Star Fighters: Who the hell needs Em?

[RedImperator]

We've been saying as much. Of course the power to weight ratio for a fighter needs to be larger than that of a capital ship. As I mentioned in my last post, this is not hard to do. Another important aspect of a space fighter is that for any space combat where the absolute velocity of the combatants is high but the relative velocities are low, than the absolute speed of fighters launched from carriers (which are usually capital ships) will still have the same absolute velocity as the ship it's launched from (save the accelerations made during launch).

This entire argument applies even more to missiles. In fact, every single argument for space fighters works better for unmanned missiles. The exception are "fighters" that act like Coast Guard cutters or AWACS in space--and then I wonder why you would call them a "fighter".

Given that a fighter needs a higher acceleration in order to get back to the carrier (otherwise the carrier would need to stop accelerating, perhaps more on this in another post), it becomes obvious that a fighter will attain higher velocities than a carrier.

Orders of magnitude faster, like in naval aviation? If not, your analogy collapses. If so, a missile gets you four times the delta-v for the same price, not including the cost of the pilot.

Also, the case for having a squadron of fighters on board a capital ship is that your enemy has a squadron on his. It's been shown throughout history that the best defence for a fighter attack is to send your own fighters up there.

This is like saying that history has shown the best defense against heavy cavalry are pikemen, so aircraft should mount lances on their noses and fly in tight squares to fend off bombers. There is no historical form of combat that is analogous to space combat. The closest I can think of is submarine vs. submarine warfare and 1) unlike underwater, there is no stealth in space, and 2) submarines don't attack each other by launching one-man minisubs.

Anyway what is hard sci-fi? For someone in the early 19th century a steampunk world could have been a hard sci-fi and modern day earth, with this handwavium thing called electricity (used for everything from communication via lighting and heating to motors for heavy machinery) is a pretty soft sci-fi... yet modern day earth seems quite realistic.

Electricity was a known phenomenon in the early 19th century, if poorly understood. A better analogy would be nuclear power, which from an early 19th century point of view violates conservation of energy, conservation of mass, and the indivisibility of the atom. Unfortunately, your analogy doesn't hold up at all because 1) in the 200 years since then, principles unknown or barely known at the time have been discovered and vigorously tested, allowing us to say with much more confidence what is and isn't allowable within the laws of physics, and 2) most of the "science" in soft sci-fi is the equivalent of your 19th century author writing that humans can fly by flapping their arms really hard. It's not squeezing into the gaps in modern science and wildly speculating; rather, the authors either handwave away bedrock scientific principles ("Thank goodness Einstein was wrong!") or are simply ignorant of them entirely.

I knew the definition what I would like to point out that world as we know today is a pretty soft sci-fi from a 19th century viewpoint... so forcing to apply the current knowledge level is questionable in my opinion,

So since it's impossible to know what the future will actually look like, that's a defense for writing nonsense. Let's apply this to other genres: "Since it's impossible to know exactly what everyday life was like in the Roman Empire, I can go ahead and write a historical novel where Romans watched Desperate Housewives."

especially since it is almost impossible to create a reasonable spacefaring civilization with any foreseeable development (on the current scientific base).

I don't know what this last line betrays more: your ignorance or your lack of imagination.

[Junghalli]

If not, your analogy collapses. If so, a missile gets you four times the delta-v for the same price, not including the cost of the pilot.

And that's very conservative. The delta V you gain will actually be more than that, because you can eliminate the mass of the pilot and his associated life support, cockpit frame etc. and replace it with an undoubtedly vastly more compact guidance computer. You just lost a good couple of hundred kg of mass, which you can replace with an equivalent mass in fuel.

[Beowulf]

On the flip side of the delta-V issue, the pilot doesn't necessarily need to get back as fast as they go out. It might be advantageous to do so, in order to be able to rearm the fighter, but if your tactical plan essentially dictates fighters as a resource that it'd be nice to get back, but won't change the battle if they do (due to sufficiently effective fighters), then you don't need to have the same velocity on the way back. Of course, you still get a minimum of twice the delta-V.

[Hawkwings]

The whole purpose of manned fighters is to have real humans with their decision-making processes in the cockpit when it counts. We could have unmanned fighters that fight mainly on autopilot, with a sensor feed back to the main ships that have real humans examining the data, but that presents a time delay.

Like said earlier, the smallest manned spacecraft would probably be analogous to a torpedo boat.

[PainRack]

Frankly, the real importance of space carriers should be in planetary assaults/raids.

They would be needed to defend/intercept dropships, hit ASAT defences that the attacker couldn't destroy due to collateral damage and provide sensing information to ship weapons.

[petesampras]

The whole purpose of manned fighters is to have real humans with their decision-making processes in the cockpit when it counts. We could have unmanned fighters that fight mainly on autopilot, with a sensor feed back to the main ships that have real humans examining the data, but that presents a time delay.

Like said earlier, the smallest manned spacecraft would probably be analogous to a torpedo boat.

