What use are Star Wars fighter craft?

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Capship is a brittle unit. Once it is destroyed, it's gone. Meanwhile, a squadron of fighters can keep on fighting after losing one or two fighters.

Also, with fighters you can split off your forces into several, smaller units. For instance, when you need to cover large area such as in recon.

[vakundok]

Excuse me, but what happens if we replace the fighters of an ISD with generators and quad guns (seen on the Falcon or somewhat more powerfull ones)? Would it win or loose against a normal ISD with two squadron of Bombers or Scimitars and four Interceptors onboard?

"Cost efficiency" Do you know how many a VSD, an X-wing and a single proton torpedo costs? Proton torpedoes are said to be very expensive, so I think any tactic based on them tends to trow out cost efficiency.
Even in the case of a very succesfull combat you will have the probability of loosing at least one fighter basides of the ammunition. A capital ship would loose only energy.

I also think normal recon (not inter-system) can be done by far cheaper (and smaller) sensor drones, without risking the life of a highly trained pilot.

[Boba Fett]

Cost efficiency" Do you know how many a VSD, an X-wing and a single proton torpedo costs? Proton torpedoes are said to be very expensive, so I think any tactic based on them tends to trow out cost efficiency.
Even in the case of a very succesfull combat you will have the probability of loosing at least one fighter basides of the ammunition. A capital ship would loose only energy.

We don't know exact numbers for the capital ships but if an X-wing is said to be around 200.000 then in a case of a VSD we must talk about billions.
A proton torpedo is very expensive related to a simple missile but still costs cheaper then a Corvette.
A capital ship would only loose energy?
If the ship is destroyed you will loose the vessel, it's crew, equipment etc.
It surely costs more then a couple of torpedoes and fighters.

[vakundok]

Boba Fett: "in the case of a very successfull attack" I ment the same for the capital ship.

So, an Interceptor employes four laser cannons and requires housing for a pilot and several technicians (~5 if the Dark fleet crisis is credible). In place of the volume required to store an Interceptor the mass of at least two (most likely three) could be stored. It means that you could get two or three one manned quad guns for every single fighter carried onboard an ISD, so 144 to 216 quad lasers in total without affecting the normal weaponry. Could the two Scimitar (or Bomber) and four Interceptor squadrons handle this or not?

[Mad]

Excuse me, but what happens if we replace the fighters of an ISD with generators and quad guns (seen on the Falcon or somewhat more powerfull ones)? Would it win or loose against a normal ISD with two squadron of Bombers or Scimitars and four Interceptors onboard?

It would lose against a normal ISD, big time. Bombers carry more powerful payloads than the additional quad guns would give. Extra generators won't give enough of a boost to make a difference, be they shield generators or power generators, or both. Further, fighters are much better at taking out other fighters and bombers because they have increased maneuverability ability to track their target.

Basically, the normal ISD bombers would be able to attack with near impunity and take down the modified ISD's shields early in the battle.

"Cost efficiency" Do you know how many a VSD, an X-wing and a single proton torpedo costs? Proton torpedoes are said to be very expensive, so I think any tactic based on them tends to trow out cost efficiency.

X-wings are also expensive, and a VSD would cost much, much more. Not to mention the much, much larger crew that would have to be trained.

Even in the case of a very succesfull combat you will have the probability of loosing at least one fighter basides of the ammunition. A capital ship would loose only energy.

And a capital ship would likely take some hull damage, too, unless it hugely out-classes its opposition.

In a failed operation, or one that goes badly, you stand to lose many more lives and material for a capital ship than from a few fighters.

Take a corvette vs four bombers. Four pilots can kill the corvette and the crew on it. Which do you think is less of a risk?

Take two equal capships that don't launch fighters. The victor will be heavily damaged and have crew losses from hull breaches. If one launchers fighters while the other doesn't, then not only does that one win, it does so while taking far less damage.

