[Space] Fighter-to-ship ratio: what is it and why?

[sardook]

Originally Posted by Extrarius

Asimov had an interesting story about something almost like that =-)
It was about a world where computers had essentially taken over in the sense that computers were building computers and humans had forgotten even simple things like arithmetic.

Ya, and some one had re-invented math and the bigwigs where thinking of the possibilities of what they could do with a population that knew math including Manned missiles (they had a serious overpopulation problem).

[MrId]

I feel obligated to post this link from the Atomic Rockets website: Space Fighters. It runs down several objections to Space Fighters, many of which have been mentioned in the thread already, but with more detail.

Re: Fighter scale mega-missiles: Isn't that basically what cruise missiles today are? I seem to remember reading several years ago that cruise missiles were inspired by the use of kamikaze aircraft during WWII. When I design military spacecraft, I usually base some of the missile armament on cruise missiles.

I was trying to build a Traveller setting with different technological assumptions a while ago, and I was trying to figure out a role for fighters. What I eventually decided on was that they moved outside of the sphere where the capital ships weapons could shoot down missiles and tried to protect their motherships from long-range missile fire by taking some of the burden off of the mothership's point defense. I'd also call them gunboats or gunships or combat singleships, rather than fighters.

To a large extent, fighters don't make much sense in a setting that favors realism over coolness.

[CattyNebulart]

Fighters an make sense if the technological base is right. I'm going to construct an example one right now.

Lets assume that fighters have plenty of delta-V somehow, that FTL drives that have been active in the last few days are inherently noticable, and that there is a 5 light second bubble around a ftl drive ship that makes it impossible to jump in there.

Further lets assume that if a weapon hits it's going to wreck the target. Fighters carry nukes at the very least, but probably more potent weapons. Lets also assume that point defense weapons are very good if they can see the incoming target.

This means that survival lies in stealth, lets assume that stealth systems and ftl drives are very expensive. In particular lets assume that stealth systems are expensive by base cost and volume cubed or something so you want many small fighters.

In such a system fighters make sense because they can make it back to the ship and so the expensive stealth system van be reused without risking the expensive ftl system. Also losing two small fighters would probably still be cheaper than losing one large one. Also each successful hit will reduce your firepower by less, and cost less, if you have many small rather than a few large ships.

Now if your AI's are any good instead of fighters you will use unmanned drones to save on life support and for a higher g-tolerance so you probably want stealth to rely on human psychic powers or something.

Missiles might be used but you either need a lot of them to completely saturate point defenses or you need to stealth them. either way it's probably not an economical option.

There a feasible tech base in which fight carrier makes sense. I can come up with other tech bases in which they make sense too.it all depends on which assumptions you make about the future.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by MrId

I
Re: Fighter scale mega-missiles: Isn't that basically what cruise missiles today are? .

There's a problem with self-guiding missiles of all sorts in universes where stealth is a factor in space combat. They may not be able to carry sensors large enough to spot their targets from their launch points.

Cruise missiles aren't really good models fro anti-ship missiles. They attack known and immobile targets with little or no sensor use involved beyond some navigation.

If you go to something sensor self-guided you're looking at a Harpoon anti-ship and your range drops from the cruise's 1400 miles down to around 50. As future ships get more stealthy the practical range could actually drop.

Talking about aircraft a fully fire-and-forget missile like the latest generation Sidewinder heatseeker gives you maybe 10 miles. I'm not sure if the radar-guided AMRAAM is fully fire-and-forget over its' full 50 mile range.

Use any of these over a true stealth aircraft and your ranges drop again.

There will be lots of SF universes where stealth isn't a factor, but when it is truly long range missile guidance is a maybe yes/maybe no thing.

There's also the question of missile interception. If there's no steath for ships there's probably none for missiles and interception with beam weapons or other missiles becomes easy.

Can you defend missiles from interception weapons (armor, force fields, stealth, EW)? Maybe, but maybe it costs too much to throw away. The sensors might cost too much or the nuclear powered reactionless thrusters might too.

So maybe you put all this expensive stuff on a small reusable platform and put the boom-boom on an even smaller non-reusable thing. Current tech can put a kiloton-class nuke in a 155mm artillery shell and at least some shrinkage in size beyond that is possible.

You can also achieve truly ridiculous accelerations from a cheap solid fuel rocket if you settle for a short burn length.

So fighters are not _intrinisically_ ridiculous. In 2007 missiles haven't replaced them in all roles and it doesn't seem likely for a while yet. Unmanned aircraft haven't replaced them except in a few roles and that's not liley to change for a while yet either.

Fred Brackin

[dynaman]

Fighters in SciFi generally follow the Star Wars Model, which is just WWII in space.

to determine if there really would be fighters, or small craft, for an attack role (there will probably always be small craft for scouting, and other small craft to destroy the scout craft, etc.., etc.., etc...) the first choice is to determine if weapon technology outpaces defense technology - if it does then there will be attack fighters and capital ships will be more limited since it is easy to wipe out a large target.

If defense technology trumps attack technology then there will not be fighters, since they can't harm the large vessels.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

There's a problem with self-guiding missiles of all sorts in universes where stealth is a factor in space combat. They may not be able to carry sensors large enough to spot their targets from their launch points.

