Sci-Fi debate: Dedicated battleships vs. carriers+fighters

[warty goblin]

Since this debate was in danger of hijacking the "Most Intimidating Spaceship" thread, I thought I'd move over here to avoid this.

The debate is essentially whether or not one man fighters make sense in Sci Fi space warfare, or whether they are basically just there for increased drama. This debate isn't setting specific, so feel free to use whatever shows/books you want.although I would ask that Star Wars not be relied on as a reference due to its complete and utter suspension of the laws of physics, which makes it less interesting, at least to me.
(Not to slight Star Wars, its a lot of fun, but as a model of space combat it does leave something wanting).

So far the positions are:

Fighters don't make sense due do use in battleto their limited firepower and armor. Their added mobility is not enough to make up for these failings.

Fighters do make sense due to their ability to quickly get to the needed position and ability to adapt and engage a wide number of targets at a time.

Opinions?

[Rutee]

Why would fighters have trouble attaining the offensive power necessary to be useful in space warfare? Only being able to damage battleships with extremely inaccurate torpedoes seemed to be sufficient in WWII, which was the last set of RL naval battles I can think of, and midway was all-fighters for a reason.

I mean, you said it wasn't setting-specific, so in general, why would there be a problem?

[Somebloke]

As I pointed out, a carrier is really just a capital ship that has weapons /reconissance platforms that can launch and fly off on their own.

You essentially dramatically increase the number of options available.

While dedicated capital ships might have more umph, the trade off still swings in the direction of carriers.

Plus you get a crew of hot young pilots who end up having torrid love affairs with the rest of the crew members. Look on it as a tie-breaker.

[Mr._Blinky]

Actually, fighters can be extremely effective at taking down capital ships, if you use them correctly. They have little enough armor that anything of even middling size will be able to kill them with ease, but they're fast enough to dodge most incoming fire. But in terms of offensive power, they excel. Sure, you might be able to put a massive 180mm gun on your battleship, but a fly-by from a single fighter with a dedicated anti-cap nuke is going to ruin his day. And you can bet your ass that that fighter cost less than a fraction of the capital ship.

Overall, carriers are a smarter decision, because with the distances involved in space combat, dumb-fired cannons mounted on a battleship are exactly that: dumb. They'd be so hard to hit anything with at the distances involved in space, that you'd need incredibly effective targeting computers, and hope that your opponent doesn't have anything even approaching a decent point-defense. But if you're a carrier, you can send a crap-load of fighters at your enemy, and have about a third of them as bombers designated specifically for killing the enemy's ship. With the sizes possible with missiles, it's easily possible to have a far higher degree of firepower vs. tonnage on a fighter than it is on a capital ship. Sure, it might not be able to survive nearly as much firepower, but with the offensive capabilities in relation to size, their relative cheapness, and their mobility, they don't need to.

[Somebloke]

Actually, fighters can be extremely effective at taking down capital ships, if you use them correctly. They have little enough armor that anything of even middling size will be able to kill them with ease, but they're fast enough to dodge most incoming fire. But in terms of offensive power, they excel. Sure, you might be able to put a massive 180mm gun on your battleship, but a fly-by from a single fighter with a dedicated anti-cap nuke is going to ruin his day. And you can bet your ass that that fighter cost less than a fraction of the capital ship.

Overall, carriers are a smarter decision, because with the distances involved in space combat, dumb-fired cannons mounted on a battleship are exactly that: dumb. They'd be so hard to hit anything with at the distances involved in space, that you'd need incredibly effective targeting computers, and hope that your opponent doesn't have anything even approaching a decent point-defense. But if you're a carrier, you can send a crap-load of fighters at your enemy, and have about a third of them as bombers designated specifically for killing the enemy's ship. With the sizes possible with missiles, it's easily possible to have a far higher degree of firepower vs. tonnage on a fighter than it is on a capital ship. Sure, it might not be able to survive nearly as much firepower, but with the offensive capabilities in relation to size, their relative cheapness, and their mobility, they don't need to.
That's not even considering the possibilities involved in simply sending your ships into light speed/FTL/whatever. You can engage the enemy ship without even needing to put your carrier in harm's way.

[SDF]

Capital ships are more obsolete than single man fighters. If you look at modern warfare there is a reason that carriers dominate the field while battleships are all but unheard of anymore. It takes considerably more energy and resources to get a ship with a large mass moving effectively in the battlefield while a small fighter can go to the enemy and deploy a ship crippling nuclear device the size of my TV.

[warty goblin]

Well, here's my perspective:

1) WWII is a terrible example for several reasons.
a) Gravity allows bombs to obtain a lot of power when dropped on ships. But you can't count on having that advantage in space.
b) Ships don't sink in space.
c) In space a cap ship will be as maneuverable as a fighter. It may or may not be slower, depending on their engines, but the fighters won't be able to escape out of their reach, and won't be able to strike from out of range.


2) Armor: Most Sci-Fi cap ships tend to be around a kilometer in length AFAIK. That leaves room for a lot of armor. Enough armor that a ship devoted to heavy armor and guns can ignore pretty much every weapon mounted on a fighter. Missiles are an exception to this- but see below.

3) Missiles: Fighters are inefficiant as a missile delivery system when compared to just launching the missile from the base/battleship. Here's why I claim this
A) A fighter needs to leave the hanger, fire the missile and return. All of this takes fuel. A missile just needs to be fired. This will take far less fuel. The above process for a fighter also has far more potential for mistakes, and if the fighter is destroyed, all the missiles/other ordnace it carries is lost (as well as the pilot). Missiles don't have these problems, they can be fired as needed with much less risk.
B) Whatever a fighter can do, a missile can do better. Fighters are bigger than missiles as a rule (they are certainly bigger than the missiles they launch). Fighters also contain people, limiting the acceleration at which they operate. Missiles don't have this problem, they can turn circles around fighters, fly faster, turn sharper and since they are smaller, will be more difficult to shoot down.
C) I claim that due to likely advances in point defense, missiles will be of limited use anyway, since they can be shot down from a safe distance. This is particularly true of nukes, which unless they actually manage to squarely hit aren't that effective in space anyway, and can be destroyed without causing a nuclear reaction. If PD lasers are perfected this picture is even bleaker since evasive action is effectively no longer possible. Even if this is not the case, points A and B are still true.

4) Deployment time: A carrier needs to deploy its fighters in order to amount to much. A battleship needs to, well, start firing. Fighters also need to be refueled, and serviced. A battleship can engage in continious combat until it is disabled/destroyed. Due to 2),this is likely to take quite a while.

5) Strategic movement ability: Most settings have fighters without ftl capabilities, meaning that carriers must bring in fighters before being able to retreat or make a long distance jump. A battleship can just jump and be ready for combat within ~ 3 seconds of arrival, and retreat with similar acclerity. Also, in order to destroy an unsupported battleship, you must destroy the whole thing. In order to destroy an unsupported carrier/fighter group, you just have to destroy the carrier and get out of there. The fighters will run out of air/fuel/heat and their pilots will die horrible deaths. Even supported, the destruction/damaging of a carrier will severely impair fleet function in all but the largest of fleets as other ships try to squeeze in extra fighters.

6) Point Defense: I give this an entire number to itself because it is so important. Most Sci-Fi that I have seen have tragically under-equiped their battleships with PD, allowing fighters to be effective. But imagine if the cap ship was bristling with small, remotely operated PB turrets on top of its big guns. Fighters' ability to do damage has traditionally (at least in Sci-Fi)rested in their ability to dodge/avoid weapons from battleships. With a total PD array however, they would have to manage to close in through withering gales of fire. Remember that BSG episode where they had to attack the mining asteroid, and the mining base's static defenses were carving the Vipers apart? Now take that degree of accurate and rapid firepower (or more)and mount it on a battleship in open space where there's no cover. Somehow I don't think that would work very well for the fighters, while the battleship's main guns could be beating the carrier into small shiny pieces.

[CrazedGoblin]

on earth id say the carrier wins, but in space the capitol ship i think might have it, but having fighters cant hurt cant it hehe

[SDF]

Sure the fighters might be screwed if the carrier is destroyed, but the entire point of a carrier is to not get into a CQ battle in the first place. And assuming the same number of personnel if the main ship is destroyed everyone dies anyhow. You could just pack a battleship full of armor (you could do that with a carrier too) but again you are limiting maneuverability greatly. (and it would actually make more sense on a carrier because it shouldn't be required to move as much) Small fighters unlike missiles can fire more than once and maneuver to more tactical firing positions, wait and ambush, or do any number of tactical strategies. I think the best example of realistic space combat I have seen is in the Battletech novels that use aerospace fighters very effectively.

[Talkkno]

[QUOTE=warty goblin;3502314]2) Armor: Most Sci-Fi cap ships tend to be around a kilometer in length AFAIK. That leaves room for a lot of armor. Enough armor that a ship devoted to heavy armor and guns can ignore pretty much every weapon mounted on a fighter. Missiles are an exception to this- but see below.


Plasma weapons would use up alot of energy in there containment system to keep it from floating uselessly once laucned, so using a fighter as a weapon delivery system is a plausbile idea, so missles aren't the only expections.
See Protoss Carriers as I have stated in the other thread, as the only reason they would use interspecters instead of just adding bigger photon cannons or straping warp rays to there hulls, is most likely as they can deliver there plasma charges much farther then those weapons. Combined with unparrelled stragic moblity in the form of arbiters and psionics, they are a power to be reckoned with.

[Wizzardman]

Well, here's my perspective:

b) Ships don't sink in space.

Nope, but they can explosively decompress, which can be far, far worse. A good battleship should have some interior sealing systems to prevent massive loss, but depending on what area's hit, every hole at least 1" around could kill 2-3 people, and certainly wreck things up on the inside. Imagine what happens if you plug a tiny hole in a ship's bridge.


c) In space a cap ship will be as maneuverable as a fighter. It may or may not be slower, depending on their engines, but the fighters won't be able to escape out of their reach, and won't be able to strike from out of range.

...Inertia... says... no. There is no way a capital ship could ever be as maneuverable as a fighter--unless its using hundreds of times as much fuel per ton, has engines on all sides, and has G-resistant pilots. Inertia is everything in space, and capital ships have a lot of inertia. If you're actually maneuvering the capital ship enough for it dodge fighter shots, or chase fighters down, you're going to spend most of the space battle trying to stop. A capital ship will take longer to start up, longer to get moving, much longer to turn, and a hell of a long time to get to stop moving. And it'll be darn hard to control.

Additionally, considering how much force you'd have to place on the outside of the battleship, centripetal motion indicates that the G-forces will vary a lot based on where on the ship you are. If you put a 1-kilometer capital ship into a tight 90 degree turn, those guys in the center might be fine, but the poor folks at the bow will be so much chunky spaghetti sauce.



B) Whatever a fighter can do, a missile can do better. Fighters are bigger than missiles as a rule (they are certainly bigger than the missiles they launch). Fighters also contain people, limiting the acceleration at which they operate. Missiles don't have this problem, they can turn circles around fighters, fly faster, turn sharper and since they are smaller, will be more difficult to shoot down.



The problem with missiles is the guidance system. Depending on how effective computer AIs are at this point, a skilled fighter pilot will be much more effective at anticipating PD shots and using unexpected tactics than the computerized guidance system could be.

The solution: link 20% of your missiles to a remote control system inside your capital ship, where veteran pilots can hand-guide each missile into its destination. The rest will be AIs, assigned into missile 'wings'; some of these wings will contain your remote-controlled missiles (leading some AI missiles), and some will be entirely AI. This way, at least some of your missiles will be able to perform tricky maneuvers that the PD gunmen won't expect, the controlled missiles will have AI missiles to serve as cover, the effectiveness of your controlled missiles will be maximized, and your entire assault won't be stopped by mere 'communication problems'. And, of course, try to blow a hole in the enemy PD early in the battle--it'll give you a nice, safer area to drop missiles into.

Honestly, I agree with you; fighters are a little overrated in space combat. However, they do have one significant advantage that capital ships won't be able to compete with: boarding parties. Make a bunch of armored shuttles with a few close-range drills to punch through the target's outer armor, provide them fighters to cover them on their way in, toss a slew of missiles at the enemy's PD's before and during the assault, and presto!

[factotum]

Fighters do have the advantage in manoeuvrability and acceleration over a capital ship, at least for any reasonable level of technology--at its most basic, the mass of the ship increases with the cube of its size, whereas the maximum possible engine thrust it can attain will presumably be a function of the cross-sectional area of its engine exhausts, which only goes up by a square ratio. (This is obviously simplifying the heck out of things). This means that spaceborne carriers are actually closer to the WW2 example than you might think--lots of fast-moving, hard to hit fighters providing a long-range fight option for the capital ship.

Of course, the one thing which is totally unrealistic in most SF is how close the combatant ships are to each other. In Star Trek, Star Wars, and most episodes of B5 the opposing ships are a few kilometres apart or less--this is despite real sea battles as long ago as the First World War being fought between fleets that couldn't even see each other (see the Battle of Jutland). In any sort of "real" space combat the capital ships would be thousands of kilometres apart at the very least, in which case fighters might be their only real way of attacking each other.

[Talkkno]

Of course, the one thing which is totally unrealistic in most SF is how close the combatant ships are to each other. In Star Trek, Star Wars, and most episodes of B5 the opposing ships are a few kilometres apart or less--this is despite real sea battles as long ago as the First World War being fought between fleets that couldn't even see each other (see the Battle of Jutland). In any sort of "real" space combat the capital ships would be thousands of kilometres apart at the very least, in which case fighters might be their only real way of attacking each other.

.....The ICS states that turbolasers have effective ranges up to several light minutes....You don't really expect that commanders just tell there ships what to do based on what they see threw transpisteel do you? Thats what those sensors globes on those Star Destroyers are for....

[CrazedGoblin]

they could probably see each other due to the vastness of space, but then they could have time to move out of eachothers arc of fire from the range of the shots

[Wizzardman]

.....The ICS states that turbolasers have effective ranges up to several light minutes....

But I don't even want to know how hard shooting someone light-minutes away would be. If you're even a micrometer off--if a piece of paper so much as clips the gun on the way--if the gun's even the tiniest bit out of alignment--you'll miss by miles. Even a truly amazing computer system would have trouble shooting something light-minutes away--at least partially because the presence of space dust on the barrel would bring you out of alignment enough that you'd miss.

And the battles in Star Wars are always between ships lazing a few kilometers away from each other. That's probably the only way turbolasers can hit anything.

[Rutee]

2) Armor: Most Sci-Fi cap ships tend to be around a kilometer in length AFAIK. That leaves room for a lot of armor. Enough armor that a ship devoted to heavy armor and guns can ignore pretty much every weapon mounted on a fighter. Missiles are an exception to this- but see below.

Well.. IRL, Missiles and the like are the FIRST ordinance you're supposed to use, always. The guns are a last resort. I don't see it as a weakness that you /have/ to use your heaviest ordinance first. What could possibly be a higher priority then the enemy's capital ships?


a) Gravity allows bombs to obtain a lot of power when dropped on ships. But you can't count on having that advantage in space.
WEll.. engines on missiles probably allow more power. The advantage is mostly in getting them to explode from deeper within the ship, I imagine.

Honestly, whoever pointed out that ships probably aren't going to be in sight range of each other in space combat has hit the nail on the head, as far as carriers vs. battleships, from my perspective =/

[CrazedGoblin]

But I don't even want to know how hard shooting someone light-minutes away would be. If you're even a micrometer off--if a piece of paper so much as clips the gun on the way--if the gun's even the tiniest bit out of alignment--you'll miss by miles. Even a truly amazing computer system would have trouble shooting something light-minutes away--at least partially because the presence of space dust on the barrel would bring you out of alignment enough that you'd miss.

And the battles in Star Wars are always between ships lazing a few kilometers away from each other. That's probably the only way turbolasers can hit anything.

if light takes 8 mins to get to earth, well ye good luck hitting that moving objects BAZZILLIONS of miles away hehe

[Talkkno]

In Halo:First Strike, Master Chief managed to take over a Covenent flagship using a longsword fighter that was long on fuel and a Plecian, with a some help from 3 marines and Cortana on a ship that had at least several hundered grunts and elites, while managing to evade point defense weaponary and Seprah fighters.

[CrazedGoblin]

Cortana

she could hack into the matrix on a bad day hehe:smalltongue:

[Lord Iames Osari]

Since this debate was in danger of hijacking the "Most Intimidating Spaceship" thread, I thought I'd move over here to avoid this.

The debate is essentially whether or not one man fighters make sense in Sci Fi space warfare, or whether they are basically just there for increased drama. This debate isn't setting specific, so feel free to use whatever shows/books you want.although I would ask that Star Wars not be relied on as a reference due to its complete and utter suspension of the laws of physics, which makes it less interesting, at least to me.
(Not to slight Star Wars, its a lot of fun, but as a model of space combat it does leave something wanting).

So far the positions are:

Fighters don't make sense due do use in battleto their limited firepower and armor. Their added mobility is not enough to make up for these failings.

Fighters do make sense due to their ability to quickly get to the needed position and ability to adapt and engage a wide number of targets at a time.

Opinions?

The Honor Harrington series by David Weber explores this in depth. Early on in the series, dedicated warships reign supreme, since the armor and weapons on LACs (Light Attack Craft or some such) are too small and light to really be effective. However, over the course of the series, advancements in stealth and miniaturization technology bring the carrier-and-fighters model back into viability, as the small, stealthy LACs can get to point-blank range and use powerful directed-energy weapons. Essentially, the LACs (in sufficient numbers) are effective against all but the biggest and most powerful capital units (dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts), making both viable tools of warfare.

[averagejoe]

.....The ICS states that turbolasers have effective ranges up to several light minutes....You don't really expect that commanders just tell there ships what to do based on what they see threw transpisteel do you? Thats what those sensors globes on those Star Destroyers are for....

Huh, and I always thought those were shield generators. Either way, I call shenanigans on George Lucas, or whoever keeps retconning this stuff.

[Rutee]

A question:

Why is this such a dichotomy in space warfare? To say the least, Star Wars ships seem to have no trouble carrying both. Neither does hte titular ship of Martian Successor Nadesico, or the SDF Macross, or any of a lot of other ships. I guess that just clicked.. but it seems a valid question to me.

[Talkkno]

The Honor Harrington series by David Weber explores this in depth. Early on in the series, dedicated warships reign supreme, since the armor and weapons on LACs (Light Attack Craft or some such) are too small and light to really be effective. However, over the course of the series, advancements in stealth and miniaturization technology bring the carrier-and-fighters model back into viability, as the small, stealthy LACs can get to point-blank range and use powerful directed-energy weapons. Essentially, the LACs (in sufficient numbers) are effective against all but the biggest and most powerful capital units (dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts), making both viable tools of warfare.

Another good example is the DS9 epsiode "Sacrifice of Angels" where Captain Sisko got the idea of having the fighters streak in ahead of the main force, attack the Cardassian portion of the fleet, and then immediately disengage in the hopes that the Cardassians would break formation and chase the fighters.

[Lord Zentei]

Fighters do NOT make sense in a space setting. The reason is their limited firepower, armor and unimpressive thrust. The reason for their limited firepower and armor is their limited size (see second paragraph). The reason for their limited thrust is that they have no real advantages in that regard over the capital ships (see third paragraph).

Consider: when you launch a fighter with X cubic meters of volume and Y tonnes of payload, some part of that has to go to the life support systems of the pilot. Therefore, an automated fighter is going to be more efficient than a manned one. Moreover, if you want to retrieve your fighters, you need to give them fuel and thrusters for the return leg of the combat, whereas a missile does not have this limitation. Of course, a fighter can presumably be reused, but eliminating the enemy is of higher priority. Furthermore: energy weapon blasts are even faster and harder to avoid than swarms of missiles, and weapon batteries don't take up as much space as the hangers, fuel silos and machine shops that service the fighters. Why waste space and fuel to launch a small gun towards the enemy when you can simply mount a large gun on the capital ship?

However, the most crucial reason is that space fighters and space capital ships are moving in the same medium: space. In the case of surface ships, the carriers are oceangoing vessels and the fighters are aircraft: there is a fundamental difference in the type of vehicle being used, thus the aircraft can specialize in capabilities that the surface ships lack and vice versa. This means that the combined types are more effective than just one, and the extra cost in resources of launching a delivery mechanism with the weapon in addition to the weapon itself makes sense. Space fleets cannot do this, since the fighters would be vehicles of the same fundamental type as the ships that launch them (i.e. they're both space vehicles): the correct analogy would not be surface carrier fleets, but surface ships that launch surface gunboats.... which is obviously not very efficient.

If the space fighters somehow moved in a different medium than the space carriers, that would be very different. For instance, a space carrier that launches air-supremacy fighters onto a planet to cover the drop-ships -- that would be logical if the space carriers cannot enter the atmosphere themselves.

Another possibility that I considered at one time was if the space fighters could use tactical FTL within a solar system: in that case they can do things the CVs cannot, and an unprotected CV within a system becomes a bit of a sitting duck compared with the fighters as happens with surface fleets.

[CrazedGoblin]

the thing that runs rings around capitol ships for example is in Starship Troopers (think its the first one) where the "random" barage of huge plasma balls makes all the capitol ships bunch together, like shooting fish in a barrel

[Talkkno]

Why waste space and fuel to launch a small gun towards the enemy when you can simply mount a large gun on the capital ship?



Well, in the case of Plasma weaponry, you waste alot of energy for the magatic field that holds it together before it can do any damage. It would be presumbly more cost effiecent to use a fighter to deliver the plasma then a simply more powerful magatntic field in most cases.

[warty goblin]

Sure the fighters might be screwed if the carrier is destroyed, but the entire point of a carrier is to not get into a CQ battle in the first place. And assuming the same number of personnel if the main ship is destroyed everyone dies anyhow. You could just pack a battleship full of armor (you could do that with a carrier too) but again you are limiting maneuverability greatly. (and it would actually make more sense on a carrier because it shouldn't be required to move as much) Small fighters unlike missiles can fire more than once and maneuver to more tactical firing positions, wait and ambush, or do any number of tactical strategies. I think the best example of realistic space combat I have seen is in the Battletech novels that use aerospace fighters very effectively.

My whole point was that a battleship could kill the entire carrier/fighter group without needing to engage the enemy's max firepower. My other point is that the only weapons a fighter can carry that are effective against a battleship are going to be missiles. So yes, the fighter can fire several missiles, but it has to go into battle carrying all of the missiles its going to use for that fight, and is at constant and very high risk of being destroyed, wasting any unfired missiles. Whenever a fighter swarm fires some of their relatively small number of missiles, the has to worry about whether or not they're going to need those missiles later versus the number of fighters (and their missiles) that will be lost before "later"comes. A battleship's larger magazine and non divided arsenal means that it can fire a batch of missiles whenever it is convenient without so many ammo related worries. Thus in the end a battleship actually gains tactical flexibility in regards to missiles. Battleships could also fire larger and more powerful missiles than fighters could.

Here's a retroactive point 7)
7) Railguns: Railguns (and Gauss/coil guns) are one of the more plausible space weapons, and they favor capital ships immenesly. This is because the amount of energy that can be projected by a railgun is porportional to their length and the amount of power fed into them. Projectile size and speed are of course also important, but are related to the above two variables.
Now clearly a ship cannot mount a railgun bigger than itself, and in fact can only carry a railgun somewhat shorter than its longest axis- let's say 3/4 total length just for a working number. Let's also say that our hypothetical railguns can accelerate a two kilogram projectile at 25m/(second squared). A twenty meter fighter then mounts a 15 meter railgun and can only project a slug at ~37m/s. Now take the same railgun parameters and put it on a kilometer long battleship, so the railgun is 750 meters long, giving a final velocity of ~411 m/s- over ten times as powerful.
Of course this model does not account for the battleship's superior powerplant. Let's then suppose that the cap ship's better power generator can instead accerate the same two kilogram slug at 100m/(second squared). This gives a final velocity of ~2739 m/s or nearly 3 kilometers/second. Even assuming a range of several hundred kilometers, that slug is going to be at its target in under a minute, and will be a pain to detect and dodge. What's more, the fighter's primary weapon will be worthless against the cap ships, while the battleship can total pretty much anything with its gun.

Now, because these models are fun, let's say that our fighter's railgun can go up to an acceleration of 100m(s squared) and our cap ship's up to 300. This gives a final velocity of ~387m/s and the cap ship a final velocity of ~8215m/s. At a range of a hundred kilometers, the cap ship's slug will reach target in ~12 seconds. In order to match this speed of delivery, the fighters need to be ~4.6 kilometers from the battleship. Now assume that the pilot has a ~1/2 second reaction time, and that it takes him another second to get out of the way of anyincoming projectile. Let's assume that the battleship has turreted PD guns that mount rapid fire gauss cannons. By our previous assumption of 300m/(s squared) acceleration, we know that the battleship can produce a force of 600 N from its weaponry. Now a projectile needs to be traveling ~3.1km/s in order to be effectively undodgable for the fighter at its 12 second weapon range. Let's assume that the turreted Gauss guns have15m long barrels. Then the PD turret is shooting undodgable slugs with a mass of ~2grams at 3.1km/s. That's going to be really really hard on a lightly armored fighter or missile when they start hitting in bulk.

Conclusion, the fighter is in serious trouble.

[CrazedGoblin]

My whole point was that a battleship could kill the entire carrier/fighter group without needing to engage the enemy's max firepower. My other point is that the only weapons a fighter can carry that are effective against a battleship are going to be missiles. So yes, the fighter can fire several missiles, but it has to go into battle carrying all of the missiles its going to use for that fight, and is at constant and very high risk of being destroyed, wasting any unfired missiles. Whenever a fighter swarm fires some of their relatively small number of missiles, the has to worry about whether or not they're going to need those missiles later versus the number of fighters (and their missiles) that will be lost before "later"comes. A battleship's larger magazine and non divided arsenal means that it can fire a batch of missiles whenever it is convenient without so many ammo related worries. Thus in the end a battleship actually gains tactical flexibility in regards to missiles. Battleships could also fire larger and more powerful missiles than fighters could.

Here's a retroactive point 7)
7) Railguns: Railguns (and Gauss/coil guns) are one of the more plausible space weapons, and they favor capital ships immenesly. This is because the amount of energy that can be projected by a railgun is porportional to their length and the amount of power fed into them. Projectile size and speed are of course also important, but are related to the above two variables.
Now clearly a ship cannot mount a railgun bigger than itself, and in fact can only carry a railgun somewhat shorter than its longest axis- let's say 3/4 total length just for a working number. Let's also say that our hypothetical railguns can accelerate a two kilogram projectile at 25m/(second squared). A twenty meter fighter then mounts a 15 meter railgun and can only project a slug at ~37m/s. Now take the same railgun parameters and put it on a kilometer long battleship, so the railgun is 750 meters long, giving a final velocity of ~411 m/s- over ten times as powerful.
Of course this model does not account for the battleship's superior powerplant. Let's then suppose that the cap ship's better power generator can instead accerate the same two kilogram slug at 100m/(second squared). This gives a final velocity of ~2739 m/s or nearly 3 kilometers/second. Even assuming a range of several hundred kilometers, that slug is going to be at its target in under a minute, and will be a pain to detect and dodge. What's more, the fighter's primary weapon will be worthless against the cap ships, while the battleship can total pretty much anything with its gun.

Now, because these models are fun, let's say that our fighter's railgun can go up to an acceleration of 100m(s squared) and our cap ship's up to 300. This gives a final velocity of ~387m/s and the cap ship a final velocity of ~8215m/s. At a range of a hundred kilometers, the cap ship's slug will reach target in ~12 seconds. In order to match this speed of delivery, the fighters need to be ~4.6 kilometers from the battleship. Now assume that the pilot has a ~1/2 second reaction time, and that it takes him another second to get out of the way of anyincoming projectile. Let's assume that the battleship has turreted PD guns that mount rapid fire gauss cannons. By our previous assumption of 300m/(s squared) acceleration, we know that the battleship can produce a force of 600 N from its weaponry. Now a projectile needs to be traveling ~3.1km/s in order to be effectively undodgable for the fighter at its 12 second weapon range. Let's assume that the turreted Gauss guns have15m long barrels. Then the PD turret is shooting undodgable slugs with a mass of ~2grams at 3.1km/s. That's going to be really really hard on a lightly armored fighter or missile when they start hitting in bulk.

Conclusion, the fighter is in serious trouble.

I Want One.:smallbiggrin:

[Lord Zentei]

Well, in the case of Plasma weaponry, you waste alot of energy for the magatic field that holds it together before it can do any damage. It would be presumbly more cost effiecent to use a fighter to deliver the plasma then a simply more powerful magatntic field in most cases.

If plasma weapons are that inefficient (and they are), you don't use them at all. Otherwise, simply use missiles instead of fighters.


EDIT:


the thing that runs rings around capitol ships for example is in Starship Troopers (think its the first one) where the "random" barage of huge plasma balls makes all the capitol ships bunch together, like shooting fish in a barrel

I understand from the OP that we are to discuss whether this sort of thing makes any sense. Obviously writer fiat can make anything work.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Fighters do NOT make sense in a space setting. The reason is their limited firepower, armor and unimpressive thrust. The reason for their limited firepower and armor is their limited size (see second paragraph). The reason for their limited thrust is that they have no real advantages in that regard over the capital ships (see third paragraph).

Consider: when you launch a fighter with X cubic meters of volume and Y tonnes of payload, some part of that has to go to the life support systems of the pilot. Therefore, an automated fighter is going to be more efficient than a manned one. Moreover, if you want to retrieve your fighters, you need to give them fuel and thrusters for the return leg of the combat, whereas a missile does not have this limitation. Of course, a fighter can presumably be reused, but eliminating the enemy is of higher priority. Furthermore: energy weapon blasts are even faster and harder to avoid than swarms of missiles, and weapon batteries don't take up as much space as the hangers, fuel silos and machine shops that service the fighters. Why waste space and fuel to launch a small gun towards the enemy when you can simply mount a large gun on the capital ship?

However, the most crucial reason is that space fighters and space capital ships are moving in the same medium: space. In the case of surface ships, the carriers are oceangoing vessels and the fighters are aircraft: there is a fundamental difference in the type of vehicle being used, thus the aircraft can specialize in capabilities that the surface ships lack and vice versa. This means that the combined types are more effective than just one, and the extra cost in resources of launching a delivery mechanism with the weapon in addition to the weapon itself makes sense. Space fleets cannot do this, since the fighters would be vehicles of the same fundamental type as the ships that launch them (i.e. they're both space vehicles): the correct analogy would not be surface carrier fleets, but surface ships that launch surface gunboats.... which is obviously not very efficient.

If the space fighters somehow moved in a different medium than the space carriers, that would be very different. For instance, a space carrier that launches air-supremacy fighters onto a planet to cover the drop-ships -- that would be logical if the space carriers cannot enter the atmosphere themselves.

Another possibility that I considered at one time was if the space fighters could use tactical FTL within a solar system: in that case they can do things the CVs cannot, and an unprotected CV within a system becomes a bit of a sitting duck compared with the fighters as happens with surface fleets.

Your arguments assume that the spacecraft involved all use reaction drives which consume reaction mass. While your arguments hold as long as those assumptions are true, they do not hold in settings where spacecraft are propelled by means that do not rely on reaction mass.

Also, in regards to your large gun on capital ship > small guns on fighters, that depends a lot on the setting. If combat takes place at great ranges (and I'm talking at least in multiple lightseconds, here), then large energy weapons may not be practical, as they would take multiple seconds to reach their targets. In contrast, fighters can launch their weapons from much shorter ranges, leaving less opportunity for evasive maneuvering on the part of the target.

In short, whether or not space fighters are viable in a universe depends entirely on the setting and the underlying assumptions thereof.

[daggaz]

Dr. Device PROVES that the lowly fighter is effective against any carrier based defensive force, even a planet.

[Lord Zentei]

Your arguments assume that the spacecraft involved all use reaction drives which consume reaction mass. While your arguments hold as long as those assumptions are true, they do not hold in settings where spacecraft are propelled by means that do not rely on reaction mass.

Incorrect. If ships do not use reaction mass, their thrust is still dependent on their power generation, and capital ships have more of this since they can mount larger reactors.


Also, in regards to your large gun on capital ship > small guns on fighters, that depends a lot on the setting. If combat takes place at great ranges (and I'm talking at least in multiple lightseconds, here), then large energy weapons may not be practical, as they would take multiple seconds to reach their targets. In contrast, fighters can launch their weapons from much shorter ranges, leaving less opportunity for evasive maneuvering on the part of the target.

Meaningless: the fighters need to approach the enemy capital ships to get within range, the point defense guns on the capital ships have ranges at least as good as those of the fighters.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Incorrect. If ships do not use reaction mass, their thrust is still dependent on their power generation, and capital ships have more of this since they can mount larger reactors.

But fighters, being smaller ships with smaller mass, therefore have less inertia than capital ships. That means that it takes less energy to achieve the same speed. Whether or not this fact is enough to offset the lesser energy generation capabilities is of course up to the details of the setting.


Meaningless: the fighters need to approach the enemy capital ships to get within range, the point defense guns on the capital ships have ranges at least as good as those of the fighters.

Oh really? How do you know that the point defense guns have range as good as the fighter's guns?

I'll reiterate: Whether or not space fighters are viable in a universe depends entirely on the setting and the underlying assumptions thereof. Neither side can win this debate absent a universe to set it in.

[Dervag]

I would argue that it depends almost entirely on the available weapons. If fighters can carry weapons powerful and quick enough to damage capital ships on a reliable basis, and if they are much longer-ranged than any type of capital ship weaponry, then fighters will dominate the battlefield. On the other hand, in that case it may be more efficient to remove the pilot from the fighter and use an automated drone to deliver the weapon. Real-life aircraft are already beginning to approach this threshhold; if we really wanted to program an AI to do a fighter pilot's job it might well be able to perform adequately.

If one or both of the two conditions I name above do not apply, then fighters will not dominate the battlefield, though they may still be useful to screen a capital ship against incoming missiles, or to increase the number of threat vectors a defender is forced to cope with. Thus, if capital ships can fire large numbers of missiles with the range of a fighter, fighters will not dominate the battlefield because a missile cruiser will be a match for a carrier of comparable size.

Similarly, if a fighter cannot carry sufficient missiles to swamp a capital ship's countermissile defenses nor 'guns' powerful enough to breach its passive defenses, fighters will not dominate the battlefield because capital ships will be able to ignore them safely.

I can't begin to guess whether these conditions will apply in the real future if there is ever a real space war, or even if they will apply or fail to apply consistently. After all, in real-life naval warfare the conditions changed enormously during the 1920s and '30s, allowing fighters to pose a great threat where they once posed a negligible threat, and to continue to do so.


Why would fighters have trouble attaining the offensive power necessary to be useful in space warfare? Only being able to damage battleships with extremely inaccurate torpedoes seemed to be sufficient in WWII, which was the last set of RL naval battles I can think of, and midway was all-fighters for a reason.On the contrary, torpedoes were quite accurate; the problem was that the targets could evade at a signficant fraction of the torpedoes' speed. So if a warship, even a battleship, knew that a torpedo was coming it could usually dodge it unless its mobility was already impaired.


As I pointed out, a carrier is really just a capital ship that has weapons /reconissance platforms that can launch and fly off on their own.

You essentially dramatically increase the number of options available.

While dedicated capital ships might have more umph, the trade off still swings in the direction of carriers.That depends on the cost per unit of killing power, and on the vulnerability of the fighters. If a small platform simply cannot carry weapons capable of causing significant damage to the enemy (as if aircraft had nothing bigger than rifle-caliber machine guns to fight enemy ships with), then the small platforms are almost useless no matter how many of them you have.

If fighters can be easily killed in droves on the approach, then a single more durable weapons platform would be much more efficient if it is possible to build one.

For that matter, imagine if the cost of building the engine for a ship were a large fraction of the total cost and did not scale proportionate to the size of the ship. In that case, one ship of twice the size would be much more efficient than two ships of half the size.

There are a lot of variables here.


Actually, fighters can be extremely effective at taking down capital ships, if you use them correctly. They have little enough armor that anything of even middling size will be able to kill them with ease, but they're fast enough to dodge most incoming fire.Don't be sure. If, for example, fighters use reaction drives and the weapons in question are lightspeed (such as lasers or particle accelerators), then the fighters are meat except at ranges of many hundreds of thousands of kilometers. In that case, resistance to damage will reliably beat agility in any straight-up fight, just as it does in real-world ground combat.


But in terms of offensive power, they excel. Sure, you might be able to put a massive 180mm gun on your battleship, but a fly-by from a single fighter with a dedicated anti-cap nuke is going to ruin his day. And you can bet your ass that that fighter cost less than a fraction of the capital ship.What if killing or eluding incoming nukes is easy for the battleship, or if evading direct-fire weapons is virtually impossible for the fighter?


They'd be so hard to hit anything with at the distances involved in space, that you'd need incredibly effective targeting computers, and hope that your opponent doesn't have anything even approaching a decent point-defense.Point defense as traditionally construed doesn't help you much against 'dumb' weapons, because such weapons are usually very small and hard to see, unless they are relativistic, in which case they are small and easy to see but hitting them just turns them into a blob of very fast-moving atoms coming straight at you.


But if you're a carrier, you can send a crap-load of fighters at your enemy, and have about a third of them as bombers designated specifically for killing the enemy's ship. With the sizes possible with missiles, it's easily possible to have a far higher degree of firepower vs. tonnage on a fighter than it is on a capital ship. Sure, it might not be able to survive nearly as much firepower, but with the offensive capabilities in relation to size, their relative cheapness, and their mobility, they don't need to.Wouldn't it make just as much sense to arm your 'carrier' with a larger number of unmanned missiles that do not need to be able to fly back in that case?

Such a missile would have longer (potentially infinite) range, because a thing that doesn't have to worry about coming home can coast indefinitely in space and reserve some of its fuel or power for terminal attack maneuvers. It would likely be at least slightly smaller than a fighter, and considerably cheaper and more expendable (nobody worries about sending a missile on a worthwhile mission where 90% casualties are expected, nor are there any strategic consequences for doing so on a regular basis as there are with fighters). It would carry just as much offensive firepower as a fighter, in addition to the expedient of ramming its target at interplanetary speeds (which might not work reliably, but would be unavailable to a fighter regardless of whether it would work).

In that case, the ideal warship looks less like an aircraft carrier and more like a ballistic missile submarine.


Capital ships are more obsolete than single man fighters. If you look at modern warfare there is a reason that carriers dominate the field while battleships are all but unheard of anymore. It takes considerably more energy and resources to get a ship with a large mass moving effectively in the battlefield while a small fighter can go to the enemy and deploy a ship crippling nuclear device the size of my TV.This is true in large part because capital ships maneuver so much more slowly than modern missiles. Again, this need not be true in a sci-fi setting. Or, if it is true, then the ideal compromise may be a capital ship optimized for 'carrying' missiles rather than fighters, and which can then lurk or flee the scene after launching rather than having to linger around waiting for the survivers of the fighter group to return.


Sure the fighters might be screwed if the carrier is destroyed, but the entire point of a carrier is to not get into a CQ battle in the first place.Yes, but against an enemy with a functioning navy of their own, this is by no means guaranteed. For instance, during the Second World War many carriers were killed by submarines- which can be treated as a variant on the 'missile cruiser capital ship' concept for space warfare.


And assuming the same number of personnel if the main ship is destroyed everyone dies anyhow. You could just pack a battleship full of armor (you could do that with a carrier too) but again you are limiting maneuverability greatly.Or you're limiting firepower, which may be OK. A ship with twice as much survivability may be preferable to a ship with twice as many guns, depending on the threat environment.


(and it would actually make more sense on a carrier because it shouldn't be required to move as much)If it can't move fast it can't escape an enemy attacking it while its fighters are still harrying the foe. In which case the carrier is very vulnerable to destruction because it has little or no armament for close action.


Small fighters unlike missiles can fire more than once and maneuver to more tactical firing positions, wait and ambush, or do any number of tactical strategies.Umm... isn't 'tactical strategy' a contradiction in terms?

Moreover, that depends on the size of the antishipping weapon. If the antishipping weapon is a nuke, then fighters will be just as limited as missiles. If the antishipping weapon can be fired repeatedly, why not simply arm your missile with it and give it a good enough AI to shoot repeatedly? By the time militarily capable spacecraft exist, there will definitely be computers advanced enough to fly a 'fighter/drone/missile' quite well.


Nope, but they can explosively decompress, which can be far, far worse. A good battleship should have some interior sealing systems to prevent massive loss, but depending on what area's hit, every hole at least 1" around could kill 2-3 people, and certainly wreck things up on the inside. Imagine what happens if you plug a tiny hole in a ship's bridge.Why not put the bridge in the center of the ship, and relay sensor data to it from automated arrays? Exposed bridges are an artifact of the days before electronics.


...Inertia... says... no. There is no way a capital ship could ever be as maneuverable as a fighter--unless its using hundreds of times as much fuel per ton, has engines on all sides, and has G-resistant pilots. Inertia is everything in space, and capital ships have a lot of inertia.The force of an engine generally scales up with its size. If you make a space fighter twice as big in every dimension, it still has exactly the same maneuvering characteristics it did before, assuming it has the material strength required to hold up under larger forces and pressures.

If your engines are 'advanced' then the limit on all spacecraft is defined by the ability of the human body to withstand acceleration regardless of their size. If they are inertialess, then the rules are arbitrary because we have no physics to model such things. If the engines are what we can readily imagine building, it is not the case that it would need "hundreds of times as much fuel per ton" to get the same amount of acceleration; see Newton's Second Law for reference.

And yes, the capital ship will need engines on all sides, but so will the fighter, and for precisely the same reasons.


If you're actually maneuvering the capital ship enough for it dodge fighter shots, or chase fighters down, you're going to spend most of the space battle trying to stop.You can always do whatever manuevers you need to during the battle and then stop after the battle, no?


A capital ship will take longer to start up, longer to get moving, much longer to turn, and a hell of a long time to get to stop moving. And it'll be darn hard to control.Not if the engines scale up with the ships. Again, doubling the dimensions of your fighter produces a craft with the same acceleration for, proportionately, the same amount of fuel (as in, the same percentage of its internal volume). That includes the time it takes to turn a given angle using the force of maneuvering thrusters.

However, it really isn't a good idea to rely on maneuvering thrusters to turn . Having 'main engines' placed at several different angles around the ship is far more reliable as a way to start moving in some direction in a hurry in space.


Additionally, considering how much force you'd have to place on the outside of the battleship, centripetal motion indicates that the G-forces will vary a lot based on where on the ship you are. If you put a 1-kilometer capital ship into a tight 90 degree turn, those guys in the center might be fine, but the poor folks at the bow will be so much chunky spaghetti sauce.Your image of what it means to take a turn in space is flawed. As a rule, you don't turn by turning the ship; you turn by firing an engine in the direction opposite the one you want to go. Moving the engine, or already having one pointed in the desired direction, is much less wasteful and much quicker.

If you try to turn by rotating the ship and thrusting in the desired direction, you waste time and fuel. If you try to rotate your course (say, go from 100 kilometers per second 'north' to 100 kilometers per second 'east'), you find that it takes a long time to do regardless of which way your engines were pointing initially, because the time it takes to rotate the ship is trivial compared to the time it takes to slow your motion in the original direction of travel.


The problem with missiles is the guidance system. Depending on how effective computer AIs are at this point, a skilled fighter pilot will be much more effective at anticipating PD shots and using unexpected tactics than the computerized guidance system could be.This is already becoming an unclear contest in real life; witness the effectiveness of guided bombs aimed by spotters on the ground versus unguided bombs aimed by "skilled fighter pilots." We already know what the limits of human aiming skill are; we are nowhere close to finding the limits of computer aiming skill.


The solution: link 20% of your missiles to a remote control system inside your capital ship, where veteran pilots can hand-guide each missile into its destination.Transmission lag, much?


Honestly, I agree with you; fighters are a little overrated in space combat. However, they do have one significant advantage that capital ships won't be able to compete with: boarding parties. Make a bunch of armored shuttles with a few close-range drills to punch through the target's outer armor, provide them fighters to cover them on their way in, toss a slew of missiles at the enemy's PD's before and during the assault, and presto!As a rule, assault shuttles are only going to be effective if they can maneuver as fast as missiles (so as to be able to hide in a swarm of missiles the way you suggest) and be as expendable as missiles (so you don't mind losing half of them), or if you have already disabled the target's defenses, or if the enemy has surrendered.


Fighters do have the advantage in manoeuvrability and acceleration over a capital ship, at least for any reasonable level of technology--at its most basic, the mass of the ship increases with the cube of its size, whereas the maximum possible engine thrust it can attain will presumably be a function of the cross-sectional area of its engine exhausts, which only goes up by a square ratio. (This is obviously simplifying the heck out of things).Well, if you want to stick to rocket technology, I'm not sure that exhaust velocity is constant regardless of the size of the engine; the Saturn V worked just fine for getting out of the atmosphere, which required a certain minimum acceleration.


This means that spaceborne carriers are actually closer to the WW2 example than you might think--lots of fast-moving, hard to hit fighters providing a long-range fight option for the capital ship.If we stick to foreseeable technology (i.e. reaction drives and no artificial gravity), the limits on any ship's prolonged acceleration is determined either by the crew or the fuel supply. Either way, fighters aren't automatically going to win on either of those counts. Moreover, if they rely on reaction drives they won't be hard to hit by lightspeed weapons or by missiles that don't need to worry about squashing an onboard crew.


Honestly, whoever pointed out that ships probably aren't going to be in sight range of each other in space combat has hit the nail on the head, as far as carriers vs. battleships, from my perspective =/I agree, in the sense of visual range. However, that's as good an argument for a missile cruiser as for a carrier.


In Halo:First Strike, Master Chief managed to take over a Covenent flagship using a longsword fighter that was long on fuel and a Plecian, with a some help from 3 marines and Cortana on a ship that had at least several hundered grunts and elites, while managing to evade point defense weaponary and Seprah fighters.Yes, but should he have been able to do so given the laws of physics, and would he have been able to do so in other settings where the plot wasn't aimed at recreating heroic boarding actions by superwarriors?


The Honor Harrington series by David Weber explores this in depth. Early on in the series, dedicated warships reign supreme, since the armor and weapons on LACs (Light Attack Craft or some such) are too small and light to really be effective. However, over the course of the series, advancements in stealth and miniaturization technology bring the carrier-and-fighters model back into viability, as the small, stealthy LACs can get to point-blank range and use powerful directed-energy weapons. Essentially, the LACs (in sufficient numbers) are effective against all but the biggest and most powerful capital units (dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts), making both viable tools of warfare.On the other hand, the dreadnoughts can still reliably kill a LAC attack unless the LACs (which are really more like WWII torpedo boats than WWII fighters, in that they're not way faster than capital ships) have overwhelming numbers. However, advanced LACs are a serious threat to destroyers and cruisers, and killing off enough of those lighter ships can be a major advantage in a fleet battle. They are also a threat to a stationary target such as a fortification or a ship caught unawares and powered down.


the correct analogy would not be surface carrier fleets, but surface ships that launch surface gunboats.... which is obviously not very efficient.A cogent point.


Another possibility that I considered at one time was if the space fighters could use tactical FTL within a solar system: in that case they can do things the CVs cannot, and an unprotected CV within a system becomes a bit of a sitting duck compared with the fighters as happens with surface fleets.Likewise.


Your arguments assume that the spacecraft involved all use reaction drives which consume reaction mass. While your arguments hold as long as those assumptions are true, they do not hold in settings where spacecraft are propelled by means that do not rely on reaction mass.But if they are not, then there is no reason to assume that small ships are intrinsically faster or more maneuverable than large ships (there isn't much reason to assume that even if they do, but that's a different question). And if small ships aren't actually faster than large ones, then the main rationale for using them goes away. You might as well put all the fighters' guns on the carrier and use the carrier as combat platform then.

Unless, of course, the power of the average setting weapon greatly exceeds the durability of any viable warship, in which case having lots of platforms makes sense. But in that case the platforms should be more like missiles (expendable and mass-producible) and less like fighters (designed for repeated missions and with pilots that have to be trained).


In contrast, fighters can launch their weapons from much shorter ranges, leaving less opportunity for evasive maneuvering on the part of the target.On the other hand, so can the battleships' large guns. Unless the fighter and battleship are equally vulnerable to the other's fire, the battleship is likely to have an advantage.


But fighters, being smaller ships with smaller mass, therefore have less inertia than capital ships. That means that it takes less energy to achieve the same speed. Whether or not this fact is enough to offset the lesser energy generation capabilities is of course up to the details of the setting.Sure, they have less mass. But the amount of energy required to get something moving at a given mass scales linearly with mass- twice the mass requires twice the energy, not four times or eight times. If I have a way to convert energy into motion directly, and if I can generate at least twice as much energy on a ship with twice the mass, small ships will not have an advantage due to their acceleration.


Oh really? How do you know that the point defense guns have range as good as the fighter's guns?Perhaps by the simple expedient of making them identical to the fighter's guns?

[Lord Zentei]

But fighters, being smaller ships with smaller mass, therefore have less inertia than capital ships. That means that it takes less energy to achieve the same speed. Whether or not this fact is enough to offset the lesser energy generation capabilities is of course up to the details of the setting.

So? :smallsigh:

They also have more powerful reactors, as I stated. The reactor power output is proportional to its size.

Otherwise why build the CVs at all? Use the "fighters" as destroyer groups.



Oh really? How do you know that the point defense guns have range as good as the fighter's guns?

Because they use the same technology base? :smallsigh:

Seriously: at the very least you mount the same damn type of gun on the capital ship. More likely, you can afford to mount a bigger and longer-ranged one because you don't need to waste additional resources on delivering it, and/or use those resources for more armor.



I'll reiterate: Whether or not space fighters are viable in a universe depends entirely on the setting and the underlying assumptions thereof. Neither side can win this debate absent a universe to set it in.

Repetition does not underscore a flawed point.

[Talkkno]

Yes, but should he have been able to do so given the laws of physics, and would he have been able to do so in other settings where the plot wasn't aimed at recreating heroic boarding actions by superwarriors?



Well, Cortana played a large part, since she disabled most of the weaponry by hacking into the Coveivent Battlenet and them killing the amposhere in most of the sections of ship...

[LordVader]

The one thing that determines this is whether the capital ships have effective PD systems. If fighters are as powerful as they are being claimed to be, the capital ships will have ungodly amounts of rapid-firing PD weaponry. Also keep in mind that fighter armor is usually paper-thin. In the absence of shield generators, it only takes a few hits to put a fighter out of commission, but far more for a battleship. I believe BSG illustrates this to some extent, with battlestars shrugging off nukes, and fighters dying to what are essentially jacked-up machine guns.

I really don't think it'd be that difficult to equip a battleship with effective PD. Failing that, the capital ship can focus on the (comparitively) woefully undergunned and under-armored carrier and at the least, severly damage it.

[Lord Iames Osari]

On the other hand, the dreadnoughts can still reliably kill a LAC attack unless the LACs (which are really more like WWII torpedo boats than WWII fighters, in that they're not way faster than capital ships) have overwhelming numbers. However, advanced LACs are a serious threat to destroyers and cruisers, and killing off enough of those lighter ships can be a major advantage in a fleet battle. They are also a threat to a stationary target such as a fortification or a ship caught unawares and powered down.

I already admitted that the usefulness of LACs against DNs and SDs was limited. Don't try to use something I've admitted as a point against me in an argument. And while traditional LACs may be more like torpedo boats, I'm not sure it holds with the more modern varieties. Also, while in the Honorverse no ship is actually capable of a higher speed, smaller ships are capable of more acceleration. And modern LACs can be a threat to almost any ship, given sufficient numbers, because of their great stealth capabilities.


But if they are not, then there is no reason to assume that small ships are intrinsically faster or more maneuverable than large ships

Yes, there is. Less mass = less inertia = less energy required to achieve a given speed = higher acceleration = higher maneuverability (assuming the capability to accelerate equally in any direction for all ships).


Repetition does not underscore a flawed point.

Explain to me how the point is flawed, please. Simply claiming that a point is flawed without providing evidence to that effect is nothing more than a simple and unsophisticated debating tactic

[Lord Zentei]

I already admitted that the usefulness of LACs against DNs and SDs was limited. Don't try to use something I've admitted as a point against me in an argument. And while traditional LACs may be more like torpedo boats, I'm not sure it holds with the more modern varieties. Also, while in the Honorverse no ship is actually capable of a higher speed, smaller ships are capable of more acceleration. And modern LACs can be a threat to almost any ship, given sufficient numbers, because of their great stealth capabilities.

I honestly don't care about what writer fiat in the Honorverse can accomplish. As I understand it, this thread is about what makes sense. The fact remains that space fighters are moving in the same medium as space CVs: therefore, there is no fundamental advantage to having these two types of ships. If the fighters are superior in a fundamental sense, then the CVs are simply obsolete and not to be used.



Yes, there is. Less mass = less inertia = less energy required to achieve a given speed = higher acceleration = higher maneuverability (assuming the capability to accelerate equally in any direction for all ships).

Only assuming the same level of energy generation for both ships. Energy generation and mass are both functions of ship size. At best, there is an optimal mass:thrust ratio, and then the warships will be of this size, making smaller and/or larger ones unnecessary.



Explain to me how the point is flawed, please. Simply claiming that a point is flawed without providing evidence to that effect is nothing more than a simple and unsophisticated debating tactic

My posts have been about little else than to explain why your point is flawed. :smallsmile:

[Talkkno]

How about a combitation of Batlleships and Carrier, as pointed out earlier in this thread?

[LordVader]

You're inevitably making a compromise, though. It'll be alright at both, but will be outclassed by either a true carrier or a true battleship in those departments.

It might work, it might not.

