Fighter Complement of Imperial Ships

[Ender]

And if you look at ICS, you'll see that the hanger bays shown for them have extreamly high ceilings, twice as high as is needed. Look at a real carrier and there lucky to have a couple inches of spare height, because anything more is a waste of space and material.

What the hell are you talking about? There is a ludicrious amount of space in the hangar bays of modern cariers. Hell, I'd bet you could stack planes on top of one another and have room to spare above them. The ROTS hangar shots look like how things look in real life, I was actually prety pleased when I saw it because it meant someone did their research.

[AirshipFanboy]

Thanks for the input. I now have a new question though - what exactly are fighters being used form? What 'support purposes' do they serve?

The ISD was built more as a jack-of-all-trades vessel. It can do EVERYTHING, just about. Like the Victory-class, the fighter compliment is likely for defensive and support purposes.

Real life answer: The WEG writers are stupid.
SOD answer: Fighters aren't that useful in battle. They're just support craft, and a capital ship could probably do better by devoting more of its volume to its own combat abilities.

Yeah, that's probably it. I like the dichtonomy between the real-life and the in-universe answer.

However, I'm now wondering how exactly these fighters are supposed to support capital ships. They're always used in big space battles, implying that they're useful against capital ships - or at least that commanders think they might be useful.

I'm just a little confused by the "handful" of fighters mentality. I could understand no fighters, I could understand gobs of fighters, or I could understand a handful of fighters used for non-heavy combat work (recon, patrol, subduing pirates). However, I don't understand the "small number of fighters used in a major battle" reasoning. If they are useful against the big targets, then I'd expect the big ships (especially jack-of-trades ships) to carry more than a proportionally miniscule quantity of fighters.

The ISD is not an AC. It's a "big universal flying WAAH ship", intended for police domination of the Galaxy, countering various rag-tag forces (Rebels, pirates, etc). So why should it have more fighters? Why should it have bigger hangar? And why should it not have more descent troops instead of fighters in hangar space?

What's a WAAH ship, exactly?

That depends on what fighters are being used for in the SW universe. And, it also depends on whether or not dedicated carriers (i.e. - carriers more logical than the Escort Carrier).

If fighters are used mainly for patrol work (harassing Stock Light Freighters, chasing down pirates), then a police ship would want a decent number. If they're an important weapon for fighting capital ships, then a space battleship would want them, or (better yet), it would want the support of a carrier.

You do have a good point, though. A patrol ship would spend a bit of time chasing pirates/rebels, and most of the spaceborne chase scenes in the movies don't have the ISD launching fighters. And the didn't use their TIEs for ground support at Hoth or Endor either. Maybe they just use fighters for reconnaissance, and the occassional instant in which they need to have guns in two places at once.

[Hedgehog's Roommate]

Fighter support jobs are probably mainly protecting/escorting shuttles and troop landing craft. Also potentialy surgical strikes against planets or instalations.

[Gildor]

Also, let's not forget the bombers a ship carries. An ISD carries a fair number of TIE bombers, the Venator also carried a version of the ARC-170 (the NTB-630) for naval bombing missions, and Rebel ships have the Y-wing for the same purpose.

So bombers are used in support against other capships in naval engagements. However, the enemy will inexorably deploy their own interceptors to handle what bombers PD guns can't take care of, necessitating the deploying ship's own fighters for space superiority and bomber escort. So, you see how that works.

[The Original Nex]

Also, let's not forget the bombers a ship carries. An ISD carries a fair number of TIE bombers, the Venator also carried a version of the ARC-170 (the NTB-630) for naval bombing missions, and Rebel ships have the Y-wing for the same purpose.

So bombers are used in support against other capships in naval engagements. However, the enemy will inexorably deploy their own interceptors to handle what bombers PD guns can't take care of, necessitating the deploying ship's own fighters for space superiority and bomber escort. So, you see how that works.

Nitpick. NTB and PTB bombers weren't ARC varients, they were unnique ships in their own right.