Self-guiding missiles can have the same sensors as fighters, and like fighters, don't need to be self-guiding all the way -- something can tell them where to search. This does somewhat limit attacks of opportunity, but under many tech assumptions such attacks aren't likely to effective anyway.

[Mailanka]

This means that survival lies in stealth, lets assume that stealth systems and ftl drives are very expensive. In particular lets assume that stealth systems are expensive by base cost and volume cubed or something so you want many small fighters.

How do you "hide" in space? There's nothing to hide behind, and you're far, far warmer than the background radiation (of, what, 4 degrees K?), and those who are looking around have all the time in the world to find you, as you're talking interplanetary distances here. If a ship popped into our solar system (say, around Saturn) and turned on rockets that would allow it to reach Earth in anything approaching reasonable time, and it's a huge bright streak in the sky that anyone with any kind of heat detecting equipment can see for ages. And we're not even LOOKING for invading space craft. Imagine if we were used to space warfare?

You cannot hide in space.

Can you defend missiles from interception weapons (armor, force fields, stealth, EW)? Maybe, but maybe it costs too much to throw away. The sensors might cost too much or the nuclear powered reactionless thrusters might too.

So maybe you put all this expensive stuff on a small reusable platform and put the boom-boom on an even smaller non-reusable thing. Current tech can put a kiloton-class nuke in a 155mm artillery shell and at least some shrinkage in size beyond that is possible.

You can also achieve truly ridiculous accelerations from a cheap solid fuel rocket if you settle for a short burn length.

So fighters are not _intrinisically_ ridiculous. In 2007 missiles haven't replaced them in all roles and it doesn't seem likely for a while yet. Unmanned aircraft haven't replaced them except in a few roles and that's not liley to change for a while yet either.

Yes, yes they are. It will never cost you more to make a missile than to make a fighter, and the fighter will never be cost effective, despite being "reusable."

Ingredients for a missile: Delta V to get to target. Armor. Tracking system. Congratulations, you have a kinetic kill missile.

Ingredients for a fighter: 2x Delta V (to get there and back), plus another share of Delta V for the crazy manuevers. Armor. Tracking systems. Life support systems. Gear to help the pilot deal with acceleration. More armor (to keep him from dying if there's a solar flare).

You WILL lose the missile, either to interception or to a successful strike. You will lose fighters, mostly to interception. Given that it costs you three times the fuel, plus all the perishables to support the pilot (and the pilot's pay and attitude), is it REALLY worth it to get to reuse that armor and targetting system two or three times instead of once?

And they ARE phasing out manned fighters. Drones and missiles are becoming more and more popular, and some experts I've read (or seen on TV) have even gone so far as to say that the F-22 will be the last manned fighter the US fields (it might have been another one that's out now, but the premise is the same).

Furthermore, space is a little different from air. You can hide in all that thick atmosphere or by flying low. You need more sophisticated navigational equipment than "Go that way" and you need to constantly fight drag, especially on turns. Aerodynamics are hard to engineer. A big box with an engine on the back, however, is a perfectly servicable as a space missile.

If you want space fighters, you need to either wink and nudge and acknowledge that you're playing Space Opera, or you need to do some serious handwaving to come up with some kind of reason why space fighters are actually useful.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

How do you "hide" in space?

Cinematic cloaking fields or extreme range combined with cinematic drives. Hiding in space while using reaction drives and weapons of non-silly range isn't really practical, but not all SF is hard.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Ingredients for a missile: Delta V to get to target. Armor. Tracking system. Congratulations, you have a kinetic kill missile.

Ingredients for a fighter: 2x Delta V (to get there and back), plus another share of Delta V for the crazy manuevers. Armor. Tracking systems. Life support systems. Gear to help the pilot deal with acceleration. More armor (to keep him from dying if there's a solar flare).

Delta-V, under some drive paradigms, isn't that expensive. Again, this is mostly an issue with cinematic drives.

[Mailanka]

Absolutely. When you get to, say, Reactionless drives, then reusable craft becomes practical. But see my comment about Handwaving.

Furthermore, if you make computers big, primitive and clunky, then a pilot becomes not only better, but more convenient to install and use as your "navigation system," despite the drawbacks of his frail biology.

You can do space fighters, but not using a realistic, hard setting.

[Extrarius]

Personally, I think kinetic penetrators with minimal propulsion systems will be the way of space fights in the future if ever there are huge slow ships. You can accelerate a ton of metal to insane speeds using a coilgun or railgun, and then have it continue to accelerate (and make minor course corrections) from there. You can even use materials that are questionable in land warefare such as depleted uranium because you're probably far enough away from a planet that most of it will disperse harmlessly.

As for fighters being more reusable, if battles are decisive (one ship 'dies', the other doesn't), the victor could always send out automated fighter-size drones to collect (tow to a single location for easy pickup) the debri from used missiles and the dead spacecraft. Even if it takes years for the drones to collect most of the materials, the large ship could just leave and come back later when they're done (and that means that human scavengers might make a lot by stealing from such drones, and pirates, etc).