[Lord Iames Osari]

I honestly don't care about what writer fiat in the Honorverse can accomplish. As I understand it, this thread is about what makes sense. The fact remains that space fighters are moving in the same medium as space CVs: therefore, there is no fundamental advantage to having these two types of ships. If the fighters are superior in a fundamental sense, then the CVs are simply obsolete and not to be used.


Only assuming the same level of energy generation for both ships. Energy generation and mass are both functions of ship size. At best, there is an optimal mass:thrust ratio, and then the warships will be of this size, making smaller and/or larger ones unnecessary.


My posts have been about little else than to explain why your point is flawed. :smallsmile:

As I understand it, this thread is about what makes sense in works of science fiction:


The debate is essentially whether or not one man fighters make sense in Sci Fi space warfare, or whether they are basically just there for increased drama.

Emphasis mine.

Since this thread is about works of fiction, "Sci Fi" being an abbreviated way of saying "science fiction", I fail to see how setting can be as irrelevant as you claim, since fiction requires a setting which is created by the fiat of a writer.

[LordVader]

You can only rely on novels so much, though. Since it's Sci-Fi, they can make fighters able to "insta-win" against Capital Ships, a la Star Wars, or vice versa. You kinda have to look at it from a general perspective and not that of a specific universe, although I believe BSG would be the best example, at least weapons-wise.

[Lord Zentei]

As I understand it, this thread is about what makes sense in works of science fiction:



Emphasis mine.

Since this thread is about works of fiction ("Sci Fi" being an abbreviated way of saying "science fiction", I fail to see how setting can be as irrelevant as you claim, since fiction requires a setting which is created by the fiat of a writer.

Going by that interpretation, the thread is completely meaningless. If anything goes, then no discussion can be relevant. Therefore, I go by the assumption that one has to go by what makes sense/is logical on some level.

[averagejoe]

Going by that interpretation, the thread is completely meaningless. If anything goes, then no discussion can be relevant. Therefore, I go by the assumption that one has to go by what makes sense/is logical on some level.

Actually, I think it was this point from which LIO's call for a specific setting arose.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Going by that interpretation, the thread is completely meaningless. If anything goes, then no discussion can be relevant.

That's my point.


Therefore, I go by the assumption that one has to go by what makes sense/is logical on some level.

That's all well and good, but the problem is that not everyone will agree with the assumptions you make based on what "makes sense/is logical" to you.

[Lord Zentei]

That's my point.

Then I fail to see what you are doing here... :smallconfused: Arguing about what makes sense is one thing, arguing in a thread you deem not to make sense is another matter. Obviously, for any discussion to take place, one must first go by the assumption that discussion is relevant at all.



That's all well and good, but the problem is that not everyone will agree with the assumptions you make based on what "makes sense/is logical" to you.

That does not mean that it is right to dismiss a given postulate, if you are going by the principle that you are attempting to be realistic and/or logical on some level or other, and when you agree to eliminate things that work simply by writer fiat.


EDIT - Added this:


Actually, I think it was this point from which LIO's call for a specific setting arose.

Perhaps the thread starter should chime in and clarify the purpose of the thread.

[SDF]

Reactor output isn't relative to speed, only the amount of total power the ship has. In space you can only go as fast as the matter that is being pushed out of your engine. I capital ship with a starfighter engine is going to go just as fast eventually. It is logical to assume that a large ship engine and a fighter engine will push matter out at the same rate, but due to mass the large ship will take longer to get up to the same speed, and will be much harder to change its vector.

[Lord Zentei]

Reactor output isn't relative to speed, only the amount of total power the ship has. In space you can only go as fast as the matter that is being pushed out of your engine.

Um... no.


I capital ship with a starfighter engine is going to go just as fast eventually. It is logical to assume that a large ship engine and a fighter engine will push matter out at the same rate, but due to mass the large ship will take longer to get up to the same speed, and will be much harder to change its vector.

Um... what?

[SDF]

Um... no.

Um... what?

"Nu uh" usually isn't a good argument, but mathematical formulas dictate how things work. I hear it's called physics.


Dr. Device PROVES that the lowly fighter is effective against any carrier based defensive force, even a planet.

Dr. Device rocks my socks :smallamused:

[Lord Zentei]

"Nu uh" usually isn't a good argument, but mathematical formulas dictate how things work. I hear it's called physics.



Dr. Device rocks my socks :smallamused:

OK: I was adding to my points when you posted. Physics is precisely the reason I object to your post.

To prevent ninja'ing:



Reactor output isn't relative to speed, only the amount of total power the ship has. In space you can only go as fast as the matter that is being pushed out of your engine.

Um... no. Acceleration is proportional to the rate at which mass is pushed out multiplied by the speed of said mass relative to the ship. If no reaction mass is used, the acceleration is proportional to the power output of the generators


I capital ship with a starfighter engine is going to go just as fast eventually. It is logical to assume that a large ship engine and a fighter engine will push matter out at the same rate, but due to mass the large ship will take longer to get up to the same speed, and will be much harder to change its vector.

Um... what? A larger engine will push matter out at a greater rate. :smallconfused:

[Emperor Tippy]

This question is impossible to answer without a setting being specified. Far to many variables exist for anything like a viable answer to be given.

EDIT: Example Variables
-How small are capital ship killer weapons? (if the only weapon that can damage the battleship is 200 meters long then you need an interesting definition of fighter to make this possible)
-What is the max acceleration of capital ships? Fighters? Missiles?
-To count as a fighter does the ship have to be manned?
-What is the range on weapons?
-Do FTL communications exist? FTL Sensors?
-What type of FTL travel exists and what are its limitations?
-Minimum mass of the FTL generator
-Charge up time
-Accuracy
-Range
-Do engines require reaction mass?
-How powerful are defensive systems?


END EDIT


If you want the best analysis, read the Honor Harrington books.

[Lord Zentei]

This question is impossible to answer without a setting being specified. Far to many variables exist for anything like a viable answer to be given.

If you want the best analysis, read the Honor Harrington books.

To that, see my objection to Lord Iames Osari's posts.

[warty goblin]

OK, so let me clarify what I meant since there seems to be some confusion over my poorly worded OP. For this I apologize.

When I said "use any setting" I was trying to get at using the tactics or strategies of a setting of an example, as much as possible in a setting-neutral environment. So things like maneuvers can usually translate fairly well while the use of applied plot elements and specific technologies don't as well. However, this seems to be causing a lot of conflict, so let's ignore individual settings as much as possible. Again, feel free to point out the tactics used here or or the strategies at some other point to show how a carrier/battleship can be used to great effect, but try to remove the bits of technology/writer fiat particular to that story as much as possible.

What I meant this thread to be (and it has mostly been) is a discussion of what made sense in space warfare based on first principles to as much of an extent as possible. Basically a thought experiment if you will. Again, I'm sorry for the confusion. I've never been that great at starting threads.

Hope that clears things up, let me know if there's any more questions!

[SDF]

Um... no. Acceleration is proportional to the rate at which mass is pushed out multiplied by the speed of said mass relative to the ship. If no reaction mass is used, the acceleration is proportional to the power output of the generators

Yes, it's relative acceleration is a function of ship mass and the quantity matter (not speed of matter) being thrust out, which is why compared to a small fighter, a warship is going to accelerate slower unless a proportional amount of the ship is dedicated to the engines as the mass/engine ratio of the fighter. (read: I'm saying a fighter is going to have better acceleration) For clarity though, I was referring to theoretical maximum speed, not acceleration.


Um... what? A larger engine will push matter out at a greater rate. :smallconfused:

I'm talking velocity, not volume.

[Emperor Tippy]

The problem is setting matters a lot.

Let's take 1 simple thing, FTL travel.

At the 1 extreme we have the Schlock Mercenary Teraport which can be the size of a baseball, has virtually unlimited range, requires no energy, has perfect accuracy, and (pre Interdiction Field) is unstoppable.

If this is the case than fighters have no use at all.

At the other extreme we have a FTL system that doesn't work within 30 light miniutes of a star, masses a 200,000 kilo's, and requires a full scale nuclear reactor to provide power.

In this case fighters could be useful.


Both of the above are equally viable theories on FTL travel, both even mange to stay within the known laws of physics (mainly because they are virtually non existent on this point at the moment).


Let's look at another variable, weapons.

If the smallest weapon capable of damaging a battleship is a third the size of said battleship then fighters are useless, they can't effect their target at all. Now if you have something like the Little Doctor then fighters and carriers are the only practical space borne war ships.

EDIT: SDF, the speed of the ejected matter does matter. And in normal space the only speed limit is the speed of light or your fuel limit. Acceleration is all that matters in space warfare.

[Foeofthelance]

Lord Zentai, I think part of the problem is you are assuming that the capital ships are going to be expert fighter killers. That's not always the case, as it can be assumed that unless there is some major breakthrough, fighter technology will continue to develop as well. Three cases to consider:

Star Wars: Given all the brute power of the Star Destroyers, the number of guns, their sheer size, etc, fighters should be entirely obsolete by your reckoning. Yet they aren't. Why not? I present Evidence A: Luke's run on the Death Star. His fighter was capable of manouvering around enemy fire, and was capable of getting in close enough to directly target a specific weak point. This lead to the destruction of a spacestation. Evidence B: The Battle of Hoth. The snowspeeders were fast enough to generally avoid the guns of the AT-ATs, allowing them to hide in the shadows of the AT-ATs firing arcs. Evidence C: The Battle of Endor. We see fighters once more manouvering past obstacles that would stop larger ships, to target the weakpoint of the Death Star 2. Also, they managed to take out the spheres on the Executer.

Why does Star Wars keep fighters? Because they are fast enough and manouverable in their universe to be able to dodge the big guns on big ships.

Case 2: Battlestar Galactica. Again, large nuke and railgun carrying ships. So why fighters? Because the defense systems are capable on both sides to turn it into a large scale slugging match. Fighters can get in close enough to launch strikes while the carrier engages, as well as being able to launch boarding actions.

Why? Because once more, the fighters were developed to be able to compensate for the combat environment they were expected to encounter.

Case 3: Honor Harrington Series. LACs become a key part in both navies after a while, after a series in changes in technology. This allows the smaller, cheaper, faster, ships to mount capital scale weapons, allowing them to pose a threat, in even in a group that would be considered a bare handful. This continues until the development of Anti-LAC weapons and tactics, at which point both sides continue to aggressively pursue advances in both capital ships and fighter technology.

Why? Because of several things. LACs are much easier to build, less expensive to replace, even in consideration of their heavy loss numbers, and take many less people to crew. They can fulfill a multitude of roles, from missile platform to sensor array to EW to anti-missile actions. Capital ships on the other hand, are forced to balance each of those tasks, specializing in none. (With the exception of carriers and SD(P)s)

So, no, fighters aren't simply out classed. They are only useless when they are considered useless, and given an equal stake, are quite capable of holding their own in the field.

[SDF]

EDIT: SDF, the speed of the ejected matter does matter. And in normal space the only speed limit is the speed of light or your fuel limit. Acceleration is all that matters in space warfare.

That is why I used the term "relative acceleration" because that wasn't relative to the equations I was talking about. It is, of course, a factor in overall function. It's also true you aren't going to exceed the speed of light, but you aren't going to go faster than the matter of your engines is being pushed out so that is a limit on speed.

[Jorkens]

Re speed and maneuverability - I think the point isn't just that a fighter is smaller, (I think you're probably right that in principle the power should scale with the weight, although I'm not sure, I think it might depend on precisely how your engine works), it's that a short range fighter has been stripped down to just enough stuff to a) make it go for a couple of hours, b) keep the pilot alive for a couple of hours and c) blow stuff up. All the boring heavy stuff that a big battleship has to carry to keep large numbers of crew alive and the whole thing functioning for the long periods of time it might have to go without touching base are going to mean that in terms of power to weight ratios it's going to be like comparing a winnebago to a supercar.

[Dervag]

Note: When talking about actions in space, I routinely use 'faster' and 'slower' to mean 'more acceleration' and 'less acceleration.' That's just because it's shorter, not because I don't know the difference between the two.


Repetition does not underscore a flawed point.It's actually reasonable under some conditions. If the conditions that make air fighters so effective against sea ships are reprised in space (fighters dramatically faster than ships, fighters capable of carrying a weapon that can realistically cripple a ship with a given hit, fighters actually hard to hit with the available weapons), then they will dominate space battles. But that isn't guaranteed.


I already admitted that the usefulness of LACs against DNs and SDs was limited. Don't try to use something I've admitted as a point against me in an argument.Hey, chill. I'm just trying to present a balanced picture of what the LACs in the Honorverse can and cannot do.


And while traditional LACs may be more like torpedo boats, I'm not sure it holds with the more modern varieties.They're still multi-crewed vessels that are not transcendantly speedier than capital ships; I'd say yes.


Also, while in the Honorverse no ship is actually capable of a higher speed, smaller ships are capable of more acceleration.I know; I'm using Honorverse accelerations as a map to real-world ship speeds intentionally.
And modern LACs can be a threat to almost any ship, given sufficient numbers, because of their great stealth capabilities.That would fall under the heading of 'unaware target'. You're right, and I know you're right, and I agreed with you even before you said so, because you're obviously right.


Yes, there is. Less mass = less inertia = less energy required to achieve a given speed = higher acceleration = higher maneuverability (assuming the capability to accelerate equally in any direction for all ships).Physics doesn't work that way. Maneuverability is acceleration in space, and acceleration is equal to force divided by mass.

Let's just do an intellectual exercise. Imagine two ships, powered by identical patented Inertialess Drives that give the ship a thrusting force directly proportionate to the amount of power fed into the drive.

Imagine that one of these ships is a fighter. Say that it's 30 meters long and masses 15 tonnes. This is on the order of the size and mass of a real-world jet fighter. It is powered by our patented SFnal reactor; I can fit only one such reactor in the hull of this ship.

Now, imagine that the second ship is designed to exactly the same blueprints, only I built the hull twice as big. Call it a corvette. Every feature of this ship is scaled up by a factor of two. So it's 60 meters long, and it masses 120 tonnes (cube law). But it also has eight times as much internal volume as the smaller ship. So in the space where I could fit one SFnal reactor into the fighter, I can now fit eight into the corvette. So the corvette has eight times as much power for its Inertialess Drive. Which gives it eight times as much force.

So even though it has eight times as much mass as the fighter, it still has the same acceleration. The only way for the fighter to have greater acceleration is if:
a)The force exerted by the drive is not determined solely by the power available to the drive, but is somehow related to the volume of the ship, so that a physically smaller ship is intrinsically quicker, or
b)Newton's Second Law breaks down (perhaps you use an E. E. Smith style inertialess drive in which the speed of the ship is limited only by friction against the interstellar medium, in which case a ship with smaller cross-section is quicker than a ship with larger cross-section).


If the fighters are superior in a fundamental sense, then the CVs are simply obsolete and not to be used.Huh? The premise is that fighters are more effective ton for ton in combat, but require tenders to support them outside of action. Hence the carrier. This is the same reason CVs exist in real navies- they're useless in a fight, but without them the fighters couldn't possibly get where they're needed.

Actually, that's another condition that might make fighters more effective- if the cost in mass or volume of long-range life support is a significant fraction of the size of the hull. In that case, it would actually be more efficient to build little ships like TIE fighters (short-ranged, short-endurance), and then rely on highly specialized tenders to carry them around and keep them alive between battles.


You can only rely on novels so much, though. Since it's Sci-Fi, they can make fighters able to "insta-win" against Capital Ships, a la Star Wars, or vice versa. You kinda have to look at it from a general perspective and not that of a specific universe, although I believe BSG would be the best example, at least weapons-wise.Why would the ship weapons of Battlestar Galactica be a better example than those of other settings?


Then I fail to see what you are doing here... :smallconfused: Arguing about what makes sense is one thing, arguing in a thread you deem not to make sense is another matter. Obviously, for any discussion to take place, one must first go by the assumption that discussion is relevant at all.

That does not mean that it is right to dismiss a given postulate, if you are going by the principle that you are attempting to be realistic and/or logical on some level or other, and when you agree to eliminate things that work simply by writer fiat.Guys, can we at least argue about fighters and battleships, instead of arguing about arguing about fighters and battleships? It's way more fun.


Reactor output isn't relative to speed, only the amount of total power the ship has. In space you can only go as fast as the matter that is being pushed out of your engine. I capital ship with a starfighter engine is going to go just as fast eventually. It is logical to assume that a large ship engine and a fighter engine will push matter out at the same rate, but due to mass the large ship will take longer to get up to the same speed, and will be much harder to change its vector.That assumes that you can't just put more or bigger engines in your battleship, which would run counter to most of the experience of all ship design from the Bronze Age to the Space Age.


"Nu uh" usually isn't a good argument, but mathematical formulas dictate how things work. I hear it's called physics.OK. Well, I'm an apprentice physicist and I'm not sure I see what you're getting at either. It is absolutely true that, all else being equal, a very large ship will be slower than a very small ship if both ships have the same engine (and by 'slower' I mean 'less acceleration').

So what? A battleship's entire purpose is to be dramatically larger than a fighter. Wouldn't it have room for more engines, or more powerful engines?


To that, see my objection to Lord Iames Osari's posts.It's not a question of author fiat; I don't think your objection is fair. Weber does a lot of analysis in his books, and it's good analysis (in fact, the sheer volume of his analysis is the only truly major beef I know of against his writing style). So if you want an author who analyzes the problem really well, Weber's your man.

On the other hand, he does make specific assumptions about the available weapons. But he doesn't come down firmly in favor of fighters against battleships or the other way around. Fighters in his setting (or, really, 'torpedo boats' because they don't act like air fighters against a sea navy would) are not all powerful. Against an alert enemy they are very likely to be swatted like flies in great numbers, and they have enormous trouble causing any real harm the largest enemy capital ships. On the other hand, they are very effective for surprise attacks or against relatively lighter combatants that can be damaged by their relatively lighter weapons. They are also useful for augmenting the point defense of a fleet against incoming salvoes of missiles (which are the really nasty antishipping threat in the Honorverse).


Yes, it's relative acceleration is a function of ship mass and the quantity matter (not speed of matter) being thrust out, which is why compared to a small fighter, a warship is going to accelerate slower unless a proportional amount of the ship is dedicated to the engines as the mass/engine ratio of the fighter. (read: I'm saying a fighter is going to have better acceleration)Only if it devotes a larger percentage of its mass to propulsion, which in turn makes it weaker relative to capital ships in terms of firepower. Therefore, it is in deep trouble whenever it gets into weapon range of enemy capital ships unless its speed is so great that it can effectively dodge both bullets and maneuvering missiles that are even faster than it is because they are even more ruthlessly optimized for speed.


For clarity though, I was referring to theoretical maximum speed, not acceleration.Emperor Tippy is right; theoretical maximum speed is largely irrelevant.


Star Wars: Given all the brute power of the Star Destroyers, the number of guns, their sheer size, etc, fighters should be entirely obsolete by your reckoning...The reason they aren't comes from two factors. One is that Star Wars craft appear to move in combat at speeds comparable to wet-navy vessels- fighters take a few seconds to fly the length of something the size of a Star Destroyer. They also fight at ranges comparable to those of wet-navy ships. Therefore, the fighters can fly at a significant fraction of the speed of the bullets fired at them. There is no compelling reason to expect this to be true.

Moreover, the targeting computers used in Star Wars are inferior to those that already exist, and weapons are less accurate than they would be under real-life fire control. In real life, given the speeds at which they move and the room they had to dodge, the X-wings flying down the Death Star trench should have been meat for the trench guns. Even World War II anti-aircraft guns firing proximity-fuzed shells would have been able to score repeated hits on those targets.

The same goes for the snowspeeders at Hoth (several of which were shot down by AT-ATs firing cannon that were obviously not designed for antiaircraft work). For that matter, one wonders why the AT-ATs mounted no secondary weapons for close-in protection or, if they could not be, why they weren't escorted by units capable of shooting down aircraft that were literally flying big slow looping curves around them. And, come to think of it, why the AT-ATs didn't just stop moving until the cables could be disentangled... I've always wondered about that.


Why does Star Wars keep fighters? Because they are fast enough and manouverable in their universe to be able to dodge the big guns on big ships.Yes, but the assumptions that make this true are questionable. By Lucasian fiat they are true in Star Wars, but if we're making a generic argument that may not be compelling.


Case 2: Battlestar Galactica. Again, large nuke and railgun carrying ships. So why fighters? Because the defense systems are capable on both sides to turn it into a large scale slugging match. Fighters can get in close enough to launch strikes while the carrier engages, as well as being able to launch boarding actions.But wouldn't the carrier be more effective as a fighting ship if it dedicated the mass and space employed by their fighter bay to carry conventional weapons? And why use armed fighters for boarding actions when an optimized and (relatively) lightly armed boarding shuttle could carry more troops?


Case 3: Honor Harrington Series. LACs become a key part in both navies after a while, after a series in changes in technology. This allows the smaller, cheaper, faster, ships to mount capital scale weapons, allowing them to pose a threat, in even in a group that would be considered a bare handful. This continues until the development of Anti-LAC weapons and tactics, at which point both sides continue to aggressively pursue advances in both capital ships and fighter technology.On the other hand, the LACs do not and almost certainly never will make capital ships obsolete in that setting. They are effective because they can kill small ships or unaware ships that do not keep their defensive shields up. But they cannot kill large ships and therefore the carriers can never truly replace the battleships in that setting.


That is why I used the term "relative acceleration" because that wasn't relative to the equations I was talking about. It is, of course, a factor in overall function. It's also true you aren't going to exceed the speed of light, but you aren't going to go faster than the matter of your engines is being pushed out so that is a limit on speed.Actually, you can exceed your own exhaust velocity if you carry enough fuel (whether you can do so or not, even in theory, is another question). Think about it like this. Imagine a ship coasting through space at 20000 kilometers an hour. Now imagine that I use my magnetic boots to walk out onto the surface of the ship and throw a rock overboard to sternwards of the ship.

That rock will still provide the ship with an impulse equal to the mass of the rock times the speed relative to me that I threw it with. This impulse is not somehow ignored because the ship is moving faster than the rock in some other frame of reference.

[Talkkno]

The reason they aren't comes from two factors. One is that Star Wars craft appear to move in combat at speeds comparable to wet-navy vessels- fighters take a few seconds to fly the length of something the size of a Star Destroyer. They also fight at ranges comparable to those of wet-navy ships. Therefore, the fighters can fly at a significant fraction of the speed of the bullets fired at them. There is no compelling reason to expect this to be true.
These are starfighters that are caple of easy escaping atomphore of a Earth like planet, thus there speed much greater then any earthbound aircraft, did i meation that there is jamming strong enough to litterlly warp space time? And that every fighter worth there scrap carries some form of jamming.

[averagejoe]

These are starfighters that are caple of easy escaping atomphore of a Earth like planet, thus there speed much greater then any earthbound aircraft, did i meation that there is jamming strong enough to litterlly warp space time? And that every fighter worth there scrap carries some form of jamming.

I suppose, but only because it must be that way, since they're shown taking off from the planet. They never actually go very fast in space.

What the heck is "Jamming strong enough to litterally warp spacetime?" Whatever it is, I've never seen it or heard of it.

[Talkkno]

I suppose, but only because it must be that way, since they're shown taking off from the planet. They never actually go very fast in space.

What the heck is "Jamming strong enough to litterally warp spacetime?" Whatever it is, I've never seen it or heard of it.

They aren't going that fast because of jamming, as this quote from ANH shows,not only does it jam sensors to the point of uselessness, but it actually distorts space-time and reduces the maneuverability of spacecraft!
p.181

"Also, their field generators will probably create a lot of distortion, especially in and around the trench. I figure that maneuverability in that sector will be less than point three." This produced more murmurs and a few groans from the assembly."

[averagejoe]

Er, I think it would be appropriate to call, "Shenanigans," right here. I find, "Spacebattles look uninteresting if the ships are going too fast for you to see them," and, "Technology isn't able to fully represent concept," to be more likely explainations.

[Dervag]

These are starfighters that are caple of easy escaping atomphore of a Earth like planet, thus there speed much greater then any earthbound aircraft,Actually, you don't have to be able to move faster than an earthbound aircraft to escape the atmosphere if you can hover against planetary gravity. If you could totally neutralize planetary gravity, the thrust of a toy model rocket engine would carry you out of the atmosphere eventually.


did i meation that there is jamming strong enough to litterlly warp space time? And that every fighter worth there scrap carries some form of jamming.Yes. Repeatedly. However, such jamming is essentially just another form of shielding, because it affects the path of the incoming shot itself, rather than merely interfering with target acquisition (which is what jamming is normally defined as doing).

Or rather it is, well, a 'deflector', and is aptly named in the Star Wars universe if that is indeed what deflector shields refer to. In which case Star Wars fighters have resistance to enemy fire equal to a substantial fraction of that of capital ships (since they can compel enemy weapons to miss through jamming/deflection so effectively that it amounts to a kind of armor in its own right).

Which breaks one of the fundamental assumptions in the convention 'fighters', which is that they are vastly easier to kill individually than capital ships.

Note that this is in no way a technical flaw in Star Wars fighters; I merely note that their properties break some of our generic assumptions about fighters just as, say, the extraordinary ship speeds and missile ranges in the Honorverse break some of our assumptions about space battles.

[Lord Zentei]

Yes, it's relative acceleration is a function of ship mass and the quantity matter (not speed of matter) being thrust out, which is why compared to a small fighter, a warship is going to accelerate slower unless a proportional amount of the ship is dedicated to the engines as the mass/engine ratio of the fighter. (read: I'm saying a fighter is going to have better acceleration) For clarity though, I was referring to theoretical maximum speed, not acceleration.

Nonsense. There is no basis whatsoever to make a blanket assumption that a smaller craft will inevitably have a greater acceleration than a larger one. There comes a point where your smaller vessel will have an inferior energy generation capacity and this starts outweighing any advantages it may have. Hence, an optimal ship size. Whether we label them "fighters" or "frigates" or whatever is largely academic.


I'm talking velocity, not volume.

And I'm talking about the product of mass and speed: i.e. mass flow-rate. There will be an optimal point for your drive system. Smaller and larger ships alike will be at a disadvantage compared with those who utilize drives designed around this system.



Lord Zentai, I think part of the problem is you are assuming that the capital ships are going to be expert fighter killers. That's not always the case, as it can be assumed that unless there is some major breakthrough, fighter technology will continue to develop as well. Three cases to consider:

No, there is no such assumption on my part whatsoever. I argue that given a single medium in which ships travel, there is an optimal size of ship in terms of efficiency, as opposed to two sizes as is the case for surface fleets and combat aircraft. The fact that fighter technology advances also means nothing, as these technologies need not advance at the same rate.


Star Wars: Given all the brute power of the Star Destroyers, the number of guns, their sheer size, etc, fighters should be entirely obsolete by your reckoning. Yet they aren't. Why not? <snip>

Because of writer fiat. Simply assuming that they will be able to "compensate" their designs is as meaningless as assuming that the Borg will always "adapt" to whatever.



It's actually reasonable under some conditions. If the conditions that make air fighters so effective against sea ships are reprised in space (fighters dramatically faster than ships, fighters capable of carrying a weapon that can realistically cripple a ship with a given hit, fighters actually hard to hit with the available weapons), then they will dominate space battles. But that isn't guaranteed.

Huh? The premise is that fighters are more effective ton for ton in combat, but require tenders to support them outside of action. Hence the carrier. This is the same reason CVs exist in real navies- they're useless in a fight, but without them the fighters couldn't possibly get where they're needed.

The problem is that the reason air fighters are so effective against surface ships is that they are traveling in a different medium: air versus water surface. No such dual environment exists for space fleets: the fighters are simply micro versions of the same type of vehicle. This distinction is fundamental, and intrinsic to the difference between the two types of fleet. OTOH, for submarines (which move in a single, three-dimensional environment like spacecraft do) it would be stupid to use swarms of fighters -- you use torpedoes instead. The analogy with surface fleets is not relevant.



Actually, that's another condition that might make fighters more effective- if the cost in mass or volume of long-range life support is a significant fraction of the size of the hull. In that case, it would actually be more efficient to build little ships like TIE fighters (short-ranged, short-endurance), and then rely on highly specialized tenders to carry them around and keep them alive between battles.

Errr, what? If life support is a significant fraction of the resources you need to build an effective fighter, that's a vote against it, not in its favor. :smallconfused:

Incidentally, there is a further reason space fighters do not compare with aircraft: the not only is the medium in which the air fighters move different from that of their capital ships, but the medium itself is more forgiving of such craft. To return to ship, an aircraft needs simply bank and turn; the space fighter, being governed by Newtonian mechanics uncomplicated by air resistance has to make a randezvous-return mission or at the least a flyby-return, which makes it vastly less efficient than the AI missile it competes with.



Guys, can we at least argue about fighters and battleships, instead of arguing about arguing about fighters and battleships? It's way more fun.

I beg your pardon? :smallconfused:



It's not a question of author fiat; I don't think your objection is fair. Weber does a lot of analysis in his books, and it's good analysis (in fact, the sheer volume of his analysis is the only truly major beef I know of against his writing style). So if you want an author who analyzes the problem really well, Weber's your man. <snip>

Based on this, then he is not speaking of "fighters" in the traditional sense of the word, but "escorts", since they are used for point defense and harassment of soft targets and not primary attack. But I will not argue about this setting seeing as I have not studied it.

[factotum]

Actually, you don't have to be able to move faster than an earthbound aircraft to escape the atmosphere if you can hover against planetary gravity. If you could totally neutralize planetary gravity, the thrust of a toy model rocket engine would carry you out of the atmosphere eventually.


Which is exactly what Star Wars ships do, of course--they all have repulsorlifts, which is a type of anti-gravity drive. Conversely, of course, the rebel fighters in ANH were able to launch from the rebel base and intercept the Death Star before it came into firing range of said base, and considering they had to fly halfway round a gas giant to do it, that implies a pretty hefty turn of speed--not to mention acceleration, because the ships had to match speeds with the oncoming battle station, which was itself travelling at a pretty high speed (it circumnavigated Yavin in half an hour or so).

Oh, and the ships escaping from Hoth in ESB provide further proof, because they took off from the surface and were in space in a matter of seconds screen time--seems unlikely they were actually taking minutes to do this, considering what was happening around them at the time!

[Sundog]

The effectiveness of fighters vs Capital ships comes down to one question: How good is your point defence?

If you have Poor point defence, you never build a capital ship at all. You build gossamer-light carrier ships whose only purpose is to deploy their wings, then get the hell out. All acyual fighting occurs between light, small SMAC and MMAC fighters (Single and Multiple Man Attack Craft) blowing each oher to hell with nuclear tipped missiles. Whoever runs short of fighters first loses.

If you have Good point defence, you build bigger carriers, but gun ships remain useless. At this level, a ship can reliably knock down the missile wave of a comparable ship, so ship-to-ship encounters become elaborate stalemates (actually the situation in the early Honor Harrington novels, with the additional complication that they don't HAVE effective MMACS yet, so the Gun ships appear early). Fighters can break the stalemate by acting in concert - firing too many missiles for the ship to intercept. Simultaneously, they become the only hope of survival, by working with a ship to boost intercept capability. Once again, fighters first fight it out, then the winner of the space-superiority war kicks the cods out of the opponent.

If you have Excellent point defence, fighters start to lose out. Missiles stop being the ultimate weapon and instead become the adjunct to energy weapons that can be relied upon to actually damage the opponent. This also requires ships that can go to energy range and survive - something SMACS cannot do in such an environment and which MMACS will have difficulty with. The Big Gun ships appear, able to mix it up in the crush. Fighters still exist - they can do an excellent job as harrassment platforms or in skirmishes, but they no longer have a major role to play in major battles save as vultures on the near-dead or scouts. (Later Honor Harrington books lie in this realm, as do the Starfire games and novels).

If you have Perfect point defence, the fighter disappears entirely as a fighting ship. Missiles are abandoned, and direct fire is everything. The Super-Battleship waddles up to the enemy and starts blasting, and anything incapable of surviving in the crush is chaff in the wind.

Technological oddities mix things up a bit. The Missile Pods of the later Honor Harrington novels, for instance, throw the point defence situation down to Poor for the first volley, and pod-thrower ships such as the SD(P) and BC(P) lower the situation to Good for as long as the pods hold out (and I hate to think what the Apollo System does), but these four classifications should do as a rule of thumb.

[Lord Zentei]

The effectiveness of fighters vs Capital ships comes down to one question: How good is your point defence?

As I have been arguing, there is more to it than that:

There is the issue of the space carriers and space fighters being of the same fundamental type of vehicle in stark contrast to their counterparts in surface fleets (which move in two different mediums and are thus optimized at very different sizes), which makes the comparison invalid. For a better analogy, use submarines, since they move in a single, continuous 3-d environment like spacecraft: they don't use CVs (with submarines launching swarms of smaller submarines to attack enemy submarines with torpedoes) since there is no point to such a design.

There is the fact that fighters need to make a randezvous-return mission, as opposed to a flyby (or rather, collision) mission to their target like missiles and torpedoes do. They are subject to Newtonian bullet motion, thus to return them to their CV is hugely inefficient compared with a similar mission for fighters launched by surface ships, since they cannot bank like aircraft or even submarines can.

As an aside, there is no horizon for fleets to hide behind either, so line-of-sight gun batteries become vastly more utilitarian.

[SmartAlec]

There is the issue of the space carriers and space fighters being of the same fundamental type of vehicle in stark contrast to their counterparts in surface fleets (which move in two different mediums and are thus optimized at very different sizes), which makes the comparison invalid.

This doesn't quite seem right to me. I agree that the comparison is invalid, but I disagree when you say that this makes space fighters invalid. History has a good few examples of a large ship being taken down by groups of smaller ships. The space-carrier-and-attendant-fighter-wings combat model is just the logical extension of that.

Stop thinking of a space carrier in terms of a seaborne carrier with aircraft and more in terms of a large base spaceship that carries a small fleet of miniature spaceships.


For a better analogy, use submarines

If we could overcome the technological problems in having a submarine carrier, and actually had a need for a submarine carrier - that is, if the seas were light years wide and had no surface, and therefore we needed submarines to function as mobile command centres at vast distances away from home base, and we had to conduct all civilian and commercial traffic underwater too...

... the submarine analogy breaks down here. The argument you put forth - that various vehicles move in different planes of attack - cuts the other way here. In Space, there is only one sphere, and that is Space. When all we had were ships, we only used ships, and at the time we didn't have the technology to develop small one-man ships that were effective. When we developed aircraft, we stopped miniaturising ships because the role of a miniaturised ship was filled by aircraft. If we were unable to build aircraft - if the sky didn't exist, and we had the technology to make small, one-man ships viable, we'd do it.


There is the fact that fighters need to make a randezvous-return mission, as opposed to a flyby (or rather, collision) mission to their target like missiles and torpedoes do.

But in space? A fighter makes one trip to target, is potentially able to either intercept enemy ordnance or launch its' own ordnance at a much closer range and from a different firing position, which significantly reduces the odds of said ordnance being intercepted.

***

Anyhow.

Looking at the fighter's viability alone is a fallacy. As is thinking that a space carrier, like a naval carrier, will have little firepower or survivability. We're pitting the Space Battleship vs. the Space Carrier and its Fighters here, all one package. Answer me this - why would a Battleship and a Carrier in space be designed all that differently? One has missiles and anti-capship weapons mounted on the ship itself, one has missiles and anti-capship weapons deployed on its' fighters. The Battleship may be more heavily armoured, but it will always have weak points and fighters can find those, whereas the Carrier will always be able to keep its' most resilient areas towards the Battleship. For every point defence gun battery, a new weak point in the Battleship's armour is created. If you consider that every fighter is essentally the equivalent of a manned missile turret, to say nothing of dedicated bombers, the firepower equation is quite possibly fairly even.

If anything, space carriers exist partly so as to be able to support battleships, so that you don't have to cover half the surface of a battleship in point defence guns to keep it protected.

The only point at which fighters and carriers become unable to defeat the battleship is if some weapon is developed that is so big and so power-intensive that only a battleship can carry one (I'm not sure why that would be), and that fired a projectile that could not be intercepted or deflected by any means. And EVEN THEN, the Carrier+ Fighters are still more capable of escort and command-and-control functions than the Battleship.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Space Battleships are obsolete when you can send nuclear missiles though wormholes directly onto a planet's surface.

Has anybody mentioned boarding craft yet? Those can be move devastating that missiles and a captured ship is more useful than an atomised one. A boarding craft that doubled as a fighter, or a fighter with some melee ability are also possibilities in space opera combat.

[warty goblin]

Boarding craft simply won't happen in space combat IMHO. Its going to take place over too much distance, and a lightly armored ship filled with enemy marines is just too good of a target.

Again, what does mounting your missiles on a fighter gain you? You just have a large and inefficient reusable launch platform that carries a significant risk of being shot down before it can deliver its ordnance. Sure you can launch missiles from closer- but that means that you have to get the larger and slower (but not substantially tougher) fighter/bomber in closer, which if launching from extreme range is a problem, suggests fairly capable point defense. To me this does not look like a good deal.

If there's a weak point in a ship's armor, you don't need fighters to target it, just relatively smart/remote controlled missiles that don't fly in perfectly straight lines.

My argument is that the viability of missiles is determined by PD, but fighters remain a pretty sucky investment across the board since they don't display any increase in efficency over, and in fact are in many ways are less efficient than, missiles.

[SmartAlec]

If there's a weak point in a ship's armor, you don't need fighters to target it, just relatively smart/remote controlled missiles that don't fly in perfectly straight lines.

If your ship does have weak points, either in the superstructure or vulnerable systems like engines, then you're going to keep them oriented away from the enemy if you can.

Therefore, to hit those weak spots, your opponent is either going to need:

1) Missiles that can be launched, fly past you, and loop around
2) Someone else joining in the fight and flanking you
3) Fighters.

2) is preferable, but in isolation, 3) has got to be less crazy than 1). Especially as missile telemetry has its own nemesis in the form of electronic countermeasures, which would be the equivalent of point-defence.

I realise that I'm putting a lot of emphasis on precision strikes and engaging an enemy from several angles here, but... well, that's what I imagine Carrier/Fighter tactics vs. battleships is, essentially.

Edit: Inefficient? Everything a fighter does is going to be balanced in some way by the measures the opposition takes to deal with them. Whether point defences require power or ammo, are manned or automated, it's going to be an expenditure on the part of the Battleship that will detract from its' ability to destroy the Carrier. Not to mention that studding a Battleship with enough point-defence guns to become invincible against fighter attack is, in itself, horrifically inelegant (and, if doing so weakens the overall resilience of the ship's superstructure, rather badly-thought-out) ship design.

[Jorkens]

Boarding craft simply won't happen in space combat IMHO. Its going to take place over too much distance, and a lightly armored ship filled with enemy marines is just too good of a target.
Yes. Plus actually getting your guys into the enemy ship is going to be fairly challenging. You're presumably going to have to drill through the armour and then hope that your guys drop through into a corridor rather than a nuclear fuel store or something.


Again, what does mounting your missiles on a fighter gain you? You just have a large and inefficient reusable launch platform that carries a significant risk of being shot down before it can deliver its ordnance. Sure you can launch missiles from closer- but that means that you have to get the larger and slower (but not substantially tougher) fighter/bomber in closer, which if launching from extreme range is a problem, suggests fairly capable point defense. To me this does not look like a good deal.
It's about spreading your risk, though. Sure, I could just bring my battleship within missile range of theirs, but as soon as I can hit them, they can (prsumably) hit me. A fighter might be easier for them to blow up (although being smaller and more maneuverable for the reasons I outlined in my previous post it'll be a damn sight harder to hit), but it's also a lot more expendable, so I might as well send a bunch of them (simultaneously from different angles) into missile range while keeping my mobile command centre / living quarters / supply ship out of harm's way.

[Lord Zentei]

This doesn't quite seem right to me. I agree that the comparison is invalid, but I disagree when you say that this makes space fighters invalid. History has a good few examples of a large ship being taken down by groups of smaller ships. The space-carrier-and-attendant-fighter-wings combat model is just the logical extension of that.

If it does not make space fighters invalid, it certainly places a huge damper on their utility. For the most part, when people are arguing in favor of space fighters, their arguments belie the unspoken assumption that such fighters will be maneuverable in relation to space capital ships in the same way as aircraft are to surface ships, even though the latter two are fundamentally different types of vehicle, and the former two are not.

Smaller ships, I can agree that these have a role. However, that would be more in line with battleships and escorts, not carriers and fighters.



Stop thinking of a space carrier in terms of a seaborne carrier with aircraft and more in terms of a large base spaceship that carries a small fleet of miniature spaceships.

Indeed: and that's where the inefficiency comes in.



If we could overcome the technological problems in having a submarine carrier, and actually had a need for a submarine carrier - that is, if the seas were light years wide and had no surface, and therefore we needed submarines to function as mobile command centres at vast distances away from home base, and we had to conduct all civilian and commercial traffic underwater too...

There is a difference between simple mobile command centers and supply depots on the one hand and CVs on the other hand: the difference is that the CV carries the attack craft as part of its payload and targets opposing CVs. For the former tasks, there are such things as tankers and freighters as well.



I... the submarine analogy breaks down here. The argument you put forth - that various vehicles move in different planes of attack - cuts the other way here. In Space, there is only one sphere, and that is Space. When all we had were ships, we only used ships, and at the time we didn't have the technology to develop small one-man ships that were effective. When we developed aircraft, we stopped miniaturising ships because the role of a miniaturised ship was filled by aircraft. If we were unable to build aircraft - if the sky didn't exist, and we had the technology to make small, one-man ships viable, we'd do it.

Not to the extent that CVs are using aircraft today. Before the age of the CV, the battleship was the ruler of the fleet engagement, not gunboats launched from gunboat carriers.



But in space? A fighter makes one trip to target, is potentially able to either intercept enemy ordnance or launch its' own ordnance at a much closer range and from a different firing position, which significantly reduces the odds of said ordnance being intercepted.

I'm not sure if I follow where you are going with this: if you mean that the fighters would act as an anti-missile screen, that's a far cry from the CV fleets of today: in such a case, the fighters are no longer the mode of attack, missiles are. And that means you once again have BB & escort fleets rather than CV & fighter ones.


<snipped>

[TheRiov]

The real weakness of the fighter model is the existance of point-defense systems. With the advance of energy based point-defense systems, fighters become less effective. Lasers and similar weaponry fall prey to things like mirrors and have range problems. (radient energy weapons output levels fall off with range so lose power at long range)

Much of this discussion is the same discussion that occured with the SDI system of the 80's-90's and to some extent, today.

Your weaponry will make much of the difference. Missile weaponry is unlikely in the far future. Missiles mass makes them poor long-range weapons in space, as they are subject to mass/inertia problems where a beam weapon could easily pick them out and destroy them (or at least their guidance systems) after which at space-based distances moving out of the way would be trivial.


The only effective long range weapon for space based combatthat I can see would be mass AE type weapons (nuclear or particle spray) or scatter weapons (cf. "Brilliant Pebbles") or neutral particle beams (charged particle beams are easily deflected by magnetic fields) Your weaponry MUST travel at a significant portion of c in order to be useful. At such speed, no human could possibly react in time, so human piloted vehicles (especially fighters) would be of no use.



There are also important tactical concerns based on the universe you're playing in --- *IF* you can close to a short-range weapons effective range (hyperspace, warp, etc) without facing outer defenses then the advantage might go to projectile weaponry where you can fire it out of a coil gun or magnetic accelerator.

[Lord Zentei]

Looking at the fighter's viability alone is a fallacy. As is thinking that a space carrier, like a naval carrier, will have little firepower or survivability. We're pitting the Space Battleship vs. the Space Carrier and its Fighters here, all one package. Answer me this - why would a Battleship and a Carrier in space be designed all that differently? One has missiles and anti-capship weapons mounted on the ship itself, one has missiles and anti-capship weapons deployed on its' fighters. The Battleship may be more heavily armoured, but it will always have weak points and fighters can find those, whereas the Carrier will always be able to keep its' most resilient areas towards the Battleship. For every point defence gun battery, a new weak point in the Battleship's armour is created. If you consider that every fighter is essentally the equivalent of a manned missile turret, to say nothing of dedicated bombers, the firepower equation is quite possibly fairly even.

Incorrect on a number of levels: it is eminently logical to compare the battleship directly with the carrier, more specifically to compare their respective payload effectiveness.

The missiles are more efficient than the fighters, because they have a far greater payload for both fuel and munitions, since they don't have to keep a pilot alive nor do they have to expect to make a return journey. This means that you can give them more maneuverability for any given payload, or more payload for any given level of maneuverability... any capacity to outmaneuver the capital ship and target weak areas that the fighter may have (assuming it even has that), the missile will have, and more. Neither is there a valid reason to assume that the battleship will have more point defense guns and therefore weak points than the carrier, if we allow for anti-missile escorts (which need not be fighter sized). As for the big guns being weak points on the BB, the carrier has hangars and launch bays.



If anything, space carriers exist partly so as to be able to support battleships, so that you don't have to cover half the surface of a battleship in point defence guns to keep it protected.

Use escorts instead (they have better capacity and range than the fighters and therefore don't need a pricey capital ship to support them). Or failing that, anti-missile missiles (they don't need to match speeds with the target missiles to shoot them down, they just collide with them -- therefore, they arrive at their targets more quickly and they need less fuel, enabling them to be smaller, allowing you to carry more of them).



The only point at which fighters and carriers become unable to defeat the battleship is if some weapon is developed that is so big and so power-intensive that only a battleship can carry one (I'm not sure why that would be),

How about "the powerful gun is more likely to kill enemy capital ships than the piddly little pea shooters the fighters carry"?



and that fired a projectile that could not be intercepted or deflected by any means.

Such as a high-power laser cannon. BB gunners: "dodge this, lol".

Incidentally, it is a bit fallacious to require absolute perfection with the "by any means" line, when all that is necessary is superiority over the fighter's weapons...



And EVEN THEN, the Carrier+ Fighters are still more capable of escort and command-and-control functions than the Battleship.

Unfounded claim.

[Emperor Tippy]

Actually energy weapons would be/should be virtually worthless in space battles.

Lasers are dumb weapons. You can't guide them. This means that energy weapons have an effective range of at most 4 light seconds (and it is more like 2 light seconds).

Space warfare is at least a 4 dimensional affair, and with FTL capabilities it just gets more complicated.

And fighters aren't useful. Manned fighters are already on their last legs, give it 20 years and the USAF won't have a single manned fighter.

Most of you who say fighters have a use in space warfare talk about extending the range on missiles or other weapons. Why not just make a missile the size of the fighter?

[Sundog]

Actually energy weapons would be/should be virtually worthless in space battles.

Lasers are dumb weapons. You can't guide them. This means that energy weapons have an effective range of at most 4 light seconds (and it is more like 2 light seconds).

Space warfare is at least a 4 dimensional affair, and with FTL capabilities it just gets more complicated.

And fighters aren't useful. Manned fighters are already on their last legs, give it 20 years and the USAF won't have a single manned fighter.

Most of you who say fighters have a use in space warfare talk about extending the range on missiles or other weapons. Why not just make a missile the size of the fighter?

Because that won't help.

Missiles vs. Fighters is silly. Missiles are much less flexible, much more easily decoyed or otherwise dealt with at long ranges. Besides which, fighters have one huge advantage: they carry missiles.

Consider two ships, same tonnage. One carries 25 fighters, the other can launch 40 missiles in a single volley.

If those fighters can launch just two missiles each either simultaneously or in close order, they have already beaten the launch capacity per volley of the missile ship. If they can launch 4 or 5 - you're talking massively more shots that the opposing point defence has to deal with in the same length of time.

Now, you could use an unmanned "bus" missile to carry multiple missiles - but then all you're doing is using a less flexible, unmanned fighter. A manned ship can respond to unexpected situations; robots are very bad at that.

And incidentally, the reason we don't use fighter subs and the like is because we have no point defence at all for our modern subs. Change that, and watch how fast precisely that sort of technology starts getting deployed.

[Lord Zentei]

Actually energy weapons would be/should be virtually worthless in space battles.

Lasers are dumb weapons. You can't guide them. This means that energy weapons have an effective range of at most 4 light seconds (and it is more like 2 light seconds).

The fighters and/or missiles would have to get into range of these laser batteries to attack the target ship. Laser blasts, moving at speed of light, cannot be dodged or outmaneuvered by fighters or missiles.



Because that won't help.

Missiles vs. Fighters is silly. Missiles are much less flexible, much more easily decoyed or otherwise dealt with at long ranges. Besides which, fighters have one huge advantage: they carry missiles.

Consider two ships, same tonnage. One carries 25 fighters, the other can launch 40 missiles in a single volley.

If those fighters can launch just two missiles each either simultaneously or in close order, they have already beaten the launch capacity per volley of the missile ship. If they can launch 4 or 5 - you're talking massively more shots that the opposing point defence has to deal with in the same length of time.

What, exactly, led you to believe that this comparison is in the least bit honest or valid? If the first ship can carry 25 fighters and 50 missiles, then why are you comparing it with a missile-ship with an obviously far lower capacity?

[SmartAlec]

How about "the powerful gun is more likely to kill enemy capital ships than the piddly little pea shooters the fighters carry"?

I was not clear. I was simply wondering why, if such a weapon was developed, a Battleship would have such a weapon and a Carrier wouldn't.

As for the 'unfounded' nature of a Carrier being less capable of C&C and Escort than a Battleship, we've already covered that a Carrier can effectively be in several places at once thanks to fighters (the BSG 'Raptor' would be an example of a method of communications relay, I guess). If that doesn't give it the edge, I don't see what can.


As for the big guns being weak points on the BB, the carrier has hangars and launch bays.

Which, as I said, would be oriented away from the Battleship.


Use escorts instead (they have better capacity and range than the fighters and therefore don't need a pricey capital ship to support them).

Escort vessels? So now the Battleship's allowed friends? If so, then let the Carrier have a Destroyer pal too.

Seriously, I don't get this 'pricey capital ship to support them' thing. The escorts, battleship and carrier are all dependent on their fuelling depots, their munitions arsenals, and the rest. The fighters' range doesn't come into it; and their lack of capacity is offset by the fact that they can resupply in the middle of combat.

As far as anti-missile missiles go, that just makes missile warfare even more dependent on being able to launch missiles from closer distances and from a variety of awkward-for-the-opposition angles.

[Lord Zentei]

I was not clear. I was simply wondering why, if such a weapon was developed, a Battleship would have such a weapon and a Carrier wouldn't.

Ask why a carrier cannot mount 16" guns on its fighters, and you can see why this question is silly.



As for the 'unfounded' nature of a Carrier being less capable of C&C and Escort than a Battleship, we've already covered that a Carrier can effectively be in several places at once thanks to fighters (the BSG 'Raptor' would be an example of a method of communications relay, I guess).

The command base need not carry the battleships in order to gain the same capability.



Which, as I said, would be oriented away from the Battleship.

Useless against missiles, which can accelerate faster, carry more payload and be more numerous than fighters can, given the same payload capacity of the launching ship.



Escort vessels? So now the Battleship's allowed friends? If so, then let the Carrier have a Destroyer pal too.

That's a nonsense objection. In discussing carriers versus battleships, we are not eliminating the possibility of smaller ships, merely whether the attacking, reusable ships should be carried as payload in the capital ship.



Seriously, I don't get this 'pricey capital ship to support them' thing. The escorts, battleship and carrier are all dependent on their fuelling depots, their munitions arsenals, and the rest. The fighters' range doesn't come into it; and their lack of capacity is offset by the fact that they can resupply in the middle of combat.

The difference is that such fuel depot carriers don't have to carry the battleship as well.



As far as anti-missile missiles go, that just makes missile warfare even more dependent on being able to launch missiles from closer distances and from a variety of awkward-for-the-opposition angles.

The fighters become vulnerable to such countermeasures before missiles do, since the latter have better acceleration, intercept at top speed, and don't need to make a return journey.

[SmartAlec]

Ask why a carrier cannot mount 16" guns on its fighters, and you can see why this question is silly.

Just can't see why you can't mount said 16" gun on the Carrier.

Anyhow, I'm still not clear what you're trying to say.

- When I say that the Carrier's weak spots - engines and fighter bay - are oriented away from the Battleship, what I'm really saying is that for the most part, a missile would have to curve around the Carrier to hit them, because from the Battleship's point of view, the Carrier's sensitive areas are on the opposite side of the carrier. Missiles may be able to accelerate faster, but if you're sending them in an end-run around the back of the carrier, yeesh - you've got a guidance system in there, you've got directional thrust, you've got a complicated targetting system - since you're shooting at something you can't actually see - and with the greater acceleration of the missile, you're going to need to out a lot more work in allowing the missile to do a U-Turn.

This is not what we call 'efficiency'. And even if you make missiles do that, this simply makes having a flexible anti-missile defence like a fighter escort screen more important!

- and what, exactly, is the problem with the fighters being payload? You're throwing this word 'efficiency' around a lot, but I'm not sure what you mean by it.


The fighters become vulnerable to such countermeasures before missiles do, since the latter have better acceleration, intercept at top speed, and don't need to make a return journey.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'countermeasures' here; when I said it, I meant chaff, sensor decoys, transmission jamming, heck, even something with tachyons maybe - something designed to fool an electronic sensor and prevent a curving/intelligent missile from finding a target. Although such measures would mean a fighter's sensors would be scrambled, it still has the benefit of having a pilot who can fire projectiles in a straight line, but from an angle that's awkward for the Battleship.

You know, I get the impression that Carriers would be better at this guided-missile warfare than Battleships - Carriers might be able to use ECM-based fightercraft to either help with the jamming, or to use in triangulating a missile's course using some space-feasible equivalent of point-to-point laser guidance.

[Lord Zentei]

Just can't see why you can't mount said 16" gun on the Carrier.

Then it's not a carrier anymore, but a hybrid carrier-battleship.



Anyhow, I'm still not clear what you're trying to say.

