I just played a MegaMek game against the bot where I had four Vincent Mk. 42 ships against 8 or 10 dropships built from the Draconis Combine RAT circa 3060. I definitely didn't play the ships to their strengths.
Using the Newtonian movement rules, I started out moving toward the opfor at 2 hexes a turn with my units spreadout evenly in a line, noses pointed toward the enemy. Since I've read this article, I now realize that I should've had the ships pointed diagonally toward the enemy to take advantage of overlapping firing arcs for the NAC/10s, and use the waypoint launch rules to add firing arc flexibility to the Barracuda launchers in the nose.
That said, my NAC fire was limited and I was whiffing 8s and 10s as the droppers closed. When they got to medium to short range, they brutalized my Vincents. I took out a couple dropships, but two of my Vincents lost multiple weapons bays and took crippling CIC and sensor hits, rendering them combat-ineffective. I didn't lose any ships, but I lost the engagement because of the critical hits the Vincents were taking making them unable to continue fighting.
Now I know that's
not the way to play Vincent corvettes