protection for fuel with civilian ships. Besides if stills in the T2K universe can make alcohol that works in Diesel engines, they can make fuel that works in the turbines of modern naval vessels.
Navel vessels are also well equipped to coordinate over long distances. Even with satellite communications most (all?) modern navies still use long range HF for a lot of communications. So that 20-50% of ships capable of sailing can coordinate with friendly/allied ships far beyond the horizon. The average navy vessel would have a lot better long range comms than the average ground based unit post-TDM.
I can also easily see naval aviation being a fond memory post-TDM as military jets are resource intensive in peacetime, they would be resource black holes post-TDM. Flying combat sorties would quickly burn through fuel, parts, and munitions so once the supply chain breaks down every jet ends up a hangar queen. Navies (especially USN) would end up with heavy aviation casualties from canabalization as much from enemy action. Any plane that develops the slightest issue or takes damage would become a part donor for the rest of the air wing.
As to large ships like carriers, USS America took a beating in a
SINKEX for four weeks and remained afloat (with no damage control). She had to be scuttled to get her to actually sink. That is not to say carriers are invulnerable or anything but very survivable.