Anti - Cap Ship Fighter Weapons

[Bottlestein]

From another thread in the SW section, I was thinking about a suitable fighter (tech level being thought out) that could, in addition to other duties, incapacitate ISD's. Specifically, I'd like your input in designing the "anti - ISD" weapon used by the fighter. The operating constraints on the weapon are the following:

Since the fighter will be multirole, the form of the "anti-ISD" weapon will be a missile or bomb launched by the fighter - it simply will not have the turbolaser power to go against any cap ship hull - even unshielded.

The fighter will have a mechanism to go through the bridge shielding of an ISD at 70%, (or deactivate 70% of the shields for about 10 seconds) without harm to the fighter.

The fighter has a close - in acceleration at least twice that of a TIE Interceptor, along any axis. (Along some axes, it's more than this.) The fighter cannot survive a collision with the ISD at these speeds, and it's not operationally viable to lose more than two fighters per ISD destroyed. (Kamikaze attacks of 2 to an ISD will not lead to an operational advantage, and a loss of 1 per ISD incapacitated will lead to lots of operational problems later.)

The fighter missile or bomb carriage is roughly a cylinder with the maximum volume constraint of 2.5 meters in diameter, and 9 meters long. Within this cylinder you can cram whatever canon-tech you like (Flechettes, probes, generators, explosives, a smaller TIE fighter...), and you can have however many individual "missiles" as you like, provided the fit in the tube, and are released at the same time.

Now for how it will be deployed: The fighter should be designed for 2 fighters to an ISD. They will have comm - networks and AI's aboard each one so that hundreds can network for a coordinated attack, but our deployment ability (money, industrial, logistical, manpower, droidpower etc) is such that we should assume a max density of no more 2 per ISD.

Each fighter can have 5 seconds of "dwell time" around an ISD, after deactivating 70% of the ISD's shields. After that, it's too risky to stay anywhere near, and it will have to disengage and jump to hyperspace. (That's 10 seconds of total weapons time for the 2 fighters combined). We want (after the ISD is hit):
1) The ISD to not be able to BDZ with certainty.
2) The ISD to not be able to jump to hyperspace with 70% probability.
3) The ISD to have its garrison supporting ability to be reduced by 40%.

So what missile/bomb system does the fighter carry, and how do we set it up?

[Thanas]

So basically you want one of the SW shield-breeching torpedoes (that do already exist) wanked up to 11?

[Bottlestein]

So basically you want one of the SW shield-breeching torpedoes (that do already exist) wanked up to 11?

Do they fit in the max volume though?

[SapphireFox]

I have a few questions about the conditions of this exercise.

1. Why are you limiting yourself to two "fighters" anyway in SW they normally fight in squadron size groups.

2. With the payload diameter and length it is, the size of the "fighter" would be enormous more like a modern bomber size or possibly a small SW corvette in size. Is this actually a fighter or is this some kind of glorified bomber not unlike the F-111 and F-117?

3. Your asking the weapon to somehow penetrate the defenses of an ISD and deal it's damage over a large area with enough force to disable it. That's a lot to ask of a single weapon, especially for SW. So is this wonder weapon limited to SW tech or is outside verse tech and thought processes applicable.

As for the weapon the only thing I can think of is some kind of gravity bomb. Since SW has for the most part mastered gravity as shown by the existence of artificial gravity on ships and anti-gravity devices, a device could (theoretically) be made that created a gravity compression so great that it forms a brief tiny black hole upon "detonation". Such a weapon would be able to do the requisite damage to the ISD provided it "detonates" close enough would likely do enough damage to disable it or at least render it combat ineffective. If it somehow makes contact with the hull it likely would add its mass to the micro black hole possibly extending the duration of its existence and tearing out a good chunk of the ISD if not sucking it through the proverbial straw consuming it entirely.

Mind you there are too many maybes and possibles in this what if weapon for my tastes. The most likely in universe weapon that fits the bill would be the particle disintegrator warhead from the galaxy gun missile. Mind you that you would likely have to build it into smaller bomb like format rather than a huge hyperspace missile.