Given the incredible rate of progress in Computer Science and AI in only 60 years, it seems a fairly safe assumption that unmanned space fighters will have the ability to make decisions and examine data themselves. A lot faster and more accurately than any human, as well.

[Sarevok]

Forget AI. If your in range to launch fighters you can spam missiles more effectively instead. A man can remain in cockpit for only a few hours. That's pitifully small considering the tens of millions of kilometers one has to travel for an intercept. Getting to from detection to firing position could take weeks or months which require capships. Any distance a manned fighter can cover is practically point blank range for a space missile.

[Starglider]

A key question; 'Are there any weapons other than missiles that you want to mount on your fighters, and if so why?'

If the answer is no then I can't see any possible justification for fighters over missile buses (probably non-reusable since that way we can carry far more and dispense with the cost and hassle of recovery equipment/procedures).

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The whole purpose of manned fighters is to have real humans with their decision-making processes in the cockpit when it counts. We could have unmanned fighters that fight mainly on autopilot, with a sensor feed back to the main ships that have real humans examining the data, but that presents a time delay.

Like said earlier, the smallest manned spacecraft would probably be analogous to a torpedo boat.

Realistically, the whole purpose of manned space fighters is to get their crews killed in creative, yet pointlessly horrible ways. In a way, they're a lot like lab mice. Humans are far too slow thinkers to be trusted in situations like this. After all, about the fastest reaction time you can get out of a human is on the order of a tenth or a few hundredths of a second. Which is fine when you're dealing with velocities of tens or a couple hundreds of meters per second over distances of under tens of kilometers.

Space combat will take place at thousands of meters per second at distances exceeding thousands of kilometers. The human mind can cope with the strategic phase of a space battle, and the large-scale tactical aspects of one. However, in the thick of it, if you must have a human in the loop, you need to have one who's focused on fighting the battle and not overly distracted by the details of flying the ship. Which necessitates a warship and not a space fighter. If you've got the technology to build a "space fighter" then you've got the technology needed to build an advanced drone or missile bus AI requiring minimal or no supervision.

[Hawkwings]

I always pictured space fighters as one manned fighter and a squad of unmanned fighters as escorts and the real fighters. The AI would control the space fighter for combat purposes, and the human would be there to press the abort button if something goes massively wrong, or make decisions that are outside the mission parameters. In effect, it's a human inside the large tactical and possibly strategic decision cycle, but outside the combat decision cycle.

Of course, this would lead to targeting the human-passenger fighters, but then there's a whole bunch of drone fighters that have more firepower and speed and whatnot that are still bearing down on you.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I always pictured space fighters as one manned fighter and a squad of unmanned fighters as escorts and the real fighters. The AI would control the space fighter for combat purposes, and the human would be there to press the abort button if something goes massively wrong, or make decisions that are outside the mission parameters. In effect, it's a human inside the large tactical and possibly strategic decision cycle, but outside the combat decision cycle.

Of course, this would lead to targeting the human-passenger fighters, but then there's a whole bunch of drone fighters that have more firepower and speed and whatnot that are still bearing down on you.

If you're a capital ship skipper, you target these drone control ships with, say, a third of your entire salvo of missiles that you've got assigned to sweeping up drones. The human occupied ships, by virtue of all the radio traffic flowing from them, and the minimal offensive weaponry, will be obvious targets. They'll also be the ones hanging as far back as light-speed lag will permit, but this only buys them a few extra minutes.

Of course, in this scenario, the drones are equipped with point-defense, but have to split their time between defending themselves and defending the control ship, whereas if you dispensed with the manned ship, you could, concievably improve the survivability of the drones, as they can devote all their attention to defending themselves . . . and the enemy might not spend as many missiles on them as they would if they had something of higher value to shoot at, like those manned drone control ships.

[Darth Ruinus]

Why would you hit these drones with missiles, which they could shoot down, instead of just hitting them with laser point defenses of your own?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

My personal take on the issue, is that starfighters are more for combined arms assault together with capital ships. The Starfighters force the defender to divide its point defence weapons between them and the capital ship. Obviously, if possible, drone ships are used since they are dirt cheap and a lot easier to spam. The drone ships ought to be equipped with missiles to conserve their fuel. Then the combination of capital ship and drone ships can take down an enemy vessel much faster.

Of course, this entire idea can be negated by having intelligent missiles with evasion and targeting algorithms and just keep spamming them really. Otherwise, starfighters can be used for recon and so forth. Otherwise, in space, there are alternatives to manned starfighters which might be cheaper.

[Hawkwings]

I always pictured space fighters as one manned fighter and a squad of unmanned fighters as escorts and the real fighters. The AI would control the space fighter for combat purposes, and the human would be there to press the abort button if something goes massively wrong, or make decisions that are outside the mission parameters. In effect, it's a human inside the large tactical and possibly strategic decision cycle, but outside the combat decision cycle.

