I noticed that in all of your cases, you complete ignore the 40 aerospace fighter complement of the GI as well as the four boarding shuttles and BattleArmor marine complement. They would make a significant impact on the battle in any case with the Essex/Lola.
Let's get something straight; you state that the GI can handle "most warships smaller than a heavy cruiser". I have the numbers to show that this is simply not the case. The Essex is one of the "smallest" and "weakest" warships above a corvette,yet it does pose a deadly serious threat to the GI.
The York is a destroyer with 50 fighters, two dropships and can kill a GI in one volley. The Kyushu has four dropships, 18 fighters, 12 small craft and can doughnut a GI in a single volley. Heck, the Aegis,billed as a "heavy cruiser" is tonnage-wise a "plain vanilla cruiser" that can really ruin the day of any GI squadron.
It goes on and on.
You say that I'm not taking into account the GI's fighters, well, what fighters are they? Eisensturms? Daggers? Thrushes? What fighters does the warship have? How many Vengeance carriers are in the warship's battlegroup?
So you've got more than one GI bearing down on the warship. The warship's group can detach one of its dropships (detach from the
group, not from the
ship!) to go after the GI's jumpship, forcing the GI group to send something after it or risk getting stranded even if they win the battle.
Many of these "larger than a corvette/smaller than a heavy cruiser" ships can one-shot more than one GI at a time,regardless of approach angles. All the while surviving multiple hits from the GI's nose arc.
Now here's the crux of the matter; what does the GI do? If it closes to its SCC range, against most warships it will die. Period. No ifs ands or buts. Its SCCs are deadlier than practically any fighter squadron, so it will draw the lion's share of the warship's capital fire. Even if it survives the exchange, it will likely not be able to present its nose facing without risking a coring shot from one of the secondary batteries, so it will have to either retreat or engage with a much weaker facing in both damage potential and armour.
Of course, it could just stay at extreme range and engage with its capital missiles, which might not be such a good idea since many of these warships have extreme-range non-missile capital bays and AMS can render capital missile fire moot. More importantly, that big and powerful 42-capital point bay is just dead weight, so the GI becomes a well-armoured carrier with capital-missile standoff capability.
Marines? Please. They have to survive the trip over and actually get inside a fully mobile warship.
So when all is said and done, for the anti-warship role you say it's perfect at, you have either an extremely overpriced carrier that will never use its primary weapon in its intended role OR you are willing and able to exchange one or more of these for the opportunity to damage (
not destroy, except through sheer luck) one of the smaller, weaker warships of your enemy.
Is it a good design? Yes, absolutely. In a PWS-heavy environment it is a very good all-in-one surrogate warship capable of showing the flag and dealing effectively with most dropships out there.
But it is not well-suited for combat against warships. Period. Simple fact is, without the use of the nose bay, it's just a big carrier. If it dares use the nose bay it will die. Against the very few (3!) warships it can actually threaten with the nose bay, its ASF compliment and capital missiles should suffice.
And when I'm saying "exchange one or more of these" I mean "more than one." You'd need a pack of these attacking at once; if they don't attack at the same time thewarship can just end-over, yaw OR roll AND rotate one hexside (even a 2/3 thrust warship can manage this), PLUS (if 3/5 or higher thrust) thrust one or more hexes at any point in its maneuver, bringing any facing or arc(s) it wishes to bear on any approaching GI. With the ability to either kill outright or take the GI's nose arc out of the equation, effectively taking the whole GI out of the fight.
Big PWS with capital-grade firepower/armour and 5/8 thrust with a whole fighter wing and supporting craft vs. a warship? Been there, done that with the
Lak I & II since 2007. Note; the Laks actually can lose weapons arcs and not lose significant firepower the way the GI does.
Laks still die under significant capital fire once it closes to range. Its conventional bays have ranges quite comparable to the GI's SCC when using individual weapon ranges from SO. I even downgraded the design a bit and made the
"baby" Lak, improving its performance as a missile boat, but if it gets inside the range of a warship's big guns, it still dies.
Big, fast PWS with single-bay superheavy firepower? The Morrigan (its entry is missing from the archives; I'll repost it soon) is a 7/11 (or 8/12) thrust assault dropship with one (or two!) 700-point PPC bays in the nose and enough armour to survive 70 capital point hits. Same story: entering the range of the enemy's big guns exposes it to crippling or killing counterfire. Even in pairs, fours and sixes, at best I'm trading several PWS for one warship.
I've played these scenarios many times over the past three years. PWS's, even super-classed ones with over 700 points of armour per facing die
fast when facing ships that can one-shot them. The ONLY solution is to not bring them into range. Do that and even the GI is just an uparmoured Vengeance.
