Prometheus Unbound wrote:Why is that? In general.
I know many people look at shows like Trek, nBSG - Star Wars included, and say that's not how a real military would do something.
Is it purely Rule of Cool for TV shows and films to have things like Battlestars, Enterprises and Star Destroyers, or do they make sense in context?
Atomic Rockets goes into more detail as to the whys and wherefores, but, yes, space fighters are a thing in many SF franchises, because Last War Syndrome, contemporary naval operations taken into space, and, because they're cool.
As well as impractical.
Most of the purposes that naval aviation serves only apply in a terrestrial enviroment. In space, there are no lumbering battleships versus nimble fighters, and there is no horizion. The sole limiting factor in spacecraft combat would be delta-v, which a larger ship, by virtue of a larger fuel capacity, would have more of than a smaller ship.
Also, a larger ship can mount more powerful weapons, not to mention point-defense weapons, whereas a smaller ship would be more limited in its armament choices.
nBSG: They had two approaches to this. Battlestars, which have heavy weapons and a fair size compliment of fighters, and Basestars which are missile based and are "true" carriers. Why do they use fighters at all? Well it's a low tech environment - bullets and railguns etc. Not that the KE doesn't pack a punch - but I mean low tech like it's grounded in reality. So these are obviously Mach speed weapons - hypersonic most likely but nothing like a phaser or laser. You can dodge with good piloting. Fighters can carry weapons which can cripple a capital ship and can get in range to use them and get away. This requires fighters to stop them and flak, which is what we see.
Battlestars however - well we don't know how they were designed to work as a group. Galactica remember is an anomaly - it's not meant to be without escorts. Remember in The Plan (if you saw it) there was a wing of craft, different battlestars and then escorts, frigates and fighters. They just got shut down and we never saw them in action.
So I suspect they have gunboats and what-not and nBSG is actually pretty realistic. A Battlestar is essentially a battleship or dreadnought with a fighter compliment. It's not actually meant to be a carrier - normally with proper support their fighters would be minor in a major engagement. IMO anyway.
The actual velocity of the ballistic rounds is irrelevant in space, as they have infinite range, the combatants fight at relatively close quarters(as far as space is concerned), well within the effective range of each other's weapons(effective meaning they fire and hit within a reasonable amount of time), and ballistic combat would be a battle of maneuver, as the target ship evades, and the firing ship anticipates and counters the target's evasives, while jockeying for optimum firing position.
And, again, the battlestar would still have a greater delta-v than any of the fighters we've seen in nBSG.
So, even there, fighters, or even multi-role SWAC vessels like the Raptor, wouldn't be that practical. On the main, Vipers seem to serve as extensions of a battlestar's firepower, a role which could more easily be assumed by UCAVs(which nBSG's Cylon Raiders are, essentially), which, of course, would defeat the purpose of pitting the Humans against the machines they created.
And, besides, no fan cares about the life and times of a combat drone.
Star Wars: Again, fighters have the ability to damage capital ships when in large groups - and the turbolasers are too slow to track (ANH - they said so) - so fighters are used to combat fighters whilst the cap ships duke it out. A Star Destoryer is imo similar to a Battlestar, but a bit more self-reliant.
In the Legends EU, capships were also equipped with anti-starfighter lasers in addition to the captial-scale turbolasers. And, in many cases, even in canon, fighters are only able to damage capships, after other capital warships have knocked down their shields, as was demonstrated in ROTJ(and ROTS to some extent, as the
Invisible Hand was being pounded by Republic Venators the entire battle).
There was, of course, Hera's run on the Arquitens in
Rebels, but the composite laser on her B-Wing was a one-off weapon which appeared on none of the other B-Wings, for whatever reason.
B5 and 40K, same thing, their fighters(and bombers)serve as extensions of firepower, and both universes' capships have extensive point defenses.
The Imperials I can understand not using drones in the place of attack craft, due to how tech is viewed and used by the Imperium, but not the other 40K factions, especially not the Tau, who already make extensive use of drone technology.
The B5 universe is even more incomprehensible. Sure, fighters are practical defensive weapons for a 2.5-megaton space station that can't maneuver, but the capships of nearly every race are relatively agile in and of themselves(especially those with gravitic drives), have extensive point defenses, and massive firepower that their fighters can't match unless they attack collectively.
Again, they would be better served by UCAVs in the place of manned fighters, but, as mentioned before, no SF fan wants to see the life and times of a drone.