- When I say that the Carrier's weak spots - engines and fighter bay - are oriented away from the Battleship, what I'm really saying is that for the most part, a missile would have to curve around the Carrier to hit them, because from the Battleship's point of view, the Carrier's sensitive areas are on the opposite side of the carrier. Missiles may be able to accelerate faster, but if you're sending them in an end-run around the back of the carrier, yeesh

Yeah, so? Why do you assume that fighters will be intrinsically more maneuverable than missiles? Anywhere a fighter can go, a missile can go.



- you've got a guidance system in there, you've got directional thrust, you've got a complicated targetting system - since you're shooting at something you can't actually see - and with the greater acceleration of the missile, you're going to need to out a lot more work in allowing the missile to do a U-Turn.

Same goes for fighters. By their very nature, you want them to return to the carrier. Unless you have kamikazes in which case all you have got is a missile with a human pilot steering it. Incidentally, barring supertech inertial dampeners, automated units will be able to accelerate and maneuver much more rapidly than piloted ones -- and if automated, they are much more easily expendable.



This is not what we call 'efficiency'.

Yes, it is.



And even if you make missiles do that, this simply makes having a flexible anti-missile defence like a fighter escort screen more important!

No, it makes anti missile screens in general more important. These are not limited to fighters. Why do you assume that fighters are going to be better at shooting down missiles than capital ships or escorts?



A- and what, exactly, is the problem with the fighters being payload? You're throwing this word 'efficiency' around a lot, but I'm not sure what you mean by it.

That at least seems clear. :smallamused:

[Emperor Tippy]

What he means is quite simple.

You have a ship. Let's say it masses 1 million metric tons. After life support and other necessities are put in you have 300,000 metric tons of ship left to fill with offensive weapons.

Ship A is a carrier. Let's figure 5,000 metric tons for each fighter and another 5,000 per fighter for extra missiles, fuel, spare parts, etc. So your carrier holds 30 fighters. And let's say each fighter carries 3 missiles capable of hurting a capital ship. That gives you a total of 90 missiles capable of killing a capital ship.

Ship B is a missile boat/battleship. Let's use redesigned fighters for our missiles. Strip out the unnecessary stuff (life support for example) and let's say we are down to 3,000 metric tons per "missile". We will reduce the "extra" space needed to maintain each missile by 80%. So each "missile" now takes up 4,000 metric tons of space, giving a total payload of 75 "missiles". But remember, each one of those "missiles" can launch 3 missiles of its own. So in reality their are a total of 225 capital ship killer missiles in space.

Ship B's missiles have twice the range of ship A's because the first stage doesn't need to return.

In the above scenario ship B makes more efficient use of the available space.

------
That was a really crude example. Fighters require crews who require food and quarters, which gives Ship B more empty space to work with.

[Lord Zentei]

Thank you, Emperor Tippy: that is exactly it.

Glad to see someone understands. :smallwink:

[Sundog]

The fighters and/or missiles would have to get into range of these laser batteries to attack the target ship. Laser blasts, moving at speed of light, cannot be dodged or outmaneuvered by fighters or missiles.

What nonsense.

You aren't dodging the beam - you're dodging the targetting array. High level avoidance tactics would make a fighter unhittable at range, and hard to hit when they got close - which they wouldn't, if they're using missiles as a primary weapon. You'd be much better off using a homing missile of your own - something that can compensate for evasive maneuvering.

It's also a strong reason to use shorter ranged, smaller missiles, as such are harder to hit.





What, exactly, led you to believe that this comparison is in the least bit honest or valid? If the first ship can carry 25 fighters and 50 missiles, then why are you comparing it with a missile-ship with an obviously far lower capacity?

It's a perfectly valid comparison. Heck, I'm assuming your missile launcher is reasonably smaller than the requirements for a single fighter, a fact not in evidence.

Your mistake is assuming you can launch all of your missiles at once. Each ship would probably carry several hundred actual missiles - the question is, how quickly can they be deployed?

A ship with forty launchers can launch forty missiles per reload cycle, period. A Fighter carrier can launch x missiles, where x=number of fighters multiplied by the fighter's single cycle launch rate.

In addition, the missile ship must enter the launch radius of the target. The fighter carrier need never do so - and thus is never at risk of counterfire.

[TheRiov]

The real point here is this:
Space based combat will occur at speeds far beyond human reaction time.

A particle beam or laser can eliminate a smaller target (or at least knock it out) before any pilot or even computer could react, initiate countermeasures or manuver. Even if you COULD react quickly enough the change in your momentum in time to dodge, you would turn a pilot into jelly.

Your only hope then is to be able to soak the incoming damage--for that you need mass, and you need a lot of it. Either ablation, or reflection or deflection, those systems would all require size.

I was on the fence before but the more I think about it the more useless fighters seem.

NOW: in atmo its another story. A large vessel will nave no ability to enter atmospheres (without antigrav technology at the least) And while they might be able to preform bombard duties, and that point defense is still effective, ground based facilities would win every time. Its about mass and shielding, and a planet offers more of that than a starship. The point defenses outlined above require LOS, and a fighter able to manuver below LOS might be able to knock out ground facilities.

[Lord Zentei]

What nonsense.

You aren't dodging the beam - you're dodging the targetting array. High level avoidance tactics would make a fighter unhittable at range, and hard to hit when they got close - which they wouldn't, if they're using missiles as a primary weapon. You'd be much better off using a homing missile of your own - something that can compensate for evasive maneuvering.

Ships cannot know in advance when a beam moving at the speed of light is about to fire. Incidentally, you have no evidence that a fighter would be "unhittable" at range by a beam any more than it is by a homing missile.



It's also a strong reason to use shorter ranged, smaller missiles, as such are harder to hit.

Then you are moving away from carriers and towards missile-battleships.



It's a perfectly valid comparison. Heck, I'm assuming your missile launcher is reasonably smaller than the requirements for a single fighter, a fact not in evidence.

Your mistake is assuming you can launch all of your missiles at once. Each ship would probably carry several hundred actual missiles - the question is, how quickly can they be deployed?

A ship with forty launchers can launch forty missiles per reload cycle, period. A Fighter carrier can launch x missiles, where x=number of fighters multiplied by the fighter's single cycle launch rate.

No, it is not a valid comparison. If you can launch a fighter with two missiles aboard, you can launch two missiles. If you can carry a fighter with two missiles, you can carry more than two missiles.



In addition, the missile ship must enter the launch radius of the target. The fighter carrier need never do so - and thus is never at risk of counterfire.

You seem to be forgetting that fighters have a limited range as missiles do.

[Timberwolf]

Battlewagon = carrier as far as I'm concerned. Once all the fighters have been dealt with, a carrier is a pretty much spent force that can only really run away. On the other hand, the starfighters can do a good job on the battleship first so the carrier, after the brave sacrifice of its entire air group could still win it in a ship to ship slugging match. All that would depend upon how much damage the battleship took first. If it slaughtered all the fighters before they got in range then there's only one winner.

[Lord Zentei]

Battlewagon = carrier as far as I'm concerned. Once all the fighters have been dealt with, a carrier is a pretty much spent force that can only really run away. On the other hand, the starfighters can do a good job on the battleship first so the carrier, after the brave sacrifice of its entire air group could still win it in a ship to ship slugging match. All that would depend upon how much damage the battleship took first. If it slaughtered all the fighters before they got in range then there's only one winner.

That assumes that the missiles from the battleship -- which are faster, more numerous and carry more payload than the fighters -- don't mess up the carrier to the same extent or worse. Which they are in fact likely to do.

[Timberwolf]

Pretty much my point really, the battleship can beat the daylights out of the carrier without relying on fragile, slow (compared with a missile owing to the fact you don't want to kill the pilot although G forces are less of an issue, unless you're in a gravity well or being sucked into a black hole or something equally unlikely), more easily detected fighters.

On the other hand, should the fighters get in range, the battleship will know about it. A lot.

[Emperor Tippy]

Only if the fighter can pack weaposn capable of hurting a battleship. What if the smallest missile that you can produce that has teh ability to penetrate the battleships point defense and the power to damage the ship is the size of an ICBM?

[Timberwolf]

Then you'd better equip the carrier with missileboats

:)

Seriously though, if we are that advanced in armour technology, then we'll be advanced in weapons too. Besides, there's vulnerable spots to everything, the engines, the boat bay, the bridge, wepons ports. of course. hitting them's the trick.

[Lord Zentei]

Then you'd better equip the carrier with missileboats

:)

Seriously though, if we are that advanced in armour technology, then we'll be advanced in weapons too. Besides, there's vulnerable spots to everything, the engines, the boat bay, the bridge, wepons ports. of course. hitting them's the trick.

Of course, if you remove the pilot (replacing him with an AI computer chip), his atmosphere, comfy chair and coffee dispenser as well the fuel for the return trip and fill the thing with extra munitions instead, you'll be able to deal more damage to that armor, other things being equal. Of course, by then, it's just another missile. ;)

Bottom line: as far as punching through armor is concerned, if the fighter can do it, the missile with the same total mass can do it better.

[Foeofthelance]

Because of writer fiat. Simply assuming that they will be able to "compensate" their designs is as meaningless as assuming that the Borg will always "adapt" to whatever.

Except that flies in the face of airborne warfare. Seriously, we've gone from cloth covered wooden frames to faster than sound tin cans capable of firing either laser or radar guided "smart" missiles. At the same time, AA batteries have improved from a couple of guys with an anti-infantry machinegun to the point were we can almost knock down an ICBM. Assuming fighter technology is going to stagnate is a bad idea. It is much wiser to assume that both fields will continue to compromise one another.

Again, back to the LACs. The stealth systems onboard don't simply make them harder to detect; they make a hard to kill tiny target near non-existant outside of a certain range. LACs can pretty much dodge any anti-ship missile launched at them, while being able to close and kill against ships that are much more expensive in both terms of people, money, and resources.

The other problem with capital ships is that you're not going to kill fighters with your main guns, not unless you're using an almost straight out energy load. BB's didn't fire their 16" guns at fighters, they used extra flack turrets. Putting AA turrets on the ship's skin is going to reduce area used for main combat operations. Fighters thus become useful simply as a means to limit enemy fire.

On missiles vs. fighters, fighters are smarter and better trained. A jammed missile is a jammed missile. Barring a situation such as in BSG where a weapon capable of shutting down the fighter completely is employed, the fighter will always have one unjammable system onboard: the human brain. So even if the fighter can't complete its mission, for whatever reason, it can return to base. A missile, on the otherhand, is just going to cruise on through space, wasting resources.

Fighters, are of course, also better at tactical missions. If you need a single building taken out you don't launch a nuke or a KEW with prefixtonnage, you send a fighter with a light missile. If you want recon, you don't send a massive sensor target, you send something small and easily hidden. Capital ships aren't meant to fill these roles very easily, and they can't. Fighters can also switch loadouts, changing their purpose when it comes to combat missions. That, in effect, is their true purpose. To be a sort of flight capable Swiss Army Knife.

So I find it highly doubtful that fighters are going to be simply rendered obsolete in such a manner as being offered.

[Jorkens]

Of course, if you remove the pilot (replacing him with an AI computer chip), his atmosphere, comfy chair and coffee dispenser as well the fuel for the return trip and fill the thing with extra munitions instead, you'll be able to deal more damage to that armor, other things being equal. Of course, by then, it's just another missile. ;)
Or to look at it from another angle, lets put a decent AI on the missile, so it can evade anything trying to intercept it, follow the target if it takes evasive action, retarget to hit weaknesses on the other side of the target vessel... but hey, AI's and sensor arrays are a bit pricey, so lets give the control mechanisms the ability to break off shortly before impact and fly back to the battleship to be inserted into the next missile. Oh look, we just got ourselves a computer controlled fighter...

[warty goblin]

AIs are pricey to design, but the hardware will be a fraction of the cost of the missile. AIs are also easy to replace ad perform with a high degree of consistancy. Human pilots are expensive to train and are much harder to replace. Also, nobody complains about the number of missile guidance systems destroyed in battle, unlike people.

Assuming that the cap ships are using rail/gauss guns, a battleship wants to have long of a railgun as possible for maximum power and projectile speed. Hence the main armorment will literally be built into the hull- the ship is built around its gun, which runs the length of the ship. Sure it gives a crappy firing arc (like 0 degrees), but in terms of raw power its going to be unmatched. This means that the hull can easily be used for point defense/smaller weapons mountings without comprimising the amount of space used for primary weapons. Also note that exploding cannister shot (or even a plain old shotgun effect) from a main gun of this sort will do a real number on fighters and missiles coming in from dead ahead. A battleship can pack this kind of weapon. A carrier can't because that space is filled with fighters. Now a carrier can pack as much point defense on its hull as a battleship (I'm assuming that the ships are of equal size), and hence as as good of active defense from fighters and missiles as well as the battleship, although the carrier will pack less armor. The carrier however won't be able to defend itself from the battleship's main guns since it gave up armor for fighters.

[Dervag]

The problem is that the reason air fighters are so effective against surface ships is that they are traveling in a different medium: air versus water surface. No such dual environment exists for space fleets: the fighters are simply micro versions of the same type of vehicle. This distinction is fundamental, and intrinsic to the difference between the two types of fleet. OTOH, for submarines (which move in a single, three-dimensional environment like spacecraft do) it would be stupid to use swarms of fighters -- you use torpedoes instead. The analogy with surface fleets is not relevant.In and of itself, the fact that air fighters travel in air and not on water does not make them more effective than sea ships. During World War One, aircraft had effectively no chance of harming warships, even though they were assuredly travelling in a different medium from those ships. The reason aircraft gain an advantage from travelling in a different medium is that it allows them to do different things, such as go faster while still carrying lethal antishipping weapons.

If space fighters could do that, they would gain an advantage regardless of whether or not they travel in a different medium. If it were possible to build surface gunboats or torpedo boats that were as fast and deadly as aircraft, they would be quite effective in naval battles despite travelling on the same medium as the larger capital ships. However, there is no compelling reason to expect this to be possible, either on the sea or in space.

As I see it, space fighters are probably an inefficient solution, but would be efficient under certain highly specific conditions (thus providing an out for authors who want to include them).


Errr, what? If life support is a significant fraction of the resources you need to build an effective fighter, that's a vote against it, not in its favor. :smallconfused:Imagine two craft: one with no life support (so the crew has to live in his spacesuit, and can only do so for short periods), and one with sufficient life support to operate for weeks or months.

If the ship with life support had to use a large fraction of its mass and volume on that life support capability, then it would be preferable to build warships with minimal life support, because any extra life support is a drain on space and power that could be used for weapons or defenses. However, a ship with short endurance is much less useful than a ship with long endurance.

One compromise that would make sense if this were a serious enough problem would be to put a ship's firepower and defenses on one or more short-endurance platforms, and then have a 'tender' craft with the life support capability to keep the crew alive between combat missions. The tender can't fight very well (it had better be able to run, though), but the short-endurance platforms can.

The short-endurance platforms can be, for example, TIE fighters (short-range fighters from Star Wars). Or they can be Cimeterre-class LACs (short-endurance gunboats from David Weber's Honor Harrington series). Or they can be parasite cruisers of which a given tender will only support a small number. But the basic principle remains- by allowing a ship to keep the equipment and resources needed for long-term endurance out of the battle, the ship becomes more effective in the battle.

I don't expect this to be important, but if it were it would be a justification for carriers or something like them. The analogy to real-life carriers would be quite close. It is possible to build aircraft that can stay on station for many hours, or even for days. In theory, you can build a balloon that will keep the crew alive and airborne for months. However, such aircraft are generally not optimized for combat. They would be easy prey for short-endurance aircraft that use more of their mass on weapons and less on fuel. Therefore, it is not efficient to try to control the skies over distant parts of the sea using long-range aircraft operating from a land base. It is more efficient to use short-range aircraft operating from a long-endurance support platform (the carrier). The carrier can't fight for beans, but it can keep the fighters in action much longer than they would ordinarily be able to fight.


Based on this, then he is not speaking of "fighters" in the traditional sense of the word, but "escorts", since they are used for point defense and harassment of soft targets and not primary attack. But I will not argue about this setting seeing as I have not studied it.Actually, you're quite probably right. Weber himself has stated that LACs are not fighters, and I think his analysis on this point is good, as is yours.


Which is exactly what Star Wars ships do, of course--they all have repulsorlifts, which is a type of anti-gravity drive.Yes, I know; that's my point.


Conversely, of course, the rebel fighters in ANH were able to launch from the rebel base and intercept the Death Star before it came into firing range of said base...A far more salient point, and one I'd forgotten. What I was trying to get at is that while we associate spacecraft with high speeds and are right to do so, this association breaks down with antigravity. There's no reason in theory why Star Wars naval architects couldn't design ships with extremely low accelerations and get them off a planet, because they don't use their engines to neutralize their own weight force.


Stop thinking of a space carrier in terms of a seaborne carrier with aircraft and more in terms of a large base spaceship that carries a small fleet of miniature spaceships.He already is. His point is that there should be some optimal size range for all spaceships in combat, and that the miniatures are probably beneath this range.


If we were unable to build aircraft - if the sky didn't exist, and we had the technology to make small, one-man ships viable, we'd do it.Only if they could deliver a combat punch more effective than an equal cost and tonnage of larger ships, which they likely could not, being too small to serve as effective platforms for antishipping weapons. A similar problem might well apply in space.


But in space? A fighter makes one trip to target, is potentially able to either intercept enemy ordnance or launch its' own ordnance at a much closer range and from a different firing position, which significantly reduces the odds of said ordnance being intercepted.Yes, and then it has to be able to come home reliably. Fighters that don't come home reliably are a waste of effort unless they are specifically designed to be used as missiles by 'expendable' pilots, in which case it would be both more humane and vastly more efficient to use a missile instead.

And to come home, a fighter must expend effort considerably greater than it took to reach its target, by roughly a factor of three (brake to a stop, accelerate onto a return course, then brake to a stop relative to the carrier). Therefore, it must have considerably more energy storage or fuel reserve than a missile designed with the same weapons and not designed to come home, which suggests that the missile might be a better choice for the mission you have in mind.


The Battleship may be more heavily armoured, but it will always have weak points and fighters can find those,How? Targeting meter-sized points at planetary combat ranges is really hard, and subject to extremely minor errors of targeting that make a miss almost certain


A fighter might be easier for them to blow up (although being smaller and more maneuverable for the reasons I outlined in my previous post it'll be a damn sight harder to hit), but it's also a lot more expendable, so I might as well send a bunch of them (simultaneously from different angles) into missile range while keeping my mobile command centre / living quarters / supply ship out of harm's way.If I lose a large fraction of my fighter contingent in each of several battles, I'm in trouble. See the fate of the Imperial Japanese Navy's carrier air groups for reference. By the end of 1942, they were running out of trained pilots, and the competence of their carrier air arm never recovered.


Actually energy weapons would be/should be virtually worthless in space battles.

Lasers are dumb weapons. You can't guide them. This means that energy weapons have an effective range of at most 4 light seconds (and it is more like 2 light seconds).Depends on the range. If guided weapons are easy to kill at light-second ranges, then there will simply be no space combat at that range- beams can't hit and missiles can't get close enough to score hits because they get zorched by the target's beams before they close.


And fighters aren't useful. Manned fighters are already on their last legs, give it 20 years and the USAF won't have a single manned fighter.Well, fighters were useful for a long time; this sets a precedent. If your point is that AI will eventually make human pilots obsolete, you may well be right; I don't know. However, I think it's going to be more than 20 years before they get enough of the bugs out of aircraft combat AI to be willing to use them to fully replace human pilots.


Because that won't help.

Missiles vs. Fighters is silly. Missiles are much less flexible, much more easily decoyed or otherwise dealt with at long ranges. Besides which, fighters have one huge advantage: they carry missiles.Yes, but they also carry a lot of things that aren't missiles and therefore cannot be launched at the enemy. So the correct analogy is not between one fighter and one missile, but between one fighter and its weight in missiles.

Today, in air-to-air or air-to-surface combat, no fighter can reasonably expect to survive an attack from its own weight in missiles of equal technological quality.


Consider two ships, same tonnage. One carries 25 fighters, the other can launch 40 missiles in a single volley.

If those fighters can launch just two missiles each either simultaneously or in close order, they have already beaten the launch capacity per volley of the missile ship. If they can launch 4 or 5 - you're talking massively more shots that the opposing point defence has to deal with in the same length of time.Why not just use the space that went into carrying those fighters to carry large racks of missiles, and the hatches used to launch those fighters for batteries of missile tubes or racks? In that case, the missile cruiser could assuredly fire as many missiles per salvo as the fighters, or nearly as many, and could continue to do so well after the fighters had expended their last missiles.


And incidentally, the reason we don't use fighter subs and the like is because we have no point defence at all for our modern subs. Change that, and watch how fast precisely that sort of technology starts getting deployed.Others have claimed that point defense makes it more likely that people will use fighters, because having many easily killed platforms is better than having one easily killed platform. Is this not the case?


Seriously, I don't get this 'pricey capital ship to support them' thing. The escorts, battleship and carrier are all dependent on their fuelling depots, their munitions arsenals, and the rest.Yes, but those are stationary, and therefore much less expensive. Anything that moves is more expensive than the same thing standing still would be.


Just can't see why you can't mount said 16" gun on the Carrier.Because the carrier is full of fighters, and therefore has no room for a powerful cannon in addition to those fighters?

If it made sense to build a carrier in the first place, we must already have decided that any given portion of the carrier's volume is better used for storing aircraft and aircraft support facilities than for storing artillery and ammunition for artillery. Some WWII-era navies actually tried building hybrid gun/carrier ships. They didn't work very well.


- When I say that the Carrier's weak spots - engines and fighter bay - are oriented away from the Battleship, what I'm really saying is that for the most part, a missile would have to curve around the Carrier to hit them, because from the Battleship's point of view, the Carrier's sensitive areas are on the opposite side of the carrier. Missiles may be able to accelerate faster, but if you're sending them in an end-run around the back of the carrier, yeesh - you've got a guidance system in there, you've got directional thrust, you've got a complicated targetting systemAll those would have been necessary anyway. Guidance and directional thrust are already well-known technologies. The ability to analyze enemy ships for weaknesses is not, but if a fighter's onboard computer and pilot can do it there's a pretty good chance a missile can. Or, failing that, that you fire a few missiles past the enemy to get a good look at their far side, then transmit the resulting data back to the missile cruiser for analysis.


- since you're shooting at something you can't actually see - and with the greater acceleration of the missile, you're going to need to out a lot more work in allowing the missile to do a U-Turn.Since fighters have to make a U-turn anyway regardless of where they attack the target from, and since they use a relatively mass-expensive form of guidance and targeting already (the pilot), I'm not sure this confers an advantage to fighters.


Although such measures would mean a fighter's sensors would be scrambled, it still has the benefit of having a pilot who can fire projectiles in a straight line, but from an angle that's awkward for the Battleship.It is actually very easy to program a computer that can't find its target to attack or fire along a preprogrammed vector; this capability is by no means unique to human beings.


It's a perfectly valid comparison. Heck, I'm assuming your missile launcher is reasonably smaller than the requirements for a single fighter, a fact not in evidence.Since the fighter can carry the missile launcher, it seems likely to me.


Your mistake is assuming you can launch all of your missiles at once. Each ship would probably carry several hundred actual missiles - the question is, how quickly can they be deployed?

A ship with forty launchers can launch forty missiles per reload cycle, period. A Fighter carrier can launch x missiles, where x=number of fighters multiplied by the fighter's single cycle launch rate.Yes. But each fighter must be able to leave its mothership. It takes up internal space in the hangar and surface space in the hangar bay doors.

Unless you use a very limited number of doors to launch all your fighters (which is dangerous because it means fighters have to spend a long time stooging around waiting for their squadronmates to take off), you will be using a lot of surface area to launch fighters through. If you use an equal area to launch missiles through, you will assuredly be able to launch more missiles per salvo than the fighters you can launch in one salvo could.

Your one advantage is that you can launch multiple salvoes of fighters, all of which can launch their missiles simultaneously. But there's a limit to how much leverage you get from that, because a ship optimized for missile launches will use a lot of surface area for missile launchers.


In addition, the missile ship must enter the launch radius of the target. The fighter carrier need never do so - and thus is never at risk of counterfire.Yes, but the fighters do have to. Which means that the danger to the carrier space group (the fighters) is precisely equivalent to the danger to the missile cruiser. And if your carrier loses most or all of its fighters on one or more occasions, you're in just as much trouble as if the carrier itself were badly mauled, because the carrier's "main battery" is being seriously damaged or destroyed on every mission.


Except that flies in the face of airborne warfare. Seriously, we've gone from cloth covered wooden frames to faster than sound tin cans capable of firing either laser or radar guided "smart" missiles. At the same time, AA batteries have improved from a couple of guys with an anti-infantry machinegun to the point were we can almost knock down an ICBM. Assuming fighter technology is going to stagnate is a bad idea. It is much wiser to assume that both fields will continue to compromise one another.On the other hand, many of the problems with fighters we're arguing about are theoretical limits, or abstract issues that apply regardless of the tech levels of the missiles, fighters, carriers, and battleships involved. For example, it will always be true that a missile of equal mass to a fighter can carry either a heavier payload, a more powerful engine, or both, than that fighter could.


Again, back to the LACs. The stealth systems onboard don't simply make them harder to detect; they make a hard to kill tiny target near non-existant outside of a certain range. LACs can pretty much dodge any anti-ship missile launched at them, while being able to close and kill against ships that are much more expensive in both terms of people, money, and resources.Honorverse LACs have routinely been killed by antiship missiles, although they are more likely to be killed by direct-fire energy weapons at closer ranges.


On missiles vs. fighters, fighters are smarter and better trained. A jammed missile is a jammed missile. Barring a situation such as in BSG where a weapon capable of shutting down the fighter completely is employed, the fighter will always have one unjammable system onboard: the human brain. So even if the fighter can't complete its mission, for whatever reason, it can return to base. A missile, on the otherhand, is just going to cruise on through space, wasting resources.If the enemy can do that to your missiles or your fighters reliably, you're screwed regardless of whether or not you have fighters to come back instead of missiles that don't. Because your fighters can't fight, and your missiles will always miss.


Fighters, are of course, also better at tactical missions. If you need a single building taken out you don't launch a nuke or a KEW with prefixtonnage, you send a fighter with a light missile.If missiles had the range, you could just send the missile instead. And in space missiles do have the range, because they don't need to keep their engine firing all the time.

[/quote]Fighters can also switch loadouts, changing their purpose when it comes to combat missions. That, in effect, is their true purpose. To be a sort of flight capable Swiss Army Knife.[/quote]Yes, but your loadouts all have to be stored on the same carrier. Why not just mount all those weapons on the carrier itself and make a battleship? Unless fighters have capabilities radically different from those of battleships, which seems unlikely, there is no compelling reason to put the weapons on the fighters.


Or to look at it from another angle, lets put a decent AI on the missile, so it can evade anything trying to intercept it, follow the target if it takes evasive action, retarget to hit weaknesses on the other side of the target vessel... but hey, AI's and sensor arrays are a bit pricey, so lets give the control mechanisms the ability to break off shortly before impact and fly back to the battleship to be inserted into the next missile. Oh look, we just got ourselves a computer controlled fighter...Probably not worth the cost; your scenario is a tad contrived. After all, no one has ever considered doing that with real-life missiles, even in cases where the guidance package really is expensive (such as the Tomahawk cruise missile).

[TheElfLord]

.
Again, back to the LACs. The stealth systems onboard don't simply make them harder to detect; they make a hard to kill tiny target near non-existant outside of a certain range. LACs can pretty much dodge any anti-ship missile launched at them, while being able to close and kill against ships that are much more expensive in both terms of people, money, and resources.


LACs are not fighters. The OP specifically mentioned small single man fighters. LACs require a crew of ten and mass over 20,000 tons. They are the closest thing in the Honorverse to fighters, but they are a lot more like a corvette or a cutter. The Honorverse doesn't have true fighter craft at all.

[Dervag]

Well, there are armed pinnaces and cutters that can be piloted by one or two people and that can serve the role of fighter-bombers in the Honorverse. However, such vessels stand absolutely no chance in a space battle against any 'real' spaceship, even a LAC. They're both slower than LACs and so lightly armed that they cannot harm real spaceships.

However, they work well for boarding operations and for air support of ground troops.

[Emperor Tippy]

Well, fighters were useful for a long time; this sets a precedent. If your point is that AI will eventually make human pilots obsolete, you may well be right; I don't know. However, I think it's going to be more than 20 years before they get enough of the bugs out of aircraft combat AI to be willing to use them to fully replace human pilots.

The USAF is already testing a fully automated F-22. They can already drone fly one with the pilot on the ground, and the plane is actually more effective (because it can pull maneuvers that would kill the pilot if he was on board). The autopilot can already take off, fly to a destination, and land. The stealth fighter was apparently a bitch to fly because of its design. The computer did almost all of the flying and the pilot just pressed the button to drop the bombs.

The only thing that is really stopping the USAF from removing human pilots from the equation is politics. It is not difficult in a technical sense at all. And if you keep a human in a simulator who can override if the plane starts doing something stupid you get a nice safety margin, and 1 guy in the simulator can keep an eye on 4 or 5 different planes.


The age of dog fights and fighter jocks is already on the way out. AWACS planes vector in the fighters and missiles so that they don't need to radiate, the fighters launch from up to a hundred miles away, and the enemy dies.

[Mr._Blinky]

While I ultimately think that one-manned fighters are obsolete in space due to already stated reasons, there are a lot of things I think people are counting against fighters that they really shouldn't, because you don't know about tech levels involved.

1) Lasers. Okay, sure a laser makes a fighter obsolete. What if you don't have lasers? A shocking concept, I know, but assuming that just because you're in space you have lasers is stupid and contrived.

2) AI. Again, sure, an AI controlled missile is better than a fighter. What if you don't have a reliable AI? And any AI reliable enough to emulate a human is going to probably prohibitively expensive. And since you have to put that on every single missile, it makes more sense to have a single human who can do the job and handle multiple missiles at once. Sure, you could make a bus missile with AI to carry the others, but assuming that you have AI this reliable is, again, stupid and contrived.

3) Point-defense. Everyone seems to think that point-defense is an automatic win-button vs. fighters. They aren't, or at least can't be assumed to be. Again, if you have good targeting and tech systems, they can kill fighters off-hand, but you need to also remember that the less effective your point-defense is, the more of it you need. And every PD gun you put on your shiny battleship is another gun he isn't firing at the carrier. Eventually, you'll have so many PD guns to defend against the fighters, that his anti-cap capabilities will have dropped to those of the carrier, at which point you've basically just gone into a stalemate. And any sector not covered in PD is a target for those fighters, which are probably small enough to exploit it. And while it may be quite easy for your PD to pick off fighters and missiles, all it takes is one nuke getting through to ruin your day, and unlike the fighters your eggs are all in one basket. Sure, if you take out the carrier, the fighters are dead in the water, but all the carrier needs to do is hang safely back to make this impossible.

4) Speed. People have put out the point that if you have a fighter with engines x kg on it, and then take another ship 100 times it's size and put engines appropriately scaled on that (100x kg), due to the way acceleration works in space, they will be just as agile. True. However, what people seem to forget is that while a fighter only needs y hours of life-support, fuel, and other necessities, the battleship does not proportionally need 100y hours of life-support, fuel, etc. Since it is meant to operate for months at a time, it will likely need +1,000y hours. And assuming that the fighter has two hours of life-support, fuel, etc., and that the battleship needs to appropriately scale its life-support, fuel, etc., then even that 1,000 times capacity is only enough for eighty-three days in space. And that's not even counting things that a fighter doesn't need at all, such as a mess-hall, corridors, living-quarters, kitchens, cargo holds, the cargo itself, etc. Instead of wasting all this space on things needed to keep the crew alive for months at a time, it just needs to keep one guy alive for a couple of hours, and so while maybe a third of the space on the battleship is wasted by living necessities, everything on the fighter just goes to making it better at killing stuff. Sure, the carrier has to carry all that stuff too, but the point is that for everything the carrier supplies, the fighters don't need to carry with them into battle. In the end, that's the fundamental advantage of fighters, in that it allows them to mount more ordinance/engines/armor per square inch (although the armor probably is a moot point, as are weapons to a lesser extent). Because of this, they can go faster simply by mounting bigger engines in comparison to their size.

5) Firepower. Same as the point above: since they don't need to have all their survival gear with them, fighters can spend more room on weapons. This is however a much smaller difference than speed, since armaments will need to be carried somehow or other regardless. This point is rather minor, since the carrier carries all that stuff anyways, but it still needs to be considered.

6) Weapons-power. Similarly to how good your point-defense is, your anti-cap capabilities are a necessary thing to consider. If your fighters can mount something capable of taking a capital ship out in one shot, then they're a much more viable option. If you put your capital ship close enough to shoot your missiles at them, then they have an equal chance of killing you the same way. So it instead becomes both ships pulling back to minimum distance outside of reliable weapons range, and then launching fighters armed to the teeth with missiles in order to deliver them. Sure, you could probably shoot the missile just as far, but that's assuming that they can't just jam them, and that your targeting actually works out to those distances. If they can't jam and your targeting is good enough, go with the battleship. Otherwise, your better off sitting back and letting your more expendable fighters take the risk. Really, this depends on how good your targeting systems are than anything else.

On the other hand...

1) Armor. It's undeniably easier to blow up a flight of fighters than a capital ship. Unfortunately, this changes if the opponent has good cap-buster weapons, since then if they fill the air with enough missiles, one is bound to hit eventually.

2) Point-defense. If it is good enough, fighters are completely useless. 'Nuff said. Then again, so are missiles though...

3) Weapons. Capital ships will be a more reliable bet for taking each other out. Sure, you could arm all your fighters with nukes, but then you could do the same with the battleship. On the other hand, as I said before this is a problem if the enemy ship pulls back farther than you can reliably shoot at them. And if you don't have nukes on all the fighters, then they're pretty much useless. A useful analogy might be fending of a swarm of black widow spiders with a flamethrower: sure, you have far superior firepower and can wipe them all out in one go if you're lucky, but if you miss even one you're dead.

Ultimately, this battle really depends on tech levels. If they fighters have something that the battleships can't do, such as stealth, or if the battleship isn't practically impervious to fighters, then they are definitely a viable option. Otherwise, they're obsolete.

In the setting I'm working on, there are no fighters in the traditional sense. There are capital ships, escort ships, and SSFs (Space-Superiority Fighters). They are essentially large, 4+ man missile boats, that get close enough to use their missiles effectively on enemy ships. The capitals then pull back to distance too far for missiles to be reliable, and proceed to blast each other with mass-drivers, one of the few weapons with the velocity necessary to be viable over that distance. Because of the distances that SSFs engage at, PD is only useful against the missiles, not the fighters. So the battleships need to use their own missiles to hit the SSFs, which in turn have their own PD. This is essentially what I think space warfare would become under the circumstances.

[TheElfLord]

3) Point-defense. Everyone seems to think that point-defense is an automatic win-button vs. fighters. They aren't, or at least can't be assumed to be. Again, if you have good targeting and tech systems, they can kill fighters off-hand, but you need to also remember that the less effective your point-defense is, the more of it you need. And every PD gun you put on your shiny battleship is another gun he isn't firing at the carrier. Eventually, you'll have so many PD guns to defend against the fighters, that his anti-cap capabilities will have dropped to those of the carrier, at which point you've basically just gone into a stalemate.

That is why you have other classes of ships that escort the capital ships. I have one real life example and one scifi example.

RL). Destoryers. The offical name of Destoryers are Torpedo Boat destroyers. Torpedo boats are small fast boats that dart in close to a capital ship and launch torpedos at them. They are too fast to be easily hit with the main armiment of a battleship. Naval designers created a small, faster ship with small guns whose sole purpose was to kill torpedo boats. This could be easily applied to fighters in space. (In fact, I have previously planned to use them as such if I ever write a scifi series. If anyone wants more info on Torpedo boats or TBDs I did a section of my senior thesis on them and would be happy to share the info. PM me)

Scifi: The Star Wars Lancer class frigate is a capital ship expressly designed around point defense to counter starfighters. Throw a couple of those in to escort the main ships, and you don't have to have nearly as many PD systems on the battleships.

[warty goblin]

2) AI. Again, sure, an AI controlled missile is better than a fighter. What if you don't have a reliable AI? And any AI reliable enough to emulate a human is going to probably prohibitively expensive. And since you have to put that on every single missile, it makes more sense to have a single human who can do the job and handle multiple missiles at once. Sure, you could make a bus missile with AI to carry the others, but assuming that you have AI this reliable is, again, stupid and contrived.

3) Point-defense. Everyone seems to think that point-defense is an automatic win-button vs. fighters. They aren't, or at least can't be assumed to be. Again, if you have good targeting and tech systems, they can kill fighters off-hand, but you need to also remember that the less effective your point-defense is, the more of it you need. And every PD gun you put on your shiny battleship is another gun he isn't firing at the carrier. Eventually, you'll have so many PD guns to defend against the fighters, that his anti-cap capabilities will have dropped to those of the carrier, at which point you've basically just gone into a stalemate. And any sector not covered in PD is a target for those fighters, which are probably small enough to exploit it. And while it may be quite easy for your PD to pick off fighters and missiles, all it takes is one nuke getting through to ruin your day, and unlike the fighters your eggs are all in one basket. Sure, if you take out the carrier, the fighters are dead in the water, but all the carrier needs to do is hang safely back to make this impossible.



I agree with most of your points, but I have some slight issues with these two:

AI: As Emperor Tippy pointed out above, having AI good enough to pilot a fighter isn't to far off even now. Given that I think its a fair bet that reliable targeting AIs can be built for missiles. Thus I don't consider this stupid or contrived, but a logical extension of existing trends.

Point Defense: Assuming that fighters are at all effective against other fighters, Cap ship PD is going to be at least as effective as fighters are against each other and missiles. I say at least because a cap ship is going to have a better power plant and bigger, more powerful guns with higher rates of fire. It also doesn't take that much PD to cover a ship. Here's an example.

Take a relatively simple geometrical shape like a cube. It will take six PB turrets max to cover the cube from all angles. Not enough surface area for heavy weapons mountings? Stretch the cube out into a box, it still takes the same amount of PB to cover each face. Now clearly at some length you are going to want additional PD turrets on a face due to flight times of projectiles, but this is going to probably be pretty far, so let's assume that this ship takes two PD turrets on each of the long sides to cover effectively, just put one on each end. Now to add the larger guns- take four large turrets and stick them on each of the long faces of the box. Put a PD turret on each side of the major turret. Total PD turrets: 10. But the ones on the ends are probably not really needed, since the long side ones can cover those regions fairly well, so we can drop two. Now we're down to 8 PD turrets and four heavy turrets. Not bad for total coverage, by turret count only 2/3 are PD.

But we can do better, so let's add some heavy offense to the front face of the cap ship, how about another heavy turret or two? Let's stick two slightly recessed heavy turrets on the front, making sure that the rear heavies can still fire over them safely. Now we're up to 8 PD turrets and 6 Heavy turrets, just over half of the total turrets are devoted to PD, and all faces of the ships have PD coverage! There's only one weakness, the tops of the center heavy turrets, which more than likely the side PD guns can't cover up close, so perhaps we should stick four more PD turrets on, one on top of each of the side heavies. Final loadout, 12 PD turrets,, 6 heavy turrets. According to my sketch, all but four of the PD turrets can be brought to bear fowards or backwards, and a minimum of 4 - 6 for any side attack. All of the heavy turrets can be fired forwards, while at least two can be brought to bear for any sideways target, and more can be brought into range with a simple rotation. Still not a bad loadout though, and the ship is really truly covered in PD.

[Dervag]

The USAF is already testing a fully automated F-22. They can already drone fly one with the pilot on the ground, and the plane is actually more effective (because it can pull maneuvers that would kill the pilot if he was on board). The autopilot can already take off, fly to a destination, and land. The stealth fighter was apparently a bitch to fly because of its design. The computer did almost all of the flying and the pilot just pressed the button to drop the bombs.What concerns me is the autopilot's ability to operate in battle. Being able to fly the plane is certainly nontrivial, but the challenges it presents are all essentially predictable and determined by the nature of the plane and the laws of physics.

One obvious question is whether the programmed autopilot can still perform when the nature of the plane changes. Will the autopilot be able to land a damaged plane? To test that one, you really ought to put a few cannon shells through some moderately important chunks of the plane, and then see if the autopilot can land it. That's not the kind of test the Air Force likes to perform on expensive fighter jets.

Another one is whether or not the robot fighter can, well, fight. That's a very different challenge from flying from point to point, taking off, or landing the plane. I was reasonably confident that AI could already do all those things even before you told me it could, but I'm not sure about the fighting aspect.


The only thing that is really stopping the USAF from removing human pilots from the equation is politics. It is not difficult in a technical sense at all. And if you keep a human in a simulator who can override if the plane starts doing something stupid you get a nice safety margin, and 1 guy in the simulator can keep an eye on 4 or 5 different planes.I think you're underestimating the complexity of the problem, but you may well be right that it's doable in the near future.


The age of dog fights and fighter jocks is already on the way out. AWACS planes vector in the fighters and missiles so that they don't need to radiate, the fighters launch from up to a hundred miles away, and the enemy dies.That works great in air. Not so well in space, where the transmission lag from the AWACS-equivalent to the 'planes' may be measured in seconds or (theoretically) minutes, and where no reasonable sensor platform will be able to keep track of what's happening in the vicinity of the 'planes' from the location of the carrier or AWACS-equivalent.

So if we're going to see robot fighters or robot combat spacecraft of any kind, they'd better be able to operate independently well enough that the reduction in mass and systems burden you get from removing the pilot isn't cancelled out by the reduced effectiveness of the computer 'pilot'. And I'm honestly not sure if we're there yet, or if we ever will be. It's all very well for robot fighters to auto-launch missiles along vectors laid down for them by a human controller, but that relies on the presence of a controller capable of monitoring the situation in real time.

I think we'll have AIs like that, but not very soon.


1) Lasers. Okay, sure a laser makes a fighter obsolete. What if you don't have lasers? A shocking concept, I know, but assuming that just because you're in space you have lasers is stupid and contrived.Well, we already do have lasers, well before we got into space on that scale. Weaponizing them is a problem, sure, but developing a weapons-grade laser useful in space is just a matter of minaturizing current technologies and marginal improvements on materials. Those are the kinds of technological advance that we have to assume anyway if we want to assume combat-effective spacecraft and the technological base to make them even remotely useful. So if we can assume fighting spaceships, the underlying assumptions required to make that possible give us weaponized lasers, at least for short ranges.


2) AI. Again, sure, an AI controlled missile is better than a fighter. What if you don't have a reliable AI? And any AI reliable enough to emulate a human is going to probably prohibitively expensive. And since you have to put that on every single missile, it makes more sense to have a single human who can do the job and handle multiple missiles at once. Sure, you could make a bus missile with AI to carry the others, but assuming that you have AI this reliable is, again, stupid and contrived.Not really. First of all, once you've programmed a working missile AI making copies is trivial; expense is not the issue.

And any working missile in space must perforce be guided; dumb-fire rockets aren't going to cut it and the missile will rapidly move beyond the control of a human launcher, making any kind of 'wire guided' missile impractical. Therefore, there is no question of assuming that human will have anything to do with the task of handling the missiles once they are launched; if they're not effectively fire-and-forget they won't work for beans.

Moreover, designing a missile AI is a much easier task than designing an AI that can emulate a human. This AI only has to do one thing- steer into the target and blow up. We already have a variety of automatic missiles and bombs that can do precisely that. In fact, such missiles have existed since the 1950s. Currently, they are relatively easy to fool, but the task of making them harder to fool is, again, just a matter of incremental improvement in programming techniques. No breakthroughs in theory are required.

Building an AI to manage a fighter- a platform which does not have a predefined destination and which has to have a wide variety of responses that do not all boil down to "charge at the target and explode" as a missile's responses do- is harder. But even there, as Emperor Tippy points out, we are well on the way to constructing an AI that can do this already. By the time any plausible space wars begin, we will likely have such an AI.


3) Point-defense. Everyone seems to think that point-defense is an automatic win-button vs. fighters. They aren't, or at least can't be assumed to be. Again, if you have good targeting and tech systems, they can kill fighters off-hand, but you need to also remember that the less effective your point-defense is, the more of it you need.Conversely, the more effective PD is, the less of it you need. So what? Unless we make assumptions about propulsion systems that throw all the physics we know out the window (reactionless drives), the speed of projectiles in space over planet-scale distances vastly exceeds the ability of spacecraft to dodge those projectiles. If the target is somewhere in the outer solar system, sure, it's easy to miss them even with a guided weapon. But if they're relatively close by (say, the Earth-Moon distance), the odds of a genuine miss are low for guided weapons; if they're within a few thousand kilometers the odds start going through the floor, especially for energy weapons. Remember: in space, there is very little to jostle your shoulder while you aim.


And every PD gun you put on your shiny battleship is another gun he isn't firing at the carrier.Since the entire point of the exercise is to keep the carrier out of range of the battleship, I thought the battleship was assumed to be unable to fire at the carrier.

If the carrier is in effective range of the battleship, then the battleship can almost certainly force a draw by inflicting critical damage on the carrier, no matter what the fighters do. Even if the fighters launch, they are then doomed because the carrier is dead.


Eventually, you'll have so many PD guns to defend against the fighters, that his anti-cap capabilities will have dropped to those of the carrier, at which point you've basically just gone into a stalemate.That assumes that the point defense mounts required to kill X fighters take up space comparable to the size of X fighters. Which really doesn't have to be true, and arguably won't be for foreseeable weapons and propulsion systems.


And any sector not covered in PD is a target for those fighters, which are probably small enough to exploit it.Hello? Turret mounts? There isn't any reason for a sanely designed spaceship to have any gaps in its arcs of fire, since there's no reason not to have guns pointing every which way.


And while it may be quite easy for your PD to pick off fighters and missiles, all it takes is one nuke getting through to ruin your day, and unlike the fighters your eggs are all in one basket. Sure, if you take out the carrier, the fighters are dead in the water, but all the carrier needs to do is hang safely back to make this impossible.In which case the battleship's ability to kill the carrier is moot, in which case it's a perfectly viable strategy to cover the battleship in PD mounts and destroy the enemy's entire fighter group.


And assuming that the fighter has two hours of life-support, fuel, etc., and that the battleship needs to appropriately scale its life-support, fuel, etc., then even that 1,000 times capacity is only enough for eighty-three days in space.If the scale of operations is such that having two hours of endurance is enough for a fighter, then battleships will assuredly be able to tank up on essential supplies at least every few weeks. After all, if the fighters can safely rendevous with a carrier, and if the carrier can rendevous with a tanker to stock up on consumables, why can't the battleship safely rendevous with a tanker?


Instead of wasting all this space on things needed to keep the crew alive for months at a time, it just needs to keep one guy alive for a couple of hours, and so while maybe a third of the space on the battleship is wasted by living necessities, everything on the fighter just goes to making it better at killing stuff.I made the same point myself several posts ago, although my posts are so big it's easy to miss stuff. However, this really doesn't have to be decisive. It all depends on what percentage of internal volume the supplies required to keep the ship going take up, and it's not clear that this percentage is very large for a ship with a modest crew (there's no reason why a space battleship should have a crew in the thousands like a sea battleship), or with good recycling technology.

So that's not a universal.


Sure, the carrier has to carry all that stuff too, but the point is that for everything the carrier supplies, the fighters don't need to carry with them into battle. In the end, that's the fundamental advantage of fighters, in that it allows them to mount more ordinance/engines/armor per square inch (although the armor probably is a moot point, as are weapons to a lesser extent). Because of this, they can go faster simply by mounting bigger engines in comparison to their size.However, the fighter's advantage can easily be offset by the fact that it requires less energy to disable X tons of fighter than X tons of battleship. Moreover, even taking large-percent casualties to fighter wings can be crippling; see the experiences of the IJN during the Second World War for reference.


6) Weapons-power. Similarly to how good your point-defense is, your anti-cap capabilities are a necessary thing to consider. If your fighters can mount something capable of taking a capital ship out in one shot, then they're a much more viable option. If you put your capital ship close enough to shoot your missiles at them, then they have an equal chance of killing you the same way.Assuming, of course, that we have missiles reliably capable of one-shotting capital ships. Which may or may not be true, even with nuclear warheads. To destroy a large metal target in outer space, a nuke has to get very close- close enough for its approach vector to become predictable and to make it an excellent target for point defense.


Sure, you could probably shoot the missile just as far, but that's assuming that they can't just jam them, and that your targeting actually works out to those distances. If they can't jam and your targeting is good enough, go with the battleship. Otherwise, your better off sitting back and letting your more expendable fighters take the risk. Really, this depends on how good your targeting systems are than anything else.Or, if the missiles are self-guided, which they really have to be to have any hope of hitting anyway, on the quality of the missile guidance relative to the possibilities of jamming. And there are some fairly reliable ways to home in on a spacecraft that can't really be jammed.


Take a relatively simple geometrical shape like a cube. It will take six PB turrets max to cover the cube from all angles. Not enough surface area for heavy weapons mountings? Stretch the cube out into a box, it still takes the same amount of PB to cover each face. Now clearly at some length you are going to want additional PD turrets on a face due to flight times of projectiles, but this is going to probably be pretty far, so let's assume that this ship takes two PD turrets on each of the long sides to cover effectively, just put one on each end. Now to add the larger guns- take four large turrets and stick them on each of the long faces of the box. Put a PD turret on each side of the major turret. Total PD turrets: 10. But the ones on the ends are probably not really needed, since the long side ones can cover those regions fairly well, so we can drop two. Now we're down to 8 PD turrets and four heavy turrets. Not bad for total coverage, by turret count only 2/3 are PD.

But we can do better, so let's add some heavy offense to the front face of the cap ship, how about another heavy turret or two? Let's stick two slightly recessed heavy turrets on the front, making sure that the rear heavies can still fire over them safely. Now we're up to 8 PD turrets and 6 Heavy turrets, just over half of the total turrets are devoted to PD, and all faces of the ships have PD coverage! There's only one weakness, the tops of the center heavy turrets, which more than likely the side PD guns can't cover up close, so perhaps we should stick four more PD turrets on, one on top of each of the side heavies. Final loadout, 12 PD turrets,, 6 heavy turrets. According to my sketch, all but four of the PD turrets can be brought to bear fowards or backwards, and a minimum of 4 - 6 for any side attack. All of the heavy turrets can be fired forwards, while at least two can be brought to bear for any sideways target, and more can be brought into range with a simple rotation. Still not a bad loadout though, and the ship is really truly covered in PD.I like your thinking. It parallels my own on the subject, except that it's better.

[Mr._Blinky]

@TheElfLord: True, but this is carrier vs. battleship, not carrier vs. battleship & friends. In a true tactical environment, the battleship would of course have backup, but the same can also be said of the carrier. RL carriers never go anywhere without an escort, and it would be stupid to assume that a SF carrier wouldn't do the same.

@warty goblin: Again, true about the PD, but the thing about those 12 PD turrets is that they can only shoot 12 things at once. If I launch 20 fighters, each with 3 missiles, and from the range they're at it takes 5 seconds for the missiles to reach their targets, those PD have to take out a missile a second. That's crazy fast. Fired from a battleship, those same missiles could be picked off at a distance without having to turn the guns too much. If the fighters converge from all different angles and fire their missiles in a spread from "close" range, then the turrets need to be exceptionally fast to hit them all. It becomes even more of a nightmare if they all converge on one side, meaning that two turrets have the job of shooting down 60 missiles. Of course, this is assuming that you don't take the fighters out first, but even if you took out half before they got to you, those two turrets need to shoot down 3 missiles a second each to survive.

This also assumes that the fighters don't have munitions of their own capable of harming the PD. It wouldn't be unreasonable for fighters to mount small bunches of smaller rockets, meant to be spread-fired at PD turrets. If the guns are relatively easy to destroy, then each fighter could shoot off a volley of rockets while doing evasive actions, and then fire off their cap-busters once the PDs are occupied and/or destroyed. Since one could assume it'd be a lot easier to destroy the guns than the ship itself, it would be relatively easy to neutralize all the turrets in one area and then fire all your anti-capital weapons at that one spot. Since the weapons capable of destroying the PD guns wouldn't need to be nearly as powerful, each fighter could carry far more of them.

[Sundog]

Ships cannot know in advance when a beam moving at the speed of light is about to fire. Incidentally, you have no evidence that a fighter would be "unhittable" at range by a beam any more than it is by a homing missile.

You don't need to know you're being shot at to dodge. Evasive maneuvers are predicated on the concept that you will be shot at, and you would commence them as soon as you are within the known or suspected range of enemy as-light weaponry - because you don't want to die.

And my evidence is simple physics. If you're just 1 light-second out, the engaging ship is shooting at where you will be in 1 second's time based on where you were one second ago. If you're going in a straight line, no problem, but if you're altering your vector even slightly, much, much harder.

Besides which, beam weapons do not have the range to pull this sort of thing off. In real life, a laser weapon's beam would attenuate to uselessness after a few hundred kilometers - great point defence, no good against fighters with stand-off armaments at all.



Then you are moving away from carriers and towards missile-battleships.

Only if you want to lose the war and tank your economy at the same time. Unless your point defence is amazing (I.E. Excellent or better) a fight between two such vessels would result in mutual annihilation. Remember that we are talking about NUCLEAR MISSILES here. Unless you're armoured with some sort of handwavium/unobtainium alloy, one direct hit equals one dead ship.
Yes, there is no shockwave effect in space. But there certainly WILL be a shockwave effect through the body of a spacecraft that takes a direct hit, not to mention the plasma fireball, the heat pulse, the radiation pulse, and the EMP.
So missile battleships would be a complete waste of time and money. You'd go broke trying to keep a fleet of them, and if your opponent starts using fighters i.e. cheap, expendable alternatives, you lose.