Of course, this would lead to targeting the human-passenger fighters, but then there's a whole bunch of drone fighters that have more firepower and speed and whatnot that are still bearing down on you.

If you're a capital ship skipper, you target these drone control ships with, say, a third of your entire salvo of missiles that you've got assigned to sweeping up drones. The human occupied ships, by virtue of all the radio traffic flowing from them, and the minimal offensive weaponry, will be obvious targets. They'll also be the ones hanging as far back as light-speed lag will permit, but this only buys them a few extra minutes.

Of course, in this scenario, the drones are equipped with point-defense, but have to split their time between defending themselves and defending the control ship, whereas if you dispensed with the manned ship, you could, concievably improve the survivability of the drones, as they can devote all their attention to defending themselves . . . and the enemy might not spend as many missiles on them as they would if they had something of higher value to shoot at, like those manned drone control ships.

First of all, the ship with a human inside isn't a drone control ship; that'd be really stupid. Think of it more like an observer with a radio. The drones are all self-contained, but will take orders from the human.

If you've got enough missiles that you can spend a third of them not shooting at the drone fighters that have the very dangerous weaponry, then it makes no difference if there's a human in a ship standing off a ways: you have more than enough missiles to paste a full squad of all-AI controlled fighters.

The premise of this setup is to force the opposing ship to decide between killing the ships that directly threaten his ship, or killing the person that is watching, relaying intelligence, and may pick up crucial information.

[Uraniun235]

Starfighters are there so we can have Top Gun In Space or Famous WWII Aerial Battle In Space. That's pretty much it.

(That doesn't mean they can't be awesome.)

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Why would you hit these drones with missiles, which they could shoot down, instead of just hitting them with laser point defenses of your own?

Because such drones are likely going to be missile buses. A capital ship can probably mount enough defensive weaponry to toast any drone trying to get into laser, railgun range, or whatever.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I always pictured space fighters as one manned fighter and a squad of unmanned fighters as escorts and the real fighters. The AI would control the space fighter for combat purposes, and the human would be there to press the abort button if something goes massively wrong, or make decisions that are outside the mission parameters. In effect, it's a human inside the large tactical and possibly strategic decision cycle, but outside the combat decision cycle.

Of course, this would lead to targeting the human-passenger fighters, but then there's a whole bunch of drone fighters that have more firepower and speed and whatnot that are still bearing down on you.

If you're a capital ship skipper, you target these drone control ships with, say, a third of your entire salvo of missiles that you've got assigned to sweeping up drones. The human occupied ships, by virtue of all the radio traffic flowing from them, and the minimal offensive weaponry, will be obvious targets. They'll also be the ones hanging as far back as light-speed lag will permit, but this only buys them a few extra minutes.

Of course, in this scenario, the drones are equipped with point-defense, but have to split their time between defending themselves and defending the control ship, whereas if you dispensed with the manned ship, you could, concievably improve the survivability of the drones, as they can devote all their attention to defending themselves . . . and the enemy might not spend as many missiles on them as they would if they had something of higher value to shoot at, like those manned drone control ships.

First of all, the ship with a human inside isn't a drone control ship; that'd be really stupid. Think of it more like an observer with a radio. The drones are all self-contained, but will take orders from the human.

It's still a command and control ship. The drones have to feed data back to it so the human can issue intelligent orders. This ship will be relaying orders to the drones, and passing data back to the main fleet. That boosts its priority as a target. Just like when the main fleets engage each other, the battleships and command ships will receive more fire than the frigates will.

If you've got enough missiles that you can spend a third of them not shooting at the drone fighters that have the very dangerous weaponry, then it makes no difference if there's a human in a ship standing off a ways: you have more than enough missiles to paste a full squad of all-AI controlled fighters.

The premise of this setup is to force the opposing ship to decide between killing the ships that directly threaten his ship, or killing the person that is watching, relaying intelligence, and may pick up crucial information.

If you swat that C&C ship, the drones become less effective. Though, come to think of it, it might be smarter to simply smash all the drones. The C&C ship isn't going to be able to see much more than the capital ships following it, and without the drones the ship's effective sensor resolution is slashed to just whatever sensors the C&C ship mounts. And since we're talking a small, high-performance ship, it won't be able to mount much sensory capabilities.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Patcoms from I-War are about the best I can envisage for manned near fighter sized craft. Agile and smaller than a capital ship, but not with the limitations of fighters as in SW or nBSG.

[Sarevok]

Patcoms from I-War are about the best I can envisage for manned near fighter sized craft. Agile and smaller than a capital ship, but not with the limitations of fighters as in SW or nBSG.

What about the "fighters" in Fireflyverse ? Like the Alliance gunship that chased Serenity in the "Message" for example. They are like the military version of the class of spacecraft the Serenity belongs to. Fast like a fighter yet able to operate in deep space with a crew of 5-10. Armed with long range missiles instead of flashy laser cannons it was like a bomber aircraft in space. Does this type of "missile boats" make at least some sense ?