[Lord Pounder]

There is a point i made which has gone ignored. Star Fighters are used in conjunction with Cap ships in barages. The Cap ship will batter on the opposing cap ship. Both cap ships will divert power to the areas of the shields being attacked Trench Run Disease prevents a captain from doing this. Sure a X-Wing may not be able to blow holes in a ISD's Shields but it can destroy sensor emmiters, Turbolaser Emplacements, shield generators etc on an unshielded or understrength part of a ship. For this in action read Solo Command and Iron Fist in the X-Wing novels.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Excuse me, but what happens if we replace the fighters of an ISD with generators and quad guns (seen on the Falcon or somewhat more powerfull ones)? Would it win or loose against a normal ISD with two squadron of Bombers or Scimitars and four Interceptors onboard?

IIRC there's a SD class with that configuration: The Allegiance-Class Star Destroyer (in Saxton's page: www.theforce.net/swtc/). Allegiance-Class is more dedicated fleet destroyer, but less versatile than an Imperator-Class.

I also think normal recon (not inter-system) can be done by far cheaper (and smaller) sensor drones, without risking the life of a highly trained pilot.

The advantage of fighter is not limited to recon only. With fighters you can split your forces to different locations, you can conduct surgical strikes, and other things you cannot do with capships.


Of course, if you replace fighters with extra guns, your ISD can pack more firepower. But war ain't won by heavy units with great firepower alone; it also depends on the versatility of your forces, your ability to gain situational awareness, your ability to split your forces into smaller units when neccessary, etc.

Look at ground battles, for instance. No army can win by tanks alone; it still need 'weaker' units like infantry squads, IFVs, jeeps, etc. In other words: combined arms.

Back to space battles, let say, as a commander of an ISD, your mission objective is to assault a pirate's station and destroy any escaping ships. Then you find out that there's a helluva lot of escaping ships (YT-300, Corellian Corvettes, etc.), and they are heading into various directions. Would you be able to stop them all using your ISD alone? No. Since you have to chase and destroy various ships heading to various directions, you need to split your forces into smaller, separate units. Ergo: you need fighters.

[Master of Ossus]

Excuse me, but what happens if we replace the fighters of an ISD with generators and quad guns (seen on the Falcon or somewhat more powerfull ones)? Would it win or loose against a normal ISD with two squadron of Bombers or Scimitars and four Interceptors onboard?

"Cost efficiency" Do you know how many a VSD, an X-wing and a single proton torpedo costs? Proton torpedoes are said to be very expensive, so I think any tactic based on them tends to trow out cost efficiency.
Even in the case of a very succesfull combat you will have the probability of loosing at least one fighter basides of the ammunition. A capital ship would loose only energy.

I also think normal recon (not inter-system) can be done by far cheaper (and smaller) sensor drones, without risking the life of a highly trained pilot.

It would win (hence the lack of hangars on starships designed for pure fleet actions, such as the Allegiance class starship), however it would also be a far less versatile starship. Yes, it would be superior once the actual battle was joined, but it would probably not have the same abilities and mission profile as a regular ISD. This is why the Empire tended to favor ISD's that could single-handedly subjugate a planet, rather than moving the capital ships that were designed for pure fighting (particularly since there weren't very many Alliance capital ships early enough in the war to tailor-make starships to counter them specifically, and since the Alliance heavily favored starfighters).

[Sea Skimmer]

"Cost efficiency" Do you know how many a VSD, an X-wing and a single proton torpedo costs? Proton torpedoes are said to be very expensive, so I think any tactic based on them tends to trow out cost efficiency.
Even in the case of a very succesfull combat you will have the probability of loosing at least one fighter basides of the ammunition. A capital ship would loose only energy.

Many missiles today are considered to be expensive. But when you compare them to the potential damage they can inflict they can suddenly look quite cheep. After all, 50,000 dollars seems like a lot for a small man portable missile. But when you consider that even a cheap shitty T-72M goes for about one million dollars plus crew and training it looks like an excellent deal.

I'd expect it’s the same with Proton torpedoes. Expensive for the cash strapped Rebel which for a while had them as its own heavy weapon. But cheep for the Empire which procured them by the billion.

As I recall, the price of a Nebulon-B frigate was placed as 174 million credits. Proton torpedoes might cost a few thousand, I recall reading a price somwhere in WEG's stuff. But even if it takes 500 each costing 5000 credits to kill that frigate you'd still be ahead by a huge margin.