No, it is not a valid comparison. If you can launch a fighter with two missiles aboard, you can launch two missiles. If you can carry a fighter with two missiles, you can carry more than two missiles.

Bollocks. Launchers aren't just a hole you throw a missile out of. They also include the links to update the missile as to it's target, back-blast chambers to prevent internal damage when launching, feed tubes to get the next missile into position, maintenance facilities and the control runs and power systems that let all of this work. You'd be lucky if a capship can carry as many launchers as a carrier can carry fighters.

Fighters, on the other hand, can carry missiles on external hardpoints, because they're prepped in the launch bay before launch. Thus, a fighter wing can launch far more missiles than a missile boat of the same tonnage as their carrier.



You seem to be forgetting that fighters have a limited range as missiles do.

Only if you fly stupid. A fighter's only real limitation is it's life support; it can simply turn off it's drive and coast most of the way to it's target, using fuel only to adjust to it's target's maneuvers, then go home the same way.

Missiles can only do this if you KNOW where the enemy is going to be. Not a problem if you're attacking a fixed installation, but any sort of mobile enemy is all to likely to detect and avoid an incoming missile strike. And if you're talking a light-minute range (or, powers help you, light-hours) you can't send corrective data to your missiles - you're playing catch0-up with relativistic distance, a game you'll never win.

[warty goblin]

A nuke != auto kill in space, particularly for a capital ship. Even a direct surface hit will only transfer half of the energy of the explosion into the target. Anything farther away is even worse- the amount of energy to hit the ship diminishes as the square of the distance. Since these are ships designed for prolonged time in space, they already are going to have radiation shields out the ears. so that's not a problem It takes a darn lot of energy to melt through modern heavy armor, assuming decent advances in armor a heavily armored ship should be able to survive a few nuke hits just fine. This is why weapons like railguns are so appealing, much more of their energy hits the target. Also, they're not dangerous to store, you're never going to have your railgun magazine room explode.

There's no reason for a space based missile launcher to work like earth based missile tubes. Just put the missile in some sort of magnetic flechette and kick it out a low powered guass gun. You can fire 'em plenty fast that way, probably faster than a fighter swarm, and continue to do so at the same rate until you run out of missiles.

Remember, every fighter killed costs the carrier that much offensive power + all the missiles it was carrying. See my idea of a rail shotgun above, just saturate the carrier's vacinity with lots of small bullets. They'll ping off of heavy armor and most will miss, but hey, there's always the chance of getting lucky and destroying a fighter in the launch tube, thereby messing up more launches. Lucky shots aside, hails of reasonably high speed low mass projectiles would be a real problem for fighters, and give them an annoying tradeoff: accelerate at full burn towards the battleship, meaning each wave of projectiles will have a higher relative velocity than the last, or go in slower and weather the assault for longer and hope like hell that nothing vital gets punctured by the hail of bullets. Using this kind of ordnace, my hypothetical battleship now has the twelve dedicated PD guns, plus all of the heavy turrets, which can most likely actually get a higher degree of fire saturation out there. Say each heavy turret can do three times the fire volume at long range that the PD turrets can. Then the fighters aren't dealing with 12 PD guns, but with 40. Somehow I think that they should manage to deal with 20 fighters at a rate of one a second just fine.

Close up is another story of course, since the fighters may very well maneuvre faster than the heavy turrets can track. By this point however they should be so broken up and reduced in number that the relatively smaller number of dedicated PD turrets should do just fine.

And thanks Dervag. I'm rather pleased with that design if I say so myself. I might just make up a model of it over Thanksgiving Break!

[Sundog]

I

Since the fighter can carry the missile launcher, it seems likely to me.

No, because fighters can carry on external hardpoints. They don't need a full launcher, but a ship does.


Yes. But each fighter must be able to leave its mothership. It takes up internal space in the hangar and surface space in the hangar bay doors.

Unless you use a very limited number of doors to launch all your fighters (which is dangerous because it means fighters have to spend a long time stooging around waiting for their squadronmates to take off), you will be using a lot of surface area to launch fighters through. If you use an equal area to launch missiles through, you will assuredly be able to launch more missiles per salvo than the fighters you can launch in one salvo could.

No, I don't see that. See my answer to Lord Zentei.

Besides which, if you're organized you can get a lot of fighters off (or on) through a relatively small launch capacity in a short time. WWII Carriers could typically only launch two aircraft at once; modern ones launch one at a time. If you use something like the launch tubes out of Galactica, launch becomes even faster (though recovery remains just as slow).


Your one advantage is that you can launch multiple salvoes of fighters, all of which can launch their missiles simultaneously. But there's a limit to how much leverage you get from that, because a ship optimized for missile launches will use a lot of surface area for missile launchers.

Yes, it probably will. But it has a lot of other things it wants to use that surface area for, too - Point Defence (if you're shooting nukes, (and if you're not, you're an idiot) you're going to want a lot of this), hanger bay for small craft, docking facilities, sensor systems, stealth systems - you don't have as much free space as you might think. Plus, internal missile launchers and magazines will take up a lot of space.

Now, you might think, "Why not put the missiles on one-shot launchers outside?", and it's a good question. There are several good reasons not to do it.

First, you're exposing the weapons to an extremely hostile environment. Radiation can degrade electronics, micrometeors can rip them up, and dust-scoring can blind sensor heads. Second, you're playing into the mutual-annihilation trap. If you're giving the capacity to launch an unstoppable wave at the enemy, but in exchange having NO endurance in a fight, you're just turning your multi-billion dollar ship onto a really expensive missile booster - one you're not expecting to return, since your opponent can do exactly the same thing.

No way to win a war.



Yes, but the fighters do have to. Which means that the danger to the carrier space group (the fighters) is precisely equivalent to the danger to the missile cruiser. And if your carrier loses most or all of its fighters on one or more occasions, you're in just as much trouble as if the carrier itself were badly mauled, because the carrier's "main battery" is being seriously damaged or destroyed on every mission.


Actually, the danger is significantly less. Fighters are much smaller targets; that in itself guarantees a lower chance of being hit. They can also use countermeasures like decoys and jinking that capships probably can't (or at least not as effectively).

And if you're talking one-on-one, it doesn't matter if you take some losses. By their nature, fighters are attrition units; fundamentally expendable. Even if you lose the entire wing, you've already inflicted hugely greater economic loss on the enemy.

Consider my initial example. 25 Fighters versus one 40-launcher battleship. Assume each fighter costs fifty million dollars (about right for everyone except the US air force), and the BB cost 2 Billion (way cheap). If you lose all 25 fighters, it costs you 1.25 billion to replace them. If they took out the BB, you're still 750 000 000 dollars ahead. And in fact, the BB will probably cost somewhere in the tens of billions.

I do not think you're going to lose the entire wing on this mission. But even if you do, you come out ahead in money and manpower (lose 25 or fifty personnel versus a crew of hundreds or thousands? Certainly).

[Skjaldbakka]

The gauss rifle with a 0 range of motion is only going to be able to hit anything if it gets the drop on it. Which means while you might design the ship with such a weapon for that purpose, the deciding factor in fights between battleships is going to be hull-mounted anti-cap guns.

The existence of carriers forces battleships to spend hull space on point defense weapons. Even if you are using automated fighter/missile drones.

Battleships w/o point defense are vulnerable to the strategy of "drop out of light speed, launch fighters, jump back to light speed", or "launch fighters from outside of battleship range, and stay out of range while fighters tear the battleship to pieces".

This is true even with AI fighters. Missiles could serve the same purpose, but a fired missile is gone, whereas a fighter can return.

Assuming that point defense is present on battleships, the role of the carrier becomes that of support. The fighters are used as a screen for the other capital ships.

[Sundog]

A nuke != auto kill in space, particularly for a capital ship. Even a direct surface hit will only transfer half of the energy of the explosion into the target. Anything farther away is even worse- the amount of energy to hit the ship diminishes as the square of the distance. Since these are ships designed for prolonged time in space, they already are going to have radiation shields out the ears. so that's not a problem It takes a darn lot of energy to melt through modern heavy armor, assuming decent advances in armor a heavily armored ship should be able to survive a few nuke hits just fine. This is why weapons like railguns are so appealing, much more of their energy hits the target. Also, they're not dangerous to store, you're never going to have your railgun magazine room explode.

Well, that's also true of nukes. They can only explode if set to do so.

And I think you're overestimating how well a ship could survive a nuke hit, even a well armoured one. I'm assuming something on the order of a one-megaton device set for surface strike detonation; I agree that a near-miss would be useless.

Still, even assuming the ship survives, I can't see it continuing to fight. It will be blind, deaf and dumb from having it's external sensors burned away; any weapon ports in the struck area will be either fused shut or have the internals burned out; and the transmitted shockwave will have been fatal to those in the area, and likely debilitating elsewhere. Your point defence will be now non-existent, so you'd better hope there are no more missiles incoming!



There's no reason for a space based missile launcher to work like earth based missile tubes. Just put the missile in some sort of magnetic flechette and kick it out a low powered guass gun. You can fire 'em plenty fast that way, probably faster than a fighter swarm, and continue to do so at the same rate until you run out of missiles.

I think you meant magnetic sabot, but I get your point. But I should point out, that while you are eliminating the need for a back-blast chamber, you're increasing space again for the magnetic accelerator, and increasing power requirements (by a significant amount; rail and coilguns are energy hogs).

I don't think this would significantly increase launch rates, though. The cycle time isn't based on how fast you can fire it off the rails, but how fast the autoloader can get it ON the rails, the computer shake hands with the fire control computer and get it's orders and (in this case) the capacitors for the rail chrage up. It's a good idea, because it would probably save space and increase the missiles terminal velocity, but I have doubts about launch rates.



Remember, every fighter killed costs the carrier that much offensive power + all the missiles it was carrying. See my idea of a rail shotgun above, just saturate the carrier's vacinity with lots of small bullets. They'll ping off of heavy armor and most will miss, but hey, there's always the chance of getting lucky and destroying a fighter in the launch tube, thereby messing up more launches. Lucky shots aside, hails of reasonably high speed low mass projectiles would be a real problem for fighters, and give them an annoying tradeoff: accelerate at full burn towards the battleship, meaning each wave of projectiles will have a higher relative velocity than the last, or go in slower and weather the assault for longer and hope like hell that nothing vital gets punctured by the hail of bullets. Using this kind of ordnace, my hypothetical battleship now has the twelve dedicated PD guns, plus all of the heavy turrets, which can most likely actually get a higher degree of fire saturation out there. Say each heavy turret can do three times the fire volume at long range that the PD turrets can. Then the fighters aren't dealing with 12 PD guns, but with 40. Somehow I think that they should manage to deal with 20 fighters at a rate of one a second just fine.

It seems to me, that if you're close enough to saturate the area of a carrier with (effectively) shotgun shot, you're probably ripping it apart with your main guns anyway. If the carrier skipper has let you get that close, something is very wrong.

This weapon would be great at short range, but useless at long. Simply: space is huge. And if you're spraying shot at an incoming fighter strike, any hits will be pure luck - and pretty unlikely luck at that.

Suppose your shot disperses by one centimeter over one hundred meters. Over one kilometer, that spread has become ten centimeters; over ten kilometers, one meter; over one hundred kilometers, your shotblast has spread out to cover an area of ten meters diameter.

Now, my maths isn't the greatest, so if I get this wrong, please tell me, but assuming a blast of one hundred pellets/flechettes, I get a minimum of ten centimeters between pellets at the one hundred kilometer mark. And I'm using some fairly conservative numbers here.

We're talking about fights that occur over light-seconds. One light-second is roughly 300 000 Kilometers.

At that range, the chance of a wing taking a casualty from your shotgun is somewhere on the same measure of probability as taking one fron running into a naturally occurring meteor.

Not that it would be useless. This would be a great backup weapon to PD lasers and anti-missiles.


Close up is another story of course, since the fighters may very well maneuvre faster than the heavy turrets can track. By this point however they should be so broken up and reduced in number that the relatively smaller number of dedicated PD turrets should do just fine.

And thanks Dervag. I'm rather pleased with that design if I say so myself. I might just make up a model of it over Thanksgiving Break!

I'd be interested in seeing that design. It also has promise as a fighter PD system.

[Dervag]

@warty goblin: Again, true about the PD, but the thing about those 12 PD turrets is that they can only shoot 12 things at once. If I launch 20 fighters, each with 3 missiles, and from the range they're at it takes 5 seconds for the missiles to reach their targets, those PD have to take out a missile a second. That's crazy fast.That depends on what weapon you're using. "Crazy fast" is not a term that can fairly be applied to a generic science fiction weapon without knowledge of what it is or how it works.


Fired from a battleship, those same missiles could be picked off at a distance without having to turn the guns too much. If the fighters converge from all different angles and fire their missiles in a spread from "close" range, then the turrets need to be exceptionally fast to hit them all. It becomes even more of a nightmare if they all converge on one side, meaning that two turrets have the job of shooting down 60 missiles. Of course, this is assuming that you don't take the fighters out first, but even if you took out half before they got to you, those two turrets need to shoot down 3 missiles a second each to survive.If the fighters close to a range where they can launch from inside the point defense envelope, they're going to take a lot of casualties before launching (like WWII torpedo bombers). And a fighter group that takes a lot of casualties in each mission won't last long as an effective fighting force.


This also assumes that the fighters don't have munitions of their own capable of harming the PD. It wouldn't be unreasonable for fighters to mount small bunches of smaller rockets, meant to be spread-fired at PD turrets.Can the fighters target individual turrets on a warship? That's hard.

It's relatively simple for your fire control to lock onto a piece of metal surrounded by vacuum (the entire ship). Targeting a specific piece of a piece of metal, at ranges where the distance from one part of the ship to another is extremely small relative to the weapon range, is much harder.


Only if you want to lose the war and tank your economy at the same time. Unless your point defence is amazing (I.E. Excellent or better) a fight between two such vessels would result in mutual annihilation. Remember that we are talking about NUCLEAR MISSILES here. Unless you're armoured with some sort of handwavium/unobtainium alloy, one direct hit equals one dead ship.Direct hits are hard to score even in real life against a target with the relatively crude point defense we now possess (Phalanx 20mm turrets and such). And you have to get a direct hit; blowing your missile up several kilometers away isn't going to cut it. On planetary scales, that's not easy, especially against a maneuvering target that can shoot back. Missiles that close to your ship are easy targets for lasers and such.


Bollocks. Launchers aren't just a hole you throw a missile out of. They also include the links to update the missile as to it's target, back-blast chambers to prevent internal damage when launching, feed tubes to get the next missile into position, maintenance facilities and the control runs and power systems that let all of this work. You'd be lucky if a capship can carry as many launchers as a carrier can carry fighters.In space, you have more options for launch- you really can throw the missile out a hole, with its drive programmed to fire up several seconds later, as a wet-navy ship might do with torpedoes. The burden of control runs and power systems is significant, as is maintenance, but both those burdens apply to fighter bays as well.


Fighters, on the other hand, can carry missiles on external hardpoints, because they're prepped in the launch bay before launch. Thus, a fighter wing can launch far more missiles than a missile boat of the same tonnage as their carrier.Why can't the missile boat carry missiles in external hardpoints? Or, for that matter, have a hatch like the hatch of a fighter bay and shove packets of 'missile pods' out that serve as nothing but a dedicated collection of missile hardpoints fired on the missile boat's command? Such a missile pod would carry the same number of missiles as a fighter but take up a lot less space.


Only if you fly stupid. A fighter's only real limitation is it's life support; it can simply turn off it's drive and coast most of the way to it's target, using fuel only to adjust to it's target's maneuvers, then go home the same way.

Missiles can only do this if you KNOW where the enemy is going to be. Not a problem if you're attacking a fixed installation, but any sort of mobile enemy is all to likely to detect and avoid an incoming missile strike. And if you're talking a light-minute range (or, powers help you, light-hours) you can't send corrective data to your missiles - you're playing catch0-up with relativistic distance, a game you'll never win.And if you're not?

Fighters can cruise long distances, launch, and return, sure. But if a fighter can maneuver to chase an enemy that changes course, so can a missile. It isn't exactly challenging to program a robot to chase something. The technology to spot maneuvering ships under reaction drive at long range already exists; the technology to steer a missile towards an enemy that is maneuvering likewise.


No, because fighters can carry on external hardpoints. They don't need a full launcher, but a ship does.Missile pods?


Besides which, if you're organized you can get a lot of fighters off (or on) through a relatively small launch capacity in a short time. WWII Carriers could typically only launch two aircraft at once; modern ones launch one at a time. If you use something like the launch tubes out of Galactica, launch becomes even faster (though recovery remains just as slow).True. On the other hand, real aircraft carriers dedicate a very large fraction of their surface area to the fighter 'launch tubes' (i.e. much of the deck). Carpeting that same area with missile launchers would produce something even a full enemy CAG would be reluctant to tangle with, I'd think.

In real life that wouldn't work well, because the CAG can maneuver vastly faster than our 'missile-ized carrier' and can radically increase the effective range of its mothership's strikes. In space, neither of those assumptions obtain reliably unless we make specific assumptions about the technologies available rather than generic ones.


First, you're exposing the weapons to an extremely hostile environment. Radiation can degrade electronics, micrometeors can rip them up, and dust-scoring can blind sensor heads. Second, you're playing into the mutual-annihilation trap. If you're giving the capacity to launch an unstoppable wave at the enemy, but in exchange having NO endurance in a fight, you're just turning your multi-billion dollar ship onto a really expensive missile booster - one you're not expecting to return, since your opponent can do exactly the same thing.

No way to win a war.Why not use missile pods? I know I'm repeating the question, but I note that individual statements I make tend to get lost in the shuffle when I try to reply to everything I feel merits a response.

[Sundog]

Direct hits are hard to score even in real life against a target with the relatively crude point defense we now possess (Phalanx 20mm turrets and such). And you have to get a direct hit; blowing your missile up several kilometers away isn't going to cut it. On planetary scales, that's not easy, especially against a maneuvering target that can shoot back. Missiles that close to your ship are easy targets for lasers and such.

Well, if your point defence is good enough to stop the incoming wave, then missiles stop being part of the equation, and fighters stop being used. You go to battleships armed with lasers, railguns and plasma casters instead. As I said earlier, the use of fighters is predicated on how good your point defence is.



In space, you have more options for launch- you really can throw the missile out a hole, with its drive programmed to fire up several seconds later, as a wet-navy ship might do with torpedoes. The burden of control runs and power systems is significant, as is maintenance, but both those burdens apply to fighter bays as well.

They do, but you have the advantage of being able to work sequentially on fighters. A prepped fighter can sit on the deck of the launch bay until it's fight-mates are ready - all of the missiles of a salvo need to be prepped simultaneously, or at least within very short order. While you could pre-prep more missiles for your FIRST salvo, unless you're certain that salvo will win the battle, you need to be able to prep and launch significantly sized follow-ups.

Oh, and you'll find that today there are two different kinds of torpedoes: short-range self guideds, and long range wire-guideds. The short range ones are shot off the decks of ships or dropped into the water from helos; wire-guideds come from submarines, launched from a proper tube and with full control. If you want to hut anything at range, it's the wire-guided type you'll need.



Why can't the missile boat carry missiles in external hardpoints? Or, for that matter, have a hatch like the hatch of a fighter bay and shove packets of 'missile pods' out that serve as nothing but a dedicated collection of missile hardpoints fired on the missile boat's command? Such a missile pod would carry the same number of missiles as a fighter but take up a lot less space.

Yes, it would, and would be a great way to throw huge salvoes. You wouldn't get the range advantage, though, and assuming your opponent does the same thing, you're probably back to that mutual-annihilation thing again.

Consider the situation once missile pods were introduced to the Honor Harrington universe. Squadrons of roughly-equal number suddenly found themselves punching each other out with initial volleys; collossal wastes of equipment, credits and lives to no end, because there wasn't enough left of either side to do any good. A Pyrrhic victory is no victory at all.

The doctrine they were operating under was suddenly unsustainable, but inertia kept them from realising it. Which was a good thing, because the introduction of the new LACs and the Apollo system has changed everything again.

At any rate, in a mutual-annihilation environment, nobody builds battleships. SMACS and MMACS become the only viable warships.


And if you're not?

I find it difficult to conceive how it wouldn't be.

If you have any sort of reasonable deep-space drive, going somewhere is just a case applying thrust in a certain direction and then waiting until you get there. Given the scale of the Solar System, and the difficulty in keeping your movements secret, initail maneuvers to engage would probably begin somewhere around the one light-minute mark, each squadron/ship deciding to engage or avoid engagement at that point, based on such information as relative velocity, fuel status, and overall mission. Carrier ships would not want to get closer than maybe ten light-seconds - they would launch their birds, which would then move in until launch range.

Gun ships would want as close to a zero-range intercept as possible, of course. It would be the better commande who got what he wanted and denied his enemy.


Fighters can cruise long distances, launch, and return, sure. But if a fighter can maneuver to chase an enemy that changes course, so can a missile. It isn't exactly challenging to program a robot to chase something. The technology to spot maneuvering ships under reaction drive at long range already exists; the technology to steer a missile towards an enemy that is maneuvering likewise.

The missile would have to be able to make it's own decisions regarding when to burn, when to coast, when to evade - I'm sure it could be done, but do you really want to spend that much money on a device whose sole purpose is to self-immolate? Or would you prefer to spend that money on an AI Fighter that can make the same choices, launch it's relatively dumb missiles at close range, and then return home to do it again?


True. On the other hand, real aircraft carriers dedicate a very large fraction of their surface area to the fighter 'launch tubes' (i.e. much of the deck). Carpeting that same area with missile launchers would produce something even a full enemy CAG would be reluctant to tangle with, I'd think.

In real life that wouldn't work well, because the CAG can maneuver vastly faster than our 'missile-ized carrier' and can radically increase the effective range of its mothership's strikes. In space, neither of those assumptions obtain reliably unless we make specific assumptions about the technologies available rather than generic ones.

True, but if missile salvoes from fighters are dangerous, THAT would be stepping over the line into mutual-annihilation again. Two such ships meet, and both navies are down a multi-billlion dollar ship.



Why not use missile pods? I know I'm repeating the question, but I note that individual statements I make tend to get lost in the shuffle when I try to reply to everything I feel merits a response.

Consider this: What is a fighter but a manned (or AI'd), self-motivated missile pod?

[Skjaldbakka]

Well, if your point defence is good enough to stop the incoming wave, then missiles stop being part of the equation, and fighters stop being used. You go to battleships armed with lasers, railguns and plasma casters instead. As I said earlier, the use of fighters is predicated on how good your point defence is.

You do realize the logical consequence of this line of reasoning?

Point Defense systems trump fighters, leading to fighters no longer being used.

Point Defense systems are now useless, and are removed in favor of more anti-capital ship weaponry.

Capital Ships are now vulnerable to fighters again.

Which is why you have both battleships AND carriers in space combat. You can't afford to phase either out. There is a reason that modern militaries have Army, Air Force, and Navy (as well as mixed units, like the Marines).


A battleship will probably defeat a carrier in space combat. However, a group of mixed carriers and battleships will probably defeat an equal group of all battleships.

EDIt- I do agree that futuristic fighters make more sense as a combination of remote/AI controlled units, as opposed to human piloted units.

[factotum]

@warty goblin: Again, true about the PD, but the thing about those 12 PD turrets is that they can only shoot 12 things at once. If I launch 20 fighters, each with 3 missiles, and from the range they're at it takes 5 seconds for the missiles to reach their targets, those PD have to take out a missile a second. That's crazy fast.

I wouldn't say so. Modern-day gun-based missile defence systems have crazily fast rates of fire--the Dutch-made Goalkeeper system can fire something like seventy rounds per SECOND. One assumes a futuristic space-based version could be even faster.

[Sundog]

You do realize the logical consequence of this line of reasoning?

Point Defense systems trump fighters, leading to fighters no longer being used.

Point Defense systems are now useless, and are removed in favor of more anti-capital ship weaponry.

Capital Ships are now vulnerable to fighters again.

Which is why you have both battleships AND carriers in space combat. You can't afford to phase either out. There is a reason that modern militaries have Army, Air Force, and Navy (as well as mixed units, like the Marines).


A battleship will probably defeat a carrier in space combat. However, a group of mixed carriers and battleships will probably defeat an equal group of all battleships.

EDIt- I do agree that futuristic fighters make more sense as a combination of remote/AI controlled units, as opposed to human piloted units.

I don't know...seems a bit iffy to me.

The ship designers would know the logic as well as anyone, and while there would certainly be a temptation to skimp on PD, I'm not certain how many would go for it. Even if they did, it would only take one disaster (one side suddenly deploying missiles against an under-defended foe) before all those PD systems would be back on the battleships.

Point Defence would become a redundent, but necessary system, at least until the next major tech breakthrough scrambled the probabilities again.

[Skjaldbakka]

I don't know...seems a bit iffy to me.

Allow me to elaborate.

When fighters phase out (which will take a generation or two of being useless. The british had lancers in WWI, for crying out loud), the side that puts more big guns onto their ships will gain an advantage. Putting more big guns will weaken the PD systems, to where the ship is once more vulnerable to fighters. A few more generations past fighters being obsolete, heavy PD systems will become obsolete, and be reduced or even eliminated in favor of more big guns. Eventually, someone will get the bright idea to throw a few fighters onto a battleship, and will sufficiently successful at doing so to merit the use of carriers again. At which point there is a mad scramble to up PD systems again.

It is, however, more likely that carriers will not phase out at all, as fighters retain utility as a defensive screen against enemy missiles (and to a lesser extent, fighters). They can shoot them down before they hit the carrier, or even intercept them. They also make a good second wave, after the battleships have slugged it out a bit, the PD systems are going to be sufficiently damaged for the fighters to likely find 'gaps in the field'. Which they can exploit.

That being said, carrier by itself will still lose against battleship by itself. A group of all battleships will be at a disadvantage against a group of battleships with a carrier or two.

[Sundog]

Allow me to elaborate.

When fighters phase out (which will take a generation or two of being useless. The british had lancers in WWI, for crying out loud), the side that puts more big guns onto their ships will gain an advantage. Putting more big guns will weaken the PD systems, to where the ship is once more vulnerable to fighters. A few more generations past fighters being obsolete, heavy PD systems will become obsolete, and be reduced or even eliminated in favor of more big guns. Eventually, someone will get the bright idea to throw a few fighters onto a battleship, and will sufficiently successful at doing so to merit the use of carriers again. At which point there is a mad scramble to up PD systems again.

It is, however, more likely that carriers will not phase out at all, as fighters retain utility as a defensive screen against enemy missiles (and to a lesser extent, fighters). They can shoot them down before they hit the carrier, or even intercept them. They also make a good second wave, after the battleships have slugged it out a bit, the PD systems are going to be sufficiently damaged for the fighters to likely find 'gaps in the field'. Which they can exploit.

That being said, carrier by itself will still lose against battleship by itself. A group of all battleships will be at a disadvantage against a group of battleships with a carrier or two.

Ah, yes, I get you.

And I agree that fighters would probably not become totally obsolete. They'd remain superb scouts, and useful against anything less than a military battlegroup. Unless there was a technological breakthrough that made them completely useless, small carriers would probably still be useful as screening elements and raiders.

[Dervag]

Oh, and you'll find that today there are two different kinds of torpedoes: short-range self guideds, and long range wire-guideds. The short range ones are shot off the decks of ships or dropped into the water from helos; wire-guideds come from submarines, launched from a proper tube and with full control. If you want to hut anything at range, it's the wire-guided type you'll need.Is that true for an intrinsic reason that applies equally well in space? It isn't true in air-to-air combat.


Consider the situation once missile pods were introduced to the Honor Harrington universe. Squadrons of roughly-equal number suddenly found themselves punching each other out with initial volleys; collossal wastes of equipment, credits and lives to no end, because there wasn't enough left of either side to do any good. A Pyrrhic victory is no victory at all.Actually, one side or the other would quite frequently win decisively, because the point defense technolog was good enough that even a pod salvo could be worn down greatly before reaching the enemy.


At any rate, in a mutual-annihilation environment, nobody builds battleships. SMACS and MMACS become the only viable warships.If the missiles do indeed create mutual-annihilation environments, then you are correct.


I find it difficult to conceive how it wouldn't be...I see where your point comes from. However, I'm not at all sure of your conclusion that missiles won't be able to track a maneuvering opponent much as fighters can.





The missile would have to be able to make it's own decisions regarding when to burn, when to coast, when to evade - I'm sure it could be done, but do you really want to spend that much money on a device whose sole purpose is to self-immolate? Or would you prefer to spend that money on an AI Fighter that can make the same choices, launch it's relatively dumb missiles at close range, and then return home to do it again?Once the cost of programming the missile AI to do that is paid (and that's a one-off decision), the price of the hardware required to support the AI needed to do that will be trivial compared to the cost of any reasonable missile. Even a contemporary computer could run software quite capable of noting when a target was deviating from its predicted course and setting up an intercept course, especially if it had dramatically superior acceleration to its target. And such a computer would not be very expensive, so blowing it up won't cost you much.

The AI fighter will require similar hardware, and will suffer from a reduced payload because it needs to be able to come home.


Consider this: What is a fighter but a manned (or AI'd), self-motivated missile pod?A maneuvering missile pod? A missile pod that has to come home again, and which therefore must contain much more in the way of features than a simple block of bazooka-like missile tubes or hardpoints?


Point Defence would become a redundent, but necessary system, at least until the next major tech breakthrough scrambled the probabilities again.Also, there's no hard and fast division between PD and anti-shipping guns in space. PD weapons can be quite effective against the enemy at closer ranges, or (if you're using coilguns) even at long ranges.

[Lord Zentei]

You don't need to know you're being shot at to dodge. Evasive maneuvers are predicated on the concept that you will be shot at, and you would commence them as soon as you are within the known or suspected range of enemy as-light weaponry - because you don't want to die.

This applies to dodging enemy ships as well.



And my evidence is simple physics. If you're just 1 light-second out, the engaging ship is shooting at where you will be in 1 second's time based on where you were one second ago. If you're going in a straight line, no problem, but if you're altering your vector even slightly, much, much harder.

Your evidence is bad physics, or rather selective physics. It can be applied to your fighters just as easily a as it can to any other weapons system.



Besides which, beam weapons do not have the range to pull this sort of thing off. In real life, a laser weapon's beam would attenuate to uselessness after a few hundred kilometers - great point defence, no good against fighters with stand-off armaments at all.

That is due to line of sight issues, which do not apply in space.



Only if you want to lose the war and tank your economy at the same time. Unless your point defence is amazing (I.E. Excellent or better) a fight between two such vessels would result in mutual annihilation. Remember that we are talking about NUCLEAR MISSILES here. Unless you're armoured with some sort of handwavium/unobtainium alloy, one direct hit equals one dead ship.
Yes, there is no shockwave effect in space. But there certainly WILL be a shockwave effect through the body of a spacecraft that takes a direct hit, not to mention the plasma fireball, the heat pulse, the radiation pulse, and the EMP.
So missile battleships would be a complete waste of time and money. You'd go broke trying to keep a fleet of them, and if your opponent starts using fighters i.e. cheap, expendable alternatives, you lose.

Your arbitrary and ad-hoc quality classification system is fallacious: specifically, you are making yourself guilty of semantics wrangling, instead of arguing from first principles. The labels you apply "excellent", "poor", etc, needn't be assigned to the specific capabilities that you cite.

You also fail to address the arguments regarding fuel and payload capacity for the fighters vs missiles and the fact that an EMP would also kill a fighter which leads you to the patently bizarre conclusion of missiles being a "waste of time and money".



Bollocks. Launchers aren't just a hole you throw a missile out of. They also include the links to update the missile as to it's target, back-blast chambers to prevent internal damage when launching, feed tubes to get the next missile into position, maintenance facilities and the control runs and power systems that let all of this work. You'd be lucky if a capship can carry as many launchers as a carrier can carry fighters.

This is the silliest argument I have heard in some time, and that includes the crap I had to put up with in the Sapphire Guard thread.



Fighters, on the other hand, can carry missiles on external hardpoints, because they're prepped in the launch bay before launch. Thus, a fighter wing can launch far more missiles than a missile boat of the same tonnage as their carrier.

The cross sectional surface area of the fighter + missiles is still equal to or greater than the cross sectional area of the same number of missiles alone. The mass and volume of the fighter + missile is also greater than the mass of the missiles alone. Whether the fighter carries them externally and whether the missiles are prepped in the launch bay is irrelevant.



Only if you fly stupid. A fighter's only real limitation is it's life support; it can simply turn off it's drive and coast most of the way to it's target, using fuel only to adjust to it's target's maneuvers, then go home the same way.

You again ignore the clear evidence to the fact that fighters ALWAYS use more fuel than missiles.



Missiles can only do this if you KNOW where the enemy is going to be. Not a problem if you're attacking a fixed installation, but any sort of mobile enemy is all to likely to detect and avoid an incoming missile strike. And if you're talking a light-minute range (or, powers help you, light-hours) you can't send corrective data to your missiles - you're playing catch0-up with relativistic distance, a game you'll never win.

And you ignore the fact that missiles have AIs rather than being dumb objects moving along ballistic trajectories.

[averagejoe]

Been lurking; this is one of the more interesting debates I've seen on these boards. Just wanted to adress this-


That is due to line of sight issues, which do not apply in space.

Actually, it's impossible to create a truly cohesive laser. Their beams dissipate over a distance, just like with normal light sources, just the distances involved are much greater. It's the same thing as when you point a flashlight at something sufficiently far away and the light doesn't reach it; the beam has scattered too much for there to be any concentrated light. The same applies to lasers, just with much greater distances.

[Lord Zentei]

You do realize the logical consequence of this line of reasoning?

Point Defense systems trump fighters, leading to fighters no longer being used.

Point Defense systems are now useless, and are removed in favor of more anti-capital ship weaponry.

Capital Ships are now vulnerable to fighters again.

Which is why you have both battleships AND carriers in space combat. You can't afford to phase either out. There is a reason that modern militaries have Army, Air Force, and Navy (as well as mixed units, like the Marines).

Does not follow. Modern millitaries do not have horse drawn chariots anymore either. Sometimes, a technology is simply obsolete.




In and of itself, the fact that air fighters travel in air and not on water does not make them more effective than sea ships.

That was not my argument. The argument is that you have two mediums, and craft optimized for the one are very different from those optimized for the other. This is what makes the aircraft supremacy possible.



During World War One, aircraft had effectively no chance of harming warships, even though they were assuredly travelling in a different medium from those ships. The reason aircraft gain an advantage from travelling in a different medium is that it allows them to do different things, such as go faster while still carrying lethal antishipping weapons. If space fighters could do that, they would gain an advantage regardless of whether or not they travel in a different medium.

Obviously. The reason is nonetheless that they are moving in a different medium: this is what allows fighters to be potentially useful. I never claimed that it makes such utility inevitable. However, removing such a factor eliminates the reason for the possibility for such optimization.



If it were possible to build surface gunboats or torpedo boats that were as fast and deadly as aircraft, they would be quite effective in naval battles despite travelling on the same medium as the larger capital ships. However, there is no compelling reason to expect this to be possible, either on the sea or in space.

And that is my argument.



As I see it, space fighters are probably an inefficient solution, but would be efficient under certain highly specific conditions (thus providing an out for authors who want to include them).

In other words: writer fiat. :smallwink:



Imagine two craft: one with no life support (so the crew has to live in his spacesuit, and can only do so for short periods), and one with sufficient life support to operate for weeks or months.

If the ship with life support had to use a large fraction of its mass and volume on that life support capability, then it would be preferable to build warships with minimal life support, because any extra life support is a drain on space and power that could be used for weapons or defenses. However, a ship with short endurance is much less useful than a ship with long endurance.

One compromise that would make sense if this were a serious enough problem would be to put a ship's firepower and defenses on one or more short-endurance platforms, and then have a 'tender' craft with the life support capability to keep the crew alive between combat missions. The tender can't fight very well (it had better be able to run, though), but the short-endurance platforms can.

Um, nope. The BB > CV applies regardless of whether the firepower and defenses are detachable as separate ships or whether they are hardwired. So, you eliminate the life support costs of the carrier. Does this change the arguments of the battleship's weapons versus the carrier's weapons? Does it allow the carrier to become more automated than the battleship? No on both counts. This is actually more a vote to make the BBs automated as well.



The short-endurance platforms can be, for example, TIE fighters (short-range fighters from Star Wars). Or they can be Cimeterre-class LACs (short-endurance gunboats from David Weber's Honor Harrington series). Or they can be parasite cruisers of which a given tender will only support a small number. But the basic principle remains- by allowing a ship to keep the equipment and resources needed for long-term endurance out of the battle, the ship becomes more effective in the battle.

Battleship commanders call these "supply depots". :smallwink:



Actually, it's impossible to create a truly cohesive laser. Their beams dissipate over a distance, just like with normal light sources, just the distances involved are much greater. It's the same thing as when you point a flashlight at something sufficiently far away and the light doesn't reach it; the beam has scattered too much for there to be any concentrated light. The same applies to lasers, just with much greater distances.

Yes indeed: however, a laser can still be focused through lenses: non-focused at short range, more focused at one particular long range. And as an aside, there are particle beams. The ammunition of both of these would be moving at near-c.

[Telonius]

Carriers and fighters will be the dominant choice of most interstellar actors. Only large, powerful empires will have enough leftover resources to produce and maintain a fleet of either battleships or carrier groups. But while an interstellar battleship would be terrifying, its utility would be limited. It would cost a lot to deploy it (thousands of space officers manning the battle stations), it would take more energy to move it (more mass = more energy needed to accelerate). It can't be in two places at once. Its departure will make its spaceport significantly more vulnerable.

If you're a smaller power with a bunch of fighters, and you know that the Empire has a battleship on its way, you wouldn't send your medium ships against it. They'd get chopped to pieces, and your intelligence operatives have told you they've secured all the thermal ports. So what would you do? You'd send your ships into hiding, and make the empire pay to maintain its battleship presence, weakening them economically. If you can get away with it, you'd engage in low-level piracy, quick surgical strikes, with your fighters. They would leave before the battleship got there.

Say you're a governmental official in the Empire. Your Imperial boss is concerned about mounting costs - the Plutonian slaves aren't able to produce enough Energy Rocks and laser cannons, and the floggings have not improved morale. You know that your rivals are doing hit-and-run tactics. If you don't figure out a way to reduce costs fast, you're headed to the nitrogen mines. What's the most reasonable alternative to those big-ticket items like battleships? Well, adopting the same sorts of tactics that the rebels are using. Scale down the size of the ships in your fleet, improve their speed. You already know that your opponent doesn't have a battleship; you don't need a battleship to shred him when a cruiser or a carrier group will do. So, you invest heavily in the company that produes fighters. You dock your battleship in the home port and turn it into a propaganda tool. You find some other power that wants to have a big battleship, support them, and let your ally incur the costs.

[Emperor Tippy]

Carriers and fighters will be the dominant choice of most interstellar actors. Only large, powerful empires will have enough leftover resources to produce and maintain a fleet of either battleships or carrier groups. But while an interstellar battleship would be terrifying, its utility would be limited. It would cost a lot to deploy it (thousands of space officers manning the battle stations), it would take more energy to move it (more mass = more energy needed to accelerate). It can't be in two places at once. Its departure will make its spaceport significantly more vulnerable.
Unless you have FTL capable fighter craft a carrier is equally limited to just 1 location.

And you can get the same effect that you get from the fighters with mines.


If you're a smaller power with a bunch of fighters, and you know that the Empire has a battleship on its way, you wouldn't send your medium ships against it. They'd get chopped to pieces, and your intelligence operatives have told you they've secured all the thermal ports. So what would you do? You'd send your ships into hiding, and make the empire pay to maintain its battleship presence, weakening them economically. If you can get away with it, you'd engage in low-level piracy, quick surgical strikes, with your fighters. They would leave before the battleship got there.
Again, unless you can make FTL capable fighters then they are limited to 1 solar system, just like the battleship. And the battleship drops a bunch of drones around the solar system with orders to blast anything that isn't supposed to be their (such as enemy fighters). You can leave the drones on station for months with no problem and you aren't using up valuable pilots.


Say you're a governmental official in the Empire. Your Imperial boss is concerned about mounting costs - the Plutonian slaves aren't able to produce enough Energy Rocks and laser cannons, and the floggings have not improved morale. You know that your rivals are doing hit-and-run tactics. If you don't figure out a way to reduce costs fast, you're headed to the nitrogen mines. What's the most reasonable alternative to those big-ticket items like battleships? Well, adopting the same sorts of tactics that the rebels are using. Scale down the size of the ships in your fleet, improve their speed. You already know that your opponent doesn't have a battleship; you don't need a battleship to shred him when a cruiser or a carrier group will do. So, you invest heavily in the company that produes fighters. You dock your battleship in the home port and turn it into a propaganda tool. You find some other power that wants to have a big battleship, support them, and let your ally incur the costs.

Again, unless you have FTL capable fighters then they are essentially worthless.

[Telonius]

Unless you have FTL capable fighter craft a carrier is equally limited to just 1 location.

And you can get the same effect that you get from the fighters with mines.


Again, unless you can make FTL capable fighters then they are limited to 1 solar system, just like the battleship. And the battleship drops a bunch of drones around the solar system with orders to blast anything that isn't supposed to be their (such as enemy fighters). You can leave the drones on station for months with no problem and you aren't using up valuable pilots.



Again, unless you have FTL capable fighters then they are essentially worthless.

I'm assuming generally equal speed and generally equal technology spread. If neither fighter nor battleship is FTL, all of the arguments still hold. If the battleship is FTL, then there's no reason the fighters wouldn't be.

[Emperor Tippy]

I'm assuming generally equal speed and generally equal technology spread. If neither fighter nor battleship is FTL, all of the arguments still hold. If the battleship is FTL, then there's no reason the fighters wouldn't be.

Umm. No.

Equal tech spread would be battleship sized items being able to mount FTL drives. Thus a carrier can mount an FTL drive and carry the fighters to the battle.

If you can mount FTL drives on fighter sized ships then all of combat changes drastically (how much depends on how exactly the FTL drives work).

[Telonius]

The battleship's drive and fuel load would necessarily be larger, since it's propelling something that's much larger than the fighter. You can have a tiny engine and little fuel to move a SmartCar, but you need a big engine and more fuel to move a Hummer.

[Emperor Tippy]

That depends entirely on how FTL travel works in a given universe and is thus writer fiat. Meaning that for purposes of this exercise fighters don't get FTL capabilities while carriers and battleships do.

Carriers have the FTL engine for the entire fighter wing. If the fighters were FTL capable then you don't need a carrier.

[Lord Zentei]

Carriers and fighters will be the dominant choice of most interstellar actors. Only large, powerful empires will have enough leftover resources to produce and maintain a fleet of either battleships or carrier groups. But while an interstellar battleship would be terrifying, its utility would be limited. It would cost a lot to deploy it (thousands of space officers manning the battle stations), it would take more energy to move it (more mass = more energy needed to accelerate). It can't be in two places at once. Its departure will make its spaceport significantly more vulnerable.

Leaving a destroyer is just as feasible as leaving a battleship. In fact, it is more feasible.



If you're a smaller power with a bunch of fighters, and you know that the Empire has a battleship on its way, you wouldn't send your medium ships against it. They'd get chopped to pieces, and your intelligence operatives have told you they've secured all the thermal ports. So what would you do? You'd send your ships into hiding, and make the empire pay to maintain its battleship presence, weakening them economically. If you can get away with it, you'd engage in low-level piracy, quick surgical strikes, with your fighters. They would leave before the battleship got there.

This is a vote for having destroyers as well as battleships, not for having expensive CVs.



Say you're a governmental official in the Empire. Your Imperial boss is concerned about mounting costs - the Plutonian slaves aren't able to produce enough Energy Rocks and laser cannons, and the floggings have not improved morale. You know that your rivals are doing hit-and-run tactics. If you don't figure out a way to reduce costs fast, you're headed to the nitrogen mines. What's the most reasonable alternative to those big-ticket items like battleships? Well, adopting the same sorts of tactics that the rebels are using. Scale down the size of the ships in your fleet, improve their speed. You already know that your opponent doesn't have a battleship; you don't need a battleship to shred him when a cruiser or a carrier group will do. So, you invest heavily in the company that produes fighters. You dock your battleship in the home port and turn it into a propaganda tool. You find some other power that wants to have a big battleship, support them, and let your ally incur the costs.

Good heavens, a CV group is at least as expensive as a battleship group. See: relative costs for missiles vs fighters. The scenario you describe is when you send in the independent patrol ships, not another fuel hog that has to support operations.



The battleship's drive and fuel load would necessarily be larger, since it's propelling something that's much larger than the fighter. You can have a tiny engine and little fuel to move a SmartCar, but you need a big engine and more fuel to move a Hummer.

Use drone missiles, then. Again, missiles > fighters. Failing that, if the fighters have FTL, you call them "patrol ships", since then you are no longer using the CV concept.

[Telonius]

Leaving a destroyer is just as feasible as leaving a battleship. In fact, it is more feasible.

This is a vote for having destroyers as well as battleships, not for having expensive CVs.

The destroyer is the next step in the progression - it's what the Empire does when it scales down the size of its ships. But the original question wasn't about destroyers, it was about battleships vs carriers and fighters.


Good heavens, a CV group is at least as expensive as a battleship group. See: relative costs for missiles vs fighters. The scenario you describe is when you send in the independent patrol ships, not another fuel hog that has to support operations.

Use drone missiles, then. Again, missiles > fighters. Failing that, if the fighters have FTL, you call them "patrol ships", since then you are no longer using the CV concept.

If missiles like that exist, then the fighters are on their way out. The fact that, in the original question, one side has fighters means that either a similar technology to the missiles doesn't exist; or that the people sending out the fighters are technologically inferior, led by idiots, or both.

[Lord Zentei]

The destroyer is the next step in the progression - it's what the Empire does when it scales down the size of its ships. But the original question wasn't about destroyers, it was about battleships vs carriers and fighters.

A destroyer uses the same design philosophy as the battleship (being a miniature version of same), not the same one as the carrier.



If missiles like that exist, then the fighters are on their way out. The fact that, in the original question, one side has fighters means that either a similar technology to the missiles doesn't exist; or that the people sending out the fighters are technologically inferior, led by idiots, or both.

Not so. Simply going by AI development today, there is no reason to suppose that missiles like these would not be available. As Emperor Tippy points out, the USAF is devising unmanned F-22s.

Of course the presence of such AIs makes fighters redundant. That's the point: and with that, the OP question is answered pretty definitively.

[warty goblin]

The battleship's drive and fuel load would necessarily be larger, since it's propelling something that's much larger than the fighter. You can have a tiny engine and little fuel to move a SmartCar, but you need a big engine and more fuel to move a Hummer.

Actually I think there could be an argument made that a battleship will carry less than a carrier will.

The carrier has to carry:
Some amount of hull mounted PD.
Long endurance life support
Fuel
FTL drive
Fighters
Missiles for fighters
Equipment to service fighters

The battleship needs:
Some amount of hull mounted PD.
Long endurance life support
Fuel
FTL drive
Extra Armor
Heavy Weapons

Now here's the clincher, the fighters need to carry:
Missile launchers
engines
life support
additional weapons (optional).

See what I'm getting at? The fighters carry redundant systems, like life support and engines. Take a missile to be fired from each ship. Both ships require roughly the same amount of basic overhead (life support, fuel etc) and are roughly the same size. In order to fire that missile, the battleship needs a missile launcher. The carrier doesn't need the missile launcher, but it needs the equpment to launch and service a fighter plus the fighter's life support and engines, systems which the carrier already has, and is carrying smaller versions of around. The carrier by design carries redundant extra systems in order to deploy its weapons, the battleship doesn't.

[Telonius]

A destroyer uses the same design philosophy as the battleship (being a miniature version of same), not the same one as the carrier.
The design philosophy is the same, but the cost is not. That's why, if a destroyer and a battleship are both capable of beating the enemy in a straight-up fight, the destroyer will be produced and deployed more frequently.



Not so. Simply going by AI development today, there is no reason to suppose that missiles like these would not be available. As Emperor Tippy points out, the USAF is devising unmanned F-22s.

Of course the presence of such AIs makes fighters redundant. That's the point: and with that, the OP question is answered pretty definitively.

So there will be no advancement in missile defense between now and sci-fi, no improved hull armor, no advanced materials capable of absorbing the shock? Missiles are developed when one side wants to take out individual targets quickly and at less cost. Then the technology dissipates throughout. Bigger, heavier battleships - more capable of absorbing the shock - are built in response to that threat. At which point the enemy adjusts its tactics back to hit and run; and the innovation cycle repeats.

[Lord Zentei]

The design philosophy is the same, but the cost is not. That's why, if a destroyer and a battleship are both capable of beating the enemy in a straight-up fight, the destroyer will be produced and deployed more frequently.

So? The topic under discussion is the BB vs the CV -- I take that as meaning a contest between the two design philosophies. If you are using the destroyer, you are subscribing to the BB school. Whether we label a craft of such and such a size "destroyer" or "battleship" is largely academic.



So there will be no advancement in missile defense between now and sci-fi, no improved hull armor, no advanced materials capable of absorbing the shock? Missiles are developed when one side wants to take out individual targets quickly and at less cost. Then the technology dissipates throughout. Bigger, heavier battleships - more capable of absorbing the shock - are built in response to that threat. At which point the enemy adjusts its tactics back to hit and run; and the innovation cycle repeats.

As has been already stated several times, the missile carries its larger payload faster and more efficiently than the fighter. If battleships can deal with the missile bombardment, the fighter's weapons will not daunt them.

[Dervag]

In other words: writer fiat. :smallwink: In any science fiction novel, many assumptions are purely arbitrary and there is no a priori reason to assume that they will apply one way or the other. This includes the assumption that space combat is even feasible in the first place, in my opinion; there are viable models on which it is effectively impossible for spacecraft to engage each other in a meaningful way except under very unusual conditions.

So if this be writer fiat, then let us make the most of it.


Um, nope. The BB > CV applies regardless of whether the firepower and defenses are detachable as separate ships or whether they are hardwired. So, you eliminate the life support costs of the carrier. Does this change the arguments of the battleship's weapons versus the carrier's weapons? Does it allow the carrier to become more automated than the battleship? No on both counts. This is actually more a vote to make the BBs automated as well.The catch is that I can turn the carrier into something very like a cow, while I cannot do the same for the battleship. If the carrier is designed to avoid danger rather than enter it, I may actually be able to put more weapons in a detachable 'carrier air wing' than I could have put in the battleship. In which case fighters might actually be worth it. Likewise if surface area is at a premium- parasite warships allow you to get lots of surface area for weapons without having to abandon the efficient near-spherical shape of your primary ship.


Battleship commanders call these "supply depots". :smallwink:Yes, but supply depots aren't mobile and are very easy targets for raids, so you can't keep them in the operational theater. Carriers can move in the operational theater as long as they can evade enemy attacks.

Or you could build a mobile supply base for a squadron of battleships... in which case you now have a squadron of very large fighters operating off a very large carrier.


Yes indeed: however, a laser can still be focused through lenses: non-focused at short range, more focused at one particular long range.There's still a theoretical limit, because lenses aren't perfect (they are, after all, made of atoms), and because of something called dispersion which spreads the beam perpendicular to its line of travel even if it's a perfectly parallel beam. Both these factors make it impossible to 'focus' a laser to a tight point at a distance of, say, several million kilometers.


And as an aside, there are particle beams. The ammunition of both of these would be moving at near-c.Yes, but particle beams rely on charged particles which repel each other. Not exactly a good way to get long-range cohesion.


Carriers and fighters will be the dominant choice of most interstellar actors. Only large, powerful empires will have enough leftover resources to produce and maintain a fleet of either battleships or carrier groups. But while an interstellar battleship would be terrifying, its utility would be limited. It would cost a lot to deploy it (thousands of space officers manning the battle stations), it would take more energy to move it (more mass = more energy needed to accelerate). It can't be in two places at once. Its departure will make its spaceport significantly more vulnerable.Who says the battleship needs thousands of crew? Why would it require more energy to move around than an equal-sized carrier loaded with fighters? And won't the departure of any warship, be it carrier or battleship, make its spaceport significantly more vulnerable? I question the relevance of these objections.


If you're a smaller power with a bunch of fighters, and you know that the Empire has a battleship on its way, you wouldn't send your medium ships against it. They'd get chopped to pieces, and your intelligence operatives have told you they've secured all the thermal ports. So what would you do? You'd send your ships into hiding, and make the empire pay to maintain its battleship presence, weakening them economically. If you can get away with it, you'd engage in low-level piracy, quick surgical strikes, with your fighters. They would leave before the battleship got there.This assumes that fighters have strategic range equal to the battleships, which violates the conventional understanding of what it means to be a fighter.

Actually, this was addressed by one of the first modern naval theorists- Alfred Thayer Mahan. What Mahan observed was that in historical naval wars between a nation with a large fleet of capital ships and a nation which relied almost entirely on light commerce raiders that were easy for capital ships to kill in the event that they could reach them, the nation with the capital ships generally won. This was because the capital ships could either be dispersed for commerce protection, in which case they would inflict a steady and hard-to-replace stream of casualties on the raiders, or concentrated to destroy the raiders' bases of operations. Since even tiny fighters will need a constant stream of spare parts and consumables to keep fighting, battleship strikes against enemy planets can wreck their strategy of commerce raiding quickly, while commerce raiding takes much more time to weaken, undermine, and destroy a strategy based on capital ships.

The exception occurs when:
a)The raiders' bases are unattackable (i.e. covered by fixed defenses or neutrality), or
b)The raiders are not easy for capital ships to kill in a straight-up engagement, and/or are well-armed enough to be a serious threat to capital ships (i.e. German U-boats against British dreadnoughts).