[Bottlestein]

^@ SapphireFox:

1. The weapon is being considered by an Imperial Faction, post Palpy - clone stage. They do not have the industrial ability to make squadrons of these things per ISD, given they have lots of ISD's that are potentially hostile (the ones belonging to the other Imperial Factions, the New Republic, etc). Even 2 per ISD is a max limit - one that may not be met. (They are planning for that capacity.)

2. Roughly, the length is 100 meters. It is comparable to some SW corvettes. The term "fighter" is used because the number of crew is very small - 2 or three biologic crew, plus automated systems. There is no biologic security crew for dealing with "craft boarding", so in that sense it is more like a fighter, than a corvette.

The glorified bomber analogy could be used if you like, although it is not really useful for the exercise. The strategic picture is different enough in SW (an ISD can hover near a planet, it can BDZ, it can blockade, but it has to worry about planetary shields etc) that the roles of our Coast Guard Cutters, and Patriot Missiles may be fullfilled by 1 spacecraft, etc. So, the vessel might carry bombs, but use them for a totally different purpose from the planes you're thinking about.

3. It's not for destroying the ISD - not by a long shot. The only thing that 2 of them should achieve with any certainty is stopping the BDZ capability. Remember, the BDZ requires a certain power output from the generators. What we've got to think through is how the auxillary generators (or part of the main generator) can be put out of commision so that the onboard Maintenance Staff can't get it back online without outside help. This itself will go a long way towards reducing the jump capability and how long the thing can support a garrison. The fighter in no way should be thought of as destroying the ISD, merely stopping the BDZ for the moment. Remember, our Imperial Faction has ISD's etc of their own, as well as allies, and this is just part of a much larger strategy. Plus, the fighter fulfills other roles, and the idea is that it can be shifted to this one with just a change of payload.

[Purple]

If you just want to disable the SD, could you not make something akin to a high power, one shot only disposable ion canon and put it into the cargo hold? I mean, I am no fluff expert. But logic tells me that if you fired that thing close up to something vital on an unshielded starship you could cause permanent damage to it's power output.

[Bottlestein]

If you just want to disable the SD, could you not make something akin to a high power, one shot only disposable ion canon and put it into the cargo hold? I mean, I am no fluff expert. But logic tells me that if you fired that thing close up to something vital on an unshielded starship you could cause permanent damage to it's power output.

Sure. If it will disable the necessary systems. Remember you have 5 seconds when the ISD is unshielded and you can fire, though.

[Purple]

Well the idea is that you would be firing it from point blank range with no chance of missing.
And if you got it really close, you could presumably have it arc all across the ship doing damage on the scale seen by the canon on Hoth. (or something similar at least) At that range, my guess is that if you hit something vital, like the bridge it could also permanently fry the ships computers.

Again, I am no SW expert (having only watched the movies and no EU) but I think you can be sure it would turn out nasty for the poor ISD.

[SapphireFox]

1. The weapon is being considered by an Imperial Faction, post Palpy - clone stage. They do not have the industrial ability to make squadrons of these things per ISD, given they have lots of ISD's that are potentially hostile (the ones belonging to the other Imperial Factions, the New Republic, etc). Even 2 per ISD is a max limit - one that may not be met. (They are planning for that capacity.)

Wait Wait Wait... You're not talking about flying these craft from an ISD are you? With the dimensions you gave you would never be able to fit two on an ISD anyway. The main launch bay can fit a CR90 corvette in it filling the whole bay and that craft is around 150 meters long, your craft is over 2/3 of that. You wouldn't be able to run standard Tie flight ops with one of your craft filling the launch bay.

The glorified bomber analogy could be used if you like, although it is not really useful for the exercise. The strategic picture is different enough in SW (an ISD can hover near a planet, it can BDZ, it can blockade, but it has to worry about planetary shields etc) that the roles of our Coast Guard Cutters, and Patriot Missiles may be fullfilled by 1 spacecraft, etc. So, the vessel might carry bombs, but use them for a totally different purpose from the planes you're thinking about.

Getting ordinance to the target and switching weapon loadouts for the next target type is one of the hallmarks of a modern bomber. For example the B-52 can carry standard iron bombs for a carpet bombing run, then load cruise missiles for another hard to reach target, after that carry an FAE or cluster bombs for troop attack, after that loadup some anti-armor weapons to take a run at an armored group, and finally load up with some anti-ship missiles to take down an enemy cruiser or carrier. It doesn't matter if the target is in space or on the ground it would be defined as a bomber or at least an attack craft.

