A space carrier concept

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-12-04 05:00pm

Let's say there's a carrier (Midway, Freepsace, etc). It holds lots of fighters and bombers and can launch them quickly. The carrier itself only has moderate anti-fighter weaponry, but has one main gun that's used to assault enemy capital ships at long range.

So in general: carrier, with fighters, moderate anti-fighter defense, and anti-capship main gun.

How's this for a warship?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-12-04 05:07pm

It's a Cylon Base Star.

It is, depending on the combat effectiveness of the fighters, a good idea.

Mike_6002 · Post by **Mike_6002** » 2002-12-04 05:11pm

Hmmm...Sounds like the ECS Cerberus (Wing Commander: Secert Ops)

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2002-12-04 05:19pm

Why would you expose a carrier to enemy fire. If the carrier can hit them with its main gun, they can hit you. Id skip all the space, equipment, and manpower involved in a main gun and add more fighters. Just my two cents..

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2002-12-04 05:25pm

I'll go along with TrailerParkJawa, you don't need to expose the carrier to combat, so forget about the main gun, the fighters are a carrier's main gun. It takes too much space, resources and maintenance.
Unless, you plan on the carrier going head on with other capital ships, and there's not enough support ships to protect it...

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-12-04 05:31pm

Actually, when I was thinking main gun, I was thinking a single, giant, superweapon main gun (think fleet-killing Nephilim plasma cannon from WCP).

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2002-12-04 05:40pm

Actually, when I was thinking main gun, I was thinking a single, giant, superweapon main gun (think fleet-killing Nephilim plasma cannon from WCP).

Dont know the reference, but I still think it would be the same. Why not build a dedicated fleet gun ship then. Why put it into a carrier? If there is a gun that can kill an entire fleet then isnt it possible carriers are absolute anyway?

Not sure what kind of ranges we are talking about. Depends on tactics too. Some space sci-fi has ships fight like sailing ships.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2002-12-04 07:37pm

Colonial Battlestars were also like that. Most of its combat ability came from its Vipers, but it also carried long-range ship killer missiles.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2002-12-04 10:03pm

They also had large energy weapons, IIRC.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-12-04 10:10pm

Uraniun235 wrote:They also had large energy weapons, IIRC.

It was all strictly defensive as I remember.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-12-04 10:22pm

Mike_6002 wrote:Hmmm...Sounds like the ECS Cerberus (Wing Commander: Secert Ops)

No, that ship was quick strike cruiser. The ship in question is more like the Midway or a scaled down Confederation class.

m112880 · Post by **m112880** » 2002-12-04 10:56pm

I wont have a main gun. I would instead stock up on fighters and defense systems to protect it.

willburns84 · Post by **willburns84** » 2002-12-05 12:09am

If the fighters / bombers / attack craft move faster than larger vessels, frigates, destroyers, and capital ships, and can hit targets from great distances (enough distance to require a capital ship to move at top speed for several hours just to reach the carrier) and can carry sufficient armament to be a threat to enemy warships, forget mounting anything but defensive weapons on the carrier.

The heavy anti-ship weaponry of the carrier are those very attack craft.

To supplement those attack craft in defending the carrier is / are what her escorting warships are for. Even battleships can escort carriers. Depending on the tech and tactical situation is a given setting / universe, it could be practical or wasteful, but battleships can escort carriers.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2002-12-05 01:00am

Why place an uber weapon on a carrier. If the attack fighters or more or less fighter bombers of the carrier can't handle the threats, then what about scaling down the uber weapon slightly and mount them on dedicated destroyers or gunships or other escort type ships to escort the carrier.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2002-12-05 01:11am

Shinova wrote:Let's say there's a carrier (Midway, Freepsace, etc). It holds lots of fighters and bombers and can launch them quickly. The carrier itself only has moderate anti-fighter weaponry, but has one main gun that's used to assault enemy capital ships at long range.