I'm assuming generally equal speed and generally equal technology spread. If neither fighter nor battleship is FTL, all of the arguments still hold. If the battleship is FTL, then there's no reason the fighters wouldn't be.Again, this assumes that fighters and battleships have equal operational range, which is generally not compatible with our standard understanding of what those words mean. Battleships are supposed to be able to stay on station for long periods; fighters are supposed to rely on a carrier to ship them around.

If fighters don't need carriers and can go anywhere a battleship goes because they can spend just as much time in space, they become vastly more effective (as X-wings are vastly more effective than TIE fighters), but that violates the assumption of carrier-based fighters used in this thread.

[Lord Zentei]

In any science fiction novel, many assumptions are purely arbitrary and there is no a priori reason to assume that they will apply one way or the other. This includes the assumption that space combat is even feasible in the first place, in my opinion; there are viable models on which it is effectively impossible for spacecraft to engage each other in a meaningful way except under very unusual conditions.

So if this be writer fiat, then let us make the most of it.

This is rather a disingenuous assertion. We were to discuss which of the two design philosophies -- CVs or BBs -- were more plausible while arguing from first principles. Obviously we need to make the prior assumption that space combat is possible. And obviously we need to keep assumptions to a minimum, particularly with fantasy-tech -- otherwise we are doing something called cheating.



The catch is that I can turn the carrier into something very like a cow, while I cannot do the same for the battleship. If the carrier is designed to avoid danger rather than enter it, I may actually be able to put more weapons in a detachable 'carrier air wing' than I could have put in the battleship. In which case fighters might actually be worth it. Likewise if surface area is at a premium- parasite warships allow you to get lots of surface area for weapons without having to abandon the efficient near-spherical shape of your primary ship.

Why would you want to make the carrier into a cow? If you want fewer weapons deployed in an area, you send destroyers and/or cruisers instead.

Surface area issues can be met with appropriate topography for the BB.



Yes, but supply depots aren't mobile and are very easy targets for raids, so you can't keep them in the operational theater. Carriers can move in the operational theater as long as they can evade enemy attacks.

Then you use things called "tugs" and "supply ships". Unescorted carriers are also very easy targets for raids and you cannot keep them in the operational theater.

EDIT: as seen in the pre-CV world: battleships and destroyers were never carried as payload by supply ships: that would have been horribly inefficient. The attack craft were only carried by mother-ships when the attack craft became aircraft rather than ships, moving in a different medium to the ship that carried them. In other words, when there were tactical justifications for such a move, not merely strategic (supply) justifications.



Or you could build a mobile supply base for a squadron of battleships... in which case you now have a squadron of very large fighters operating off a very large carrier.

The size of the carrier matters not. The superiority of the AI missile over the fighter remains, independent of scale.



There's still a theoretical limit, because lenses aren't perfect (they are, after all, made of atoms), and because of something called dispersion which spreads the beam perpendicular to its line of travel even if it's a perfectly parallel beam. Both these factors make it impossible to 'focus' a laser to a tight point at a distance of, say, several million kilometers.

Any limits to long range laser effectiveness will be suffered by fighters as well.

[factotum]

The exception occurs when:
a)The raiders' bases are unattackable (i.e. covered by fixed defenses or neutrality), or
b)The raiders are not easy for capital ships to kill in a straight-up engagement, and/or are well-armed enough to be a serious threat to capital ships (i.e. German U-boats against British dreadnoughts).


It depends on how easy it is to build those raiders, doesn't it? If they're really easy and cheap to build then their production rate may outweigh the attrition due to the capital ships killing them. This is perhaps more likely in a space scenario, where there are countless billions of cubic kilometres of emptiness to get lost in--find a nice metal-rich rock somewhere, boost it into a really weird orbit so people don't know where to look for it, and you have a base which could likely stay hidden for near enough forever.

[Wizzardman]

Any limits to long range laser effectiveness will be suffered by fighters as well.

Which can actually function as an advantage for the fighter. Fighters can be designed to move in fairly close to enemy ships, and bombard them from close range (where the fighter's low-yield weapons would be most effective), and where they have an agility advantage vs manned point defense systems. At long range, a manned weapon has an easier time hitting a small ship, as you can see where its going and predict its movements. At close range, the small ship is an easier target, but is also moving in and out of your sight range [as your field of vision is much smaller at a closer range].

Even if you assume computer controlled PDs, which wouldn't have this problem, fighters still have the advantage of being able to use their weapons at close range (for their most effective yield), and would be far less likely to miss (and waste resources) than a battleship would.

Additionally, in a battleship versus battleship fight, its difficult for a battleship to purposefully cripple another's guns--especially not at the range of 'a few hundred kilometers', where they'll be lucky if they hit the other battleship. In a carrier versus battleship fight, however, fighters can move in close enough to target specific areas, and can thus destroy the target's guns and PD systems (which are much more difficult to armor than the ship itself), thereby clearing a hole for either more fighter assaults or for the carrier's own missile systems.

[pingcode20]

This is ridiculous. You're all missing a third linking ship class.

Space Winnebagos.

Sure, they might be poorly armed, and sure, they're more space campervans than anything, but they have a key power that makes them nigh invulnerable to battleships.

Their jamming ability is so powerful that it actually make jam run down the viewscreen! It completely disables any battleship sensors, and renders it invisible to the capital ship. If they further get militarised by adding military grade lasers, a small number of them could take out even the largest battleship.

Unfortunately, Jamming is too slow to take down fighters, so Carriers beat Space Winnebagos.

Now, as per compulsory Paper Scissors Rock rules, this therefore means that logically a Battleship will beat a Carrier

[Dervag]

This is rather a disingenuous assertion. We were to discuss which of the two design philosophies -- CVs or BBs -- were more plausible while arguing from first principles. Obviously we need to make the prior assumption that space combat is possible. And obviously we need to keep assumptions to a minimum, particularly with fantasy-tech -- otherwise we are doing something called cheating.Keep in mind that I really do think battleships would be more effective in the general case. I'm just trying to offer the fighter fans an out, rather than relentlessly hammering them into the ground as others do.


Why would you want to make the carrier into a cow? If you want fewer weapons deployed in an area, you send destroyers and/or cruisers instead.The assumption is that I can put the main battery of a battleship, or something at least marginally more powerful than such a main battery, on parasite warships. The parasite warships are most efficient if they don't have to double as long-range, long-endurance platforms. In which case some kind of tender ship, essentially a carrier, would extend their range.

If that is true we get carriers, with the carrier being totally optimized for long endurance in supporting the crews and maintaining the parasite warships, while the parasite warships are totally optimized for combat. If the two optimizations lead to different enough designs, the combination of those two optimizations may be more efficient than a compromise design that tries to be both strong in combat and have long endurance.

Fighters are not necessarily the optimal parasite warship in this setup; it might be that a squadron of short-ranged cruisers that dock with a tender outside of combat would be better.


Surface area issues can be met with appropriate topography for the BB.Substantially nonspherical topography makes your ship more vulnerable to battle damage and to maneuverability issues.


Then you use things called "tugs" and "supply ships". Unescorted carriers are also very easy targets for raids and you cannot keep them in the operational theater.
Yes, but battleships are assumed to have longer endurance than fighters almost by definition- if they didn't, then battleships would be just as dependent on 'carriers' as fighters are, the only difference being that they aren't stored onboard.

For that matter, wouldn't the carrier still be a carrier if the fighters were simply attached to the outside of the ship by airlocks?


The size of the carrier matters not. The superiority of the AI missile over the fighter remains, independent of scale.Yes, but what kind of dolt would bother to build missiles the size of battleships?

What I'm getting at is that the carrier/fighter relationship is entirely a function of the short range of fighters and the need for a long-range tender to keep them supplied and supported in distant operational areas. If battleships need the same thing, they have many of the same disadvantages. If they don't, then it is possible, depending heavily on the weapons used, for fighters to be more efficient.


Any limits to long range laser effectiveness will be suffered by fighters as well.Not saying it won't. Not everything I say is a defense of fighters. Indeed, I honestly don't think fighters are such a hot idea in the abstract for space combat; I feel like I'm being driven into opposition here.


It depends on how easy it is to build those raiders, doesn't it? If they're really easy and cheap to build then their production rate may outweigh the attrition due to the capital ships killing them. This is perhaps more likely in a space scenario, where there are countless billions of cubic kilometres of emptiness to get lost in--find a nice metal-rich rock somewhere, boost it into a really weird orbit so people don't know where to look for it, and you have a base which could likely stay hidden for near enough forever.Yes, but if your planets are conquered it won't matter. That rock almost certainly can't supply a civilization capable of maintaining hyperspace-capable warships indefinitely. So your logistics trail is ultimately dependent on ports in your home territory, and capital ships can conquer ports where commerce raiders cannot.


Which can actually function as an advantage for the fighter. Fighters can be designed to move in fairly close to enemy ships, and bombard them from close range (where the fighter's low-yield weapons would be most effective), and where they have an agility advantage vs manned point defense systems. At long range, a manned weapon has an easier time hitting a small ship, as you can see where its going and predict its movements. At close range, the small ship is an easier target, but is also moving in and out of your sight range [as your field of vision is much smaller at a closer range].In space, that means that the fighter will spend most of its time unable to shoot at you. Moreover, in any kind of linked fire control network (and, again, computers are a must for space combat), information on the whereabouts of fighters coming into a given PD battery's sector will be passed to it from Central Information Control or from the other PD batteries.


Even if you assume computer controlled PDs, which wouldn't have this problem, fighters still have the advantage of being able to use their weapons at close range (for their most effective yield), and would be far less likely to miss (and waste resources) than a battleship would.The waste of resources is going to be negligible; the cost of sufficient energy to destroy a spacecraft is vastly less than the cost of the spacecraft.

Moreover, the battleships can fire on the fighters continuously, from their initial approach (when they are out of their own range) through their entire attack run. The fighters will not be able to fire during most of this time, because wild evasive maneuvers limit your ability to bring your own weapons to bear. Therefore, the battleship gets more opportunities to kill a fighter than the fighter gets to hurt or kill (probably hurt) a battleship.


Additionally, in a battleship versus battleship fight, its difficult for a battleship to purposefully cripple another's guns--especially not at the range of 'a few hundred kilometers', where they'll be lucky if they hit the other battleship. In a carrier versus battleship fight, however, fighters can move in close enough to target specific areas,Not at realistic space velocities. It is difficult to imagine realistic spacecraft engaging each other at relative speeds of less than several kilometers per second, and probably much more so. In that case, fighters can not spend enough time so close to any target to take out meter-scale surface features. All they can do is fire at the radar contact on their screen and hope for the best. Star Wars isn't a realistic picture in this case because Star Wars craft move very slowly when in close proximity to each other (at about the speed of World War Two aircraft, for authorial reasons).

[Jasdoif]

It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to debate sci-fi in the absence of a setting. But I'll give it a shot anyway :smalltongue:


At the most basic, in order for a fighter (or similar reusable platform) to be more straight-combat efficient then missiles, the disposable components of missiles need to be expensive or scarce. Depending on setting, this could mean some propulsion/scanning/computer component requires a rare material, or maybe AI isn't up to par with actual pilots (which could be for reasons ranging from AI simply isn't developed enough to make optimal decisions, to the pilots having vital extrasensory perception that technology hasn't duplicated). Without this, there's little advantage to a reusable platform; using resources to make and stock more missiles instead of adding the capability for reuse is better.

Then you have the next question: Are the reusable platforms actually survivable enough that they aren't just overpriced disposables? A fighter that doesn't return is strictly worse then a missile: the fighter is a loss of the resources expended to allow it to return.


Fighter/Missile vs mounted weapon is a lot more difficult to determine. A mounted weapon has a fair initial investment, but the cost-per-shot of firing an explosive warhead using one is a lot less then that of fighters or missiles carrying equivalent warheads. On the other hand, it's easier to deploy large amounts of fighters/missiles; if you need to do damage faster they're the way to go. Which way is preferable...is dependent on the situation. You can deploy a lot of missiles/fighters at once, but you can't carry as many warheads. And once you're out of warheads, those fighters or missile assemblies aren't any good.

And this doesn't even touch mounted weapons that simply can't be put aboard missiles/fighters. Or matters of interception, etc. etc. etc.

[Jorkens]

The assumption is that I can put the main battery of a battleship, or something at least marginally more powerful than such a main battery, on parasite warships. The parasite warships are most efficient if they don't have to double as long-range, long-endurance platforms. In which case some kind of tender ship, essentially a carrier, would extend their range.

If that is true we get carriers, with the carrier being totally optimized for long endurance in supporting the crews and maintaining the parasite warships, while the parasite warships are totally optimized for combat. If the two optimizations lead to different enough designs, the combination of those two optimizations may be more efficient than a compromise design that tries to be both strong in combat and have long endurance.

Fighters are not necessarily the optimal parasite warship in this setup; it might be that a squadron of short-ranged cruisers that dock with a tender outside of combat would be better.
It seems pretty natural that anything - large or small - would want to leave any excess weight (ie anything not related to fighting) in a safe place before a battle if it could - ie if you could paint it radar invisible and leave it somewhere where noone's going to run across it by accident. This is why armies don't tend to take their supply train into battle with them.

[Dervag]

The question is whether the 'endurance' component of the combat ship package is burdensome enough that it's actually worthwhile to leave it behind, given the serious and obvious vulnerabilities created by doing so. I doubt it, but I can imagine it.

[Jorkens]

The question is whether the 'endurance' component of the combat ship package is burdensome enough that it's actually worthwhile to leave it behind, given the serious and obvious vulnerabilities created by doing so. I doubt it, but I can imagine it.
It kind of depends on the level of the vulnerabilities as well, doesn't it? Space is a fairly big place, and it's not hard to imagine technology whereby something that didn't actually want to do anything but sit a little way away in interstellar space for a while could be made pretty much invisible...

[Dervag]

Heat. Any manned vessel in space must radiate a great deal of heat, and will be detectable in this way at truly ginormous distances.

[Mr._Blinky]

Then you use things called "tugs" and "supply ships". Unescorted carriers are also very easy targets for raids and you cannot keep them in the operational theater.

Except that tugs and supply ships have this nasty tendency of being destroyed by those fighters that may be too weak to take out the battleship, thus leaving the battleship to starve, since if you need the supply ships then the battleship probably doesn't have the endurance to make it back to base.

[Dervag]

Actually, it is normal to use the supply ships to boost the endurance of a warship, rather than to allow it to operate so far from home that it cannot return if the supply ships are destroyed. By modern standards, it would be extraordinarily poor planning to send an expedition past the point where it could not return even in theory if some highly predictable misfortune (the loss of a supply ship) occured.

[warty goblin]

I'm confused- why all of a sudden do carriers have greater endurance than Battleships? If anything it should be the other way around, carriers store their weapons (fighters) internally, not leaving room for lots of life support. Battleships have external weapons, making room for more interior life support

[Skjaldbakka]

Does not follow. Modern millitaries do not have horse drawn chariots anymore either. Sometimes, a technology is simply obsolete.

Modern militaries do have tanks and other armored vehicles though, which serve the same role that horse-drawn chariots used to. We aren't talking about the viabilty of aircraft carriers in space combat. We are talking about the future equivalent of such.

[Lord Zentei]

Modern militaries do have tanks and other armored vehicles though, which serve the same role that horse-drawn chariots used to. We aren't talking about the viabilty of aircraft carriers in space combat. We are talking about the future equivalent of such.

Horse drawn chariots are nothing like modern tanks. That they occupy the same role on the battlefield is another matter entirely. You might as well say that the AI missiles would occupy the role of fighters, but that's not what is being talked about.

As an aside, we are talking about a different medium than air, weakening the analogy (and assumption that something would replace the fighters) further: at present there are no space fighters, so there is nothing to replace. We are discussing which combat craft in air and sea would have analogs in space, not which combat craft in such-and-such an environment would continue to serve there.


EDIT:


Which can actually function as an advantage for the fighter. Fighters can be designed to move in fairly close to enemy ships, and bombard them from close range (where the fighter's low-yield weapons would be most effective), and where they have an agility advantage vs manned point defense systems. At long range, a manned weapon has an easier time hitting a small ship, as you can see where its going and predict its movements. At close range, the small ship is an easier target, but is also moving in and out of your sight range [as your field of vision is much smaller at a closer range].

Here is a summary of some points already raised:

Any point defense against missiles work better against fighters, because missiles are smaller and faster for any given payload of munitions.
Smaller ships need not be fighters anyway.
As an aside, nobody in their right minds would use manned point defense systems in a space battle -- hell even the docking procedures of modern shuttles with the ISS are computer controlled for the most part.



Even if you assume computer controlled PDs, which wouldn't have this problem, fighters still have the advantage of being able to use their weapons at close range (for their most effective yield), and would be far less likely to miss (and waste resources) than a battleship would.

That... is a completely baseless assumption.



Additionally, in a battleship versus battleship fight, its difficult for a battleship to purposefully cripple another's guns--especially not at the range of 'a few hundred kilometers', where they'll be lucky if they hit the other battleship. In a carrier versus battleship fight, however, fighters can move in close enough to target specific areas, and can thus destroy the target's guns and PD systems (which are much more difficult to armor than the ship itself), thereby clearing a hole for either more fighter assaults or for the carrier's own missile systems.

Same as above.




Keep in mind that I really do think battleships would be more effective in the general case. I'm just trying to offer the fighter fans an out, rather than relentlessly hammering them into the ground as others do.

Where's the fun in that?



The assumption is that I can put the main battery of a battleship, or something at least marginally more powerful than such a main battery, on parasite warships. The parasite warships are most efficient if they don't have to double as long-range, long-endurance platforms. In which case some kind of tender ship, essentially a carrier, would extend their range.

The issue is whether it makes sense to carry the warships as well as the supply needed to support them on the supply ship, and whether the supply ship wouldn't be simply better off carrying the missiles directly. For all intents and purposes, the warships you describe are little more than re-usable booster stages for the missiles.



Substantially nonspherical topography makes your ship more vulnerable to battle damage and to maneuverability issues.

Not more so than fighters are vulnerable to begin with. Maneuverability issues of nonspherical structures I will not grant, however, in an airless environment.



Yes, but battleships are assumed to have longer endurance than fighters almost by definition- if they didn't, then battleships would be just as dependent on 'carriers' as fighters are, the only difference being that they aren't stored onboard.

For that matter, wouldn't the carrier still be a carrier if the fighters were simply attached to the outside of the ship by airlocks?

That is rather the defining feature of carriers. As for your second question, "yes, obviously". I didn't mean that the tugs would operate on the battleships, but the supply silos.



Yes, but what kind of dolt would bother to build missiles the size of battleships?

The Imperium of Man, apparently (well, they have skyscraper sized ones). And some more -- sane empires might build them as planet killers. As an aside, it would be more accurate to speak of your battleship sized fighters versus their weight in missiles.



What I'm getting at is that the carrier/fighter relationship is entirely a function of the short range of fighters and the need for a long-range tender to keep them supplied and supported in distant operational areas. If battleships need the same thing, they have many of the same disadvantages. If they don't, then it is possible, depending heavily on the weapons used, for fighters to be more efficient.

Depending on the weapons used is the operative phrase. Again, for fighters to be more effective than battleships would be dependent on missiles carrying less munitions than their weight in fighters, and for fighters being harder targets for countermeasures than missiles. Neither of these seems really plausible.



Not saying it won't. Not everything I say is a defense of fighters. Indeed, I honestly don't think fighters are such a hot idea in the abstract for space combat; I feel like I'm being driven into opposition here.

That's what you get for trying to find the "golden mean". :smallamused:




Except that tugs and supply ships have this nasty tendency of being destroyed by those fighters that may be too weak to take out the battleship, thus leaving the battleship to starve, since if you need the supply ships then the battleship probably doesn't have the endurance to make it back to base.

Ditto for missiles being able to take out carriers.

[Skjaldbakka]

Horse drawn chariots are nothing like modern tanks. That they occupy the same role on the battlefield is another matter entirely. You might as well say that the AI missiles would occupy the role of fighters, but that's not what is being talked about.

Actually, that is my POV. AI controlled missiles. Actually, more like AI controlled missile launching platforms. There is a tactical advantage to being able to create a firing position away from the ship. It allows you to do things like hiding somewhere (in hyperspace, behind a planetary body, etc.), while firing at the enemy position simultaneously. AI missile platforms have a lower profile, and can therefore get closer than a carrier or battleship could before getting detected.

[Lord Zentei]

Actually, that is my POV. AI controlled missiles. Actually, more like AI controlled missile launching platforms. There is a tactical advantage to being able to create a firing position away from the ship. It allows you to do things like hiding somewhere (in hyperspace, behind a planetary body, etc.), while firing at the enemy position simultaneously. AI missile platforms have a lower profile, and can therefore get closer than a carrier or battleship could before getting detected.

Booster rockets are one thing: fighters are another, since they are pretty much by definition re-usable and thus have to return to the mothership. There is little getting around the fact that you're going to expend a lot more fuel for such a maneuver than with an expendable missile (that may or may not have an expendable booster stage), and this means they'll be less effective overall.

[Mr._Blinky]

Booster rockets are one thing: fighters are another, since they are pretty much by definition re-usable and thus have to return to the mothership. There is little getting around the fact that you're going to expend a lot more fuel for such a maneuver than with an expendable missile (that may or may not have an expendable booster stage), and this means they'll be less effective overall.

Yeah, but it also means you don't need an enormous supply of boosters. Instead you have one almost endlessly reusable one (barring destruction of course), saving you a massive amount in raw materials.

[Dervag]

Where's the fun in that?A cornered opponent is a fierce and dangerous opponent, even in debate.


The issue is whether it makes sense to carry the warships as well as the supply needed to support them on the supply ship, and whether the supply ship wouldn't be simply better off carrying the missiles directly. For all intents and purposes, the warships you describe are little more than re-usable booster stages for the missiles.Well, assuming that the ships in question really are[i] missile boats, this is arguably true. The catch is that any missile boat you design is essentially a "reusable booster stage" for its own missiles; that's inevitable. The only question is whether to use a three-stage design (tender/carrier, parasite warship/fighter, missile), or a two-stage design (missile cruiser, missile).

It's entirely possible for a three-stage design to be more efficient than a two-stager under some circumstances.


[in response to a point that nonspherical ships are more vulnerable to battle damage]Not more so than fighters are vulnerable to begin with.Yes, but if durability is one of a battleship's chief advantages over a fighter, then reducing that advantage by putting much of the battleship's volume into big easily blown off appendages may not be such a good idea.


Maneuverability issues of nonspherical structures I will not grant, however, in an airless environment.In this case, my rationale for the maneuverability issue goes like this:

On a spherical ship, it is easy to design the ship with engines pointing in all directions so that it can maneuver easily. Four engines are, strictly speaking, enough. Six or eight would be better.

On a ship with a radically nonspherical design, this requires more engines, more balancing of one thrust against another, and therefore more things to go wrong. Moreover, some of those engines will be in exposed portions of the ship, where their fuel lines and mechanisms are not under armor.


That is rather the defining feature of carriers. As for your second question, "yes, obviously". I didn't mean that the tugs would operate on the battleships, but the supply silos.

The Imperium of Man, apparently (well, they have skyscraper sized ones). And some more -- sane empires might build them as planet killers. As an aside, it would be more accurate to speak of your battleship sized fighters versus their weight in missiles.They aren't mine; I think the idea is very bad. Building large ships with short operational range is a bad solution. What I'm saying is that battleships must have long endurance almost by definition or they end up dependent on carriers just as fighters are. However, if the resources required for endurance are a significant burden on the ship, such a ship might be less efficient than a squadron of short-ranged ships operating from a long-range tender.


Depending on the weapons used is the operative phrase. Again, for fighters to be more effective than battleships would be dependent on missiles carrying less munitions than their weight in fighters, and for fighters being harder targets for countermeasures than missiles. Neither of these seems really plausible.Or on annoyingly tight constraints on the range (i.e. engine lifetime) of the missile. If missiles can't run for very long, it can make sense to launch them from close in, while preserving important parts of your task force out of missile range of the enemy.

Unless, of course, you contend that [i]any ship is less worthwhile than its tonnage in missiles... in which case I'm at a loss to see how you think that ther would be any warships at all, rather than a universe of stationary missile bases glaring at each other.


That's what you get for trying to find the "golden mean". :smallamused:Yeah. The guys in the middle to get sniped at by the fanatics; it's an occupational hazard.


Yeah, but it also means you don't need an enormous supply of boosters. Instead you have one almost endlessly reusable one (barring destruction of course), saving you a massive amount in raw materials.Given that you instead end up using a massive amount of fuel, and that the platform is in very real danger of destruction on each mission, that may not be a good trade-off.

[factotum]

Booster rockets are one thing: fighters are another, since they are pretty much by definition re-usable and thus have to return to the mothership. There is little getting around the fact that you're going to expend a lot more fuel for such a maneuver than with an expendable missile (that may or may not have an expendable booster stage), and this means they'll be less effective overall.

The missile itself will still need to be able to accelerate to speed and then slow down again--a missile travelling at many miles per second relative to its target would either get hopelessly smashed when it hit it, or would have to explode while on a fly-by and thus you would lose some of its effectiveness due to range. And of course, the target will likely be making evasive manoeuvres as well, so a missile is going to need a pretty hefty reserve of fuel to be even remotely effective.

This is where a fighter maybe makes more sense than a missile, because it can engage and cause damage without having to be literally on top of the target--quite useful considering the distances involved in space combat. (The missiles carried by the fighter, since they were launched at much closer range, wouldn't need anything like the same fuel reserves as a long-range launch).

[Skjaldbakka]

MRSI is something that is very useful for penetrating armor. Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact. A wing of (AI)fighters would probably be better at pulling this off then a bunch of missiles fired from the ship.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

what it really comes down to is this simple question...in this theoretical version of future space combat, do fighter craft carry weapons capable of inflicting non-negligible harm to a capital ship? Not just a fully armored battleship, but a frigate, transport, supply ship, lightly armored station, corvette...etc. If any small craft are capable of delivering a payload of energy weapons, bombs, missles, whatever that can threaten such ships, then they are useful period.

At the very least they are necessary for assaulting land based targets and providing air cover. Can't always use orbital bombardment. Also, depending on the range and capabilities of such fightercraft, they may be cheaper and easier to use for certian missions in which a more expensive capital ship is necessary elsewhere or shouldn't be risked.

Enemy base inside an asteroid field that might have mines? Send in a stealth probe/scout and then a fighter wing to protect troop transports or bombers...no need to risk the big ships getting blown up. Are missles common? Perhaps a fighter screen could target incomming missles like swarming point defense weapons.

Even in cases where fighters cannot harm a capitol ship very well with their normal weapons (like normal machine gun fire against a battleship hull), they can normally carry some form of heavy weapon that can cause damage. Even a small fighter can carry a nuclear missle...with antimatter technology, the same sized missle/torpedo could be a truely devastating thing to any craft, guided or dumbfire.

If it is practical, they will be fielded, and organized into groups large enough to try and ensure that the 'typical' defenses of their targets will not be able to destroy all of them before they suffer damage.

If such 'bombers' are common...then of course, interceptors and space superiority fighters are also necessary.

Now, in a universe like Babylon 5 and Star Wars, computer assisted trageting has trouble with large guns tracking small targets, requiring smaller weapons to attack fast moving fighters. In such a universe, fighters make use of evasive manuvers and such to avoid being shot down. In realms liek Star Trek, targeting computers are so good that ECM is necessary to avoid being blasted out of the sky like nothing. Pilots in such series learn to use tricks to avoid the anticipated computer analyzed shot based on their previous trajecotory and alter their course in time with the next blast to try and move as the persuing ship aquires a fireing solution.

bottom line...if it works...it will be used.

As far as ships in space not 'sinking', that is very true...but one cannot underestimate the reverse problem of a breached hull. If they lose integrity and the hull is comprimised, they will be unable to hold pressure and every living thing will freeze and die within moments. Internal bulkheads will be forced to withstand the pressure of vaccum and pressure doors installed throughout a compartmentalized ship. The more damage the ship takes, the more compartments that lose pressureization, the more stress on the surrounding structure in addition to what is caused by the damage and stress of acceleration. Soon enough, a badly damaged ship might be ripped apart by the pressure inside, or rip itself apart trying to slow down or turn.

A final note on fighters...a fighter does not need to be able to inflict damage on a ship's hull per se...they juts need to be able to effect any exposed portion of a ship with accuracy. If a fighter craft can damage the attitude thrusters of a ship, or foul up an engine, or antenna array...a vital system could be damaged giving a tactical advantage to the mothership. A ship may no longer have windows instead relying on sensor nodes to provide data, or cameras...if these can be hit, or even just slapped with tar, or magnetic sludge, a fighter can blind a ship. That alone might make a fighter worthwhile.

[warty goblin]

If all it takes to mess up sensor arrays is basically heavy machine gun fire, I'm forced to once again conclude that the engineering department is made up of idiots. Even if it does, that sort of thing can be done from far longer range with weapons that are far more effective in general.

It will also actually take longer for fighter based missiles to reach target than AI guided missiles fired from the ship itself- missiles have better acceleration than fighters do. As a missile delivery system fighters are slow, inefficient, expense, and still easier targets than the actual missile.

Harrassing commerce? Please, this is space, its to big to even find the commerce ships you hope to harrass. If there's no ftl travel, by the time they leave a safe system a merchant ship will have been moving at full burn for several hours, meaning that a stationary ship on watch duty will have no hope of catching them up. If there's ftl travel, then they'll only enter normal space at safe points. I'm not saying that such a thing could never happen, but building a strategy around it would be frankly moronic.

Using space superiority fighters for atmospheric attacks? Think about what a space fighter would look like- roughly the B5 Starfuries. Now think about flying that sucker in an atmosphere against dedicated inter-atmosphere fighters. Now a fighter that could be deployed in space to harrass ground targets would certainly be useful, but it would also be a terrible space fighter. A specialized "Planetary Assault Carrier" is possible I suppose, carrying a few wings of these fighters, some weapons capable of orbital bombardment, and missiles that could penetrate the atmosphere for remote ground strikes.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Common sensor arrays of today are by necessity on the outside of the hull of aircraft. Same with Naval vessles. The radar and antennae are located exposed on top of the craft by necessity. If they are too heavily shielded, they will send/recieve garbled messages and not operate as effectively. On a modern warship some well placed machinegun fire can in fact knock out a radar unit. This is why each system has multiple backups and they have ways of reparing such units in mid voyage.

On a spacecraft, a sensor array would need LOS unblocked by the ship to scan an area without interferance. Normally, this means one hemispheric node on top, and one on bottom as the major units, with secondary units located in other locations that cover similar areas, and tertiary units in case of backup failure as well. Because these units are exposed, they are vulnerable to weapons fire much more than an armored hull. Hell, weapons or engine exaust are equally vulnerable despite being small targets. Moving turrets have gaps in armor that can be taken advantage of to lock a turret in place or disable it, rocket nozzles (open ports by necessity) if damaged will not be able ot throttle correctly, or to dircet the thrust...very bad on a vectored thrust craft.

Yes, by current technology, a long range missle is harder to shoot down and more effective than a fighter. But while missles are great, they are not all there is. Sometimes you need to deliver a payload further than your missle capability...or more importantly, you need to stay out of their missle range...sure they could shoot down your fighters...but those fighters are very cheap compared to the main ship...easier to replace...and if they can get the job done while you are safe...even better.

Yes, short range craft could be based inside a system to harras shipping. Yes, velocity is a problem if you think about our methods of acceleration, but alot depends on the technology of the ficticious future. In that time, rapid acceleration might be possible. Also, small craft accelerate with much less energy than larger craft. A large craft on approach is likely travelling at a far slower speed due to having to slow down longer than a small craft who's engines can create better acceleration compared to the mass of the craft...like a motorcycle cop stopping a speeding 18-wheeler, they are up to speed and on you before you can say 'oh crap'.

FTL travel doesn't mean that you are 100% safe...in fiction, there are interdictor ships that create artificial gravity wells to prevent FTL travel in certian ships...in worlds with 'jump gates' smaller ships need to use jump gates to enter and exit hyperspace...some of the jump gates are not well defended...like a gas station alone on a dark strip of highway between two major cities. K-F drives in Battletech need to recharge their jump drives and only have a range of 30 LY. jumpships there jump to familiar preplotted points, to do otherwise in the 'black' is very dangerous...normally they jump at specified points out of the plane of the ecliptic and sublight ships ferry craft to and from planets in the system...anyone can intercept them once they are on their 3 week/month? journey to the planet...in this universe, sensors are good enough that a jump is detectable anywhere in the system.

For fighting in atmo, just think again...it all depends on the technology of the sci-fi universe. A craft with a gravity based propulsion system, or one able to use shields to cut through the air to reduce drag, or at the very least some form of inertia dampening device could outmanuver atmospheric craft by a dramatic margin. Just think about the reports of UFO's moving at impossible speeds, cutting high G turns and then vanishing without a trace into deep space. True, those sightings may be nothing...but that is what is possible for a craft that has inertia dampeners, a way of avoiding shockwaves in air, and a very good gravity drive. Though...in a future society...who's to say the craft on a planet wouldn't be aso used to launch into space too...just think of Star trek shuttles and attack craft. They are all space faring vessels used on all worlds...there are very few craft in that universe that are not also space faring in addition to whatever they are for normally...if only because, the technology has becoem cheap and very easy to use.

Honestly though...the technology of the universe really is what dictates everything. If it is viable...it will be a valid tactic. If not a smart thing given the world as is...it won't be done.

ex: the US military is drilled in all the 'main' weapons of war, the big guns used, sidearm pistol, heavy weapons, vehicle operations, and many other tools of war...centuries of accumulated knowledge of past warriors. The soldiers are also taught hand to hand fighting with the fugal stick, knife, and bare handed fighting. Why? The fugal stick is to train them in the use of their rifle as a close combat weapon, how to properly use a knife is because they are given a combat knife as a tool and a combat weapon in case they need it. Bare handed fighting...sometimes troopers loose their weapons, or need to be quiet...run out of ammo. Why not swords and bows...why not train in the use of spears and such...because they are not used or otherwise ineffective compared with their normal gear, or just not a good idea in terms of cost and weight. A knife is a useful tool and can be used as a close combat weapon...a sword is not a 'tool' doesn't really fare too much better than a bayonette on the end of a rifle, and uses more metal than a knife. While still a symbol of status as 'elite' or officers in dress uniform...it is not a practical combat item anymore. In a sci-fi race that can make a spaceworthy craft that can do everything an atmospheric craft can do for the same cost...why bother with the other craft?

[Sundog]

Is that true for an intrinsic reason that applies equally well in space? It isn't true in air-to-air combat.

Well, in a very real way it is true in air-to-air combat. The difference between the torpedo types isn't so much that the wire-guided type is controlled, but that it is aimed.

A shoot-over-the-side torp has to find a target, seek it, and kill it. The pre-aimed variety has to do only steps two and three - and while I am aware that several modern AA missiles do have a self-targetting capacity should they lose lock, I am also aware that that capacity is very limited and untrustworthy.

To put it another way: which would you prefer, to launch using the sensor capacity of the missile, or of a carrying ship? Or Fighter?



I see where your point comes from. However, I'm not at all sure of your conclusion that missiles won't be able to track a maneuvering opponent much as fighters can.

I'm sure they can. However, in that case the missile is using it's fuel to track, reducing the amount it can use for it's attack "sprint" through the point-defence envelope.

A fighter can use it's fuel to track the target, and launch smaller, harder-to-hit missiles whose only function is to sprint in and strike the target.



Once the cost of programming the missile AI to do that is paid (and that's a one-off decision), the price of the hardware required to support the AI needed to do that will be trivial compared to the cost of any reasonable missile. Even a contemporary computer could run software quite capable of noting when a target was deviating from its predicted course and setting up an intercept course, especially if it had dramatically superior acceleration to its target. And such a computer would not be very expensive, so blowing it up won't cost you much.

I think you are underestimating the cost of the computers - badly. And the difficulty in tracking down a target.

You aren't just homing on a ship, the way you do today. You're guessing where he's going to be based on old data.

At any distance above one light second, if you aim at where a target is, you will miss by miles, and you simply don't know what maneuvers he just made - you're continuously playing catch-up with his evasion protocol. You can visualize where he might be as a kind of cone of probabilities - if you know what his possible delta-V is, then you know the boundaries of his possible location, but he could be anywhere inside that cone.

The software required to resolve the problem is going to be complex and large. Add enough fuel reserves to make the corrections required, and you have a very large missile. And that extra mass is also a limit on it's own delta-V - or to put it more simply, the more fuel you have, the more fuel you have to use.

A fighter carrying much dumber, faster missiles still has this problem, but it's missiles don't. So all the fighter has to do is be faster and more maneuverable than it's target - it doesn't have to then defeat the PD of the target. The missiles, freed of their other burdens, can do that.



The AI fighter will require similar hardware, and will suffer from a reduced payload because it needs to be able to come home.


Yes, it does. But that also means it can be used again - and again - and again. Much, much cheaper on the resources.



A maneuvering missile pod? A missile pod that has to come home again, and which therefore must contain much more in the way of features than a simple block of bazooka-like missile tubes or hardpoints?

A pod that can be reused, and can improve the chances of actually getting a hit, and removes the need for your mother ship to ever be endagered?



Also, there's no hard and fast division between PD and anti-shipping guns in space. PD weapons can be quite effective against the enemy at closer ranges, or (if you're using coilguns) even at long ranges.

Quite so. Any weapon can be used against incoming missiles; the only question being whether their mounts are agile enough to track the incoming munition.

[Poison_Fish]

You know what is more effective? Frigates, Cruisers, etc. that can function as missile boats.

The problem with a full blown battleship is still the investment of resources. As well, no matter what argument anyone makes about how much armor you slap on a ship, it's not going to protect from armor penetrating missiles all to easily. Sure, it'll take another few hits, but that single ship you invested into is going to get segments of it de-pressurized rather quickly. Such a large ship, expecting to take hits, is going to take redundancy, which means space is wasted. I frankly don't agree with whatever sentiment we have here that because battleships can absorb more hits then other vessels, that they are obviously superior. Whatever it may be, it's purely a mass issue, because absorbing 5-10 more missiles doesn't make a better ship.

What's that, the PD argument? You can put that stuff on frigates as well. In fact, make a frigate in the fleet dedicated to counter missiles.

Rather then an all in one package, I'll take a few frigates any day. Specialize one or two in ECM and tracking disruption for the rest of the fleet, and the rest can be deliver a fiercer payload. A single ship taking on fire in a fleet isn't as bad as one huge ship. And splitting your fire is much more easily dealt with then dedicated fire.

[Sundog]

This applies to dodging enemy ships as well.

Only to a very limited extent. The larger the ship the greater the amount of energy required to change it's velocity. Even in space, big ships do not dodge well.
Small, agile craft, on the other hand, can jink like crazy with relatively little energy expenditure. At any range above point-blank, they would be very hard to hit.



Your evidence is bad physics, or rather selective physics. It can be applied to your fighters just as easily a as it can to any other weapons system.

To any other weapons system, certainly. But fighters are NOT a weapons system - they are a delivery system FOR weapons systems.
Simply, fighters are the key to evading this problem. They advance upon the target, adjusting for it's evasion patterns, until they are close enough that time-lag will not bother the missiles they are carrying. THEN they launch the missiles and break away.



That is due to line of sight issues, which do not apply in space.

No, you are completely wrong. Energy weapons, of all types save kinetic, lose cohesion over distance. This is part of their basic nature, and cannot be avoided or compensated for, save by using ever more massive projectors.

In atmosphere, this is exacerbated by interaction with air molecules, which is why in space they have a much longer range. But even in space, the largest lasers it is feasible to conceive of would have a range of only a few hundred to a few thousand miles. Particle Beams are even less cohesive.

Only kinetic projectors (magnetic accelerators, or just ordinary autocannon) would have effectively unlimited range, but the projectiles travel too slowly and are easily detectable and evadable at anything above point-blank range - a range fighters with stand-off weaponry should never reach.



Your arbitrary and ad-hoc quality classification system is fallacious: specifically, you are making yourself guilty of semantics wrangling, instead of arguing from first principles. The labels you apply "excellent", "poor", etc, needn't be assigned to the specific capabilities that you cite.

Well, actually, I thought I was just giving us a set of definitions so that we all knew what we were talking about, rather than having to redefine what we were speaking of every time it came up.

I see no fallacy in that, no error, and as regards "semantics wrangling", well, which of us provided a useful set of guidelines, and who merely criticized without offering an alternative? Cast no stone, you who live in a glass house.



You also fail to address the arguments regarding fuel and payload capacity for the fighters vs missiles and the fact that an EMP would also kill a fighter which leads you to the patently bizarre conclusion of missiles being a "waste of time and money".

Fuel and payload is obviously on the side of the fighter, if you look at it logically.

On a single strike, large missiles would have the edge. But allow the fighter to survive it's first strike, and the situation becomes ludicrously one-sided, as the fighter can refuel, rearm, restrike, and continue to do that over and over - and your expendable munition costs drop dramatically, since instead of a do-everything monster, you only need a myopic, cheap, fast missile that can rely upon it's fighter "mother" for everything up to the final attack sprint.

And it would be much easier to harden a fighter against EMP than to add yet ANOTHER ability to your already overpriced, overengineered, too-big-to-miss long range missile.



The cross sectional surface area of the fighter + missiles is still equal to or greater than the cross sectional area of the same number of missiles alone. The mass and volume of the fighter + missile is also greater than the mass of the missiles alone. Whether the fighter carries them externally and whether the missiles are prepped in the launch bay is irrelevant.

You are looking at only a single aspect, and think you see the whole argument. What shape is an elephant in your universe?

It is not in the least bit irrelevant. The trick to beating a good point defence system is to saturate it. This means, how many missiles per volley can I throw? A missile battleship is limited to throwing exactly as many missiles as it has launchers. The number of launchers is limited by the surface area of the ship (NOT the cross-sectional surface area), plus any pods it can throw out. However, that surface area has competing functions: sensors, communications arrays, point-defence systems, ARMOUR, boat bay doors etc.

The carrier has no such restriction. It can launch as many missiles as it's fighters can fire at once.

The difference is time. The missile battleship must prep and launch each missile simultaneously to attain maximum saturation. The carrier could take an hour, prepping each missile on each fighter, then launching the fighters one at a time. Once they are ready, they can all be launched at once, creating a FAR larger single volley.



You again ignore the clear evidence to the fact that fighters ALWAYS use more fuel than missiles.

Why shouldn't I ignore it? It has been neither proven nor any such evidence supplied. I consider this neither obvious nor necessarilly the case.


And you ignore the fact that missiles have AIs rather than being dumb objects moving along ballistic trajectories.

Actually, I assumed that. It does not alter my argument.


This is the silliest argument I have heard in some time, and that includes the crap I had to put up with in the Sapphire Guard thread.

It is not my fault that you find the simple realities of engineering "silly". It does, however, reduce my consideration of the versimillitude of your arguments.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Do recall once again that the limits of the available technology will be paramount in determining what weapons are useful. Conventional missles as we know them, however well guided, woul dbe utterly defeated against deflector shields strong enough to deflect space debris while traveling at high speed. The energy of a small asteroid impacting against shields is akin to meteors striking the earth...even a small meteor will create huge craters, far more powerful than most 'normal' missles. It would take nuclear missles, or missles of such high yeild that they could strike the shields hard enough that the damage from the missle is greater than the design limitations of the shields. This would be based on the maximum speed of the vessel during interstellar travel. Either shielding or armor must be able to withstand such impact...unless a missle can outdo 'normal' space debris at that speed, just forget it.

This is why in star trek with ships traveling extremely fast, the 'missles' they use are antimatter torpedos and quantum torpedos. Devices that have a yield so strong that they would obliterate an entire city on a planet if fired. Recall that the phasors are powerful enough to drill mile deep holes in a planet. The 'navagational' shields are strong enough to defeat an asteroid impact against the ship that would be an extinction level event to Earth...and that is only their 'normal' shields...not their defensive 'battle' shields.

Even without shields...like I said, any armor of a spacecraft would NEED to be able to take such micrometeors in stride. To be able to be struck repeatedly by debris traveling at least double the velocity of the craft. I doubt a sidewinder could do more damage than a 0.1kg meteorite going just 7kps.

With ships traveling 30,000 m/s, (that's 30 kilometers per second or around 0.01c), their shields or armor would ignore any 'normal' missles. It woudl take something truely powerful to effect them.

Now...like I said, it all depends on technology...if there is no technology for drives that can propell a craft at great speed, instead relying on spacial warps, jumpgates, hyperpsace...whatever...craft might move pretty slow...in such a universe, missles would be effective...it all depends on the technology.

[warty goblin]

Actually if we assume deflector shields, missiles become completely worthless. The deflector shield can detonate the missile some distance from the hull of the ship- say 15 meters. At that range even a nuke isn't going to do much to decent armor. Also, it won't probably take that much force to cause the missile to be unable to detonate, meaning that it will take a lot of missiles to overpower shields. Energy weapons like lasers might be able to penetrate shields, and the sheilding would have to take the full force of a mass driver round, far more energy intensive than stoping a missile. At this point you are really stuck with battleships beating each other to death with energy and mass driver weapons.

[Sundog]

Actually if we assume deflector shields, missiles become completely worthless. The deflector shield can detonate the missile some distance from the hull of the ship- say 15 meters. At that range even a nuke isn't going to do much to decent armor. Also, it won't probably take that much force to cause the missile to be unable to detonate, meaning that it will take a lot of missiles to overpower shields. Energy weapons like lasers might be able to penetrate shields, and the sheilding would have to take the full force of a mass driver round, far more energy intensive than stoping a missile. At this point you are really stuck with battleships beating each other to death with energy and mass driver weapons.

Absolutely. SMACs would be worthless - any engine small enough to be used in such an environment couldn't power energy weapons strong enough to be effective, unless you posit something like zero-point energy.

[Lord Zentei]

Yeah, but it also means you don't need an enormous supply of boosters. Instead you have one almost endlessly reusable one (barring destruction of course), saving you a massive amount in raw materials.

Unless you attack piecemeal, that's not going to be a terribly sensible design, since this way the battleship gains multiple missiles fired for every fighter that needs to make a round trip.



Only to a very limited extent. The larger the ship the greater the amount of energy required to change it's velocity. Even in space, big ships do not dodge well.
Small, agile craft, on the other hand, can jink like crazy with relatively little energy expenditure. At any range above point-blank, they would be very hard to hit.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Are you seriously trying to argue that it is easier to dodge a beam moving at c by anticipating when the enemy is going to fire and maneuvering randomly than it is to evade a slower than light fighter?



To any other weapons system, certainly. But fighters are NOT a weapons system - they are a delivery system FOR weapons systems.
Simply, fighters are the key to evading this problem. They advance upon the target, adjusting for it's evasion patterns, until they are close enough that time-lag will not bother the missiles they are carrying. THEN they launch the missiles and break away.

This is more semantics wrangling. If you can dodge a booster rocket, you can dodge a fighter (which is little more than a reusable booster rocket that has to waste space and payload for life support).



No, you are completely wrong.

<snip rah, rah, rah>

This is irrelevant to the issue, since any limitation to battleship weapons will be suffered by fighter weapons also.



Well, actually, I thought I was just giving us a set of definitions so that we all knew what we were talking about, rather than having to redefine what we were speaking of every time it came up.

I see no fallacy in that, no error, and as regards "semantics wrangling", well, which of us provided a useful set of guidelines, and who merely criticized without offering an alternative? Cast no stone, you who live in a glass house.

Your system is ill-suited for quantification, as the labels you assign are arbitrary and designed to allow fighters a meaningful role a priori: which is begging the question. I accused you of a fallacy: that is not a fallacy itself, whether you use pithy phrases or no.



Fuel and payload is obviously on the side of the fighter, if you look at it logically.

No, it is not. The fighter has to carry fuel for the round trip rather than just one-way. Moreover, the fighter has to carry a pilot and life support. This has in fact been mentioned before now. And incidentally, the fighter is limited in the acceleration it can undertake because of the tolerance limits of the pilot.



On a single strike, large missiles would have the edge. But allow the fighter to survive it's first strike, and the situation becomes ludicrously one-sided, as the fighter can refuel, rearm, restrike, and continue to do that over and over - and your expendable munition costs drop dramatically, since instead of a do-everything monster, you only need a myopic, cheap, fast missile that can rely upon it's fighter "mother" for everything up to the final attack sprint.

Wasting fuel with each round trip. What matters here is the fighters versus their weight in missiles, not a fighter versus the same-sized missile.



And it would be much easier to harden a fighter against EMP than to add yet ANOTHER ability to your already overpriced, overengineered, too-big-to-miss long range missile.

Prove this.



You are looking at only a single aspect, and think you see the whole argument. What shape is an elephant in your universe?

What? :smallconfused:



It is not in the least bit irrelevant. The trick to beating a good point defence system is to saturate it. This means, how many missiles per volley can I throw? A missile battleship is limited to throwing exactly as many missiles as it has launchers. The number of launchers is limited by the surface area of the ship (NOT the cross-sectional surface area), plus any pods it can throw out. However, that surface area has competing functions: sensors, communications arrays, point-defence systems, ARMOUR, boat bay doors etc.

The carrier has no such restriction. It can launch as many missiles as it's fighters can fire at once.

So: now you are assuming that the carrier can magically launch all its missiles at once and the battleship cannot? Even though the battleship is designed to launch missiles, and the carrier is designed to launch fighters?



The difference is time. The missile battleship must prep and launch each missile simultaneously to attain maximum saturation. The carrier could take an hour, prepping each missile on each fighter, then launching the fighters one at a time. Once they are ready, they can all be launched at once, creating a FAR larger single volley.

You are allowing the carrier hours of prep time but not the battleship?



Why shouldn't I ignore it? It has been neither proven nor any such evidence supplied. I consider this neither obvious nor necessarilly the case.

Yes, it has.



Actually, I assumed that. It does not alter my argument.

Yes it does. For the very simple reason that the missiles then become as smart as the fighters. In the absence of the need for reuse, they can carry a larger payload, or move faster.



It is not my fault that you find the simple realities of engineering "silly". It does, however, reduce my consideration of the versimillitude of your arguments.

That's "verisimilitude". The silliness of your argument is based on the simple fact that all the considerations you mentioned for missiles apply to fighters as well, as well as the fact that you ignore earlier arguments that negate your point.



The missile itself will still need to be able to accelerate to speed and then slow down again--a missile travelling at many miles per second relative to its target would either get hopelessly smashed when it hit it, or would have to explode while on a fly-by and thus you would lose some of its effectiveness due to range. And of course, the target will likely be making evasive manoeuvres as well, so a missile is going to need a pretty hefty reserve of fuel to be even remotely effective.

This is where a fighter maybe makes more sense than a missile, because it can engage and cause damage without having to be literally on top of the target--quite useful considering the distances involved in space combat. (The missiles carried by the fighter, since they were launched at much closer range, wouldn't need anything like the same fuel reserves as a long-range launch).

That is still not a round trip for the booster stage, and it is still does not include space wasted on life support in the fighter. Moreover, the limitation you cite applies also to the munitions delivered by the fighter.



Well, assuming that the ships in question really are[i] missile boats, this is arguably true. The catch is that any missile boat you design is essentially a "reusable booster stage" for its own missiles; that's inevitable. The only question is whether to use a three-stage design (tender/carrier, parasite warship/fighter, missile), or a two-stage design (missile cruiser, missile).

It's entirely possible for a three-stage design to be more efficient than a two-stager under some circumstances.

You are still ignoring the fact that the carrier has to carry the fighters as cargo rather than merely their fuel and munitions.



Yes, but if durability is one of a battleship's chief advantages over a fighter, then reducing that advantage by putting much of the battleship's volume into big easily blown off appendages may not be such a good idea.

Durability is a function of both point defense and resilience. There will be an optimum point for this quality. Moreover, battleships don't operate alone: if a half dozen destroyers are more resilient and efficient than a single battleship, then so be it: it's still a BB design philosophy than a CV one.



In this case, my rationale for the maneuverability issue goes like this:

On a spherical ship, it is easy to design the ship with engines pointing in all directions so that it can maneuver easily. Four engines are, strictly speaking, enough. Six or eight would be better.

On a ship with a radically nonspherical design, this requires more engines, more balancing of one thrust against another, and therefore more things to go wrong. Moreover, some of those engines will be in exposed portions of the ship, where their fuel lines and mechanisms are not under armor.

Why would you want that? A ship with a non-spherical design can accelerate faster along its primary thruster axis which is no less important. Side thrusters can deal with maneuverability.



They aren't mine; I think the idea is very bad. Building large ships with short operational range is a bad solution. What I'm saying is that battleships must have long endurance almost by definition or they end up dependent on carriers just as fighters are. However, if the resources required for endurance are a significant burden on the ship, such a ship might be less efficient than a squadron of short-ranged ships operating from a long-range tender.

If you are arguing from such a broad perspective, it occours to me that what you are really doing is trying to question the distinction between carriers and battleships.



Or on annoyingly tight constraints on the range (i.e. engine lifetime) of the missile. If missiles can't run for very long, it can make sense to launch them from close in, while preserving important parts of your task force out of missile range of the enemy.

Ditto for fighters. This really is the crux: any and all objections to missile ships thus far have really been vulnerable to "ditto for fighters".



Unless, of course, you contend that [i]any ship is less worthwhile than its tonnage in missiles... in which case I'm at a loss to see how you think that ther would be any warships at all, rather than a universe of stationary missile bases glaring at each other.

That's a slippery slope you're on, my friend.



Yeah. The guys in the middle to get sniped at by the fanatics; it's an occupational hazard.