3. It's not for destroying the ISD - not by a long shot. The only thing that 2 of them should achieve with any certainty is stopping the BDZ capability. Remember, the BDZ requires a certain power output from the generators. What we've got to think through is how the auxillary generators (or part of the main generator) can be put out of commision so that the onboard Maintenance Staff can't get it back online without outside help. This itself will go a long way towards reducing the jump capability and how long the thing can support a garrison. The fighter in no way should be thought of as destroying the ISD, merely stopping the BDZ for the moment. Remember, our Imperial Faction has ISD's etc of their own, as well as allies, and this is just part of a much larger strategy. Plus, the fighter fulfills other roles, and the idea is that it can be shifted to this one with just a change of payload.

If you can cause enough damage the target to stop a BDZ and the reinforcement of garrisons AND stop it from jumping away into hyperspace then the weapon would likely be able to destroy the ship eventually. The only exception to that would be an SW Ion cannon so powerful that it shorts out a good chunk of the ship. An ion cannon that powerful would likely not fit on the craft and it would be doubtful if the onboard capacitors and reactor would be strong enough to power it even if you could fit one powerful enough in the bay.

You have mentioned several times that the craft is to be a muti-role craft perhaps you could elaborate on that, what exactly are these other roles?

[Bottlestein]

@SapphireFox:

Sorry - bad phrasing; 2 per ISD refers to the fact that 2 fighters are going to be used against each enemy ISD - they're not being flown from anything. (They will be resupplied by tenders like other vessels)

As for the other roles:

The have power generators slaved to certain sensors and data transmitters, so they can burn through countermeasures at certain ranges. So a big emphasis will be doing recon work. Probes will deploy from the same weapons bay that houses the missiles/torpedo/etc in the above case. Their sensors generally have a further detection range than the bog standard warship. However, specialised recce ships will have greater sensor range. I don't know how much energy a cloaking device draws - this thing may not have extra power for one.

They are fast enough and have enough acceleration and shields to get through standard blockades. They also carry sufficient supplies and excess power for a few jumps. This helps with some amount of interdiction, though a prepared fleet would do a number on them in any type of extended encounter. They have shields, but a cap ship would be able to take it down easily (note the 5 second limit in the OP).

Their lasers can harm corvettes, although war corvettes tend to have more shields and armor, and so might not take significant damage. They don't have turreted turbolasers in order to save weight - they get whatever firing arc they can manage through agility alone. Generally, they are not good for patrol work in a low tension zone - only in a war zone, or an armed high tension zone where the order would be destroy the ship rather than capture it.

They can have some specialized uses: If a ship has to be captured a missile carrying droids can be fired. The droids could board and incapacitate the crew. However, the target would have to be lightly crewed (in terms of Security Forces) and somewhat reasonable to board - so I don't see this trick as being used in any serious way against military vessels.

[Bottlestein]

@SapphireFox:

Re the Ion Weaponry: If shorting the electrical systems won't work, how about a strike to the coolant / exhaust systems?

I was thinking that attacking the power systems is the best way since I think the Control Systems have enough distributed redundancy on an ISD that you can't take those out without massive attacks.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Automation is a funny thing in Star Wars, but with two crew you're looking at a tramp freighter; a 25-50m long ship, probnably not to military standard without heavy, heavy modifications.

Customs frigates and corvettes are probably the best choice for this, we've thought about the Rendili customs corvette- a 180m long, ~80,000 m3, hyper capable, fast ship with heavy lifting capacity- before as an emergency bomber. Not quite milspec, but heavily shielded for what they are, and well armed- should slice through a fighter screen without difficulty.

Can carry a captured light freighter- the established load capacity of the things is high, never mind post- modification and overload; mount a VLS grid betwen the forks. A quantity of capital proton torpedoes (20-30?) that would be esentially useless in ship to ship combat because they could not be effectively delivered through point defence at likely range become viable, because they will be being salvo- fired at point blank.

With all the usual caveats; if your enemies are idiots, it helps enormously- equally if you aren't. If the thing can be steered well enough to get it there without taking too much LTL- or any main gun, a single HTL hit and this thing'll evaporate- fire, then it can work.