So in general: carrier, with fighters, moderate anti-fighter defense, and anti-capship main gun.

How's this for a warship?

Ideally something so astonishingly expensive (a ship that maintains a squadron of fighters, which means lots of spare parts, technical crew, and room for the pilots and their ships, and C&C to support them,) wouldn't get anywhere near large concentrations of enemy capships. Ideally you'd have a lot of anti-fighter weapons since a carrier would be vulnerable to a fighter attack, and just enough anti-capital weapons to allow the ship to escape.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2002-12-05 02:34am

Shinova wrote:Actually, when I was thinking main gun, I was thinking a single, giant, superweapon main gun (think fleet-killing Nephilim plasma cannon from WCP).

It's better to have dozens of point-defense cannons, to protect against enemy starfighters and the occasional incoming missile. A fighter screen isn't 100% effective.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2002-12-05 10:21pm

The "carrier with a big main gun" is a hideously flawed concept. If it runs into a dedicated capship, there are two possibilities.

1) The opposing side either has severely inferior technology, or has retarded monkeys for ship designers. For the one main gun your carrier can mount, that dedicated capship should be able to carry more than one, or the equivalent thereof.

2) The carrier, despite the "main gun", is still badly outgunned and is blown out of the stars.

The space taken up by such a gun would almost certainly be put to better use serving the carrier role.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-12-05 11:40pm

Space carriers are pointless as space fighters are a supremely stupid brainbug in the first place. On planets, the carrier-fighter model makes sense because fighter aircraft can fly a lot faster than carrier ships can float. In space everything flys in the same medium so there is no benefit to the figher-carrier model. The real killer for space fighters, however, is fuel. Depending on the efficiency of their engines, fighters could require tens of thousands of times more fuel than one-shot long range missiles. Needless to say buying and transporting all this fuel is both uneconomic and difficult.

Zaku-chan · Post by **Zaku-chan** » 2002-12-05 11:45pm

Shinova wrote:Let's say there's a carrier (Midway, Freepsace, etc). It holds lots of fighters and bombers and can launch them quickly. The carrier itself only has moderate anti-fighter weaponry, but has one main gun that's used to assault enemy capital ships at long range.

So in general: carrier, with fighters, moderate anti-fighter defense, and anti-capship main gun.

How's this for a warship?

Sounds more like a strategic weapon that carries fighters. It would have to be escorted by standard warships.

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2002-12-06 12:04am

I think the saying goes: "If you let cruisers get in range of your carriers, you deserve to die"

Enlightenment wrote:Space carriers are pointless as space fighters are a supremely stupid brainbug in the first place. On planets, the carrier-fighter model makes sense because fighter aircraft can fly a lot faster than carrier ships can float. In space everything flys in the same medium so there is no benefit to the figher-carrier model. The real killer for space fighters, however, is fuel. Depending on the efficiency of their engines, fighters could require tens of thousands of times more fuel than one-shot long range missiles. Needless to say buying and transporting all this fuel is both uneconomic and difficult.

Ships in Wing Commander use ramscoops which gives them virtually unlimited fuel supplies.

data_link · Post by **data_link** » 2002-12-06 01:49am

Bob McDob wrote:I think the saying goes: "If you let cruisers get in range of your carriers, you deserve to die"

Enlightenment wrote:Space carriers are pointless as space fighters are a supremely stupid brainbug in the first place. On planets, the carrier-fighter model makes sense because fighter aircraft can fly a lot faster than carrier ships can float. In space everything flys in the same medium so there is no benefit to the figher-carrier model. The real killer for space fighters, however, is fuel. Depending on the efficiency of their engines, fighters could require tens of thousands of times more fuel than one-shot long range missiles. Needless to say buying and transporting all this fuel is both uneconomic and difficult.
Ships in Wing Commander use ramscoops which gives them virtually unlimited fuel supplies.