[NRS Guardian]

The reason starfighters aren't as useful as they could be and are relegated to a support role is because of shields. Fighters are fairly effective as TPM, ROTS, and ROTJ showed, if the shields are down, the trouble is it takes a warship to bring down the shields of another warship. So fighters can't do anything to the big ships until one of their own drops the other's shields. Fighters conduct reconnaissance, raid and destroy transports, conduct pinpoint strikes, escort other small craft, take advantage of momentary holes in taxed shields, distract and annoy warships, and keep the pd guns from being used on warships. Also, fighters do Wild Weasle work destroying sensors, guns, and other critical ship systems once the shields go down freeing up capital ships to concetrate on knocking down the shields of another ship. They also ensure a capital ship can't concentrate its shields solely towards enemy warships unless it wants to make it easy for fighters to knock out turrets and other systems.
Another reason warships carry lower numbers of starfighters than expected. Could be because of hyperdrive considering how quickly it can get a ship from place to place within the galaxy, and the fact that many fighters are equipped with hyperdrive. It could be easier and more efficient to call in fighters from a base if their needed than to carry them on board a ship.
Also, the empire has a very large dedicated carrier that can be seen supporting Giel's battleship in the marvel comics, and is described on Saxton's site here: http://www.theforce.net/swtc/dagger.html#carrier1 .

A WAAAH ship is a warship, WAAAH is just the orky way of saying war.

[Connor MacLeod]

The VEnator is a hybird carrier/escort/light combat starship. Naturally, it has a large fighter-carrying capacity (which carries some severe design disadvantages as a result - those big dorsal hangar doors and the cavernous spaces being one fo them.) Whereas the ISD is more of a pure combat/bombardment platform. Its designed to be a much better fighting ship than the Venator (as is the Victory class.)

[Alan Bolte]

Another reason warships carry lower numbers of starfighters than expected. Could be because of hyperdrive considering how quickly it can get a ship from place to place within the galaxy, and the fact that many fighters are equipped with hyperdrive. It could be easier and more efficient to call in fighters from a base if their needed than to carry them on board a ship.

This reminds me of TIE Fighter, where Assault Gunboats might hyper in as backup or support from nearby ships or bases.

Additionally, for large operations it could be as little as an hour for an escort carrier to arrive, assuming it was on standby in a not-too-distant system. The ship could even overstuff or replenish its hangar by calling in a freighter carrying fighters. That's not to say a ship would never be wanting for support, especialy in the Outer Rim, but for the most part you only need enough hangar space for the number of fighters you'd use on a regular basis.

[Darth Wong]

They carry 420. 192 V-wings/V-19 Torrents, 192 Eta-2 Actis interceptors (I'm still waiting for an official source to say that clones also flew these, since it's ridiculous for so many Jedi to be on one ship), and 36 ARC-170s.

A secret Sith source has informed me that the comic "Republic #78" has an image of non-Jedi pilots of Eta fighters.

[Vympel]

It stands to reason IMO- the Empire subsequently deployed TIE Fighters after all, they're not exactly swank big craft compared to an Eta-2.

I think it's likely that they probably built a bigger production run than was needed because it just wasn't efficient to churn out a mere several thousand Eta-2 for the Jedi, and gave the many spares to the general units.

[Darth Wong]

If you look at the AOTC novelization, it appears that there was never any such thing as a "Jedi Starfighter", and that is just a misconception. If you will recall, at one point Jango Fett and Boba Fett are attempting to deduce the identity of the pilot who owns the starfighter on Kamino. They decide that the choice of astromech (one which trades off targeting accuracy for other abilities) means that whoever's piloting the ship must not need that improved accuracy ... and that means it's a Jedi. Obviously, if the starfighter really were a Jedi exclusive, they wouldn't have to go through this chain of deduction because it would be a no-brainer; they would point at it and say "oh, a Jedi starfighter."

[Hedgehog's Roommate]

If you look at the AOTC novelization, it appears that there was never any such thing as a "Jedi Starfighter", and that is just a misconception. If you will recall, at one point Jango Fett and Boba Fett are attempting to deduce the identity of the pilot who owns the starfighter on Kamino. They decide that the choice of astromech (one which trades off targeting accuracy for other abilities) means that whoever's piloting the ship must not need that improved accuracy ... and that means it's a Jedi. Obviously, if the starfighter really were a Jedi exclusive, they wouldn't have to go through this chain of deduction because it would be a no-brainer; they would point at it and say "oh, a Jedi starfighter."

That also makes sense from an economic standpoint. According to the AOTC:ICS Kuat Driveyards are the manufacturers of the Delta-7. KDY is a business first and foremost. To make a few ships for a select group tends to make things high end and expensive. Regardless of how small or simple it is, because you have to take time and resources from some other project. Which means recoupping your losses elsewhere. So to keep cost down you mass produce, and while I'm sure the Jedi have a large budget they still seem to be a part of the govt. Which means some bean counter wanting to make sure they don't spend too much money. Hence buying a mass produced fighter.

[AirshipFanboy]

Okay; these fighter arguments seem to make sense. I feel wiser in the ways of fictional space tactics.