I doubt I can claim to be a fanatic, since I much prefer the storytelling that involves fighters (despite knowing that they make little sense). I do tend to get a little enthusiastic about debates, though. :smallwink:

[Poison_Fish]

Actually if we assume deflector shields, missiles become completely worthless. The deflector shield can detonate the missile some distance from the hull of the ship- say 15 meters. At that range even a nuke isn't going to do much to decent armor. Also, it won't probably take that much force to cause the missile to be unable to detonate, meaning that it will take a lot of missiles to overpower shields. Energy weapons like lasers might be able to penetrate shields, and the sheilding would have to take the full force of a mass driver round, far more energy intensive than stoping a missile. At this point you are really stuck with battleships beating each other to death with energy and mass driver weapons.

I think we forget something with missile weaponry here. The advantage with missiles is you design their payload. So, who's to say you don't make special missiles that are designed to impact a shield and detonate an EMP cloud. Or to spread an oil or tar from the explosion that blocks sensors? Who ever said missiles had to just be pure explosives?

Let me restate part of my argument with a smaller class of vessels. Being able to compartmentalize and separate out specialized roles will, with few exceptions, be far superior to a general purpose vessel. The same goes for missiles vs. a rail gun. A rail gun does one thing, shoots stuff. A missile can be used for anything, including sensors (See, probe). Having the versatility can be more effective.

Also note, that most physical projectile weaponry against any small class of vessel (see fighter) will be mostly ineffective because of travel times and slight course adjustments to throw off such weaponry. When I think of a true sci-fi space fighter, I honestly don't see such a ship flying along within a few meters of battleship. I see these things being thousands of kilometers, if not AU's, out of range. Energy weapons of course change the situation with fighters in specific. But several smaller military vessels is what I'd still gun for.

On that note, anyone ever play Alternity? Think back to how some of the ships were set up there. That's never a bad guideline to look at.

[Sundog]

Nothing could be further from the truth. Are you seriously trying to argue that it is easier to dodge a beam moving at c by anticipating when the enemy is going to fire and maneuvering randomly than it is to evade a slower than light fighter?

(Sigh) Please try to remember your own arguments. You claimed that Fighters could be easily destroyed with as-light weaponry, as they could not be dodged. I pointed out that fighters could indeed dodge such weapons using the time-honoured technique of evasive maneuvering. You claimed that warships could do this also, and I pointed out that a large mass takes more energy to move than a small mass, making evasive maneuvering something fighters are inherently much better at.

Also, in point of fact at anything greater than a light-second or so, it would in fact be easier to dodge a laser beam than a fighter. The laser cannot home on you.



This is more semantics wrangling. If you can dodge a booster rocket, you can dodge a fighter (which is little more than a reusable booster rocket that has to waste space and payload for life support).

Yes. And? I never claimed you could dodge a booster rocket.

You have claimed that long range missiles could do everything the fighter can. I have never said otherwise. You have further said that a missile cruiser is always superior to a fighter carrier, primarily due to efficiency. I entirely disagree.

So please stop misrepresenting my arguments.



This is irrelevant to the issue, since any limitation to battleship weapons will be suffered by fighter weapons also.

No, wrong again. I have shown that energy weapons, counter to your previous claim, are in fact useless against fighters with stand-off weapons; however, none of that information applies to missiles, which, if you choose to recall, are what the fighters are armed with.


Your system is ill-suited for quantification, as the labels you assign are arbitrary and designed to allow fighters a meaningful role a priori: which is begging the question. I accused you of a fallacy: that is not a fallacy itself, whether you use pithy phrases or no.

"the labels you assign are arbitrary and designed to allow fighters a meaningful role a priori"

Really? Then why, pray tell, do I specifically state that at the second highest level fighters are of limited utility, and that they are totally worthless at the highest? In a spectrum of only four choices?

And you STILL offer no alternative or improvement. Did you even read them? For you seem to be arguing from a position of ignorance.



No, it is not. The fighter has to carry fuel for the round trip rather than just one-way. Moreover, the fighter has to carry a pilot and life support. This has in fact been mentioned before now. And incidentally, the fighter is limited in the acceleration it can undertake because of the tolerance limits of the pilot.

So make it an AI fighter. I don't mind.



Wasting fuel with each round trip. What matters here is the fighters versus their weight in missiles, not a fighter versus the same-sized missile.

"Waste". So, recovering a multi-million dollar launch platform is "waste". This must be some new definition of the word I haven't seen used before.
The simple fact is, the fighter will always be more efficient because it is reusable. You are spending less money and fewer resources for a better result.

And either you're equipping your missiles with enough fuel to make a long-range strike, which will make them much larger than the missiles launched off a fighter and thus much easier for point-defence to detect and detroy, or you're using a carrier bus that then expands into multiple warheads - or in other words, a single-shot, disposable fighter. Which would mean that you're throwing away millions of dollars of homing equipment, engine, and computer in order to save a little fuel.

Unless you're expecting fuel to be the most expensive part of the ship, the laws of economics are all on my side.




Prove this.

Okay. A fighter, even an AI one, is going to need continuous maintenance and regular overhaul. It's easy to build one a little big, as long as the mass remains low; this would facilitate maintenance. Making the wiring a bit thicker and adding some shielding isn't going to seriously degrade performance.

A missile, on the other hand, needs to be able to fly into the teeth of point-defence systems, beat them, and score a hit on the target. The only way to do this is to be fast, agile and small. ANYTHING that increases mass or size reduces the missiles viability and effectiveness, since the one slows the missile and makes it clumsier, and the other increases it's detection signature. Adding shielding will degrade the missile's performance characteristics.



What? :smallconfused:

Sorry; old story. Four old blind men are taken to see an elephant; after their visit, one of their friends asks what an elephant is like.

"Like a snake" says the man who was at the elephant's trunk.

"Like a Collonade" says the man who felt it's legs.

"Like a wall" says the man who felt it's rough side.

"Like a fly whisk" says the man who felt it's tail.

I don't tell stories very well, but I think you get the idea.


So: now you are assuming that the carrier can magically launch all its missiles at once and the battleship cannot? Even though the battleship is designed to launch missiles, and the carrier is designed to launch fighters?

Are you being deliberately obtuse? THE CARRIER DOESN'T LAUNCH THE MISSILES, THE FIGHTERS LAUNCH THE MISSILES! The launch capacity of the carrier is via it's fighters. And a carrier of the same size will be able to launch a LOT more missiles via it's fighters than a missiles cruiser can from it's internal launchers in a single volley.



You are allowing the carrier hours of prep time but not the battleship?

The battleship can have all the time it likes, it won't change how many missiles it can launch in a single volley.

In fact, one of the battleships ADVANTAGES is that it DOESN'T need hours to prep for a strike. In a surprise situation, it can probably get several volleys off while the carrier is still readying for launch.



Yes, it has.

No, I'm afraid not. You've stated it as fact a number of times, and gotten away with it, but the simple fact is that it's not necessarilly true. If the fighters are making a transfer orbit to another part of the system, with their carrier making a tighter transfer orbit to rendezvous with them, they might well be able to use a minimal amount of fuel, while long range missiles would have to fly a much tighter orbit - the missiles going for a zero-range intercept, the fighters only needing to get near enough to launch their birds.



Yes it does. For the very simple reason that the missiles then become as smart as the fighters. In the absence of the need for reuse, they can carry a larger payload, or move faster.

At the expense of being a much easier target or a massive waste of money. As to carrying a bigger warhead or moving faster, I sincerely doubt it; a long range missile is going to be spending pretty much all of that extra space on fuel, and is already going to be a much easier target than the little missiles launched off of the fighters.




That's "verisimilitude". The silliness of your argument is based on the simple fact that all the considerations you mentioned for missiles apply to fighters as well, as well as the fact that you ignore earlier arguments that negate your point.

I hate to say this, but again you are simply wrong. A carrier would need only a small launch bay; it's maintenance and prep bays can be totally internal, taking up no skin space at all; and since you can prep the fighters one at a time, while the missile ship has to prep all of it's missiles for a volley simultaneously, the fighters can actually take up less space while being stored. You need no launch cradle, no feed mechanisms, no back-blast chambers - just a guy with a hand cart to move the fighters around as needed, and a prep crew to arm and service them.

Yes, all this will take up space. But I state again, a missile launcher will need almost as much space as a fighter will.

And I did not ignore those statements. I answered them. If I missed any, please point them out.

Oh, and thank you for the spelling correction.





I doubt I can claim to be a fanatic, since I much prefer the storytelling that involves fighters (despite knowing that they make little sense). I do tend to get a little enthusiastic about debates, though. :smallwink:

Eh, I do too. Please don't take me too seriously; I am enjoying this debate.

[warty goblin]

An EMP needs a medium in which to propagate itself IIRC. An EMP burst missile would have a functional range of only a few meters or so, unless you made it freakishly large. Its also trivial to armor a ship against EMP, just build a Farraday cage into the armor and presto! No more EMP problems.

The fundamental problem with missiles against shields is that missiles are expensive ordnance (relatively) when compared to lasers or railguns. Lasers may be expensive to manufacture, but they don't wear out rapidly and only need power, which is easy to get with fusion (and what Sci Fi doesn't have something at least as good as fusion?) Railguns need ammo, but its just basically slugs, which are not at all expensive to manufacture. Its quite convievable that a battleship could carry the equipment to manufacture more railgun slugs if it could find the raw material. A missile needs engines, payload, fuel, targeting AI etc, all of which are espensive and require sophisticated manufacturing processes. Missiles are also not to hard to shoot down with point defense, even if they get through the shields. This is not the case with railgun slugs and lasers. Even if a missile is somewhat more effective than lasers or railguns, the extra cost of firing them would make them less attractive. Not phased out perhaps, but certainly not the primary choice of weapons.

[MeklorIlavator]

Actually if we assume deflector shields, missiles become completely worthless. The deflector shield can detonate the missile some distance from the hull of the ship- say 15 meters. At that range even a nuke isn't going to do much to decent armor. Also, it won't probably take that much force to cause the missile to be unable to detonate, meaning that it will take a lot of missiles to overpower shields. Energy weapons like lasers might be able to penetrate shields, and the sheilding would have to take the full force of a mass driver round, far more energy intensive than stoping a missile. At this point you are really stuck with battleships beating each other to death with energy and mass driver weapons.
What about things like the missiles from the honorverse? They're basically a huge , one-use laser stuck on a propulsion system. The missile gets the laser close enough that it can do damage, with out getting one's entire ship into range. Plus, they can change course, unlike slugs, so even if the enemy maneuvers, they will retain some of their effectiveness.

[Sundog]

An EMP needs a medium in which to propagate itself IIRC. An EMP burst missile would have a functional range of only a few meters or so, unless you made it freakishly large. Its also trivial to armor a ship against EMP, just build a Farraday cage into the armor and presto! No more EMP problems.

The fundamental problem with missiles against shields is that missiles are expensive ordnance (relatively) when compared to lasers or railguns. Lasers may be expensive to manufacture, but they don't wear out rapidly and only need power, which is easy to get with fusion (and what Sci Fi doesn't have something at least as good as fusion?) Railguns need ammo, but its just basically slugs, which are not at all expensive to manufacture. Its quite convievable that a battleship could carry the equipment to manufacture more railgun slugs if it could find the raw material. A missile needs engines, payload, fuel, targeting AI etc, all of which are espensive and require sophisticated manufacturing processes. Missiles are also not to hard to shoot down with point defense, even if they get through the shields. This is not the case with railgun slugs and lasers. Even if a missile is somewhat more effective than lasers or railguns, the extra cost of firing them would make them less attractive. Not phased out perhaps, but certainly not the primary choice of weapons.

Actually, EMP has no problem with vacuum; it's electromagnetic radiation, after all. But you're right, a faraday cage is absolute proof against them - even if it's big enough to blow the cage dead, the electronics inside will survive.

[warty goblin]

What about things like the missiles from the honorverse? They're basically a huge , one-use laser stuck on a propulsion system. The missile gets the laser close enough that it can do damage, with out getting one's entire ship into range. Plus, they can change course, unlike slugs, so even if the enemy maneuvers, they will retain some of their effectiveness.

Such missiles would IMHO still be of some use, since they rely on lasers to actually do damage, as oppossed to the actual explosion. How useful depends on how good lasers are at getting through shields and how expensive they are to manufacture of course, but in principle I don't see why not. I was specifically speaking to the "run into them and explode" paradim of missile, not neccesarily every single thing strapped to a rocket engine.

[MeklorIlavator]

Such missiles would IMHO still be of some use, since they rely on lasers to actually do damage, as oppossed to the actual explosion. How useful depends on how good lasers are at getting through shields and how expensive they are to manufacture of course, but in principle I don't see why not. I was specifically speaking to the "run into them and explode" paradim of missile, not neccesarily every single thing strapped to a rocket engine.

Oh, I see. In fact, the above laser-missiles are used because point defense is effective enough to prevent the kind of direct hits that a traditional warhead relies on. In fact, I can only think of one case where regular warheads were used in a battle offensively, and in that case the defending ship was using a patterned defense, so the nukes were used to exploit a hole. Other than that, nukes are only used to clear out ECM.

[Emperor Tippy]

Actually, EMP has no problem with vacuum; it's electromagnetic radiation, after all. But you're right, a faraday cage is absolute proof against them - even if it's big enough to blow the cage dead, the electronics inside will survive.

Yes and no. EMP's work in space but they won't do much. The inverse square law is in play. The strength of the EMP is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of the EMP to the object in question (the ship).

You have 2 objects of the exact same size. 1 is the nuclear warhead used to generate the EMP. The other is a computer. At 1 meter of separation between the 2 objects let's say X amount of radiation hits the computer. At 2 meters X/4 amount of radiation effects the computer. At 4 meters its X/16. At 8 meters its X/64. 32 meters is X/1024. 128 meters is X/16384.

So at a range of less than a hundred and fifty meters the EMP is over 16 thousand times less effective than it was at 1 meter.

At a kilometer the EMP from a 1 megaton nuclear detonation in space might fry a regular home computer. And a regular Faraday cage would stop even that.

--------
Now about missile costs, A regular air-to-air missile in the USAF arsenal costs around a million bucks. The actual cost to create the missile is under fifty thousand bucks. The guidance package to turn a regular bomb into a smart bomb costs under 8 bucks.

The total cost, excluding R&D costs, to make a 1 megaton nuclear warhead is under a million dollars. Your average sophomore college student can design a thermonuclear warhead.

Your best warhead option, using current tech, for a space warfare missile is a bomb pumped X-Ray laser. In space you get an effective engagement range of over a hundred kilometers for just the warhead.

[Poison_Fish]

An EMP needs a medium in which to propagate itself IIRC. An EMP burst missile would have a functional range of only a few meters or so, unless you made it freakishly large. Its also trivial to armor a ship against EMP, just build a Farraday cage into the armor and presto! No more EMP problems.

The fundamental problem with missiles against shields is that missiles are expensive ordnance (relatively) when compared to lasers or railguns. Lasers may be expensive to manufacture, but they don't wear out rapidly and only need power, which is easy to get with fusion (and what Sci Fi doesn't have something at least as good as fusion?) Railguns need ammo, but its just basically slugs, which are not at all expensive to manufacture. Its quite convievable that a battleship could carry the equipment to manufacture more railgun slugs if it could find the raw material. A missile needs engines, payload, fuel, targeting AI etc, all of which are espensive and require sophisticated manufacturing processes. Missiles are also not to hard to shoot down with point defense, even if they get through the shields. This is not the case with railgun slugs and lasers. Even if a missile is somewhat more effective than lasers or railguns, the extra cost of firing them would make them less attractive. Not phased out perhaps, but certainly not the primary choice of weapons.

As a quick side point, EMP pulses, regardless of the distribution of the radiation, are still going to be bigger in space then on land, as there is no atmosphere to slow down the particles in the first place. Then again, whoever said the point of the EMP was to harm the ship. What happens if just by causing such pulses you can interfere with the functioning of shields? Have a round of those hit, then a slew of more damaging missiles hit the ship as a follow up.

And you keep saying missiles are easy to bring down via point defense. I'm actually going to doubt you on that, as you have no way to successfully back that up other then saying "oo, targeting". I can just as easily respond with counters, such as a multiple warhead delivery system, a spiral evasion pattern, or many other random small strategies and techniques. Point defense is not win all, and it has it's limitations.

As it's already been brought up out here, lasers can't maintain much strength at great distances. Rail guns are essentially dummy ammo and can be easily avoided on far more maneuverable vessels. A rail gun shot at a couple of AU, and all a fighter would need to do is just change it's course in a matter of minutes.

Remember, we are operating at space distances here. The way I see it, battles happen at huge distances, with rail guns being more effective against ships of great mass, not ships of a much smaller size. A much smaller sized ship simply has to stay at range to avoid any energy or projectile based problems, hence we come back to missiles being the primary means of weaponry.

Now, back to the battleship analogy, you can claim missiles are going to be costlier, but on the whole, the battleship with rail guns vs. the carrier with fighters delivering missiles, when equating for range, I'm giving my odds to the carrier.

All the carrier needs to do is to fulfill it's function, a primary hub for it's smaller vessels(Stop thinking in just terms of fighters) to rearm, if they must, and let those vessels act as the deliver hub at the large distances. Of course, the battleship is going to win if it's in gunning range of the carrier. The point of a carrier is to not be in gunning range in the first place.

To come a little further full circle, back to the shield analogy, we are using some pretty broad sci-fi concepts here. What do we mean when we mean shields? An electronic field that distorts matter? Launchers on a ship that actually create a cloud of debris around the vessel for shots to impact against?

[warty goblin]

I'm really not convinced by these distances of an AU that people bandying about for space combat. For one thing, how do you even propose to reliably detect an opponant at that range, let alone manage to keep them from disengaging and running for it? A missile at that range will require truly obscene amounts of fuel for what is by no means a certain hit, since as has been pointed out tracking a target over that kind of distance is no sure thing. Let's face it, at that range every single weapon in the possible arsenal we've discussed is operating at best at the very outside of its effective range (effective, not absolute). How many battles have actually been fought this way, ever? Shields make this even more unlikely since by pretty much every interpration of shields I've ever seen it takes prolonged damage to take down shields and damage the ship itself. I'm not saying that this sort of combat will be done up close and dirty, but a range of a few thousand kilometers seems far more reasonable to me.

As for my PD claims working off of "oohh, targeting", isn't that basically what your missile claims are working off of? A PD laser is going to be basically unavoidable one the target is sufficiently close- which is still far outside the range that a nuke or other conventional missile will do any good (bomb pumped lasersare an exception). Once inside that range, if the lasers run off of a single reflected core beam, they can basically fire constantly at adjustable power settings. Honestly, killing a missile a second with these things is probably being pessamistic. This isn't even taking into account methods of fooling the missiles- jamming, chaff, decoys etc. This sort of defense will cost basically nothing to operate, which, even if missiles are pretty cheap, is still way way less. It also doesn't require a lot of storage space, and running out of ordnance isn't a problem.

Or here's a nice little missile defense for you: anti-matter fog. Just project a soup of anti matter in front of the ship. It doesn't have to be very dense, in fact a non uniform density is better. As soon as the missile hits the cloud, it'll start to be literally converted into energy, which will heat it up and knock it around and off course. The fog doesn't even need to be particularly targeted, just sort of hosed out in the direction of oncoming fire. A ship with shields won't be that badly affected by it, but unless people start shielding all of their missiles... Tragically this is something of a two edged sword, since outgoing fire is just as badly disrupted, but hey, it'll sure stop those missiles. Once the enemy missile ship is out of ammo, its time to move in and attack with more renuable weapons.

[Poison_Fish]

I'm really not convinced by these distances of an AU that people bandying about for space combat. For one thing, how do you even propose to reliably detect an opponant at that range, let alone manage to keep them from disengaging and running for it? A missile at that range will require truly obscene amounts of fuel for what is by no means a certain hit, since as has been pointed out tracking a target over that kind of distance is no sure thing. Let's face it, at that range every single weapon in the possible arsenal we've discussed is operating at best at the very outside of its effective range (effective, not absolute). How many battles have actually been fought this way, ever? Shields make this even more unlikely since by pretty much every interpration of shields I've ever seen it takes prolonged damage to take down shields and damage the ship itself. I'm not saying that this sort of combat will be done up close and dirty, but a range of a few thousand kilometers seems far more reasonable to me.

As for my PD claims working off of "oohh, targeting", isn't that basically what your missile claims are working off of? A PD laser is going to be basically unavoidable one the target is sufficiently close- which is still far outside the range that a nuke or other conventional missile will do any good (bomb pumped lasersare an exception). Once inside that range, if the lasers run off of a single reflected core beam, they can basically fire constantly at adjustable power settings. Honestly, killing a missile a second with these things is probably being pessamistic. This isn't even taking into account methods of fooling the missiles- jamming, chaff, decoys etc. This sort of defense will cost basically nothing to operate, which, even if missiles are pretty cheap, is still way way less. It also doesn't require a lot of storage space, and running out of ordnance isn't a problem.

Or here's a nice little missile defense for you: anti-matter fog. Just project a soup of anti matter in front of the ship. It doesn't have to be very dense, in fact a non uniform density is better. As soon as the missile hits the cloud, it'll start to be literally converted into energy, which will heat it up and knock it around and off course. The fog doesn't even need to be particularly targeted, just sort of hosed out in the direction of oncoming fire. A ship with shields won't be that badly affected by it, but unless people start shielding all of their missiles... Tragically this is something of a two edged sword, since outgoing fire is just as badly disrupted, but hey, it'll sure stop those missiles. Once the enemy missile ship is out of ammo, its time to move in and attack with more renuable weapons.

Once again, we are bouncing around generic sci-fi ideas.

On the note of fighting at distances of AU's, let me make an assumption here. If I'm going to assume we have technology that changes energy to force that stops projectiles and absorbs energy, something far beyond our imagination, that I can pretty easily assume we could create sensors that can detect out to large distances with a little bit of lag time. In fact, creating a sensor of that magnitude seems a far more simple task then creating our supposed shields here.

If we progress so far ahead in tech then, I too, can think of many ways to make a missile obsolete. My solution, mass cannons that shoot essentially a wave of gravity to blanket an area to knock away all incoming projectiles. See, I can use super advance tech too to counter something that's relatively low tech. Let's get some consistency here.

On PD, actually, you still haven't proven anything. Targeting a larger object that has little to no ability to maneuver = very simple. Targeting a fast moving small target that has high maneuverability = much harder. Once again, a difference in technology. A point defense targeting computer is going to have to be bounds ahead the tech for a simple missile to slam into a battle ship out in space. While point defense lasers seem the most probable defense, it still has to work on this catch all "it wins no matter what" assumption, which just doesn't fly in my book. I mean, we can always make sci-fi counters for anything here. Reflective coating on the missiles, lasers loose effectiveness. FTL missiles, point defense is rendered null. Super advanced targeting(Which your supposed PD claim is based on) missiles to avoid ECM, chaff(Seriously, who would use a heat seeker in space?).

Even regardless then, assuming we hit a low standardized tech of a battle between a carrier and it's detachable and a single battle ship, the ultimate cost ratio between a missile and the death of the battle ship, I believe the battle ship will end up costing more. Unless you throw this "point defense always wins" and "The battleship always has the carrier in sights" conditions in. Which frankly, doesn't measure up to much of any argument here.

So, let's an an addition to our ultimate question here. What tech are we actually working with that we can agree upon? Highly advanced targeting with lasers makes our low tech missile obsolete, obviously. Unless we suddenly upgrade our low tech missile to a high tech one with gravity engine, or FTL ability, or something else.

An extra condition to that as well. All vessels must have the same tech available to it. Now it becomes a much harder question, but the devil is in the details.

I'm going to start this off with one principle I've found common through out history. The power of weapons will always be higher then the power of armor, with a few exceptions, and these exceptions last for only a short period of time. For my case in this, just look at weapons development through human history.

[warty goblin]

Actually it is a good deal harder to make a detector that can work out to vast distances with minimal lag because it involves transmitting information faster than the speed of light which violates relativity. Now of course an FTL drive also does this, but its one thing to be able to get from A to B by tunnelling through space or folding space or whatever to being able to transmit information without a tangible means of doing so.

I've read several shield concepts that make sense: charged fields that strip electrons off of a projectile and then use magnets to repell it, a sheaf of plasma, or some sort of artificial gravity to pull the projectile off course. The technology to impliment them is of course far beyond us, but at least they don't violate any fundamental laws of the universe (except possibly the gravity one, I don't know if that's even theoritically possible). FTL sensor do. The speed of light is about 300,000,000 meters per second. Now targeting something a second in advance is pretty hard, but half a second is not to bad at all, that still puts the missile at 150,000,000m from the ship. That's well outside the kill radius of just about anything. Evasive maneuvers are of only some worth because in the end the missile has to reach its target, and the target knows this. Also, the more evasive manuvers the missile performs the more fuel it has to carry, the bigger it is and the easier it is to hit.The closer the missile gets to its target, the less evasion it can perform, while the PD laser's job just gets easier and easier.

It also takes a darn lot of fuel to get that far in reasonable time. Remember, if the ship firing the missiles is doing so from outside effective PD range, which I'll consider to be anything over a light second, they're firing from the earth to the moon, or thereabouts. Anytime the missile is not under active propulsion to save fuel its an easy target, particularly if there's a predictable portion of their flight in which they power down. The missiles are also not going to be able to tell when they are under fire and need to take evasive maneuvres due to that pesky speed of light thing. These are not going to be little AA missiles by any means. Cruise missiles are going to be about the smallest things usable, and even that's pushing it. This large size (and the fact that they'll be trailing lots of heat) will make them easy targets. Now of course none of these problems are completely insolvable, but its far more complicated than "launch missile, win". (not that I'm saying you think that, I'm just making a point).

And if the missiles aren't targeted to heat, what are they locked on to? Gravity? If we're assuming artificial gravity, just launch an el cheapo artificial gravity generator, then vary the gravitational signature of the ship. Presto, the missiles are now confused. Hyperspace missiles? Meet my friend Mr. Interdiction Field.

[Poison_Fish]

On the sensors, I am operating on the expected lag of the speed of light. Hence, a little lag.

But again, all of this doesn't answer my originally point about technology. We don't have a common basis we are establishing here, and the context can easily change as technology changes.

Again, with tech, we could assume missiles don't need fuel. We can assume a lot of things, which is what this comes down to.

So, where is the common ground? Otherwise, everyone in this thread will be developing sci-fi devices all day to one up each other.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

remember the lessons of close combat against guns...one does not have to dodge a bullet. That is impossible...what one can do, is dodge the gun barrel. A person sometimes has visible signs of tension or certian preparation to fire the weapon...in that split second, you can move away from the barrel before the shot is made, or move their hand/gun.

The same can be said for future spacecraft. If a ship can detect energy buildups, a craft can detect when a weapon system is powering up. WHile tracing the projectile might be impractical, or impossible with the technology at hand, they may be able to anticipate the shot by detecting the position of the barrel and noting the energy buildup that preceeds a weapon discharge.

It is common in sci-fi that the ship being attacked tries their best to use their sensors to read the enemy's movement, attitude, know their manuvering capabilities, and continuously scan them for damage and system's status. Have they transferred energy to a different system, are their attitude thrusters damaged, is there a way to disrupt their scanning signals to 'blind' them.

Even in star trek, one of the most technologically advanced sci-fi universes, ships detect the arming of shields, note changes in course, and can detect opening of 'gun ports' and charging of weapons. Subs and naval vessels of today check to see if there are radar signals locking onto them, check to see if enemy turrets have moved from the 'rest' position.

Recall, that knowledge of the weapon system is key...if the computer locks onto a target and then charges weapons to fire...it is possible that last second corrections in the fireing solution are not possible...such that, if you know they are about to fire, you have a window to move between the establishing of the weapon's trajectory and the discharge of the weapon...it might not be much time, but any time is better than nothing.

oh, and when you take into account that fighter craft could be remote drones, or that inertia nullifying technology could be part of the package...you have to think that the limits of human G-tolerance are possibly moot, allowing for fighter craft to accelerate to the limits of the engine thrust, and possibly to stop on a dime to change direction.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Actually it is a good deal harder to make a detector that can work out to vast distances with minimal lag because it involves transmitting information faster than the speed of light which violates relativity. Now of course an FTL drive also does this, but its one thing to be able to get from A to B by tunnelling through space or folding space or whatever to being able to transmit information without a tangible means of doing so.

I've read several shield concepts that make sense: charged fields that strip electrons off of a projectile and then use magnets to repell it, a sheaf of plasma, or some sort of artificial gravity to pull the projectile off course. The technology to impliment them is of course far beyond us, but at least they don't violate any fundamental laws of the universe (except possibly the gravity one, I don't know if that's even theoritically possible). FTL sensor do. The speed of light is about 300,000,000 meters per second. Now targeting something a second in advance is pretty hard, but half a second is not to bad at all, that still puts the missile at 150,000,000m from the ship. That's well outside the kill radius of just about anything. Evasive maneuvers are of only some worth because in the end the missile has to reach its target, and the target knows this. Also, the more evasive manuvers the missile performs the more fuel it has to carry, the bigger it is and the easier it is to hit.The closer the missile gets to its target, the less evasion it can perform, while the PD laser's job just gets easier and easier.

It also takes a darn lot of fuel to get that far in reasonable time. Remember, if the ship firing the missiles is doing so from outside effective PD range, which I'll consider to be anything over a light second, they're firing from the earth to the moon, or thereabouts. Anytime the missile is not under active propulsion to save fuel its an easy target, particularly if there's a predictable portion of their flight in which they power down. The missiles are also not going to be able to tell when they are under fire and need to take evasive maneuvres due to that pesky speed of light thing. These are not going to be little AA missiles by any means. Cruise missiles are going to be about the smallest things usable, and even that's pushing it. This large size (and the fact that they'll be trailing lots of heat) will make them easy targets. Now of course none of these problems are completely insolvable, but its far more complicated than "launch missile, win". (not that I'm saying you think that, I'm just making a point).

And if the missiles aren't targeted to heat, what are they locked on to? Gravity? If we're assuming artificial gravity, just launch an el cheapo artificial gravity generator, then vary the gravitational signature of the ship. Presto, the missiles are now confused. Hyperspace missiles? Meet my friend Mr. Interdiction Field.

pssst...Wing commander 3 decided to poop on your parade by comming up with the perfect solution...well, not perfect, but you get the idea...

A long range torpedo (note in this universe, a torpedo is a lock on weapon with it's ow guidence...once a lock is established the weapon will guide itself, but it will also match the hull of the torpedo to the shielf frequency of the target and bypass the shields) called the skip ray missle. The torpedo is equiped with a phasing-cloaking device that renders it invisible and intangeble in flight...the missle reappears in real space periodically to reestablish lock on the target, but vanishes after a couple of seconds. unless you visually catch this radar reflecting piece of crap visually, or by the exhaust, while it is visible and blow it up...it is impossible to shoot down.

In the game they do show up on your radar, but the fluff says that they are also coated in 'stealth' material in addition to the cloaking device...it is possible that the missle is 100% invisible to scanners and only visible to the naked eye briefly during flight. In the game...such a missle was a secret Kilrathi Weapon designed to be an 'i-win' button...only 'your superb skill' was able to shoot them down, else your carrier was toast.

anything is possible with the right level of technology...and this alone is the biggest factor in all tactics. Hell, I am not sure if any 'real' debate on feasibility of any tactic can take place unless a technological guideline can be established...in addition to the economic and industrial capabilities.

[warty goblin]

I don't think you really get how a PD laser system would work- once powered up each turret is fed from a central beam which is reflected and routed through the turrets as they fire. Its always online and there won't be a delay between targeting and firing (or at least not a noticable one, like say, 1/300,000,00th of a second). Turrets don't have to have particularly noticable facings either, just a lens (concievably gravitational or magnetic) to focus the beam as it is fire. Another thing is that only a really stupid designer would actually employ the beam in a point-fire way, its far more sensible to use it to cut, makes it harder to dodge that way. For that matter these lenses (assuming magnetic or gravitational for easy refocusing and bending) could be built right into the hull, so there's no movement to track.

Assume a ship with 24 of these LPD mountings total. However, some of them are going to protecting off faces, so let's just assume that half of them can fire at incoming missiles. Now let's assume a 1.5 light second engagement range, and that it takes the missiles 45 seconds to cover this distance at a constant velocity (I know that's a terrible assumption, but it makes the math way way easier). Assume that each turret takes a half second to kill a missile, and another half second to re-target, so a second per missile on net. Now let's say that at 1.5 light seconds to 1.0 LS, the PD is only 15% effective. For the next .5LS let's up that to 30%. For the next .25LS let's say 50%, and for the last .25LS 75% effective.

Now on the first leg the twelve turrets will each get off fifteen shots, coming to 54 missiles killed. On the next leg they will kill twice as many missiles, for 108. On the next leg they will only get off half as many shots but manage to kill off 42 missiles. On the final leg they kill another 63 missiles. Grand total: 267 missiles shot down. I don't feel that my assumptions were particularly generous to the PD, but that still is a lot of expensive ordnance shot down for pretty cheap.

[Dervag]

You are still ignoring the fact that the carrier has to carry the fighters as cargo rather than merely their fuel and munitions.I am not. The carrier may have to carry the fighters as cargo, but it would likewise have to carry the booster stages for missiles as cargo. And if it plans to fight multiple battles it has to carry more booster stages, because it can't recover them after a battle.


Why would you want that? A ship with a non-spherical design can accelerate faster along its primary thruster axis which is no less important.Why? How would a nonsphere get better acceleration along a primary axis... oh. I see, by mounting most or all of the engines along one axis.

But then you need to turn the ship to accelerate in any other direction, which greatly reduces your options for evasive action, and which gets progressively harder as the ship becomes less compact and its moment of inertia increases.


If you are arguing from such a broad perspective, it occours to me that what you are really doing is trying to question the distinction between carriers and battleships.What I'm saying is that any short-range ship dependent on a constant link with supplies has many of the weaknesses of a fighter squadron (vulnerable to the destruction of a supply base that must be in the vicinity, among other things). Battleships, as traditionally construed, can keep up operations for much longer periods, long enough that they can afford to 'sail' long distances without support, and stay on station for extended periods even without major dedicated support facilities.


Ditto for fighters. This really is the crux: any and all objections to missile ships thus far have really been vulnerable to "ditto for fighters".How is this one 'ditto' for fighters?


That's a slippery slope you're on, my friend.I agree, but not in the way you mean. I honestly can not understand why you would ever expect any capital ship to be worthwhile as anything but a missile carrier, since ships are perforce less useful than missile carriers. And since the ideal missile carrier is going to look a lot like a ballistic missile sub (weak in a 'straight' fight, stooging around waiting to lob its missiles at someone), I don't see why any other kind of ship would exist in a universe that follows your version of the rules.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I don't think you really get how a PD laser system would work- once powered up each turret is fed from a central beam which is reflected and routed through the turrets as they fire. Its always online and there won't be a delay between targeting and firing (or at least not a noticable one, like say, 1/300,000,00th of a second). Turrets don't have to have particularly noticable facings either, just a lens (concievably gravitational or magnetic) to focus the beam as it is fire. Another thing is that only a really stupid designer would actually employ the beam in a point-fire way, its far more sensible to use it to cut, makes it harder to dodge that way. For that matter these lenses (assuming magnetic or gravitational for easy refocusing and bending) could be built right into the hull, so there's no movement to track.

Assume a ship with 24 of these LPD mountings total. However, some of them are going to protecting off faces, so let's just assume that half of them can fire at incoming missiles. Now let's assume a 1.5 light second engagement range, and that it takes the missiles 45 seconds to cover this distance at a constant velocity (I know that's a terrible assumption, but it makes the math way way easier). Assume that each turret takes a half second to kill a missile, and another half second to re-target, so a second per missile on net. Now let's say that at 1.5 light seconds to 1.0 LS, the PD is only 15% effective. For the next .5LS let's up that to 30%. For the next .25LS let's say 50%, and for the last .25LS 75% effective.

Now on the first leg the twelve turrets will each get off fifteen shots, coming to 54 missiles killed. On the next leg they will kill twice as many missiles, for 108. On the next leg they will only get off half as many shots but manage to kill off 42 missiles. On the final leg they kill another 63 missiles. Grand total: 267 missiles shot down. I don't feel that my assumptions were particularly generous to the PD, but that still is a lot of expensive ordnance shot down for pretty cheap.

well, your first statement is half correct...I don't get how you envision a PD laser system would work. In my view, each beam weapon has at least 2 capacitors that are fed from the main power distribution, or a separate weapons power plant that charges the capacitors to prepare to fire. The time it takes a capacitor to charge is directly related to the excess energy the system can provide...the more power the system can manage in proportion to the energy required for the laser, the less 'charge time' there is. A main weapon might require 15TW of power while the ship can only crank out 20TW at any given time...so, one could fire the main gun off the ships main reactor and bypass the 'capacitor', but if you do so, you had best not be using more than 5TW of power, else something will not function.

It all depends on the amount of power abl to be produced relative to the needs of the weaponry. It would be much more energy efficient to charge banks slowly and cycle through them as the others recharge than to have a constant laser stream...that just wastes power and potentially builds up extra heat and damages internal optics. A low power PD laser might be 'weak' enough to not be a big drain on ship resources, and as such might be abel to operate directly off of the main power of the ship without need to charge a shot...

However, I was actually discussing not missles dodging attacks, but fighters and starships doing evasive manuvers. If there is no need to prepare a weapon, and if the weapon is able ot turn and fire discreetly, you have no hope of dodging, just ignore things like that and plough away...in such cases it is all about placing your best armor/shielding to the enemy and hoping that you can hurt them faster than they can hurt you...(1800's naval warfare at it's finest). Do note that weapons that are fixed can be outmanuvered...if a ship or whatever has guns that fire straight ahead with no chance of moving them...you don't need to outrun a laser...you just need to be able to outmanuver the craft shooting.

Also, never underestimate the powers of electronic warfare. Sensor ghosts, sensor absorbing materials, cloaks, jammers, frequency saturation, system overload...all ways of fouling up tracking systems. MIRV saturate a missle defense system with too many missles, but another step is also the junk MIRV that throws out junk that has the same radar signature as a regular missle and will mask the 'real' missles for awhile. Also, it doesn't take into account that someone could design some sort of wide area jammer that will render sensors incapable of getting any reading by creating too much 'noise'. directed sensors might be safe, but any 'passive' or electromagnetic based sensor could be screwed up potentially...making any automated PD system pretty much useless...they would have to go to human gunners, possibly with computer assisted targeting through an active directed sensor.

[Sundog]

I'm not sure I support your PD laser system, Warty. You're using what's known as a Beam Laser, a continuous emission from a single projector.

Now, that's certainly within theoretical possibility. And redirecting a laser beam isn't overly hard, though you do need an mirror that's close to optically perfect.

However, that sort of weapon is a real energy hog. Any continuous-beam weapon is, because you not only have tio supply a continuous high level of power to operate the weapon itself, but also to such things as cooling systems.

More commonly, weaponized lasers are conceived as being Pulse Lasers, which fire a short burst of energy at the target. Instead of brute-force burning through the target, it superheats the skin of the target, causing explosive expansion. You actually get more damage potential for a lower energy expenditure - the projector gets to cool between shots (extending design lifetime), and you can fire it off a capacitor bank, reducing the amount of power required on a per-second basis.

[warty goblin]

However, I was actually discussing not missles dodging attacks, but fighters and starships doing evasive manuvers. If there is no need to prepare a weapon, and if the weapon is able ot turn and fire discreetly, you have no hope of dodging, just ignore things like that and plough away...in such cases it is all about placing your best armor/shielding to the enemy and hoping that you can hurt them faster than they can hurt you...(1800's naval warfare at it's finest). Do note that weapons that are fixed can be outmanuvered...if a ship or whatever has guns that fire straight ahead with no chance of moving them...you don't need to outrun a laser...you just need to be able to outmanuver the craft shooting.

Also, never underestimate the powers of electronic warfare. Sensor ghosts, sensor absorbing materials, cloaks, jammers, frequency saturation, system overload...all ways of fouling up tracking systems. MIRV saturate a missle defense system with too many missles, but another step is also the junk MIRV that throws out junk that has the same radar signature as a regular missle and will mask the 'real' missles for awhile. Also, it doesn't take into account that someone could design some sort of wide area jammer that will render sensors incapable of getting any reading by creating too much 'noise'. directed sensors might be safe, but any 'passive' or electromagnetic based sensor could be screwed up potentially...making any automated PD system pretty much useless...they would have to go to human gunners, possibly with computer assisted targeting through an active directed sensor.

Once again, that's why these things are hull integrated, you can't see where they are pointing or going to point, so its darn hard to anticipate and avoid them. For one thing, by the time you realize they are pointing at you, they have already burned through your hull. And outmaneuvre? Any ship not built by a moron is going to have PD coverage on all sides, front, back, top, bottum. By going around you merely increase the amount of defense a ship can bring to bear. I'm also not really sure that doing so is that easy anyway. Remember, all the Battleship needs to do is to rotate to keep you in its sights. Any other ship is going to have to move drastically more. Think of a CD- the point in the middle of the CD(if it wasn't hollowed out) doesn't have to move to keep up with outside, it just rotates. The outside meanwhile has to have a very high speed in order to keep up with the center's rate of rotation.

Jamming: If the jamming's so powerful, how do the missiles stay on course?
Throwing out extra junk? Well, unless it actually has an engine and accelerates, figuring out what's what will take only a few seconds at best. If it does, its just a missile without a warhead, in which case I'm wondering why go to all the expense of making a missile and not bother to arm it?

RE: My Beam laser PD system (thanks for telling me the name btw, I hadn't known what it was called): Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the lenses are magnetic/gravitational and hence pretty much without flaw, isn't the only power spent to keep the central beam up to power? That is if I have a beam of strength X and want to maintain it, as long as I'm not actually firing it off, doing so costs a negligable energy amount, right? If so, all I'd need to do is to run the main laser whenever I needed to re-strengthen the beam.


RE: Freespace example: OK, so if we are going to start pulling examples from video games, here's a good one: GalCivII. I've built ships about a third of the way up the tech tree that the enemy, who has technological parity, literally cannot kill. A single one of these ships, unsupported, can engage an entire fleet and survive with only minimal damage, while destroying the entire enemy fleet. The secret? Defense. Minimal offense, and enough defense to knock a planet out of orbit. Sure a ship bedecked entirely with weapons could kill fleets at a time too, but they tend to wear out and die. The defensive monsters don't.

[Beleriphon]

A question:

Why is this such a dichotomy in space warfare? To say the least, Star Wars ships seem to have no trouble carrying both. Neither does hte titular ship of Martian Successor Nadesico, or the SDF Macross, or any of a lot of other ships. I guess that just clicked.. but it seems a valid question to me.

There's no reason that you can't have both. BSG uses this model. The Galactica is both a carrier and a battleship. It also uses semirealistic weapon in that they aren't some kind of wonky directed energy weapon, but rather kinetic energy weapons (ie. rail guns). It also carriers missile batteries, and nuclear weapon launchers.

[Lord Zentei]

(Sigh) Please try to remember your own arguments. You claimed that Fighters could be easily destroyed with as-light weaponry,

And so they can, indeed, within the range of such weapons.



I pointed out that fighters could indeed dodge such weapons using the time-honoured technique of evasive maneuvering. You claimed that warships could do this also, and I pointed out that a large mass takes more energy to move than a small mass, making evasive maneuvering something fighters are inherently much better at.

This point exchange of ours is out of phase. When discussing the merits of beam weapons, I was comparing their utility to that of physical attacks, i.e. missiles. On the other hand, if the fighters are better at dodging than capital ships, then missiles are better than fighters at doing so.



Also, in point of fact at anything greater than a light-second or so, it would in fact be easier to dodge a laser beam than a fighter. The laser cannot home on you.

That is dependent on the ability of the targeting computers to anticipate the movements of the fighter or missile, and on the acceleration fighters and missiles are capable of. Either way, any dodging the fighter can do, the missile can do.



Yes. And? I never claimed you could dodge a booster rocket.

You have claimed that long range missiles could do everything the fighter can. I have never said otherwise. You have further said that a missile cruiser is always superior to a fighter carrier, primarily due to efficiency. I entirely disagree.

So please stop misrepresenting my arguments.

I am not misrepresenting anything. The fact that long range missiles can do anything a fighter can is the crux of the issue regarding the missile cruiser's inherent superiority. Your argument that the carrier is superior to the missile ship is in contradiction to this.



No, wrong again. I have shown that energy weapons, counter to your previous claim, are in fact useless against fighters with stand-off weapons; however, none of that information applies to missiles, which, if you choose to recall, are what the fighters are armed with.

You have shown nothing. And I have not restricted the battleship to beam weapons only: so, your admonishment to not misrepresent arguments is one you should take heed of at this point.



"the labels you assign are arbitrary and designed to allow fighters a meaningful role a priori"

Really? Then why, pray tell, do I specifically state that at the second highest level fighters are of limited utility, and that they are totally worthless at the highest? In a spectrum of only four choices?

And you STILL offer no alternative or improvement. Did you even read them? For you seem to be arguing from a position of ignorance.

Yes, I did indeed read them, and they did indeed seem pre-designed to allow the fighter a role a priori. Though you acknowledge that fighters would have limited utility, that is true enough (and if you acknowledge this, are you not also acknowledging that the battleship would dominate?) It doesn't change my perception, though.



So make it an AI fighter. I don't mind.

Then you are already halfway to a missile with a booster rocket. The difference being that you need to waste payload on the fighter/booster rocket for it to have the capacity to make a return mission, instead of giving it more munitions.



"Waste". So, recovering a multi-million dollar launch platform is "waste". This must be some new definition of the word I haven't seen used before.
The simple fact is, the fighter will always be more efficient because it is reusable. You are spending less money and fewer resources for a better result.

Yes, correct: "waste". Because sacrificing a booster rocket to increase the mass and/or the speed of the munitions you deliver is a lot more less of a waste than failing to increasing the damage you are dealing to the enemy capital ship. Particularly since doing so would mean REDUCING the amount of munitions you can deliver in a given space of time, contrary to your previous claim.



And either you're equipping your missiles with enough fuel to make a long-range strike, which will make them much larger than the missiles launched off a fighter and thus much easier for point-defence to detect and detroy, or you're using a carrier bus that then expands into multiple warheads - or in other words, a single-shot, disposable fighter. Which would mean that you're throwing away millions of dollars of homing equipment, engine, and computer in order to save a little fuel.

These missiles will be smaller targets than the fighter, which has to carry a pilot (unless you make the fighter an AI fighter, in which case they are equally large).

As for the "single shot disposable fighter".... that's a booster rocket, not a "fighter". The very concept of fighter implies reusability.



Unless you're expecting fuel to be the most expensive part of the ship, the laws of economics are all on my side.

They are not. Again: sacrificing a bunch of booster rockets is a smaller sacrifice than reducing the munitions you can hit the opposing ship with, since the enemy ship is pondering the same trade-off.



Okay. A fighter, even an AI one, is going to need continuous maintenance and regular overhaul. It's easy to build one a little big, as long as the mass remains low; this would facilitate maintenance. Making the wiring a bit thicker and adding some shielding isn't going to seriously degrade performance.

A missile, on the other hand, needs to be able to fly into the teeth of point-defence systems, beat them, and score a hit on the target. The only way to do this is to be fast, agile and small. ANYTHING that increases mass or size reduces the missiles viability and effectiveness, since the one slows the missile and makes it clumsier, and the other increases it's detection signature. Adding shielding will degrade the missile's performance characteristics.

So? You use booster rockets. And incidentally, the missiles your fighters fire will also be vulnerable to point defense (unless your fighters are going right into the teeth of the enemy, which would be stupid).



Sorry; old story. Four old blind men are taken to see an elephant; after their visit, one of their friends asks what an elephant is like.

"Like a snake" says the man who was at the elephant's trunk.

"Like a Collonade" says the man who felt it's legs.

"Like a wall" says the man who felt it's rough side.

"Like a fly whisk" says the man who felt it's tail.

I don't tell stories very well, but I think you get the idea.

Yes, I remember that one. In other words, a glorified pithy phrase. Ho hum.



Are you being deliberately obtuse? THE CARRIER DOESN'T LAUNCH THE MISSILES, THE FIGHTERS LAUNCH THE MISSILES! The launch capacity of the carrier is via it's fighters. And a carrier of the same size will be able to launch a LOT more missiles via it's fighters than a missiles cruiser can from it's internal launchers in a single volley.

No, I am not being deliberately obtuse, though I might ask you the same question. In case you were unaware of the fact, the fighters have to be launched from the carrier -- they don't magically gain a huge delta vee by thinking happy thoughts. In other words, carriers need launch ports no less than the battleship does, the number of missiles it can launch at once is limited thereby.


The battleship can have all the time it likes, it won't change how many missiles it can launch in a single volley.

Your assertion that a carrier can launch more missiles via its fighters than a missile cruiser is frankly ridiculous, given the two ships have the same time span to launch their munitions.

The cross sectional surface area of a piloted fighter+missiles is always going to be greater than that of the missiles alone.

The cross sectional surface area of a piloted fighter is always going to be greater than if you discard the pilot and/or the fuel capacity for the return trip (and discarding both leaves you with a booster rocket, not a fighter).



In fact, one of the battleships ADVANTAGES is that it DOESN'T need hours to prep for a strike. In a surprise situation, it can probably get several volleys off while the carrier is still readying for launch.

Indeed. However, if you are going by the launch rate of munitions, and give the carrier time to prepare, you give the battleship the same time -- otherwise, you are not providing a level playing field.



No, I'm afraid not. You've stated it as fact a number of times, and gotten away with it, but the simple fact is that it's not necessarilly true. If the fighters are making a transfer orbit to another part of the system, with their carrier making a tighter transfer orbit to rendezvous with them, they might well be able to use a minimal amount of fuel, while long range missiles would have to fly a much tighter orbit - the missiles going for a zero-range intercept, the fighters only needing to get near enough to launch their birds.

It has indeed been shown. The payload of a fighter is limited by the need to carry a pilot since the engines of the fighter need to accelerate the pilot just as surely as the munitions (with your claim that you can use AI fighters, you seem to have conceded this point at least). Moreover, the payload of an AI fighter is limited by the need to carry fuel for the return trip: until the return trip, this extra fuel is just dumb weight -- eliminate it and your "fighter" turned booster rocket can carry more munitions or accelerate faster or a combination of the above.

Unspent fuel is a limiting factor on performance, since it has to be carried. Are you not familiar with the rocket equation?



At the expense of being a much easier target or a massive waste of money. As to carrying a bigger warhead or moving faster, I sincerely doubt it; a long range missile is going to be spending pretty much all of that extra space on fuel, and is already going to be a much easier target than the little missiles launched off of the fighters.

What the hell are you talking about? :smallconfused: I am comparing the smart missile with the fighter, not the munitions the fighter fires.



I hate to say this, but again you are simply wrong. A carrier would need only a small launch bay; it's maintenance and prep bays can be totally internal, taking up no skin space at all; and since you can prep the fighters one at a time, while the missile ship has to prep all of it's missiles for a volley simultaneously, the fighters can actually take up less space while being stored. You need no launch cradle, no feed mechanisms, no back-blast chambers - just a guy with a hand cart to move the fighters around as needed, and a prep crew to arm and service them.

Now you are contradicting your earlier assertion that the carrier can de facto launch its missiles faster than the battleship can. Is your carrier launching the fighters one at a time from a single launch bay? Or is it launching a crap-load of fighters simultaneously from multiple launch bays?



Yes, all this will take up space. But I state again, a missile launcher will need almost as much space as a fighter will.

And I did not ignore those statements. I answered them. If I missed any, please point them out.

"Almost"? As in "less than"? Then you have conceded that missiles are more efficient for space than fighters are.

As for the statements you ignored: you have answered them now (in this post I'm responding to), though without much success: see the point regarding the rocket equation.



Oh, and thank you for the spelling correction.

Anytime.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

A particle beam is directed by electromagnetic fields, but a laser uses optics unless new technology is invented that is able to manipulate gravity or space in such a way that it can bend and focus light energy. Using optics and gasses is more energy efficient than using powered fields, especially if you are going to keep the weapon continuously going. Do note that your continuous stream will have to go somewhere...if it just terminates at a spot, you have the problem of zapping your ship...or running such a low power laser, why bother with it in such a manner? It is much more efficient to use a pulsed laser as previously explained. Even if the pulse frequency is maintained for several seconds, it is not efficient to have a continuous beam. The power required for a destructive laser would be imense unless it was chirped and of short duration.

If a point defense weapon can be recessed in such a way that one cannot tell which direction the beam will fire, then it does become much harder to avoid. Do note that depending on the size of the ship and the nature of shields and/or armor the safest place for small enemy craft is as close to the hull as possible. At point blank, only about 1/4 of a ships PD weapons can fire on a near target, at best half can.

BTW, the 'junk' missles are two stage missles, first stage is the boost...when the boost is done the missle breaks apart into many free floating parts, some with warheads, most with just the profile of a warhead to trick sensors. The second stage doesn't fire until the missles are within a certian proximity to the target. This means that the PD weapons likely won't hit a 'real' missle until they are so close only a few will be hit.

On gaming warships...In MoO, I would rely on offense and technology...not on uber defense...I would build ships to destroy their fleet so fast that even if they posed a threat, they would be incapable of fighting back cause they would be dead.

now...in such games...fighters, dedicated carriers...pretty much sucked. However, in large scale battles with mid-tech ships...if every craft in a vast fleet has 2-3 fighters...they make a HUGE difference...they draw fire from the main ships, and enough of a swarm can take down a large ship that otherwise would decimate part of a fleet.

Honestly...as long as a fighter craft, or enough of them have the capability to pose even a minor threat, and can draw enough hate to take fire from larger ships...fighters will be effective in offensive and defensive roles.