Congratulations. You have just won the "missing the fucking point" award for ignoring the fact that he was referring to the fact that space fighters IRL are a bad idea, not that science fiction doesn't use them. Unless you think that fighter-sized ramscopps would generate any significant amount of fuel.

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-12-06 01:57am

A space carrier is a pretty good idea if you can minaturize powerful weaponry, fuel sources, shielding technology and engines. Because a space carrier's strength is its fighters, it needs good fighters to be powerful

Otherwise you're just giving the enemy more experience points.

The carrier shouldn't be limited to simply carrying fighters - make it like the mothership, capable of building vessels on the fly, all the way up to small corvette class. It also helps greatly in the "one lone ship in anither galaxy" story.

Defensive armaments need not be extensive - powerful shields would be preferable. And a turn rate like the Vesuvius in WC4 would help too.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-12-06 03:16am

Bob McDob wrote:Ships in Wing Commander use ramscoops which gives them virtually unlimited fuel supplies.

Unfortunately current thinking on ramscoops is that they only work in real life if you can find a way to increase the rate of h-h fusion. Anyone with this level of technology doesn't need a ramscoop in the first place.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2002-12-06 05:09pm

You need to define some other basic ideas for how this carrier intends to operate.

For instance if it is as a part of a carrier group ... forget it. Have dedicated gunships and dedicated carriers. Defensive anti-fighter weapons on the carrier only.

If the carrier has to operate alone (without destroyers, cruisers, battleships, etc. gaurding it), then some anti-cap ship weapons might be excusable. You invariably have to make compromises for stand alone ships. If you plan to engage with your fighters, but need some big guns just in chance ... well it might be worth it to get the time to run away. This is the only excuse what so many crappy ship designs can be rationalized in sci-fi ... they have to be ludicriously versitile and so you have to take trade-offs that are ludicrious for specific situations.

The one case where the one big gun is really legit is if it's a search and destroy fast carrier. Basically the fighters are used predominately for covert recon. Once they find a target, they act as spotters for the big gun which fires from far, far away ... or the ship comes in FAST takes one kill shot, and then gets the hell out.

If your fighters provide more offensive power than your big gun ... then screw the big gun in most cases. If your big gun is more powerful (divided by your limiting factor ... space, mass, cash) then why are you bothering with fighters? If you need a defensive fighter screen ... then have a dedicated carrier.

For any major engagement you really want specialized ships. Destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers, some type of stealth/submarine craft ... Real militaries use specialized battle groups for a reason ... they work.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2002-12-06 10:06pm

Enlightenment wrote:Space carriers are pointless as space fighters are a supremely stupid brainbug in the first place. On planets, the carrier-fighter model makes sense because fighter aircraft can fly a lot faster than carrier ships can float. In space everything flys in the same medium so there is no benefit to the figher-carrier model. The real killer for space fighters, however, is fuel. Depending on the efficiency of their engines, fighters could require tens of thousands of times more fuel than one-shot long range missiles. Needless to say buying and transporting all this fuel is both uneconomic and difficult.

If a fighter was highly stealthed, it could pull a Lightning Strike scenario, where it accelerates somewhat out of launch, coasts to the enemy under stealth, fires, and runs like hell at a weird angle, then curves back to the carrier. The benefit would come from the flexibility of the human mind, which can cope with unexpected circumstances better than computers (particularly if the humans of the future still use Windows OSs). Yes, they would still require more fuel than a one-shot missile, but a multi-shot (and multi-purpose) fighter gives the extra versatility to be useful.

And while everything is traveling in the same medium, there is a point where you have to start losing acceleration ability, or the ship just becomes too large to be practical. thrust/mass is the law of space movement, and the more fuel you carry, the bigger that mass divisor is. Some warships would be low endurance, high performance close range ships (either fighters/carried craft) or orbital defense ships. Others would be high endurance, low performance ships (battleships, carriers if they did exist, missile ships). There might be a few middle ground ships (cruisers), but they would be in an awkward position of being outperformed by small ships and not having the endurance to stay with the large ships.

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