I know this sounds a lot like a PT boat or a FAC-M, and there are good arguments against those, but they don't apply in Star Wars- well, not much anyway.

[Purple]

I think he is talking about something akin to a scaled down carrack class.

This said, there is not really much you could do without Ion weapons. Since as SF said, any attack capable of doing what you want to do will either blow half of the ship apart or be an ion weapon.

This said, if you could somehow slave the ion weapon to the ships power generators so that it consumes all available power on your ship, and than fill all extra spaces with power generators that might work. And if you do this, yes your ship will need to recharge before running away, but the enemy won't be capable of doing anything but looking at you through those nice bridge windows.

[Uncluttered]

I'm not sure any single fighter has sufficient wank to take out an ISD on its own.

If I was a rebel, I'd go with the "car bomb" approach.
2 fighters. 1 Manned. 1 unmanned (droid or remote)

The unmanned fighter (or freighter) is packed with explosives.
Only needs forward shields.
No life support.
Doesn't even need a hyperdrive; use hyperspace rings. (Recover the rings after the battle)

The fighters jump in system. The manned fighter scouts the ISD. It uses an extralarge navicomp, to calculate a firing solution.

The unmanned fighter/freighter executes a mini-jump right on top of the ISD and attacks.
Boom.
Repeat with expendable ships until the ISD is nicely browned.

The manned fighter also films the attack, and posts it on Hypertube.

[Imperial528]

So, basically, you're asking for a weapon that would enable a corvette-sized launcher-ship to completely disable an ISD or equivalent target in one shot? Through shields, armor, and all?

You're basically asking for a scaled-down Sun Crusher, at least in the economic sense. Such a weapon would need to be multi-stage, and quite frankly, huge, since it would need to be able to penetrate the shields, and then essentially either burrow through to the main reactor core or destroy everything on the surface, and even destroying or disabling the main reactor may not even render the ship helpless.

Then again, the Sun Crusher, given how durable its armor is, could probably just ram through an ISD. Of course, if you have the money to build a single Sun Crusher, you could probably pay to build several, if not dozens, or ISDs. At which point, you don't need the one-hit-KO ship anymore.

Also, wouldn't it simply be more effective to build many anti-cap-ship bombers or torpedo corvettes? Sure, you need more of them, but replacing them will be cheaper, and you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. Not to mention that most missile corvettes can target other corvettes or fighters, so you won't have a fleet which is used for only one thing.

[Bottlestein]

^ How many torpedo corvettes and torpedoes can you get for one ISD? Certainly, if they are cheap enough that you can replace the losses per attack run on an ISD, then this faction should just use those.

Also, I have a constraint in the number of well trained crew I can get - which led to thinking of the expensive, but minimal attrition route.

[fractalsponge1]

So you want a corvette sized "fighter" that has twice the acceleration of a TIE/I, has weapons that can effectively and rapidly incapacitate a line destroyer, can survive a run into point blank range against point defense, be used for regular fleet work, and be more cost effective than fixed defenses or a proper capital ship? Why have you left out the solid platinum jacuzzi in your requirements?

More seriously, if the goal is simply to deter close blockade by a destroyer with a small ship and not get killed in the process, what about a frigate-sized ion cannon truck that is basically a v150 on a fast chassis like a Carrack, plus a whole lot of capacitors and not much else? Jump in with friends, take a single shot at near maximum range, stunt wildly, jump out, wait a long time to recharge, repeat. Even if you don't hit very often, the threat of getting disabled will at least make the destroyer captain more cautious and limit his options.

If your enemy actually concentrates his force and uses more than one ship at a target at a time, no amount of wanking is going to save your polity from getting curbstomped due to you not having the resources for a proper capital ship fleet.

[Bottlestein]

So you want a corvette sized "fighter" that has twice the acceleration of a TIE/I, has weapons that can effectively and rapidly incapacitate a line destroyer, can survive a run into point blank range against point defense, be used for regular fleet work, and be more cost effective than fixed defenses or a proper capital ship? Why have you left out the solid platinum jacuzzi in your requirements?