[Poison_Fish]

Once again, that's why these things are hull integrated, you can't see where they are pointing or going to point, so its darn hard to anticipate and avoid them. For one thing, by the time you realize they are pointing at you, they have already burned through your hull. And outmaneuvre? Any ship not built by a moron is going to have PD coverage on all sides, front, back, top, bottum. By going around you merely increase the amount of defense a ship can bring to bear. I'm also not really sure that doing so is that easy anyway. Remember, all the Battleship needs to do is to rotate to keep you in its sights. Any other ship is going to have to move drastically more. Think of a CD- the point in the middle of the CD(if it wasn't hollowed out) doesn't have to move to keep up with outside, it just rotates. The outside meanwhile has to have a very high speed in order to keep up with the center's rate of rotation.

Jamming: If the jamming's so powerful, how do the missiles stay on course?
Throwing out extra junk? Well, unless it actually has an engine and accelerates, figuring out what's what will take only a few seconds at best. If it does, its just a missile without a warhead, in which case I'm wondering why go to all the expense of making a missile and not bother to arm it?

RE: My Beam laser PD system (thanks for telling me the name btw, I hadn't known what it was called): Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the lenses are magnetic/gravitational and hence pretty much without flaw, isn't the only power spent to keep the central beam up to power? That is if I have a beam of strength X and want to maintain it, as long as I'm not actually firing it off, doing so costs a negligable energy amount, right? If so, all I'd need to do is to run the main laser whenever I needed to re-strengthen the beam.


RE: Freespace example: OK, so if we are going to start pulling examples from video games, here's a good one: GalCivII. I've built ships about a third of the way up the tech tree that the enemy, who has technological parity, literally cannot kill. A single one of these ships, unsupported, can engage an entire fleet and survive with only minimal damage, while destroying the entire enemy fleet. The secret? Defense. Minimal offense, and enough defense to knock a planet out of orbit. Sure a ship bedecked entirely with weapons could kill fleets at a time too, but they tend to wear out and die. The defensive monsters don't.

Again, we aren't establishing a common grounds.

You fail to address: A continuous laser beam will burn through it's lenses faster then anything. That'll be very costly, and most likely time consuming, to replace. Unless of course, somehow through technology they are somehow cheaper. Well, if that's so easy to create perfect lenses, missiles are somehow cheaper with light materials and plastics(See, this is why I don't like it turning into a one up game). On the note of trying to replace lenses and reflectors, having such a powerful integrated system is going to have the draw back of not being easy to fix if it's well protected.

Another point that I brought up earlier that was skipped over, reflective coating on missiles. Now lasers do very little.

And doubt about missiles not being technically armed? It's not as much of a waste as you think. It's been done before, and to great effect.

Again, an assumption that missile throwing out junk only takes a few seconds to figure out. Where is that coming from? How is it going here, is the naked eye telling the missiles apart or computers? Because the junk pieces are designed to contain signatures of a missile. If it's the naked eye, then the great point of your laser system taking out missiles before they become a problem is moot, as the time a human can register the fact, compensate by looking for another target, change to it, and then shoot down an actual warhead, there are dozens more coming.

I'm still going to follow the assumption that weapons technology will always be steps ahead of armor and defensive technology. It's the reason I'm not going to a video game example. Because games are meant to be fun, and it wouldn't be fun if whoever got off the first shot and aimed well, won. Unless you like rainbow six games.

Though, for fun's sake, I'll explain my typical early-mid-game mooII fleet build. Before the point where tech could churn out huge massive ships in a matter of a few turns. A time where resources were scarce and building battleships was a huge undertaking. I'd build a lot smaller, weaker ships with as many powerful weapons as I could. Sure, I could loose one or two to heavy fire, but from all the angles they are pouring out, the larger enemy ships get overwhelmed.

Now, let's take this principle to Moo3(bad game, I know, but I'll comment on their fleet design principle). You could have whole fleets of dedicated ships. A fleet with an outer ring of point defense ships (Counter missiles, a pulse laser defense, junk shielding, etc.) with an inner ring being more vital ships. I think, looking at that design, is what we would see as most common. This harkens back to my idea of specialized ship roles. Much cheaper to manufacture, and to great effect. The only two major disadvantages I see for them are ships don't last as long(IMO, only a matter of a few more hits), and operational range.

[Lord Zentei]

I am not. The carrier may have to carry the fighters as cargo, but it would likewise have to carry the booster stages for missiles as cargo. And if it plans to fight multiple battles it has to carry more booster stages, because it can't recover them after a battle.

It does not have to carry multiple booster stages: these can be supplied. The booster stages for missiles are less of a hassle for the battleship to carry because for any given mass of munitions at any given delta vee, the booster rocket is lighter.



Why? How would a nonsphere get better acceleration along a primary axis... oh. I see, by mounting most or all of the engines along one axis.

But then you need to turn the ship to accelerate in any other direction, which greatly reduces your options for evasive action, and which gets progressively harder as the ship becomes less compact and its moment of inertia increases.

It's a tradeoff certainly. But assuming a spherical ship to be the ideal size is to ignore the one factor wholly in favor of the other. In other words, you are optimizing the moment of inertia completely at the expense of linear acceleration.



What I'm saying is that any short-range ship dependent on a constant link with supplies has many of the weaknesses of a fighter squadron (vulnerable to the destruction of a supply base that must be in the vicinity, among other things). Battleships, as traditionally construed, can keep up operations for much longer periods, long enough that they can afford to 'sail' long distances without support, and stay on station for extended periods even without major dedicated support facilities.

If the battleship carrying booster rockets carrying warheads finds it hard to operate for long periods of time, then the carrier of the same size carrying fighters carrying warheads would be in a similar fix... as they will need to expend more fuel during any battle (this extra fuel being the return trip fuel for each fighter). And yes, it really will take up that much: rockets are bitches when it comes to fuel consumption: after all, you need a mass ratio of 2.718:1 just to get the same delta vee as your exhaust velocity -- square that if you want a deceleration phase.



How is this one 'ditto' for fighters?

Do you seriously need to ask this question? A review:


Lord Zentei: Again, for fighters to be more effective than battleships would be dependent on missiles carrying less munitions than their weight in fighters, and for fighters being harder targets for countermeasures than missiles. Neither of these seems really plausible.

Dervag: "Or on annoyingly tight constraints on the range (i.e. engine lifetime) of the missile. If missiles can't run for very long, it can make sense to launch them from close in, while preserving important parts of your task force out of missile range of the enemy."

How can you not see that this restriction on missile performance is indeed "ditto for the fighters"?



I agree, but not in the way you mean. I honestly can not understand why you would ever expect any capital ship to be worthwhile as anything but a missile carrier, since ships are perforce less useful than missile carriers. And since the ideal missile carrier is going to look a lot like a ballistic missile sub (weak in a 'straight' fight, stooging around waiting to lob its missiles at someone), I don't see why any other kind of ship would exist in a universe that follows your version of the rules.

There is a difference between missile subs and stationary missile bases glaring at each other. :smallconfused:

And as an aside, I don't think I have claimed that they would be of any use as anything but a missile "carriers" -- only I refer to these as battleships. Perhaps you are thinking of someone else? :smallconfused:



EDIT (to avoid double post):


remember the lessons of close combat against guns...one does not have to dodge a bullet. That is impossible...what one can do, is dodge the gun barrel. A person sometimes has visible signs of tension or certian preparation to fire the weapon...in that split second, you can move away from the barrel before the shot is made, or move their hand/gun.

The same can be said for future spacecraft. If a ship can detect energy buildups, a craft can detect when a weapon system is powering up. WHile tracing the projectile might be impractical, or impossible with the technology at hand, they may be able to anticipate the shot by detecting the position of the barrel and noting the energy buildup that preceeds a weapon discharge.

All well and good -- though in the case of beam weapons, there is a bit of a problem in that their attack moves at the speed of signal: unless the weapon takes a long time to build up its energy, you really can't detect the energy build-up until the beam is about to hit you. We can see this as follows:

Distance between ships: N light-seconds.
Time taken for energy build-up to fire: M seconds.

The captain of ship A orders his gunnery officer to fire on ship B at time 0.
Ship B therefore detects the energy build up at time N (since it takes N seconds for the information to arrive).
Ship A fires at time M (as soon as the weapon is charged).
The beam therefore arrives at time N+M (the build-up time plus the time taken for the beam to arrive).
In other words, ship B has only M seconds to react.


EDIT: Dodging the barrel is no better: the information about the new position of the barrel has again not reached you until the beam is just about to hit (and if they are smart, they will have their barrels locked on you anyway).

Really, the best way to avoid all this is to maintain a randomized trajectory, not to scan the enemy for where he is going to fire next.

[sikyon]

I think that this really depends on teh setting ad what is avaliable to whom, if that hasn't been decided already (havn't read the whole thing).

However, I would also like to propose that power systems do not neccesarily scale linearly with size. It is very much possible hat as size gets larger, power systems can become more powerful exponentially, or lose power exponentially.

What I do know, though, is that there are often times threshold limits to power generation. For example, it might be feasible to put a large antimatter-matter reactor on a battleship, but the same system could not be scaled down to the size of a fighter. Therefore, while a fighter might produce X energy times its size, a battleship might produce Y energy times its size, where Y energy is magnitudes higher than X energy.

If this were the case, then smaller fighters would simply not have the capabilities of a battleship.

[warty goblin]

I'm sorry, but your fooling junk missiles are a really really bad idea. They need to be roughly the same size as the regular armed missiles, need to have as good of acceleration (meaning an engine roughly as good), and, by your own devising, use the same booster rocket. They are launched in the same manner from the same tubes/whatever. In short, they are exactly like a missile except for one key difference- they won't hurt anything. They take up as much space to store, cost almost as much to manufacture, and are 100% less effective. So if you want to be able to launch a bunch of these as screens for the real missiles, it also means that the total munitions carried by the ship is correspondingly reduced, and still costs almost as much. Now I'm not sure about the rest of you, but at least to me this is a pretty bad trade-off, reduced weaponry for no reduction in cost? No thanks.

Reflective coats on missiles:
1) Unless these are insanely good mirrors they won't help that much.
2) These mirrors must be insanely hard, because space has annoying things like dust, which, given likely flight times and speed, will really mess up this wonderful reflective material
3) Also, these missiles are going to stand out like sore thumbs, given that they reflect so much. Even if they are somewhat harder to kill, they are lots and lots easier to spot.

RE: Laser PD. OK, fine, so they're pulse lasers. What difference does it really make? They still can fry stuff pretty fast, and if, as claimed, they are more efficient, that means that you can stick more of them on a ship for the same power cost.

Here's why I see missiles being problematic ordnance:
1) They are expensive and one-use.
2) In order to travel across long distances in any sort of effective time they are going to have to be big and have powerful engines, adding to the expense.
3) Since they are big, they will take up a lot of storage space, limiting the number that can be carried.
4) Everybody tells me that missiles need to be prepped in order to be fired. This makes firing a lot of them difficult (note: not an argument for fighters, which as shown elsewhere in this thread are even less efficient).
5) Lauchers are by neccessity pretty much holes in the ship, weakening armor. Granted so are most other weapons (railguns, lasers), but these don't have to allow something as big as a missile down them.
6) Missiles can be shot down. Shields are particularly effective against them by any believable interpretation of shields that I have seen, barring writer fiat.
7) Missiles can be fooled. Lasers and railguns are much harder to fool.

Damage:
Missiles probably do more damage than lasers, but are astronomically slower and bulkier (even if individually a laser projector is bigger, it can be used repeatedly). This makes them easier to avoid.
Missiles probably do less damage than railguns, since they impart less of their energy to the target. Missiles are going to be, at all but close range, more accurate however, since they can be guided, but are also slower and easier to shoot down. Probably a wash between the two. Except that a railgun's ammo is cheaper and doesn't require storing lots of dangerous explosives onboard the ship.

Redundancy: A missile requires engines and AI in addition to their explosives. Pretty much every ship I've ever seen carries engines and AI. Hence the missile ship is carrying redundant systems when compared to a laser or railgun based ship, which only need the ship's engines and AI to be effective.

Bulk: I've mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating. Space missiles would have to be really really big to contain enough fuel, engines, payload and navigational thrusters to be effective. Hence missiles are going to be very heavy and bulky. Lasers, even if they are relatively large weapons represent a fixed investment for the amount of damage they can do over the course of the battle. A laser's space investment becomes more and more efficient the more often it is fired. A missile's scales linearly, a constant investment for the launcher + additional space for each shot fired. A railgun's space efficency per shot is also linear, probably with a bigger space investment for the railgun itself, but with a much smaller one per shot fired.

All in all, baring massive writer fiat, missiles would not be my choice for space warfare.

[Poison_Fish]

Warty, I don't think you understand what a MIRV is. It won't require all that much extra work because they are part of the "technical" warhead of the missile in the first place. Your cost claim is currently baseless as you have placed nothing to back it up. If it's part of the missile construction in the first place, then there is little worry. In addition, I've already countered your cost on missiles with the fact that if tech can make perfect laser lenses out in space, it's reasonable to assume the cost in constructing the materials for a missile are relatively simple.

And back to the whole point of missiles in the first place. Sure, it can cost a million or two. But if you inundate a battleship, worth who knows how much in actual cost, with many missiles, and a few of them hit, the honest cost to loss ratio is going to be on the loosing side for the battleship. This should actually render any effective "missiles are to expensive" argument null and void. However, the same doesn't apply to the said battleship, as the comparative resources employed in making a single battleship is extensive. For my case, compare the cost in missiles to their effect compared to (adjusted) costs of large battle ships. For a modern example, why would we use an expensive missile to shoot down an enemy fighter if we could just use machine guns? That's essentially what the question is here if we keep getting to cost.

On the reflective coating
1. Unless you have insanely good lasers, it won't matter much (I can keep doing this technology thing, it's nice. When are we going to establish this agreed tech by the way? That was the whole point of my posts a couple of entries ago).
2 and 3. One could then cover said missiles in a basic carbon coating. That'll not only handle dents, but it'll also mask any "shinies" we would have a minor problem.

The difference between a continuous beam vs. a pulse laser is less overall ability to handle everything, which means there is a breaking point to how much a PD system can handle.

Missiles as ordnance(I'll be mixing real world and sci-fi here)
1. They may be one use and have a cost, but it comes down to a cost ratio. If it destroys your intended target, or cripples, then the cost can be considered worth it.
2. Space has a nice way of handling inertia. Space battles can also be over in a minute or take a long time to occur, depending on the situation. Who ever said they had to constantly accelerate to cross the great distances of space?
3. For long range operations, it could be a problem. But if we are throwing factories onto our ship, why not just make our carrier self sufficient? I've already acknowledged in the case of my frigate and cruiser fleet that they have a shorter operational range, but there are many ways to mitigate that.
4. Prep time is not a reason against a weapon, ever. If it's going to succeed, then prepping it is fine. Every weapon needs a prep time, even if it's just lining up a target. The prep time doesn't much matter so as long as you stay out of the range of your enemy. Which is the theory I'm operating on here, engaging a battleship at a distance and not bringing the carrier into it's range.
5. Launchers simplify prep time, but there are many ways to go around this, so it's a moot point. (Opening a cargo bay, let the missiles float out, then activate them). Heck, I could even suggest letting missiles drift as fake debris for awhile then having them activate themselves.
6. But the counter point to all of this is the versatility that a missile is giving you. Once again, if missiles were so easily countered, why would we ever use them in the first place? You seem to ignore all the bonuses a missile gives. I have already made my comments on shields changing the nature of the debate here as well. It remains for us to bring this discussion to a level of technology we can agree on.
7. And by the same token, missiles have greater range. The fact that missiles have their own set of issues doesn't exclude them or make them weaker. Lasers have the fact that they loose beam strength at any large distance. Rail guns have the fact that they have travel times to be adjusted for, so small craft can easily maneuver against them (larger craft I'll concede on, but, as I said, frigates, lots of them).

and finally, the fuel point. Once again, once we've agreed on a tech, fuel may or may not come into play. Fuel may also vary in level of expense in terms of the amount needed and the effectiveness of it, depending on tech. The same goes for lasers etc.

Basically, here is how I see this argument going. As tech increases far beyond our imagination, I can see missiles becoming less and less effective. Take the star trek universe, I see them as ineffective there. But take a B5, Firefly, or Progress Level 6 (for alternity) universe, and you have a whole different ball game.

So, before we keep our game of point counter point here, what are we operating at in this equation? Or can we all agree that as tech increases, missiles can slowly fold out of the equation, and that'll solve this portion of our debate? Because really, if that's the case, that actually makes my above responses seem less significant.

[Dervag]

Do note that weapons that are fixed can be outmanuvered...if a ship or whatever has guns that fire straight ahead with no chance of moving them...you don't need to outrun a laser...you just need to be able to outmanuver the craft shooting.Spacecraft can generally turn to fire a weapon on timescales much shorter than the time required to cross the range of a forseeable weapon at speeds that would allow you to shoot accurately, unless the ships in question are explicitly intended to reprise WWII aerial dogfights (Star Wars).


now...in such games...fighters, dedicated carriers...pretty much sucked. However, in large scale battles with mid-tech ships...if every craft in a vast fleet has 2-3 fighters...they make a HUGE difference...they draw fire from the main ships, and enough of a swarm can take down a large ship that otherwise would decimate part of a fleet. It can quite reasonably be pointed out that MOO, while a totally awesome game, was not an adequate model of realistic space combat, not least because the concern of fighter vs. missile performance didn't arise and because fighters could be replaced after a battle for the same cost as missiles (i.e. 0). In real life, neither of those are the case; fighters are significantly more expensive than individual missiles.

Conversely, it doesn't really allow carriers to keep out of range of enemy gunships because the battle is fought in a region of fixed size.

Also, MOO was intentionally balanced to make fighters worthwhile in certain kinds of battles, which makes it a specific rather than general setting.

[Dervag]

Basically, here is how I see this argument going. As tech increases far beyond our imagination, I can see missiles becoming less and less effective. Take the star trek universe, I see them as ineffective there. But take a B5, Firefly, or Progress Level 6 (for alternity) universe, and you have a whole different ball game.

So, before we keep our game of point counter point here, what are we operating at in this equation? Or can we all agree that as tech increases, missiles can slowly fold out of the equation, and that'll solve this portion of our debate? Because really, if that's the case, that actually makes my above responses seem less significant.I wouldn't say "as tech increases."

Here is my opinion, for everyone to read, and that means you too Lord Zentai
I think that for foreseeable technology levels, missiles are going to dominate simply because we can't build a beam weapon or beam-like weapon of accurate range comparable to the missiles we can build in space. Nor are we good at mastering the problem of intercepting missiles travelling at significant numbers of kilometers per second.

Since foreseeable technology will be heavily reliant on fueled rockets where the mass of the fuel is a significant fraction of the mass of the thing being driven, it will generally be more efficient to mount the missiles directly on a missile boat than to mount them on secondary platforms launched from that boat, for the reasons Zentei has repeated endlessly for the past several pages.

As we advance into physically plausible technologies that we can't readily see how to build yet, such as advanced recycling based on nanotechnology and high-efficiency fusion or antimatter drives, the amount of a ship's mass and volume dedicated to fueling the propulsion system may decrease. And if so, then the calculation of how much fuel is required to bring a ship home becomes less important. It still takes a great deal more fuel to bring a ship back to its carrier, yes. But if all that means is that 20% instead of 5% of the ship's mass has to be fuel, then the effect of that fact is less than if it means that 60% instead of 10 or 15% of the ship's mass has to be fuel. Eventually, the advantage of one-way missiles over AI fighters that are essentially returning missile booster stages with greater tactical flexibility might drop to the point where it is profitable to construct such.

I do not believe that manned fighters will ever be preferable to unmanned fighters, because AI capable of emulating anything a human pilot can readily do in the short term will be available well before we can hope to build spacecraft that it would be worth putting such a pilot in. Unless humans have supernatural abilities that machines, by definition, cannot possess (Star Wars), piloted fighters will always be at best equal and more likely inferior to unpiloted robot fighters.

All this is based on technologies that I can imagine being possible even if I can't see how to build them (such as a rocket engine that contains significant amounts of antimatter, which I can't see how to produce cost-effectively, even though I can readily imagine how such an engine would operate in broad outlines).

Now, the more unimaginable technologies that violate some of our current concepts in physics we introduce, the more unpredictable things become. It depends on which technologies we introduce.

For example, if we introduce technologies capable of producing beams quickly, targeting them with precision over multimegameter-range distances, and projecting them with sufficient power to destroy metallic targets that are protected by basic passive measures we can imagine today, missiles become less valuable. Now incoming missiles are almost guaranteed to be shot down in droves as they approach the enemy's "turbolaser" fire. Ships will require either great mass of missiles (such that it requires a significant fraction of a ship's mass in missiles to kill it), or similar beams, in order to fight effectively. Now beam weapons become more useful.

Similarly, if we imagine an FTL drive capable of point-to-point teleportation in most parts of space... well, causality starts to fall apart, but that's an argument for another thread. More importantly, large numbers of small platforms become more useful because they can quarter larger regions of space more quickly, and because their base (be it stationary or mobile) can be kept far away in a secure undisclosed location (call it Star Base Veep).

Or if we imagine some kind of fanciful energy shield that does X, well, whatever counters X effectively becomes the king of space battles. That may mean missiles with shaped nuclear payloads (i.e. X-ray lasers detonated at point blank range) to produce energy flux great enough to breach the shield. It may mean missiles are better than beams or vice versa. It may even make boarding shuttles a useful tactic in principle, because what X does is largely a product of the imagination.

But for only foreseeable technologies, I think fighters will be nigh-useless in the near future and potentially useful, though probably not all-dominating, in the far future.

[Sundog]

This point exchange of ours is out of phase. When discussing the merits of beam weapons, I was comparing their utility to that of physical attacks, i.e. missiles. On the other hand, if the fighters are better at dodging than capital ships, then missiles are better than fighters at doing so.

Ah, now I see where our disconnect here is. Yes, undoubtedly. You are absolutely correct, missiles would be better at dodging; even large, long range missiles would be better than fighters at evading PD and anti-small craft weaponry.

What I was getting at is the fact that fighters with stand off weapons and missiles have one important difference in operating parameters. The difference is that fighters don't have to get close, and missiles do. For this reason, I believe that a carrier of some type, either a fighter or a carrier bus, which then launched smaller, more agile missiles, would be a superior choice to using larger, less agile, long-ranged missiles - the long ranged weapons would be significantly easier to shoot down with PD than short-ranged sprinters, which would also be cheaper.



That is dependent on the ability of the targeting computers to anticipate the movements of the fighter or missile, and on the acceleration fighters and missiles are capable of. Either way, any dodging the fighter can do, the missile can do.

Absolutely.



I am not misrepresenting anything. The fact that long range missiles can do anything a fighter can is the crux of the issue regarding the missile cruiser's inherent superiority. Your argument that the carrier is superior to the missile ship is in contradiction to this.

Actually, it really isn't. I'll grant that a LR Missile can do anything a fighter can. What a LR missile can't do is then have a really good chance of penetrating the target's PD screen. Now, I'll grant you, a fighter would find it even harder to do that - but short ranged, small, relatively dumb missiles fired BY the fighters would have a much better chance than either of the other two.



Yes, I did indeed read them, and they did indeed seem pre-designed to allow the fighter a role a priori. Though you acknowledge that fighters would have limited utility, that is true enough (and if you acknowledge this, are you not also acknowledging that the battleship would dominate?) It doesn't change my perception, though.

I acknowledge that fighters would have limited utility at the higher end of the spectrum, and virtually none at the top. In those environments, the Battleship would be quite dominant.

At lower levels, however, the fighter outshines the battleship, ranging from carriers being the queens of battle to there simply being nothing BUT fighters and supply depots for them.



Then you are already halfway to a missile with a booster rocket. The difference being that you need to waste payload on the fighter/booster rocket for it to have the capacity to make a return mission, instead of giving it more munitions.

Yes, correct: "waste". Because sacrificing a booster rocket to increase the mass and/or the speed of the munitions you deliver is a lot more less of a waste than failing to increasing the damage you are dealing to the enemy capital ship. Particularly since doing so would mean REDUCING the amount of munitions you can deliver in a given space of time, contrary to your previous claim.

Not really. While you must in general carry more fuel, the economic savings of using fighters over booster rockets or one-way buses is immense.

You can use dumber, cheaper missiles. You need only one, reusable, set of long-range sensors and targetting equipment. And I don't believe you'd be able to throw more munitions using throwaway tech, either, because the "extra space" on your launch platform would be taken up by the space required for the boosters or buses. You'd also increase your logistical load, because you're increasing the numbers of expendable items.




These missiles will be smaller targets than the fighter, which has to carry a pilot (unless you make the fighter an AI fighter, in which case they are equally large).

Certainly. But the missiles off of a fighter or submunitions from a bus would be even smaller targets.


As for the "single shot disposable fighter".... that's a booster rocket, not a "fighter". The very concept of fighter implies reusability.

Yes, you're right. That's why I'm now referring to the devices as "buses".





They are not. Again: sacrificing a bunch of booster rockets is a smaller sacrifice than reducing the munitions you can hit the opposing ship with, since the enemy ship is pondering the same trade-off.

I can't agree with you here. A booster system is penny wise but pounds stupid.
Yes, you will save on fuel costs at least 90% of the time. But you're requiring a booster for virtually every missile - that's going to halve the total number of missiles you can carry, and that's bad, because the one thing a Battleship is going to have going for it is the ability to fire more volleys in a shorter period of time. That advantage becomes threadbare if the BB can easily shoot it's magazines dry.
Further, while fuel costs are important, machinery will always be more expensive. Space warfare is going to be expensive however you look at it; reducing costs is going to be important (remember: amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics). So what are you going for: missile boosters or fighters, which can get the job done just as well, then come back for reuse?





So? You use booster rockets. And incidentally, the missiles your fighters fire will also be vulnerable to point defense (unless your fighters are going right into the teeth of the enemy, which would be stupid).

Yes, that would be stupid; the whole point of using stand off weapons is so you DON'T have to go right into the teeth of the enemy.

And of course the fighters' missiles will be subject to PD. I never meant to imply they weren't.

My point was that long range missiles, being larger and less agile, would be much more easily killed than the small sprinters launched off of the fighters. Booster rockets would do the same job, but are economically and logistically more costly.



No, I am not being deliberately obtuse, though I might ask you the same question. In case you were unaware of the fact, the fighters have to be launched from the carrier -- they don't magically gain a huge delta vee by thinking happy thoughts. In other words, carriers need launch ports no less than the battleship does, the number of missiles it can launch at once is limited thereby.

Sure, fighters need to be launched. But given their nature, this can be done in dribs and drabs, but still launch their attack as a coordinated volley. The battleship must have the capacity to fire all of it's missile launchers at once. The Carrier is under no such requirement, since it's fighters can just drift with it until the entire strke is launched, then begin acceleration.




Your assertion that a carrier can launch more missiles via its fighters than a missile cruiser is frankly ridiculous, given the two ships have the same time span to launch their munitions.

That's not actually what I claimed. I'll come back to this in a minute.


The cross sectional surface area of a piloted fighter+missiles is always going to be greater than that of the missiles alone.

The cross sectional surface area of a piloted fighter is always going to be greater than if you discard the pilot and/or the fuel capacity for the return trip (and discarding both leaves you with a booster rocket, not a fighter).

True. Unimportant, but true.





Indeed. However, if you are going by the launch rate of munitions, and give the carrier time to prepare, you give the battleship the same time -- otherwise, you are not providing a level playing field.

Absolutely. I have no doubt that while the carrier is preparinng it's strike, the cruiser can get off several volleys of missiles.

However, each of those volleys is limited in size to the number of launchers the cruiser carries. And it's volley size that breaks PD nets.





It has indeed been shown. The payload of a fighter is limited by the need to carry a pilot since the engines of the fighter need to accelerate the pilot just as surely as the munitions (with your claim that you can use AI fighters, you seem to have conceded this point at least). Moreover, the payload of an AI fighter is limited by the need to carry fuel for the return trip: until the return trip, this extra fuel is just dumb weight -- eliminate it and your "fighter" turned booster rocket can carry more munitions or accelerate faster or a combination of the above.

Unspent fuel is a limiting factor on performance, since it has to be carried. Are you not familiar with the rocket equation?

I am. I am also aware that real life can surprise you.

Nonetheless, I am prepared to concede that most of the time, fighters will use up more fuel than disposables.





What the hell are you talking about? :smallconfused: I am comparing the smart missile with the fighter, not the munitions the fighter fires.

Ah, sorry, my mistake.



Now you are contradicting your earlier assertion that the carrier can de facto launch its missiles faster than the battleship can. Is your carrier launching the fighters one at a time from a single launch bay? Or is it launching a crap-load of fighters simultaneously from multiple launch bays?

Now, here you've entirely misunderstood me. I NEVER said that the carrier could launch more missiles OVERALL than the battleship; what I said was that the Carrier, via it's fighters, could launch a much larger number of missiles IN A SINGLE VOLLEY.

Point Defence systems have to be pretty good for capital ships to even exist. If not, they don't since they'd just be sitting ducks waiting to be potted - no government would ever build one. So, in order to get the hit required to kill or cripple an enemy ship, you must overcome a good PD screen.

The best way to do that is to overload it. A PD screen will only be able to engage a finite number of targets; fire more missiles than that in a single volley, and you guarantee a hit.

The battleship can launch volleys regularly, like clockwork, one after the other, but every one will be exactly the same size: precisely equal to the number of launchers.

The carrier will take much longer to prepare a volley, but that volley can be much larger than the one launched by a comparatively sized missile battleship - twice to four times the size, depending on the precise technology of the setting.



"Almost"? As in "less than"? Then you have conceded that missiles are more efficient for space than fighters are.

Not in the least. If the missile launcher takes up 80% of the space of a fighter, but the fighter can launch four missiles, the fighter is still far more efficient at breaking a PD screen than the fixed missile launcher is.

[Lord Zentei]

What I was getting at is the fact that fighters with stand off weapons and missiles have one important difference in operating parameters. The difference is that fighters don't have to get close, and missiles do. For this reason, I believe that a carrier of some type, either a fighter or a carrier bus, which then launched smaller, more agile missiles, would be a superior choice to using larger, less agile, long-ranged missiles - the long ranged weapons would be significantly easier to shoot down with PD than short-ranged sprinters, which would also be cheaper.

Yes, I see. Well, to that, consider the fact that a fighter that gets within distance X of the target before firing its missiles with the munitions could just as easily be replaced by an expendable booster rocket that gets within distance X before firing its second stage with the munitions (this second stage being equivalent to the fighter's weapons). Moreover, it could fire more of these, by ditching the return fuel tank.



Actually, it really isn't. I'll grant that a LR Missile can do anything a fighter can. What a LR missile can't do is then have a really good chance of penetrating the target's PD screen. Now, I'll grant you, a fighter would find it even harder to do that - but short ranged, small, relatively dumb missiles fired BY the fighters would have a much better chance than either of the other two.

Booster rocket instead of fighter. Small second stage rocket instead of fighter's missiles. And there you go.



I acknowledge that fighters would have limited utility at the higher end of the spectrum, and virtually none at the top. In those environments, the Battleship would be quite dominant.

At lower levels, however, the fighter outshines the battleship, ranging from carriers being the queens of battle to there simply being nothing BUT fighters and supply depots for them.

Seeing as the booster rockets can carry second stage rockets to deliver the munitions, these second stage rockets being functionally identical to the missiles the fighters fire, I maintain that the whole PD angle is pretty much irrelevant.



Not really. While you must in general carry more fuel, the economic savings of using fighters over booster rockets or one-way buses is immense.

You can use dumber, cheaper missiles. You need only one, reusable, set of long-range sensors and targetting equipment. And I don't believe you'd be able to throw more munitions using throwaway tech, either, because the "extra space" on your launch platform would be taken up by the space required for the boosters or buses. You'd also increase your logistical load, because you're increasing the numbers of expendable items.

You are speaking of "economic savings" on using reusable fighters while reducing the firepower that can be brought to bear upon the enemy, thus risking the loss of your capital ship. And you later accuse me of being penny wise, pound stupid?

By that argument, you can reduce the number of weapons on the battleship and congratulate yourself for having reduced its logistical load. Never mind that the firepower that can be delivered to the enemy ship has been diminished.



Certainly. But the missiles off of a fighter or submunitions from a bus would be even smaller targets.

Your "bus" is my "booster rocket". Unless they're also reusable and/or manned, you have now reached my initial position.



I can't agree with you here. A booster system is penny wise but pounds stupid.
Yes, you will save on fuel costs at least 90% of the time. But you're requiring a booster for virtually every missile - that's going to halve the total number of missiles you can carry, and that's bad, because the one thing a Battleship is going to have going for it is the ability to fire more volleys in a shorter period of time. That advantage becomes threadbare if the BB can easily shoot it's magazines dry.
Further, while fuel costs are important, machinery will always be more expensive. Space warfare is going to be expensive however you look at it; reducing costs is going to be important (remember: amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics). So what are you going for: missile boosters or fighters, which can get the job done just as well, then come back for reuse?

And yet, the space shuttle costs 600 million dollars per launch but the Delta IV heavy costs somewhere between 100 and 200 million dollars (they both have the same payload).

Delivering munitions as faster and in greater quantity to the enemy ship is more important. Destroying the enemy capital ship is the primary concern, since that removes the threat it represents before it can destroy your ship in return. Worrying about expendable missiles while not eliminating threats to your capital ship -- that's penny wise, pound stupid.

As an aside, when speaking of savings and logistical trains in this regard, one also has to consider payload mass, not just dollars.



Yes, that would be stupid; the whole point of using stand off weapons is so you DON'T have to go right into the teeth of the enemy.

And of course the fighters' missiles will be subject to PD. I never meant to imply they weren't.

My point was that long range missiles, being larger and less agile, would be much more easily killed than the small sprinters launched off of the fighters. Booster rockets would do the same job, but are economically and logistically more costly.

At long to mid range: the booster rockets are smaller and more agile than the fighters. At close range: the second stage of the missiles are just as small and agile as the missiles launched by the booster rockets.



Sure, fighters need to be launched. But given their nature, this can be done in dribs and drabs, but still launch their attack as a coordinated volley. The battleship must have the capacity to fire all of it's missile launchers at once. The Carrier is under no such requirement, since it's fighters can just drift with it until the entire strke is launched, then begin acceleration.

That takes prep time, during which the missile cruiser can lay the smack-down on it, of course. And smart missiles can also be pre-launched in this way incidentally. There is nothing that says the missiles must make an immediate bee-line to the target.



True. Unimportant, but true.

Unimportant? Not at all. In fact it is a key issue.



Absolutely. I have no doubt that while the carrier is preparinng it's strike, the cruiser can get off several volleys of missiles.

However, each of those volleys is limited in size to the number of launchers the cruiser carries. And it's volley size that breaks PD nets.



Now, here you've entirely misunderstood me. I NEVER said that the carrier could launch more missiles OVERALL than the battleship; what I said was that the Carrier, via it's fighters, could launch a much larger number of missiles IN A SINGLE VOLLEY.

Point Defence systems have to be pretty good for capital ships to even exist. If not, they don't since they'd just be sitting ducks waiting to be potted - no government would ever build one. So, in order to get the hit required to kill or cripple an enemy ship, you must overcome a good PD screen.

The best way to do that is to overload it. A PD screen will only be able to engage a finite number of targets; fire more missiles than that in a single volley, and you guarantee a hit.

The battleship can launch volleys regularly, like clockwork, one after the other, but every one will be exactly the same size: precisely equal to the number of launchers.

The carrier will take much longer to prepare a volley, but that volley can be much larger than the one launched by a comparatively sized missile battleship - twice to four times the size, depending on the precise technology of the setting.

In a single volley, the battleship can launch more missiles than the carrier can. A launch bay for a fighter is going to be bigger than a launch bay for the missile. See point below this one.



Not in the least. If the missile launcher takes up 80% of the space of a fighter, but the fighter can launch four missiles, the fighter is still far more efficient at breaking a PD screen than the fixed missile launcher is.

What makes you think that a missile launcher with one missile will take up 80% of the space that a fighter launch bay does when the fighter has four missiles? That does not compute -- at all. :smallconfused: The fighter needs to have missile launchers of its own, after all, and these take up space on the fighter that must in turn be represented by the fighter's launch bay on the carrier.

Even assuming that your position is correct, you can strap the same number of missiles on booster rockets instead of fighters, and thus take up less space.



EDIT (to avoid double posting):

Nice summary, Dervag: we probably are mostly in agreement at this stage. One minor quibble:


I As we advance into physically plausible technologies that we can't readily see how to build yet, such as advanced recycling based on nanotechnology and high-efficiency fusion or antimatter drives, the amount of a ship's mass and volume dedicated to fueling the propulsion system may decrease. And if so, then the calculation of how much fuel is required to bring a ship home becomes less important. It still takes a great deal more fuel to bring a ship back to its carrier, yes. But if all that means is that 20% instead of 5% of the ship's mass has to be fuel, then the effect of that fact is less than if it means that 60% instead of 10 or 15% of the ship's mass has to be fuel. Eventually, the advantage of one-way missiles over AI fighters that are essentially returning missile booster stages with greater tactical flexibility might drop to the point where it is profitable to construct such.

Even if you manage to reduce the fuel consumption to 10-15%, then you can always gain more delta vee with the same type of propulsion system using 30% of the mass as fuel, thus negating the need for return (let alone with more than this). Hitting the enemy ships before the enemy hits yours is crucial, for obvious reasons.

Now, if you invent something more exotic, such as inertia-less drives, you're talking about something else entirely since the rocket equation no longer holds in such a case. In that scenario, re-usable boosters (A.K.A. fighters) might well be useful, provided that the capital ships cannot benefit from this as well or at least not to the same extent. Even here, though, an AI fighter will be better than a drone one as you concluded also.

[Sundog]

[QUOTE]Unimportant? Not at all. In fact it is a key issue.

I honestly fail to see this.

Cross-sectional size just isn't that important. Yes, it is a limiting factor for number of munitions - but using a reusable carrier reduces that limitation.





In a single volley, the battleship can launch more missiles than the carrier can. A launch bay for a fighter is going to be bigger than a launch bay for the missile. See point below this one.




What makes you think that a missile launcher with one missile will take up 80% of the space that a fighter launch bay does when the fighter has four missiles? That does not compute -- at all. :smallconfused: The fighter needs to have missile launchers of its own, after all, and these take up space on the fighter that must in turn be represented by the fighter's launch bay on the carrier.

It makes perect sense when you consider that you need only one launch bay for your entire fighter wing, yet need a separate launch bay for each and every missile in a volley from a battleship.

Fighters can carry their ordinance externally, as they will only be carrying it for a short time, so exposure to the dangers of open space is minimal. A ship (carrier or battleship) must carry and launch internally - meaning you need a launch cradle, loading system, pre-launch computer interface, back-blast chamber, etc., and you need one for every missile in the volley.

With fighters, at the most extreme level, you only need one. Efficiency would probably dictate a few more, but only a few.

If you're talking single volleys, then size wise you're talking either fighters or a bus, and fighters make way more sense economically - reusablility pays for itself.


Even assuming that your position is correct, you can strap the same number of missiles on booster rockets instead of fighters, and thus take up less space.

Except then you have to carry a lot of boosters - as many as you have missiles, in fact. That would wind up taking a lot more space out of your ordinance capacity than a fighter wing would, and the fighter wing can do the job better.

[Lord Zentei]

I honestly fail to see this.

Cross-sectional size just isn't that important. Yes, it is a limiting factor for number of munitions - but using a reusable carrier reduces that limitation.

It is crucial for the total number of munitions that can be fired within any given space of time. Say a fighter has a cross section of F, and a missile has a cross section of M. A fighter carries N missiles.

The fighter launch bay thus takes up a surface area of F+NM to effectively launch N missiles at a time, while using only missiles you could squeeze in N + F/M in there (or, N + (F-B)/M, where B is the space taken up by the booster).

EDIT: bah! That's N + (F-B)/M obviously, not N + (F+B) as I put initially. Stupid sign mistake... :smallwink:



It makes perect sense when you consider that you need only one launch bay for your entire fighter wing, yet need a separate launch bay for each and every missile in a volley from a battleship.

Er, no you don't. :smallconfused: If multiple fighters can use the same launch bay due to internal hangars, then you can do the same for missiles and booster rockets.



Fighters can carry their ordinance externally, as they will only be carrying it for a short time, so exposure to the dangers of open space is minimal. A ship (carrier or battleship) must carry and launch internally - meaning you need a launch cradle, loading system, pre-launch computer interface, back-blast chamber, etc., and you need one for every missile in the volley.

And the CV needs to carry its fighters and the missiles carried by the fighters internally as well. :smallconfused: This doesn't provide any advantages to the CV over the BB.



With fighters, at the most extreme level, you only need one. Efficiency would probably dictate a few more, but only a few.

If you're talking single volleys, then size wise you're talking either fighters or a bus, and fighters make way more sense economically - reusablility pays for itself.

Same goes for missiles -- with or without booster rockets. There is no logical reason to assume that you can definitely use a single launch bay for a fighter, but that this is impossible for missiles. Just look at submarines: they usually have about four torpedo launch tubes but a large supply of torpedoes to fire from them.



Except then you have to carry a lot of boosters - as many as you have missiles, in fact. That would wind up taking a lot more space out of your ordinance capacity than a fighter wing would, and the fighter wing can do the job better.

No, you don't need to take as many booster rockets as missiles. You can have the same number of missiles per booster as you do per fighter. More in fact, since you use up the payload that would have been used for the return fuel tank.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

ideally, a space born long range missle would be 'ejected' from any ship before ignotion of the main engine of the missle whatever it is. If excess power is available, then a magnetic accelerator is what you would like, to accelerate the rocket to a good starting speed and eject the missle before the engine starts. Barring that, a simple mechanical ejection, such as a soft rubber wheel like the ones that launch roller coasters would do. Most the velocity of he missle is from the boost and the initial velocity of the craft anyways, so no big deal if the ejection system is 'slow'. The missle is also ideally a 'smart' system so the ejection of the missle does not need to be along the vector of flight...it could be ejected, attitude established, then main engine fire.

This eliminates the need for complex storage or backblast chambers and the like...missles would load into the launcher with a simple pressure magazine and auto reload after each shot...simple, fast, effective. With such a system, which is pretty much just a fast conveyor belt being fed with a shoot, one could conceivably launch a large number of missles in short time...I would also envision a delay on the boosters so that a full volley could be ejected and then set off for their destination in unison. The number of missles that could be put into the air is staggering depnding on the exact setup and number of tubes...the class of ship would be irrelavant...just how many launchers total, and how many reserve missles...

[sikyon]

Were railguns discussed yet? It seems like if power generation did not scale linearly, and ammunition storage space became an issue, railguns would become very viable. You just have to feed more power into them to make them stronger and more accurate. If a battleship could generate this power, and a fighter could not scale it down, then it seems to me a battleship mounting railgun/beam weapons would be preferable. And by beam I mean particle weapons, so as to reduce diffusion.

[warty goblin]

Were railguns discussed yet? It seems like if power generation did not scale linearly, and ammunition storage space became an issue, railguns would become very viable. You just have to feed more power into them to make them stronger and more accurate. If a battleship could generate this power, and a fighter could not scale it down, then it seems to me a battleship mounting railgun/beam weapons would be preferable. And by beam I mean particle weapons, so as to reduce diffusion.

I do believe that I mentioned railguns back around page 1, and again last page. Beam weapons are the source of some interesting disagreement over their effectiveness,particularly as PD. To the laser depate I submit the COIL (Carbon Oxygen Iodine Laser), found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COIL

Also of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_laser

Given that this is essentially an airborne Laser PD system built with current technology and power generation, I feel it to be a completely reasonable guess that any space based warship would have access to more effective LPD.

[Talkkno]

Were railguns discussed yet? It seems like if power generation did not scale linearly, and ammunition storage space became an issue, railguns would become very viable. You just have to feed more power into them to make them stronger and more accurate. If a battleship could generate this power, and a fighter could not scale it down, then it seems to me a battleship mounting railgun/beam weapons would be preferable. And by beam I mean particle weapons, so as to reduce diffusion.

Also Plasma weapons are also similarity useless, unless the setting has some insane power generation tech where such weaponry exceeds the yields of missiles and railguns, where then fighters will be useful delivering most of the plasma to the target via fighter is more efficient then containing in a powerful magnetic field to keep it from dispersing usessly.

[warty goblin]

Also Plasma weapons are also similarity useless, unless the setting has some insane power generation tech where such weaponry exceeds the yields of missiles and railguns, where then fighters will be useful delivering most of the plasma to the target via fighter is more efficient then containing in a powerful magnetic field to keep it from dispersing usessly.

Agreed, this is perhaps one of the few sensible uses of fighters I've seen.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I discussed potential problems of railguns in the 'feasible weapons' thread...depending on the engine technology of the universe, ships might be travelling near light speed between systems through real space. If this is the case, they must be able to deal with the impact of small debris during high speed travel. The design limits of the shields or armor of the craft must be such that they are able to withstand multiple strikes from small objects in excess of the design velocity of the craft...typically 1.5 or 2x the design speed. This is to account for debris of a particular size traveling towards the craft...at the least, they will be wary of objects stationary relative to their vector, or traveling like 20-100 kps.

Since the armor/shields of such vessels are designed to handle the impact of such objects traveling .9c or so and keep going...any rail gun, or missle for that matter, or any particle stream, must be able to punch through a shield or armor capable of defeating, deflecting, or absorbing such punishment.

I mean...when you design a craft to be able to hit 2 kg objects free floating in space while traveling at near light speed and keep going like nothing is wrong...a bullet sized slug will be inconsequential...and depending on how fast they can get their larger slugs going...they may be useless as well.

Now...ships that bypass normal space, or use a teleportation style FTL drive don't necessarily have to go that fast. As a result, they don't need armor or shields capable of withstanding near light speed object collision. In such universes, slug throwers, rail guns, mass drivers, and concussion missles of various types are viable.

[warty goblin]

I agree that if the universe in question has non-ftl capable ships that in fact go that fast, armor is going to be very very good. However this does not mean that railguns are worthless. In fact weapons like railguns would probably be right at home in such a universe if only because fights between ships are going to be endurance slug-a-thons, meaning you don't want to run out of ammo. Lasers are possible but don't pack enough punch to be highly effective for the most part (bomb pumped lasers have that pesky ammo problem again), but railguns can be made beastly powerful, and their ammo doesn't take up to much space. Or more interestingly they can do dirty tricks like fire thermite bomb shells into the other ship, and burn through the armor. Granted such armor would also be highly heat resistant, but its still not a bad idea.

[Sundog]

It is crucial for the total number of munitions that can be fired within any given space of time. Say a fighter has a cross section of F, and a missile has a cross section of M. A fighter carries N missiles.

The fighter launch bay thus takes up a surface area of F+NM to effectively launch N missiles at a time, while using only missiles you could squeeze in N + F/M in there (or, N + (F-B)/M, where B is the space taken up by the booster).

EDIT: bah! That's N + (F-B)/M obviously, not N + (F+B) as I put initially. Stupid sign mistake... :smallwink:

Thanks, that makes more sense.

However, you're still not factoring in the time dimension. Fighters can be launched one at a time; missiles, even in a bus, probably shouldn't be.

If you're using a pure bus missile launcher, then it will operate like a carrier, have the advantages of a carrier, and yes, probably be able to throw more missiles. It is the ultimate missile thrower - in a single volley.

The problem with it is two fold: it has deliberately given up the advantages of a battleship in close combat situations, and it is less economically attractive than a carrier.

In a close range duel, the "traditional" battleship has the advantage of throwing multiple volleys at it's target quickly, and this is a major advantage.

Meanwhile, while I accept that a bus has the capacity to carry more ordinance since it requires only one way's worth of fuel, economically it's a bad idea, and it's still going to cut into your missile stocks more than a fighter will. Because it's a throwaway, every dollar you spend on it is lost and unrecoverable. A fighter's reusability translates directly into major cost savings; while some of that must naturally be spent on maintenance, you're still saving a lot of money.

As for missile stocks: suppose that a ship carries 300 missile spaces in it's cargo bays. Let's also assume that a fighter and a missile bus each take up ten missile spaces, but a fighter carries four missiles per mission and a bus carries six.

If you carry 10 fighters, they take up 100 missile spaces, leaving 200 for actual missiles, or five sorties.

If you have enough buses for all your missiles, then you'll be carrying 18 buses, taking up 180 missile spaces leaving only 120 spaces for actual missiles. (Yes, that doesn't quite cover the number of missiles, but 19 buses means one bus has a shortfall - which I don't think they'd do, preferring instead to have spares in case of down-checked missiles.)



Er, no you don't. :smallconfused: If multiple fighters can use the same launch bay due to internal hangars, then you can do the same for missiles and booster rockets.

See above.



And the CV needs to carry its fighters and the missiles carried by the fighters internally as well. :smallconfused: This doesn't provide any advantages to the CV over the BB.

Yeah it does, over the traditional BB, which has to provide launch systems for every missile in a volley. The fighter carrier needs only one prep bay - the BB needs one for every missile in the volley, and skin space for every launcher too, while the Fighter carrier needs but one (somewhat larger) bay opening.



Same goes for missiles -- with or without booster rockets. There is no logical reason to assume that you can definitely use a single launch bay for a fighter, but that this is impossible for missiles. Just look at submarines: they usually have about four torpedo launch tubes but a large supply of torpedoes to fire from them.

Between two and six, actually. But the analogy is fundamentally flawed, because we have no defence against modern torpedoes, and we've been assuming a good point defence system against incoming missiles.

With no point defence, you don't build big ships at all in space; they're just sitting ducks.



No, you don't need to take as many booster rockets as missiles. You can have the same number of missiles per booster as you do per fighter. More in fact, since you use up the payload that would have been used for the return fuel tank.

I think I covered this above.


Fuzzy_Juan

ideally, a space born long range missle would be 'ejected' from any ship before ignotion of the main engine of the missle whatever it is. If excess power is available, then a magnetic accelerator is what you would like, to accelerate the rocket to a good starting speed and eject the missle before the engine starts. Barring that, a simple mechanical ejection, such as a soft rubber wheel like the ones that launch roller coasters would do. Most the velocity of he missle is from the boost and the initial velocity of the craft anyways, so no big deal if the ejection system is 'slow'. The missle is also ideally a 'smart' system so the ejection of the missle does not need to be along the vector of flight...it could be ejected, attitude established, then main engine fire.

This eliminates the need for complex storage or backblast chambers and the like...missles would load into the launcher with a simple pressure magazine and auto reload after each shot...simple, fast, effective. With such a system, which is pretty much just a fast conveyor belt being fed with a shoot, one could conceivably launch a large number of missles in short time...I would also envision a delay on the boosters so that a full volley could be ejected and then set off for their destination in unison. The number of missles that could be put into the air is staggering depnding on the exact setup and number of tubes...the class of ship would be irrelavant...just how many launchers total, and how many reserve missles...

The problem with this system is again twofold. First, the more stuff you cram into a missile, the bigger it is, and the easier PD finds it and kills it. This includes better seekers (so it doesn't need to be told it's target before launch) or communications gear (so the launching ship can tell it after launch), extra fuel for longer ranges, etc.

Second, the smarter and more capable the missile, the more expensive it is. Never forget the economic aspects. Making disposable ordinance too expensive is a good way to kill your economy and lose a war.

[Lord Zentei]

However, you're still not factoring in the time dimension. Fighters can be launched one at a time; missiles, even in a bus, probably shouldn't be.

If you're using a pure bus missile launcher, then it will operate like a carrier, have the advantages of a carrier, and yes, probably be able to throw more missiles. It is the ultimate missile thrower - in a single volley.

The problem with it is two fold: it has deliberately given up the advantages of a battleship in close combat situations, and it is less economically attractive than a carrier.

No, it is not less economically attractive than a carrier, for reasons I have expanded upon (you need to consider the risk to the capital ship as well as wasted buses). Nor does the battleship have to give up all missile launchers for close range volleys either.



In a close range duel, the "traditional" battleship has the advantage of throwing multiple volleys at it's target quickly, and this is a major advantage.

Meanwhile, while I accept that a bus has the capacity to carry more ordinance since it requires only one way's worth of fuel, economically it's a bad idea, and it's still going to cut into your missile stocks more than a fighter will. Because it's a throwaway, every dollar you spend on it is lost and unrecoverable. A fighter's reusability translates directly into major cost savings; while some of that must naturally be spent on maintenance, you're still saving a lot of money.

By missile stocks I presume you're talking about missile stocks overall, not missile stocks aboard the capital ship? :smallconfused: Because if it is the latter, then that makes little sense...

Anyway: dollar savings on reusable fighters are meaningless if you are diminishing your capital ship's ability to deal damage to the enemy capital ship to the extent that the rocket equation implies you would, since then you are risking "expending" your capital ship instead. You need to consider payload costs just as much as dollar costs.



As for missile stocks: suppose that a ship carries 300 missile spaces in it's cargo bays. Let's also assume that a fighter and a missile bus each take up ten missile spaces, but a fighter carries four missiles per mission and a bus carries six.

If you carry 10 fighters, they take up 100 missile spaces, leaving 200 for actual missiles, or five sorties.

If you have enough buses for all your missiles, then you'll be carrying 18 buses, taking up 180 missile spaces leaving only 120 spaces for actual missiles. (Yes, that doesn't quite cover the number of missiles, but 19 buses means one bus has a shortfall - which I don't think they'd do, preferring instead to have spares in case of down-checked missiles.)

You are still underestimating the return fuel tanks: the fighters will always be a lot more bulky than the buses. Keep in mind that the bus requires only one acceleration phase: to get to maximum delta vee. The fighter requires four acceleration phases: one to get to max v, another to come to rest with respect to the carrier, yet another to accelerate towards the carrier and a final one to rendezvous with the carrier.

Furthermore, if you are relying on five sorties, you're dealing only 40 missiles per sortie... in any given space of time the battleship will pound the carrier.



