>>As MegaZone pointed out, it's not so much ECM as projected-energy AAA.
>> A ship with a lot of small close-range blaster emplacements - like,
>>say, a Star Destroyer or Yamato-class battleship - is going to
>>be pretty much impervious to missile fire just because it can
>>intercept any missile big enough to do it any damage. You could
>>probably score a few hits with an Alpha-load of those little Robotech
>>missiles, but so what? You wouldn't do any more damage than you would
>>with a handful of gravel.

>Sure, one Alpha-load of General Hosement missiles won't do
>jack against a Star Destroyer, but send several squadrons of
>them and see what happens. The Alpha is an attack vessel, after all,
>and a pack animal. It's built to bring down the big game.

Yeah. In the Harrington-verse, the entire strategy of battle is based around who can throw enough missiles at who to overwhelm ack-ack and other point-defense systems. Mounted energy weapons almost never get used, because the ships involved don't survive the missile bombardment at ultra-long range.

That's why I prefer the super-ECM excuse; it's not susceptible to mass assaults, and thus allows the close-in fleet actions of space opera.

Redneck

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