More seriously, if the goal is simply to deter close blockade by a destroyer with a small ship and not get killed in the process, what about a frigate-sized ion cannon truck that is basically a v150 on a fast chassis like a Carrack, plus a whole lot of capacitors and not much else? Jump in with friends, take a single shot at near maximum range, stunt wildly, jump out, wait a long time to recharge, repeat. Even if you don't hit very often, the threat of getting disabled will at least make the destroyer captain more cautious and limit his options.

If your enemy actually concentrates his force and uses more than one ship at a target at a time, no amount of wanking is going to save your polity from getting curbstomped due to you not having the resources for a proper capital ship fleet.

Yes - it's possible to post without reading to try to appear clever
You do realize that both the Carrack and the ion cannon ideas have been floated above - repeatedly? And, dare I say it even accepted ??!!
As for your "concentration of forces": no I have no idea what that means. Please, explain it to me

[Purple]

He means to say that your weapon looks good on paper, but it would fail against a real fleet formation. If you face an enemy that sends a full task force of several ISDs, their escorts and a full flight of star fighters you will not be able to defeat them with such tactics.


The only thing such a weapon would be good for is taking down lone star destroyers caught by surprise before they get to launch a lot of escort fighters. So great for staving off a random pirate raid or doing deep strikes and such. Not so good for fighting a fleet battle against an enemy that means business.

[Bottlestein]

though a prepared fleet would do a number on them in any type of extended encounter. They have shields, but a cap ship would be able to take it down easily (note the 5 second limit in the OP).

To any further tl;dr morons who want to spam post about "concentration of forces", and used as fighters for "regular fleet work" - my 4th post in its spoon - fed form.

[Purple]

Actually I think you misunderstood what he said and I tried to explain.

The idea his idea refereed to the concept of you having to take on more than 1 ISD at once, or maybe escorting craft like the Carac or other stuff. These could cost less than your ships but at the same time tip the scales in the enemies favor by providing more targets than it can handle.

In other words, 2 fighters vs 1 star destroyer would work. But it is unlikely that anyone would send one escorted unless he has no intelligence of these craft of yours. The moment they catch wind of such a craft, they will start deploying screening escort fleets that will engage it and prevent it from performing the precision strike you required. And once you throw in say several escorting frigates or something similar you get 2 fighters vs multiple ships. And you are optimized to hit SDs with one single knockout punch.


So if the enemy deploys escorts you would have to as well. And at that point your craft loose much of their utility as they seem to be to expensive to risk in a pitched battle.

So the point is quite valid. And if you want to use a craft like this one, you will have to consider it and adjust your strategies accordingly. Or risk making the enemy seem retarded just so that it can work out.

[SapphireFox]

@SapphireFox:

Re the Ion Weaponry: If shorting the electrical systems won't work, how about a strike to the coolant / exhaust systems?

I was thinking that attacking the power systems is the best way since I think the Control Systems have enough distributed redundancy on an ISD that you can't take those out without massive attacks.

*Scratches head* I don't think the Coolant systems are exposed enough to be hit by a light/medium scale Ion Weapon. However if you want the ion approach I would recommend a two stage approach first ship aims for and hits the bridge disrupting command control temporarily during the time between switchover from bridge to local control you should have enough time for another 5 second run at the same time the second ship is firing at the reactor as best as he can from the direction of the main hanger bay. Hopefully the shot penetrates deep enough to affect the main reactor temporarily disrupting power until the crew can restore it. With luck the bridge disruption from the first ship will allow enough time for both ships to take an additional run at the reactor.

^ How many torpedo corvettes and torpedoes can you get for one ISD? Certainly, if they are cheap enough that you can replace the losses per attack run on an ISD, then this faction should just use those.

Also, I have a constraint in the number of well trained crew I can get - which led to thinking of the expensive, but minimal attrition route.

While I definitely support the idea of Itano Circus/Macross Missile Massacre type missile spam from a corvette/PT boat platform as a cheap and effective strategy. I however would prefer to do a "quick an dirty" mod on a fast CR90 corvette by placeing large detachable and disposable box launchers on the sides of the engine blocks and the main body. This would allow for rapid missile dumping and retreat on a platform that has been canonically seen able to take a TL hit from a ISD and survive. Mind you that it wouldn't be expected to take many hits bit as a hit and run attacker it would be quite useful.