Yeah it does, over the traditional BB, which has to provide launch systems for every missile in a volley. The fighter carrier needs only one prep bay - the BB needs one for every missile in the volley, and skin space for every launcher too, while the Fighter carrier needs but one (somewhat larger) bay opening.

Er, no. The BB does not need one for every missile in the volley, for reasons already stated... :smallconfused:



Between two and six, actually. But the analogy is fundamentally flawed, because we have no defence against modern torpedoes, and we've been assuming a good point defence system against incoming missiles.

With no point defence, you don't build big ships at all in space; they're just sitting ducks.

I was using the Los Angeles and Sea Wolf subs for comparison. As for point defense: these hard points are fundamentally distinct from those of the long range missiles. Will your CVs not also have them? And subs still have countermeasures, even though they don't have point defense weapons.


EDIT:


The problem with this system is again twofold. First, the more stuff you cram into a missile, the bigger it is, and the easier PD finds it and kills it. This includes better seekers (so it doesn't need to be told it's target before launch) or communications gear (so the launching ship can tell it after launch), extra fuel for longer ranges, etc.

Er.. buses?


Second, the smarter and more capable the missile, the more expensive it is. Never forget the economic aspects. Making disposable ordinance too expensive is a good way to kill your economy and lose a war.

So is making your capital ships markedly less deadly than the opposition. :smallwink:

[EntilZha]

With carriers, you can have cool scramble/battle sequences set to songs like "Zerstoeren" by Rammstein. :smallbiggrin:

[Sundog]

No, it is not less economically attractive than a carrier, for reasons I have expanded upon (you need to consider the risk to the capital ship as well as wasted buses). Nor does the battleship have to give up all missile launchers for close range volleys either.

No, I suppose not. But every launcher cuts into your cargo capacity, reducing your ship's missile stocks.





By missile stocks I presume you're talking about missile stocks overall, not missile stocks aboard the capital ship? :smallconfused: Because if it is the latter, then that makes little sense...

No, I'm speaking of the stocks onboard ship. The total amount of missiles the ship can carry will be reduced if you use buses rather than fighters.


Anyway: dollar savings on reusable fighters are meaningless if you are diminishing your capital ship's ability to deal damage to the enemy capital ship to the extent that the rocket equation implies you would, since then you are risking "expending" your capital ship instead. You need to consider payload costs just as much as dollar costs.

First, I don't believe that we're talking chemical rockets here; they are too fuel uneconomical and provide too little thrust to imagine a battle being fought with them anywhre beyond orbit.

Second, if you have to use two ships to kill one enemy ship, and lose one doing it, but the enemy ship costs three times what yours does, you win.




You are still underestimating the return fuel tanks: the fighters will always be a lot more bulky than the buses. Keep in mind that the bus requires only one acceleration phase: to get to maximum delta vee. The fighter requires four acceleration phases: one to get to max v, another to come to rest with respect to the carrier, yet another to accelerate towards the carrier and a final one to rendezvous with the carrier.

No, you're assuming the carrier is stationary.

More likely, the carrier is describing a mirror arc away from the target the fighters are going towards. The fighters adjust their trajectory after launching their ordinance and redezvous with the carrier at a prearranged point. This would require much less fuel than a go-strike-return action to and from a single point.



Furthermore, if you are relying on five sorties, you're dealing only 40 missiles per sortie... in any given space of time the battleship will pound the carrier.

That's the danger for the carrier. But you're either using long range missiles, in which case the carrier can be confident of defeating the volley, or buses, in which case the carrier will probably be lost, but will have the minor satisfaction that it's side is winning the economic war.





Er, no. The BB does not need one for every missile in the volley, for reasons already stated... :smallconfused:

I was speaking of the traditional battleship, not the bus-thrower.



I was using the Los Angeles and Sea Wolf subs for comparison. As for point defense: these hard points are fundamentally distinct from those of the long range missiles. Will your CVs not also have them? And subs still have countermeasures, even though they don't have point defense weapons.

I have been assuming that our two hypothetical same-size ships each have identical point-defence suites.

And the countermeasures we have against torpedo attack are actually pretty pitiful.



Er.. buses?

He was speaking of the traditional systems, not bus-throwers. I was answering on the same basis.




So is making your capital ships markedly less deadly than the opposition. :smallwink:

Yes and no. One analogy I like is that of Shermans vs. Tigers in WWII - it took 3 Shermans, on average, to kill one Tiger.

But for the price of a Tiger the US could make five Shermans.

[Lord Zentei]

No, I suppose not. But every launcher cuts into your cargo capacity, reducing your ship's missile stocks.

It's a balancing act, certainly. Nonetheless.



No, I'm speaking of the stocks onboard ship. The total amount of missiles the ship can carry will be reduced if you use buses rather than fighters.

Then... you are probably still not counting the fuel loads required for the fighter.



First, I don't believe that we're talking chemical rockets here; they are too fuel uneconomical and provide too little thrust to imagine a battle being fought with them anywhre beyond orbit.

Second, if you have to use two ships to kill one enemy ship, and lose one doing it, but the enemy ship costs three times what yours does, you win.

Any rockets used will still use the rocket equation. If you are using some exotic physics, then the argument becomes meaningless as its outcome is dependent on whatever writer's fiat is used in the setting.

OTOH, you have not shown that the difference in cost would be so high as this.



No, you're assuming the carrier is stationary.

More likely, the carrier is describing a mirror arc away from the target the fighters are going towards. The fighters adjust their trajectory after launching their ordinance and redezvous with the carrier at a prearranged point. This would require much less fuel than a go-strike-return action to and from a single point.

The difference for that is trivial, unless the carrier moves a significant distance towards the enemy deployment zone, which defeats the point of having a carrier in the first place. More importantly, you either have to accelerate the fighters back to the carrier, or the carrier towards the fighters, or a combination of the two. This expends fuel, one way or another.



That's the danger for the carrier. But you're either using long range missiles, in which case the carrier can be confident of defeating the volley, or buses, in which case the carrier will probably be lost, but will have the minor satisfaction that it's side is winning the economic war.

Quite the opposite: it is not winning the economic war at all if their side loses a CV and all fighters aboard it, while their enemies lose a bunch of buses.



I have been assuming that our two hypothetical same-size ships each have identical point-defence suites.

And the countermeasures we have against torpedo attack are actually pretty pitiful.

In that case I don't follow your reasoning. The point you raised earlier was that carriers can use a single launch bay for a whole load of fighters. I countered that you can do the same thing for the BB (and pointed out the modern nuclear attack sub as an analogy). You then raised the issue that attack subs have poor point defense... if the CV is allowed point defense and you assume that the BB and CV would have the same level of point defenses, how is that a counter to the point that subs can fire torpedoes using a limited number of launch tubes?



Yes and no. One analogy I like is that of Shermans vs. Tigers in WWII - it took 3 Shermans, on average, to kill one Tiger.

But for the price of a Tiger the US could make five Shermans.

This is the point on the "economic war" you raised above... same answer.

[Sundog]

It's a balancing act, certainly. Nonetheless.




Then... you are probably still not counting the fuel loads required for the fighter.

Fair point. That fuel would also cut into missile stocks.





Any rockets used will still use the rocket equation. If you are using some exotic physics, then the argument becomes meaningless as its outcome is dependent on whatever writer's fiat is used in the setting.


OTOH, you have not shown that the difference in cost would be so high as this.




The difference for that is trivial, unless the carrier moves a significant distance towards the enemy deployment zone, which defeats the point of having a carrier in the first place. More importantly, you either have to accelerate the fighters back to the carrier, or the carrier towards the fighters, or a combination of the two. This expends fuel, one way or another.

Not really. The idea of controlling areas of space is absurd - the best you could posibly do is control the orbital radii of a planet.

If a ship launches a flight, then thrusts to an orbit that will bring it to it's rendezvous point after the fight, neither that orbit nor the rendezvous point need be in any threatened area.

Yes, you are going to use more fuel when using fighters. A carrier will probably require resupply more often than a battleship of the same size. But in a battle, if you are running low on fuel, it is easier to disengage than if you are running low on munitions - since you can still use your munitions to dissuade a pursuing enemy.



Quite the opposite: it is not winning the economic war at all if their side loses a CV and all fighters aboard it, while their enemies lose a bunch of buses.

If you're assuming the carrier is destroyed, and the bus-launcher BB isn't, you're absolutely right.

But if both are destroyed, then the winner is the side that lost the fewest resources, and that would be the carrier - particularly if the fighters can still be recovered.





In that case I don't follow your reasoning. The point you raised earlier was that carriers can use a single launch bay for a whole load of fighters. I countered that you can do the same thing for the BB (and pointed out the modern nuclear attack sub as an analogy). You then raised the issue that attack subs have poor point defense... if the CV is allowed point defense and you assume that the BB and CV would have the same level of point defenses, how is that a counter to the point that subs can fire torpedoes using a limited number of launch tubes?

Okay, obviously I wasn't clear.

My point is that a submarine only NEEDS a small number of tubes, because nothing much is going to stop the small number of torpedoes it can launch in a single volley. It doesn't need to saturate a point defence screen, because there isn't one.

Our hypothetical BB DOES need to saturate a point defence screen. To do this, we have identified two methods: Internal launchers, or carrier buses.

With the buses, since you're basically treating them like fighters for launch purposes, you take time and throw out as many as you can control, then send that many at the enemy. You only need one launch bay.

But with internal launcher systems, with their attendant advantages at short range of rapid fire rates, you are going to need one launch tube for each missile you are launching in any one volley. And a small number of missiles in a volley is very unlikely to penetrate a point defence screen.

For this reason, I consider the submarine analogy to be less useful in this instance.



This is the point on the "economic war" you raised above... same answer.

Yes. But the effect remains, in a reduced way, at any significant difference in ship costs.

[Lord Zentei]

Not really. The idea of controlling areas of space is absurd - the best you could posibly do is control the orbital radii of a planet.

I wasn't really talking about controlling areas of space. The point was that the carrier is meant to be able to launch its fighters towards the enemy while keeping its distance. If the carrier has to approach the enemy in order to retrieve the fighters the point of using a CV in the first place becomes somewhat moot. Therefore, the fighters must be doing most if not all of the work returning to their mother-ship.



If a ship launches a flight, then thrusts to an orbit that will bring it to it's rendezvous point after the fight, neither that orbit nor the rendezvous point need be in any threatened area.

If you are simply orbiting the star system, you will require months of time between launching the fighters and retrieving them. That precludes more than a single pass by your fighter wing, negating the utility of their re-usability. If you won't be able to launch them several times at the target after all, you might as well use buses and get more ordnance to the enemy in one go.


On the other hand: even if you are not doing this and simply having your carrier moving at an angle to the enemy, you'll still run into Newton's First and Third Laws (the underpinnings of the rocket equation).

For instance: the target is dead ahead along the Y axis. The carrier moves at 45 degrees to port; the fighters move straight towards the enemy, deliver their munitions and then bank 90 degrees to port to rendezvous with the carrier. You still need to give the fighters momentum along the Y axis, then negate it, followed by momentum along the X axis, and then negate it to rendezvous with the carrier and pick up more munitions -- i.e. you still have four acceleration phases. Not to mention you need to expend more energy and reaction mass to reverse the carrier's momentum along the Y axis in order to allow the fighters to make another pass. [EDIT: Bah! I mean you need to reverse the carrier's momentum along the X axis, obviously]

Obviously, this is in stark contrast to modern surface carrier fleets: their air-based fighters can bank and turn using friction, thus maintaining their speed with a minimal expenditure of fuel, and use friction to slow down as well... If aircraft were as hidebound as space rockets with regard to changing their momentum, I doubt very much that carrier fleets would be as dominant as they are today.



Yes, you are going to use more fuel when using fighters. A carrier will probably require resupply more often than a battleship of the same size. But in a battle, if you are running low on fuel, it is easier to disengage than if you are running low on munitions - since you can still use your munitions to dissuade a pursuing enemy.

Well, in that case the battleship wins out both in the amount of munitions it can dish out in a given space of time as well as its endurance between resupply. I'm not really sure that fuel isn't preferable to munitions if you are trying to escape and are obviously out-gunned -- after all, without reaction mass, you're not going to get away at all. :smallsmile:



If you're assuming the carrier is destroyed, and the bus-launcher BB isn't, you're absolutely right.

But if both are destroyed, then the winner is the side that lost the fewest resources, and that would be the carrier - particularly if the fighters can still be recovered.

<and>

Yes. But the effect remains, in a reduced way, at any significant difference in ship costs.

If the missile cruiser gets to launch over a hundred missiles to the carrier's forty (as you estimated above -- before the extra fuel needs were taken into account), then the odds certainly favor the missile cruiser to survive and the carrier not to do so. And a missile cruiser + buses + missiles would presumably cost less than a carrier + fighters + missiles. Thus, you would have more missile cruisers than carriers.



Okay, obviously I wasn't clear.

My point is that a submarine only NEEDS a small number of tubes, because nothing much is going to stop the small number of torpedoes it can launch in a single volley. It doesn't need to saturate a point defence screen, because there isn't one.

Our hypothetical BB DOES need to saturate a point defence screen. To do this, we have identified two methods: Internal launchers, or carrier buses.

With the buses, since you're basically treating them like fighters for launch purposes, you take time and throw out as many as you can control, then send that many at the enemy. You only need one launch bay.

But with internal launcher systems, with their attendant advantages at short range of rapid fire rates, you are going to need one launch tube for each missile you are launching in any one volley. And a small number of missiles in a volley is very unlikely to penetrate a point defence screen.

For this reason, I consider the submarine analogy to be less useful in this instance.

Well, OK -- but the point that a bus based missile cruiser can use a limited number of launch bays remains... and that therefore, this is not a particular advantage for the carrier that the opposition does not have, yes? :smallconfused:

[multilis]

If nuclear weapons or better are allowed and no effective shielding/targetting against them (current state of tech), then missiles/fighters are more effective than large ships.

If you need a larger ship to have decent long range (fission/fusion reactor needs to be reasonable size for shielding from radioactives, sustained reaction) then carriers/missile cruisers/large mirv missile (that splits into many smaller ones when near targets) have a place in transporting the nukes before battle.

A single small nuke takes out any sized ship if it can get close to destination without being destroyed.

...

Supposing you say that large ships have laser weapons that can shoot down fighters and missiles before they get close. You still can play shotgun with fragments smaller than easily able to laser down moving at a fraction of the speed of light and shaped to be armour piercing, a good old kinetic/velocity weapon (not effective in atmosphere, they burn up and slow down but very effective in outer space)

In current tech this would be sending a rocket around the moon to sling shot reverse geostationary orbit (opposite direction but same position as most satelites), then exploding it, the resulting space debris would take out most satelites.

...

Several smaller ships are harder to hit than one large one. One larger one can have thicker armour. Only way imo a larger ship has an advantage is if shielding/armour are effective. In current tech terms, not really, nukes and armour piercing munitions (shaped explosives) have trumped armour, and smaller drones/missiles will likely trump fighters as computer ai improves.

A single flake of paint in space is tracked as a threat to the space shuttles.

[Skjaldbakka]

There are three points that I think are very significant here, in determining the usefulness of carriers.

1) What kind of fuel/engines do ships use? Star Trek style engines pretty much negate any discussion about fighters lacking fuel efficiency, because space for fuel is no longer relevant. If they use any kind of chemical fuel, such as in Firefly- fighters as pretty much only useful for anti-planetary actions (after space superiority has been established by battleships).

2) What model of weapon vs. armor do we use?
Historically, weapons have improved faster than armor. However, it has been brought up many times that shields and armor on big spaceships will have to be phenomenal to withstand impact with space debris. If this puts armor ahead of the curve, fighters will be useless, except in the 'portable space station' method described in the first point. Star Trek doesn't use fighters much because of this issue, in spite of having engines that could support fighters as a strategy.

3) How good are Point-Defense Systems?
If PDF systems are perfect, missiles and fighters are useless against capital ships. By perfect I mean that they take up a small amount of hull space, and completely prevent anything solid from getting close to the ship, while at the same time being integrated with the hull in some fashion so that they are no more vulnerable to weapons fire than the hull itself is.

If PDF systems are just good, fighters gain some usefulness over missile cruisers. A swarm of small fast dummy missiles fired from just outside the PDF grid is more likely to get some missiles through a good PDF grid than a smaller group of larger missiles from long range. This only helps the carrier if it has more prep time than the target does, as it needs to have all of its fighters out before it comes under fire*.

How to do that?*
-Stealth Carriers: Cloaked Carriers with cloaked fighters. Or using planetary objects to hide from from sensor scans. You could probably design a carrier that can launch fighters while powered down, and thus have much smaller energy signature. In other words 'technobabble, stealth carrier, technobabble'
-Battleship escort: A carrier could hide behind the battleships while deploying fighters, and then add a significant amount of firepower all at once.
-Out of Hyperspace: A carrier could launch fighters in hyperspace, and then drop out of hyperspace to engage the enemy. This is similar to the Battleship escort plan, except the enemy won't know the carrier is coming. This strategy would work well in the Babylon 5 universe.

I define a 'good' PDF system as one that will take out all missiles while running at full capacity, but which has some flaws, such as having to balance PDF hull space with anti-capital ship weaponry hull space. The end result is that most ships have PDF sufficient to stop 'most of the missiles'. You might even have mixed groups of battleships, with some devoted entirely to anti-capital, and others with really good PDF screens that can cover other ships as well. The Battleship/Destroyer model.

If you have bad or non-existent PDF systems, fighters aren't useless, but missiles are probably more effective, due to fuel efficiency, space limitations, etc. Fighters probably still exist, and a carrier would still be a scary capital ship, but they would eventually be phased out in favor of more cost-effective missile cruisers.

4) (I forgot one)
The presence of some kind of inertial damper. Human pilots can't take as much G as AI fighters or missiles can. Which means that piloted fighters are useless w/o some kinf of inertial damper. If you lack both inertial dampers and good enough AI for competent fighters, you can forget about having useful fighters, period.


Conclusion:

For carriers to be effective, the following conditions must be met:
1: Non-fuel based engines, or engines that require so little fuel as not to be significant in terms of space or weight.
2: PDF systems that are neither perfect, nor useless.
3: Weapon technology must be better than armor/shield technology. Specifically, armor must be penetrable by something that can fit on a fighter, preferably missiles with longer range than PDF systems.
4: Either some kind of 'inertial damper', or some kind of AI-controlled fighter.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

In Babylon 5, warships heading into battle do launch fighters and jump into realspace with a fighter screen in place. In that particular universe, they do have to worry about fuel to a degree so defensive ships have their fighters on standby for the scramble order...but any capitol ship that is expecting to meet resistance just before they jump into realspace or as they do will launch fighters before they get there. If they are going to jump into realspace a good distance from the target and will be seen comming, then they will only deploy fighters as they get into combat range to save fuel and pilot alertness.

Also..remember, a fighter doesn't need to be AI controlled...if sufficient bandwidth and automation is available, with a good connection, a fighter could be piloted remotely...in fact, any AI ship could be flown by AI or remote control with the addition of a good enough transciever. Such ships would be vulnerable to jamming or destruction of the reciever...but no system is perfect.

In any universe though...no matter how big a ship, there will always be a low tech solution that can be fit on a smaller ship in such a way that they will be able to threaten larger craft. I mean...I recall war stories of a small destroyer in WWII that pulled right along side a larger cruiser to avoid the big guns (can't shoot lower than your own deck), the crew of the destroyer then started lobbing grenades over the rail and managed to take the ship because they caught them off guard. Even today small 'pirate' craft with guns take over tankers, cruiseliners, fishing boats...they either surrender or they blow a small hole int he side...their weapons don't need to be very strong...just good enough that they can compromise the hull.

In a space universe, the same is true...small craft can have some form of weapons on them...these weapons willl likely be able to pose at least a minor threat to any ship of comparable technology...even within a few levels of advancement. larger craft are needed to ferry lots of people and supplies. Not al craft will be armed...even if they are...if a small fighter will work, people will use them.

[Skjaldbakka]

In a space universe, the same is true...small craft can have some form of weapons on them...these weapons willl likely be able to pose at least a minor threat to any ship of comparable technology...even within a few levels of advancement. larger craft are needed to ferry lots of people and supplies. Not al craft will be armed...even if they are...if a small fighter will work, people will use them.

While this is true, I don't think Piracy is relevant to the discussion. Pirates with carriers? Unless you have some kind of Pirate Lord . . . perhaps with a ninja monkey. Space Pirate Ninja Monkey! With Carriers! :biggrin:


Also, B5 = Awesome. I wish I could still catch re-runs on cable.

[warty goblin]

In Babylon 5, warships heading into battle do launch fighters and jump into realspace with a fighter screen in place. In that particular universe, they do have to worry about fuel to a degree so defensive ships have their fighters on standby for the scramble order...but any capitol ship that is expecting to meet resistance just before they jump into realspace or as they do will launch fighters before they get there. If they are going to jump into realspace a good distance from the target and will be seen comming, then they will only deploy fighters as they get into combat range to save fuel and pilot alertness.

Also..remember, a fighter doesn't need to be AI controlled...if sufficient bandwidth and automation is available, with a good connection, a fighter could be piloted remotely...in fact, any AI ship could be flown by AI or remote control with the addition of a good enough transciever. Such ships would be vulnerable to jamming or destruction of the reciever...but no system is perfect.

In any universe though...no matter how big a ship, there will always be a low tech solution that can be fit on a smaller ship in such a way that they will be able to threaten larger craft. I mean...I recall war stories of a small destroyer in WWII that pulled right along side a larger cruiser to avoid the big guns (can't shoot lower than your own deck), the crew of the destroyer then started lobbing grenades over the rail and managed to take the ship because they caught them off guard. Even today small 'pirate' craft with guns take over tankers, cruiseliners, fishing boats...they either surrender or they blow a small hole int he side...their weapons don't need to be very strong...just good enough that they can compromise the hull.

In a space universe, the same is true...small craft can have some form of weapons on them...these weapons willl likely be able to pose at least a minor threat to any ship of comparable technology...even within a few levels of advancement. larger craft are needed to ferry lots of people and supplies. Not al craft will be armed...even if they are...if a small fighter will work, people will use them.


If the fighter is remote controlled by a human in the carrier, that means that the carrier has to be pretty darn close to whatever its target is, lag of more than a quarter second or so will make the fighter worthless.

Also, check the point about armor and shields again. Any ship moving through space is going to have to pack a darn lot of armor/shields merely to survive rapidly moving small particles. I just saw an article the other day about sub-atomic particles hitting earth's atmosphere with the force of hailstones, there's stuff out there gong really fast. Since this is the case, even unarmed merchant ships are going to have to pack armor that makes a modern warship look naked. Unless weapons can be make rediculously powerful at miniscule sizes, they won't have a chance to actually penetrate the hull and do damage, and if they can, fighters are screwed over by the hyper powerful PD that's easy to make and mount.

Again, catching ships in space is going to be pretty much impossible. If there's FTL travel, ships will only leave hyperspace when they need to, most likely at a friendly defended area, or so far out in the middle of nowhere that they are basically unfindable. Even with an interdiction field or similar technology, its going to be pretty much impossible, since you need to know where a ship will be and when it will be there to an insane degree of accuracy. Without ftl, by the time a ship leaves friendly space, its going to be moving so fast it'll be pretty much impossible to catch it up.

[Skjaldbakka]

fighters are screwed over by the hyper powerful PD that's easy to make and mount.

Hyper powerful PD that may or may not be available, depending on the tech level. Unlike heavy armor on ships, the assumption that PD is hyper powerful and readily available without compromising anti-capital weapons (otherwise known as big guns) has no been strongly supported by evidence.

[Talkkno]

Even with an interdiction field or similar technology, its going to be pretty much impossible, since you need to know where a ship will be and when it will be there to an insane degree of accuracy. Without ftl, by the time a ship leaves friendly space, its going to be moving so fast it'll be pretty much impossible to catch it up.

Thrawn *Cough*

[warty goblin]

Hyper powerful PD that may or may not be available, depending on the tech level. Unlike heavy armor on ships, the assumption that PD is hyper powerful and readily available without compromising anti-capital weapons (otherwise known as big guns) has no been strongly supported by evidence.

However strong your fighter's weapons are, the PD is that plus some. And did you not read my stretched cube design earlier? Take a long, relatively thin box (my standard design is around 3 1/2 times as long as wide). In the middle of each of the four long sides, stick a heavy turret. On one end (the front), indent two more heavy turrets. Then run two ultra-heavy railguns the length of the ship (these are optional, and easy to sub for really big lasers/rapid firing missile launchers if desired). That's the heavy weapons, six high powered turrets plus the two fixed railguns/whatevers. Now take and stick PD turrets on as follows: one on top of each heavy turret. One in front and behind each side mounted heavy turret, one the top and bottum of the front indent (if the front turrets are mounted left and right, put one on the top and bottom of the central portion), and another two in the rear. Total PD turrets: 12, providing reduntant total coverage of every face of the ship. Bingo, the offensive weapons equivilent of 12 fighters, but with capital class armor and heavy weapons for backup. And that's without trying very hard, I've drafted designs of this pattern that carry upwards of 24 PD turrets. Ultimately I rejected them for use in my Sci-Fi universe since fighters and missiles just aren't that big of a problem in the setting. With luck, tomorrow I can start my model of that baby...

Again, laser PD is pretty much inevitable, since we are pretty close to doing it now, making this a serious threat to any fighter/missile attack.

[Dervag]

If nuclear weapons or better are allowed and no effective shielding/targetting against them (current state of tech), then missiles/fighters are more effective than large ships.Who says we can't target against them? I'm not so certain of that.


Supposing you say that large ships have laser weapons that can shoot down fighters and missiles before they get close. You still can play shotgun with fragments smaller than easily able to laser down moving at a fraction of the speed of light and shaped to be armour piercing, a good old kinetic/velocity weapon (not effective in atmosphere, they burn up and slow down but very effective in outer space)

In current tech this would be sending a rocket around the moon to sling shot reverse geostationary orbit (opposite direction but same position as most satelites), then exploding it, the resulting space debris would take out most satelites.

Several smaller ships are harder to hit than one large one. One larger one can have thicker armour. Only way imo a larger ship has an advantage is if shielding/armour are effective. In current tech terms, not really, nukes and armour piercing munitions (shaped explosives) have trumped armour, and smaller drones/missiles will likely trump fighters as computer ai improves.

A single flake of paint in space is tracked as a threat to the space shuttles.The space shuttle is thin-skinned. If we're ever going to build serious interstellar or interplanetary spacecraft, such that it is actually imaginable that people would arm them heavily and wage wars with them, they will have to be sturdy enough to survive being hit by flecks of paint and dust at meteor speeds, difficult as that may be to withstand.

Otherwise, they're going to be at great risk on every trip, because micrometeorite impacts will endanger them when they're too far from home to get back quickly.

So if you want to penetrate the armor on a 'true' spaceship (something that is to space travel as, say, Napoleonic frigates were to the Age of Sail, rather than as a Bronze Age galley is), you're going to need a substantial projectile. Buckshot attacks won't cut it, because unless you use a big payload (which, of course, you can) the individual shot particles aren't going to be large enough to cause serious damage.


Also..remember, a fighter doesn't need to be AI controlled...if sufficient bandwidth and automation is available, with a good connection, a fighter could be piloted remotely...in fact, any AI ship could be flown by AI or remote control with the addition of a good enough transciever. Such ships would be vulnerable to jamming or destruction of the reciever...but no system is perfect.Transmission lag.


In any universe though...no matter how big a ship, there will always be a low tech solution that can be fit on a smaller ship in such a way that they will be able to threaten larger craft.That really isn't a universal law, you know. It works on the sea as long as boarding actions are possible.


I mean...I recall war stories of a small destroyer in WWII that pulled right along side a larger cruiser to avoid the big guns (can't shoot lower than your own deck), the crew of the destroyer then started lobbing grenades over the rail and managed to take the ship because they caught them off guard.Could you name that cruiser? I have no memory of such a thing happening, and I'm mildly surprised by that. I'd expect the cruiser's heavy artillery to smash the destroyer as it closed, because naval guns hardly ever missed at ranges of, say, 1000 yards during that era. I'm surprised the DD didn't just torpedo the thing and have done with it- much safer, and a lot more likely to work.


Even today small 'pirate' craft with guns take over tankers, cruiseliners, fishing boats...they either surrender or they blow a small hole int he side...their weapons don't need to be very strong...just good enough that they can compromise the hull.Yes, but that only works because their targets can't shoot back at all.


In a space universe, the same is true...small craft can have some form of weapons on them...these weapons willl likely be able to pose at least a minor threat to any ship of comparable technology...even within a few levels of advancement. larger craft are needed to ferry lots of people and supplies. Not al craft will be armed...even if they are...if a small fighter will work, people will use them.The catch is that it won't be profitable to use large numbers of fighters based off a carrier in this way; you can only find so many 'soft' targets weak enough for a fighter to kill in one place. Carriers wouldn't be useful in any serious naval engagement if the individual fighters were as weak relative to real naval vessels as are the 'pirates' you refer to. So battleships would still dominate in fleet actions, and fighters would either evolve into long-range raiding craft (call them corvettes or something), or into short-range defensive craft designed to defend a specific location by swarming any attacker and to interdict the surrounding space.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

If the fighter is remote controlled by a human in the carrier, that means that the carrier has to be pretty darn close to whatever its target is, lag of more than a quarter second or so will make the fighter worthless.

Also, check the point about armor and shields again. Any ship moving through space is going to have to pack a darn lot of armor/shields merely to survive rapidly moving small particles. I just saw an article the other day about sub-atomic particles hitting earth's atmosphere with the force of hailstones, there's stuff out there gong really fast. Since this is the case, even unarmed merchant ships are going to have to pack armor that makes a modern warship look naked. Unless weapons can be make rediculously powerful at miniscule sizes, they won't have a chance to actually penetrate the hull and do damage, and if they can, fighters are screwed over by the hyper powerful PD that's easy to make and mount.

Again, catching ships in space is going to be pretty much impossible. If there's FTL travel, ships will only leave hyperspace when they need to, most likely at a friendly defended area, or so far out in the middle of nowhere that they are basically unfindable. Even with an interdiction field or similar technology, its going to be pretty much impossible, since you need to know where a ship will be and when it will be there to an insane degree of accuracy. Without ftl, by the time a ship leaves friendly space, its going to be moving so fast it'll be pretty much impossible to catch it up.

:smallbiggrin: dude...I wrote some of that stuff...

just arguing the flip side for once...no mater how advanced technology has come in shielding and armor, weapons have always been on par with it. As such, if they have some sort of defense against something...rest assured that they won't bother mounting a weapon unless they know they could put a dent in themselves at least. I mean...you don't stick a bunch of submachine gun arrays on a battleship do you? Hell no...the smallest weapons on that puppy are .50 cal machine guns.

In any protection there are gaps and weak points, exploits and vulnerabilities. No armor is perfect, no protection absolute. People find ways around anything anyone has ever thought up...it just happens...if someone can concieve of something, someone can dream up the antithesis of it.

I brought up 'piracy' actions because they show how small lightly armed craft can and do disrupt the operations of much larger craft because they pack weapons that pose a threat to the ship and crew. I do believe that the USS cole bombing showed that a small craft with a big enough boom can even harm a full fledged battleship (might have just been a destroyer, but I don't remember, military vessel how about that.)

As long as they can harm big ships...they are a good idea.

Now how does a carrier fair against a battleship...simple...a carrier loses against a battleship...but the battleship loses to the fighters all things being more or less equal. A battleship usually packs enough firepower that they can withstand combat with multiple warships and destroy them all...a carrier's function is to carry fighters ad try not to die in the process. If a battleship gets in range, the carrier is in trouble. But, the fighters give the carrier range over the battleship. Typically, the fighters of a carrier will find the battleship and destroy it before the battleship can fire a single shot at the mother ship. If the battleship gets in range but the fighters launch...both ships will likely die...(barring surender of one or the other forces...)

Do note that in many space stories battleships sometimes carry limited numbers of fighters. 1-2 fighter groups...anywhere between 2 and 10 craft...sometimes a bit more, but never as many as a dedicated carrier...not even 1/4th. A Carrier may also be deemed a 'strike carrier'. That is a dedicated carrier that packs the armament of a light cruiser up to a heavy cruiser...they may even be as big as a battleship, but of course lose weapon space to fighters.

[Skjaldbakka]

However strong your fighter's weapons are, the PD is that plus some. And did you not read my stretched cube design earlier? Take a long, relatively thin box (my standard design is around 3 1/2 times as long as wide). In the middle of each of the four long sides, stick a heavy turret. On one end (the front), indent two more heavy turrets. Then run two ultra-heavy railguns the length of the ship (these are optional, and easy to sub for really big lasers/rapid firing missile launchers if desired). That's the heavy weapons, six high powered turrets plus the two fixed railguns/whatevers. Now take and stick PD turrets on as follows: one on top of each heavy turret. One in front and behind each side mounted heavy turret, one the top and bottum of the front indent (if the front turrets are mounted left and right, put one on the top and bottom of the central portion), and another two in the rear. Total PD turrets: 12, providing reduntant total coverage of every face of the ship. Bingo, the offensive weapons equivilent of 12 fighters, but with capital class armor and heavy weapons for backup. And that's without trying very hard, I've drafted designs of this pattern that carry upwards of 24 PD turrets. Ultimately I rejected them for use in my Sci-Fi universe since fighters and missiles just aren't that big of a problem in the setting. With luck, tomorrow I can start my model of that baby...

Again, laser PD is pretty much inevitable, since we are pretty close to doing it now, making this a serious threat to any fighter/missile attack.

That is not a good PDF system. Here are the problems with it.

1) Missiles have greater range than lasers. Missile based PDF can't reliably hit other missiles, so PDF is by necessity laser or slug based weapons. The fighters mass outside of PDF range, and fire a massive volley of missiles. Which brings us to point 2.

2) That PDF system would not provide 100% cover vs. a missile volley. You don't have constant, complete coverage of the area, even with 24 turrets. That system can be overewhelmed by a large number of small, fast moving missiles, such as those fired by fighters from just outside PDF range. I don't think that system would even hold up to a missile cruiser's rate of fire with long range missiles (which are larger, slower, and easier to hit).

To summarize- to make fighters and missiles obsolete, PDF has to be 100% effective, without using up a significant amount of hull space. Your system meets the second requirement, but is nowhere near the first.

[warty goblin]

A few problems with your assumptions

1) Fighters massing outside of PD range: Modern laser PD (see link at bottom of post) work at ranges of up to 600 km, are small enough to be mounted on aircraft and do this in an atmosphere. In space, given reasonable advances in laser technology this range is going to be a lot farther. And the missiles are supposed to arrive fast enough to swamp PD? And be small enough to mount on fighters? Really, I doubt it. Also, that's what the heavy guns are for, massing out of laser range just means its time to fire up the shotgun load and let 'er rip. This would also be effective against incoming missiles.

2) Swamping the PD system with lots of small, fast moving projectiles. In short, just what a ship covered in lots of armor is designed to be able to passively resist. Why would the PD even bother to fire at this stuff? Its not like the missiles are going to be hard to spot, since they have to burn fuel and accerate towards the target, meaning you have two sorts of things showing up on the targeting moniter: lots of small things flying fixed vectors that will do irrelivant amounts of damage, and fewer bigger things that are changing their vector and giving off heat like a bonfire.

3) You for some reason assume a one shot kill with a missile. Even using nukes, the energy transfered against a non-curved hull is, assuming a direct hit, only half of the total blast. The radiation and EMP are pretty much trivial, these are space craft and need to have bitching radiation shields anyway, and a Farraday cage integrated into the armor is simple enough to do there's no reason not to put one on any ship. A direct nuke hit might be crippling, but it would have to be direct. If the nuke goes off outside of about 50m or so, it reall doesn't do much damage. Nukes also have several problems of their own:
1) They can be destroyed without triggering the full explosion. Say PD kills a nuke three meters from the hull. Since a nuke has to be explicitly detonated, this just messes it up, probably blows a few holes into it. In short, it is now the world's least economically efficient mass driver shot.
2) They give off radiation. Not a lot, but really, don't you want to keep those nasty radiations outside of the ship, and not explicity store them inside?

As for missile PD, just no. Missiles shooting down other missiles is pretty hard to do (like, nearly impossible) with one of the missiles being ballistic. Given that any missile in space is going to need a guidance system, just program it to allow it to dodge incoming missiles. It also gives you a depressingly small amount of ammo when compared with something like a guass or laser PD system.

[stcfg]

I'm pretty sure massed missiles would be laser PD from a battleship. Lasers are dumb fire by nature. It's not really possible for it to be more accurate at large distances than something like homing missile given the same level of technology, especially against something as fast as a missile.

Against that railgun-based capital ship, all a fighter squadron would have to do is either strafe the it coming in from a corner and only allow about 50% of the PDLs to fire. I'm pretty sure 100% of the fighters vs 50% of the point defense would end with the fighters winning. In fact, if just a few of those PDLs were disabled from a single angle, they rest might as well be, since the fighters always go for the weak spot that doesn't have PDL coverage. It would be possible to design a ship that can fire 100% of their PDLs all the time but they'll either be really weird (think octopus with PDLs at the tentacles or similar) or not battleships.

I think the minimum role carriers and fighters would have in a setting would be point defense. They can do that job much better than battleships. Many fighters can cover other ships from enemy fire better than a battleship. Holes in their point defense aren't as crippling since they have the option of repositioning themselves. They can always bring 100% of their point defense against any massed attack. Their effective range would be greater than an battleship's since they can go up closer . In fact modern PDLs would lean in favor of fighters since they are already quite small and designed to intercept missiles aimed at a target other than themselves.

[Skjaldbakka]

As for missile PD, just no. Missiles shooting down other missiles is pretty hard to do (like, nearly impossible) with one of the missiles being ballistic.

Which is exactly what I said:


1) Missiles have greater range than lasers. Missile based PDF can't reliably hit other missiles, so PDF is by necessity laser or slug based weapons.




3) You for some reason assume a one shot kill with a missile. Even using nukes, the energy transfered against a non-curved hull is, assuming a direct hit, only half of the total blast.

I addressed this point already. You are making the assumption that armor and shield technology will advance faster than weapon technology. This is not a tendency that is supprted by the historical record. I already said that fighters and missiles would be useless as anti-capital ship weapons in a universe where armor is more advanced than weapons:



2) What model of weapon vs. armor do we use?
Historically, weapons have improved faster than armor. However, it has been brought up many times that shields and armor on big spaceships will have to be phenomenal to withstand impact with space debris. If this puts armor ahead of the curve, fighters will be useless, except in the 'portable space station' method described in the first point. Star Trek doesn't use fighters much because of this issue, in spite of having engines that could support fighters as a strategy.



Nukes also have several problems of their own:

Why are you assuming that missile technolgy stops at nukes? We have nukes now. It makes no sense to assume that missile payloads won't improve by the time we have battleships in space.

[Emperor Tippy]

Why are you assuming that missile technolgy stops at nukes? We have nukes now. It makes no sense to assume that missile payloads won't improve by the time we have battleships in space.

Actually the only thing currently imaginable by our physics more powerful than a nuke is an antimatter bomb.


Nukes can get physically smaller, become more efficient and cleaner, etc. but they are far stronger than anything short of antimatter.


A 50 megaton nuke releases more energy in a second than the entire human race currently uses in somethign like 5 years.

Now as tech advances you may reach a point where you can contain a nuclear explosion and once you do that you can manage some really interesting things. Or you can use a nuke to power a bomb pumped X-Ray or Gamma Ray laser.

But in space nukes are the only viable warhead until you get antimatter and nukes really aren't that great in space.

[warty goblin]

I'm pretty sure massed missiles would be laser PD from a battleship. Lasers are dumb fire by nature. It's not really possible for it to be more accurate at large distances than something like homing missile given the same level of technology, especially against something as fast as a missile.

Against that railgun-based capital ship, all a fighter squadron would have to do is either strafe the it coming in from a corner and only allow about 50% of the PDLs to fire. I'm pretty sure 100% of the fighters vs 50% of the point defense would end with the fighters winning. In fact, if just a few of those PDLs were disabled from a single angle, they rest might as well be, since the fighters always go for the weak spot that doesn't have PDL coverage. It would be possible to design a ship that can fire 100% of their PDLs all the time but they'll either be really weird (think octopus with PDLs at the tentacles or similar) or not battleships.

I think the minimum role carriers and fighters would have in a setting would be point defense. They can do that job much better than battleships. Many fighters can cover other ships from enemy fire better than a battleship. Holes in their point defense aren't as crippling since they have the option of repositioning themselves. They can always bring 100% of their point defense against any massed attack. Their effective range would be greater than an battleship's since they can go up closer . In fact modern PDLs would lean in favor of fighters since they are already quite small and designed to intercept missiles aimed at a target other than themselves.

You seem to be thinking that a battleship will by neccesity be drastically less maneuverable than a fighter,which just isn't the case. All a battleship needs to do to bring a new bank of PD to bear on target is rotate on its axis. It is far easier for the battleship to rotate than for the fighters to keep shifting their position. The fighters may or may not have better acceleration, but not that much better, or the pilots will be reduced to pulp.

Lasers are dumb fire yes, but they cannot be dodged. They can miss, and evasive maneuvers can make it somewhat more difficult to hit, but once fired there's no way to make an effort to get out of the beam, since there's no way to know where the beam is until it hits you. Again, the turrets don't have very far to rotate to track any movement of a fighter/missile. Within a few hundred kilometers, target ltime ag will be pretty much irrelevant, meaning that accuracy will be reasonably close to 100%, depending on the quality of the targeting computer, which will be pretty much as good as the computers driving the missiles. In this range fighters/missiles will be dying basically as fast as the PDL can aim and fire.

[Skjaldbakka]

Actually the only thing currently imaginable by our physics more powerful than a nuke is an antimatter bomb.

Of course, any discussion of space warfare also requires FTL travel, which is something that physicists say is impossible. Which makes that point irrelevant. And why not assume anti-matter bombs? It works for Star Trek, the king of technobabble.


The fighters may or may not have better acceleration, but not that much better, or the pilots will be reduced to pulp.

This is a moot point. Fighters can only be viable with either some kind of inertial damper technology, or AI fighters. Either way, pilots are not reduced to a pulp.

[Emperor Tippy]

Of course, any discussion of space warfare also requires FTL travel, which is something that physicists say is impossible. Which makes that point irrelevant. And why not assume anti-matter bombs? It works for Star Trek, the king of technobabble.
Actually FTL travel isn't impossible according to most physicists. Well true FTL travel is, but not apparent FTL travel.

Wormholes are the most common way mentioned. A few fairly well known ones are backing a hyperspace theroy that they want money to test.


As for antimatter bombs, nukes are far cheaper and easily to make while having relatively identical yields. With present day tech a nuke can be made that is about 30% efficient. With expected improvements in tech you can expect 50% efficiency by 2030. At 50% efficiency a nuke is half as powerful as an equal mass of antimatter. And the nuke is far easily to produce and store.

[Skjaldbakka]

With expected improvements in tech you can expect 50% efficiency by 2030. At 50% efficiency a nuke is half as powerful as an equal mass of antimatter. And the nuke is far easily to produce and store.

Stop contradicting yourself. You said before that anti-matter warheads are the logical next step. It doesn't matter how easy a weapon is to produce and store, if it doesn't deal appreciable damage.

As long as we are trying to define exactly what we have available, why doesn't someone explain exactly what "super strong armor and shields" are composed of. Just really thick metal? Somehow, I don't think that cuts it.

[Talkkno]

Stop contradicting yourself. You said before that anti-matter warheads are the logical next step. It doesn't matter how easy a weapon is to produce and store, if it doesn't deal appreciable damage.

As long as we are trying to define exactly what we have available, why doesn't someone explain exactly what "super strong armor and shields" are composed of. Just really thick metal? Somehow, I don't think that cuts it.

The problem with antimatter weaponry that it takes a extermly powerful containment field to keep antimatter form reacting prematurely compared to nuclear weapons, and if you going to have such tech, might as well use that energy to deliver a plasma charge that can't be shot down in flight...but then again that brings fighters back usefulness since they'll be aple to carry said plasma charges more cost effectively.

[Skjaldbakka]

I still think we should establish a minimum armor baseline. Given that we know missiles will be at least as powerful as nukes, we have an established minimum power scale for missiles. We should do the same for armor. What type of armor does it take to withstand the rigors of space travel, exactly? If we answer that question, we have both the minimal missile power, and the minimal armor strength available, as a springboard for further speculation.

[Emperor Tippy]

Stop contradicting yourself. You said before that anti-matter warheads are the logical next step. It doesn't matter how easy a weapon is to produce and store, if it doesn't deal appreciable damage.
I'm not contradicting myself. I said AM warheads are the only known thing more powerful than nukes. However, power isn't everything. An AM weapon is war more dangerous than a nuke to store, a nuke will at worst give off radiation. It can not accidentally detonate. An AM weapon can have containment failure and go boom.

AM weapons will most likely be more expensive than nukes as well. And for what you save in a decreased mass on the warhead is not that important compared to potentially much higher costs.

The benefit of an antimatter warhead, at least if it gets a skin-skin hit, is that no physical armor will do you any good.


As long as we are trying to define exactly what we have available, why doesn't someone explain exactly what "super strong armor and shields" are composed of. Just really thick metal? Somehow, I don't think that cuts it.

2 meter thick titanium won't breach from a 10 megaton nuclear explosion at 100 meters.

And with some of the metamaterials being created and theorized about, in addition to expected advances in metallurgy, it is reasonable to assume that by 2050 you can have armor that will take a point blank multimegaton nuclear detonation in space and survive.

The ship will prolly be damaged but it will most likely hold together.

And if you depressurize all compartments before combat the ship will hold up even better.

-----
Take a look at Project Orion. 20 megaton bombs detonated 25 meters behind a steel pusher plate and the plate won't ablate at all. No damage to a piece of steel at 25 meters from a 20 megaton nuke.

[Skjaldbakka]

Ah, so all nukes are good for is taking out weapon systems, engines, etc. That isn't useful at all.

[Emperor Tippy]

No. Nukes are more useful than any other warhead that requires a hit to do damage but they still aren't particularly useful.

As I have said, your better off using bomb pumped X-Ray or Gamma Ray lasers.

In space with tech that it can be reasonable extrapolated to exist in 2050 you can create virtually impenetrable point defense. At 1000 kilometers lag isn't an issue. With current day computer tech you can detect, track, and identify an incoming missile or fighter in under a 10th of a second. With expected advances it will be virtually instantaneous. Now for the laser clusters. Let's go with a cycle time of 5 seconds per laser, laser clusters of 5 lasers, and 20 point defense clusters covering any possible angle of approach. Let's say missiles travel at 100 kilometers a second (current day ICBM's are traveling at approximately 15,000 mph or 6.7 kilometers per second). That means each missile is inside the point defense range for 10 seconds. My point defense clusters get off a total of 200 shots.

So a salvo of 100 missiles won't ever penetrate my point defense and you need to fire over 200 missiles to saturate my point defense.

[stcfg]

You seem to be thinking that a battleship will by neccesity be drastically less maneuverable than a fighter,which just isn't the case. All a battleship needs to do to bring a new bank of PD to bear on target is rotate on its axis. It is far easier for the battleship to rotate than for the fighters to keep shifting their position. The fighters may or may not have better acceleration, but not that much better, or the pilots will be reduced to pulp.

Wouldn't fighters just split in groups and only the group that the weakened side is facing would strike while he others feint or wait for their chance. Either way, more missiles would get through than if they were using fighter based PDLs. Wouldn't spinning around like that also limit the targeting abilities of that big gun the ship is built around?




Lasers are dumb fire yes, but they cannot be dodged. They can miss, and evasive maneuvers can make it somewhat more difficult to hit, but once fired there's no way to make an effort to get out of the beam, since there's no way to know where the beam is until it hits you. Again, the turrets don't have very far to rotate to track any movement of a fighter/missile. Within a few hundred kilometers, target ltime ag will be pretty much irrelevant, meaning that accuracy will be reasonably close to 100%, depending on the quality of the targeting computer, which will be pretty much as good as the computers driving the missiles. In this range fighters/missiles will be dying basically as fast as the PDL can aim and fire.

You know, at ranges like that, half a degree off would result in misses in the kilometer range. If they are hit by space debris, like say from destroyed missiles, it will most still throw them off by quite a bit. Even if it was for a split second, that would all the time that would needed for he rest of missiles to hit. I presume targeting computers would have to be better than ones missile have since their target is moving faster and they have a much smaller amount of time to lock on target and compensate for their ship moving/space debris.


Also guys, since it's science fiction, their are more exotic weapons than nukes, antimatter bombs and railguns. For example, Nova bombs from Andromeda. They nullify gravity within a certain radius when they explode, best used on star for maximum damage output. Wouldn't be hard to design in a setting with inertial dampeners or artificial gravity. They would havoc on any ship, especially those with that keep antimatter in AG fields. Or if the setting has wormholes, a missile that opens a wormhole into a star's corona could be more devastating than a equal amount of antimatter. Or they could just dump anything sent through them in to an ambush and be pick off as they go through. The strength of a weapon is determined by the damage it causes not it's energy output.

[Emperor Tippy]

Yes, you can do some truly wicked things with gravity manipulation. But what exactly you can do depends entirely on how well you can manipulate gravity and how gravity manipulation works.

Since there is no currently known way to manipulate gravity or even any reasonably accepted theory about gravity manipulation this is entirely in the realm of writer fiat.

Now a gravity warhead would be very neat. If you can create a warhead that can appear as massive as, say a planet or star, for even an instant (a bomb pumped gravity warhead might be needed to get the energy required, again writer fiat) then you can throughly **** up a ship.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

please note that in space there will be no blast wave from a nuke, just the release of intense thermal energy. the 'armor' will only need to be capable of absorbing the heat energy of the nuke and not the devastating blast that we have come to know and love on this planet.

Now, while the heat of the blast is truely awesome...the energy will disperse inversely proportional the cube of the distance between the nuke and the target and directly proportional to the cross sectional area of the spacecraft.

now...if we move beyond weapons that have a basis in current techology such as missles with blast/nuke/concussion warheads and railguns/lasers...we move into the real realm of sci-fi.

Spacial charges, graviton beams, molecular disruptors...and things that we cannot concieve...

A 'spacial charge' might be a device that creates a small portal into another dimension who's opening and immediate collapse causes space to bend and fold in such away that anything in the immediate area is also twisted in bad ways as reality warps around the hole.

A Graviton beam might be a weapon that fires a beam of focused gravity in such a way that along the length of the beam it acts as a singularity ripping apart anything in the immediate area...

molecular disruptors might create a field in which the bonds that hold together atoms just dissolve, either localized or expanding...

with such fanciful weapons...armor and shields are virtually meaningless...it is all about not being hit...that is...until people find ways of countering those weapons too.

[TigerHunter]

The reason that modern-day carriers are so effective is primarily that they allow you to engage the enemy without putting your fleet at risk. A carrier can strike with impunity, having its strikes come from different directions each time to veil its true location.

In space, there is no horizon to block either LoS or radar. Assuming that getting to light-speed takes a while (most works require complex calculations the require several minutes or more), the carrier and the rest of the fleet will have a really hard time hiding from any sort of active scanning while anywhere close to striking distance. Space is mostly empty--there's some stuff you can hide behind or in, but its rare, and you can bet it's the first place the enemy will look.


That said, when I first started to think about sci-fi realism, I came to the conclusion that light craft would be useless. Why? Automated weapon systems. You're talking about an extremely advance computer that will rarely, if ever, miss, especially if we're utilizing laser or plasma weaponry that will strike the target nanoseconds after it's fired.

Then I reconsidered. Yes, fighters moving in for a strafing run will be blown out of the sky space instantly, but if they keep their distance (on the order of several light-seconds) equally advanced computer systems on board will have no problem dodging a volley of shots, while being able to blast away at the behemoth taking potshots at them with near impunity.


These fighters won't have craft dedicated to carrying them, however. They'll likely be fully automated, so the only upkeep necessary will be routine maintenance, for which they can simply dock with any ship in the fleet (probably a specialized repair vessel). No need for a ship to lug them around.

Conclusion (also known as tl;dr): Carriers and most large craft will be obsolete, while fighters will not.

EDIT: Above, I stated that this is all assuming a lack of instant light-speed travel. If light-speed technology does exist, then the above strategy will either result in games of cat-and-mouse and fighters and battleship hop around the area.
Or, more likely, it'll encourage sneak attacks and point-blank combat. Drop a massive battleship right on top of the enemy fleet, scorch them to a crisp before they have a chance to shoot back, and loot the bodies salvage anything useful, then get back to light-speed before an enemy ship returns the favor.

[Skjaldbakka]

Assuming lack of lightspeed technology . . .

We won't have any space fleets. There isn't anything close enough w/o some way of FTL travel.

[warty goblin]

And why wouldn't the behemoth a light minute away be able to dodge? At that kind of distance ( 17,987,547,480 metres to be precise), you don't exactly need to haul much booty to get out of the way, and it'll be able to detect incoming projectiles at least as well as any of the fighter drones.

[TigerHunter]

We won't have any space fleets. There isn't anything close enough w/o some way of FTL travel.
True. I'm afraid that I haven't really read much sci-fi, I prefer magic and elves style fantasy.
Editing a more realistic explanation in.

[SDF]

We won't have any space fleets. There isn't anything close enough w/o some way of FTL travel.

Generation ships are one of the oldest concepts in sci-fi.

[Skjaldbakka]

True, but they don't tend to be combined with warring intergalactic space powers.

[SDF]

Well this whole situation is hypothetical. Each generation ship could have a fleet docked, that sort of thing. But for instance the Firefly universe everyone came to that specific solar system from a generation ship and there is no FTL travel.

[Skjaldbakka]

You have a point.