Now as to cost effectiveness you were wondering about, in the volume of materials consumed alone you would be able to able to field over 370 to one based on sheer volume. Given the size production can occur at smaller facilities and possibly even on planets themselves it would be easier to build them with less intensive a resource base and at more locations. On the personnel side you stated a preferred crew size of around two, I would personally place the crew requirements to at least 6 to 12 but to my point. An ISD requires a crew of over 5000 at least, this means for every ISD you have you have an equivalent amount of crew for several hundred of the smaller ships you need. I would figure you would get at the end between 200 to 300 torpedo craft for the equivalent of building an ISD. Add to this you can have them be in multiple places at once and operate in groups to maximize effectiveness.

[Bottlestein]

^ The CR 90 idea is promising. The volume - cost scaling is as reasonable a method as any, so 200 to 300 per ISD works out very well for me.

If we wanted to outfit a few of these CR 90 for recce work, what would we be looking at? Is it possible to get the acceleration up a lot simply by ditching berthing mass etc., or is there a stable way of upgrading the engines, given the generator?

[Agent Sorchus]

^ The CR 90 idea is promising. The volume - cost scaling is as reasonable a method as any, so 200 to 300 per ISD works out very well for me.

If we wanted to outfit a few of these CR 90 for recce work, what would we be looking at? Is it possible to get the acceleration up a lot simply by ditching berthing mass etc., or is there a stable way of upgrading the engines, given the generator?

This is probably the fastest relative to the corvette in the fiction as it stands. I have a picture showing a group of these pacing Corelian Gunships while only using their two smallest engines. They also look like they use a much larger sensor mast and are likely the best Recon ship in the Alliance arsenal.

[Bottlestein]

Actually I think you misunderstood what he said and I tried to explain.

The idea his idea refereed to the concept of you having to take on more than 1 ISD at once, or maybe escorting craft like the Carac or other stuff. These could cost less than your ships but at the same time tip the scales in the enemies favor by providing more targets than it can handle.

In other words, 2 fighters vs 1 star destroyer would work. But it is unlikely that anyone would send one escorted unless he has no intelligence of these craft of yours. The moment they catch wind of such a craft, they will start deploying screening escort fleets that will engage it and prevent it from performing the precision strike you required. And once you throw in say several escorting frigates or something similar you get 2 fighters vs multiple ships. And you are optimized to hit SDs with one single knockout punch.


So if the enemy deploys escorts you would have to as well. And at that point your craft loose much of their utility as they seem to be to expensive to risk in a pitched battle.

So the point is quite valid. And if you want to use a craft like this one, you will have to consider it and adjust your strategies accordingly. Or risk making the enemy seem retarded just so that it can work out.

I guess my reply was a bit curt:

You should not think of this as any equal of a point defense system - fighter or otherwise. Granted my use of the term "fighter" was misleading - people started thinking I'm creating the next "wanked" X-wing It was supposed to be a very expensive redesign to the fastest blockade runner around.

I guess my incorrect use of "fighter" caused a lot of problems, so an open question: What is the correct term for something like Xizor's ship? And also, does the term "snubfighter" cover X-wings and TIE's, or just TIE's?

Anyway, back to the "deployment": As my 4th post suggests - it is primarily for certain high risk recce missions or special elimination of poorly armoured vessels. Even the fact that it shares building facilities with blockade runners was not going to improve production ability much, and thus, the more it can multirole the better. An ISD is the upper bound for high value targets that it can even reasonably consider engaging. There is no way this thing will ever expect to beat a prepared ISD. Note the way I set up the attack in the OP: an ISD that diverts more power to the shields can really screw this thing over. So when would it face an ISD, if that is the case? ISD's are used for scouting work. Suppose it's scouting near my recon base. I have to get out quickly because the "scout" includes a BDZ feature, a jump feature, and a "garrison" feature - each of which could screw over the base. I have to buy time for the emergency evac, and make sure I'm not immediately followed and nabbed. But, the ion cannon at Hoth is not present, and is very luck dependent. Since it's a recon base, it will have some of these ships. But these ships themselves are valuable, and commanders should try to get them out without any sort of engagement with the ISD wherever possible. But, if it's impossible - what do they do? That is the context of the problem...