Possible Roles For Fighters

[Mikey]

Bingo!

Ive been saying this for months, if not years. Until Starfleet comes up with conditions that require atmospheric superiority (i.e., infantry/armor, LZ's, etc.) then I don't think the rather limited use of fighters justifies their existence or their cost in both resources and lives.

[Reliant121]

I suppose warp capable fighters could be useful in protecting against raiders or in policing operations, but they would need long range. With the ultimate range that would necessary, it would be just as effective to have a small frigate or large gunship perform such a duty.

[Mikey]

A true fighter might somehow be techno-babbled into having the range necessary, but the pilot would never be in shape to conduct combat ops once he got where he was going.

[SomosFuga]

There are quite a few problems with the impulse speeds of ships. One we never really see ships move as fast as they are stated to move. If they were/could mover at speed even a quarter for light speed I don't see ship combat playing out the way it does. There would be far to little time to react. Enemy ships would be in weapons firing arcs one moment but out again before a weapon could even be fired.

Personally I have always believed that impulse speed are much lower then have been stated. One of the times were I believe the visuals do a better job representing how the ships move and fight.

Maybe the visuals are wrong and they are really moving faster than it looks like, if the dialogue establish they can go 0.25c or whatever, that is what the producers/writers mean and therefore it's cannon.

[Coalition]

Fighters are great.......if you can overcome certain obvious problems. The question begs, how do create a fighter with enough power to mount weapons heavy enough to pose a threat to a shielded and armored ship, without sacrificing speed and manuverability, and make it surviveable enough to live long enough to launch it's payload, and get it's pilot back to it's "carrier" alive?

I like fighters, but I just don't see them as a feasable option in Trek. They are fine for stinging enemies, pinpoint shots agaisnt unshielded spots on a ship, and so forth. But lets look at it this way. A Romulan Warbird (TNG) attacks a small convoy. The convoy is defended by carrier with two squadrens of fighters, as well as a couple of lighter starships. How do you make the fighters useful until the point where they aren't even really needed anymore?

Fighters have the advantage where their surface area compared to their volume is much higher than for a larger vessel. This allows the fighter to get rid of heat faster per ton than a larger ship, allowing it to run its reactor at higher power settings.

Unfortunately, that higher surface area means its shields and armor will be proportionally thinner than for a larger ship, meaning fighters will be even easier to kill than a straight tonnage comparison would indicate.

The best method for fighters vs capital ships would be to follow a larger ship in and let it take the hits, then as the capital ship dodges to the side, the fighters rapidly unload their weaponry. The capital ship they followed can have its own rear weaponry charged, in case the target redirects its shields against the fighters.

Tactically, Fighters would be used in environments where long range automated ordnance could not be relied upon. By placing a sentient being inside the vessel, the fleet gains potentially better decision making skills at the risk of losing trained personnel. I.e. the enemy uses coordinated low-level tractor beams to divert incoming photons from directly hitting their ships. The fighter commander sees a hole in the tractor defenses, and transmits the adjustment to his strike wing. They manage to fire their weapons through the hole, inflicting heavier damage on the enemy ship.

Another example would be where the fighters being closer can take advantage of their sensors and spot a critical enemy target (flagship, comm center, jammer control, etc) and attack. Photons would attack the ships in front (again, depending on programming and trust of automated weaponry), while the enemy flagship is able to handle the battle easily as it is not being distracted.

Strategically, given the ability for shuttlebays to handle different types of small craft, pretty much any type of vessel could serve as a fighter carrier, replacing some or all of its shuttles with fighters. Freighters could be drafted to serve as emergency carriers, making enemy ships have to attack convoys in higher strength than normal to avoid getting ambushed and killed by freighters mounting hidden bays.

Fighters (and similar smaller ships) also offer the advantage that they can be deployed to many locations across a volume, allowing several planets to be protected, vs a single larger ship only able to protect one planet at a time (but that planet is very well protected).

On a manufacturing level, fighters allow a planet to provide combat forces without having any space industry available. The fighters would be built in factories on the ground, and launch themselves into orbit (I am figuring that the fighters have enough power to go from ground to orbit and back on brute thrust alone). That planet provides military equipment, pilots, spare parts, body bags, and likely the bodies to fill them.

Still, fighters would suffer from being damaged by weaker enemy shots, pilot comfort (or lack thereof), minimal redundancy in equipment and spare parts (100 fighters with the same 10 ton repair kit are not as flexible as a single ship with a 1000 ton machine shop).

[Sionnach Glic]

There are quite a few problems with the impulse speeds of ships. One we never really see ships move as fast as they are stated to move. If they were/could mover at speed even a quarter for light speed I don't see ship combat playing out the way it does. There would be far to little time to react. Enemy ships would be in weapons firing arcs one moment but out again before a weapon could even be fired.

Personally I have always believed that impulse speed are much lower then have been stated. One of the times were I believe the visuals do a better job representing how the ships move and fight.

Maybe the visuals are wrong and they are really moving faster than it looks like, if the dialogue establish they can go 0.25c or whatever, that is what the producers/writers mean and therefore it's cannon.

Guys, we already have a thread debating the validity of visuals. Take this argument there. I don't want the same debate cluttering up two seperate threads.

[Reliant121]

Fighters, as a whole in Science fiction can be a very good idea. Star wars does fighters pretty well. In trek, there isnt really a place for them yet. Starship weapons (phasers and disruptors) are just too accurate and powerful, they would easily get blown away by a simple phaser shot. The clips during Sacrifice of Angels, where Sisko used waves of Peregrine fighters to draw the Cardassian ships, the Galor's could take a fighter out in a single shot, and routinely did so. Most of the misses were only a couple of metres out. I would say Cardassian sensors probably aren't designed to lock on to small fighter craft. Most races with better technology would probably be even better at taking the fighters out.

[Coalition]

Fighters, as a whole in Science fiction can be a very good idea. Star wars does fighters pretty well. In trek, there isnt really a place for them yet. Starship weapons (phasers and disruptors) are just too accurate and powerful, they would easily get blown away by a simple phaser shot. The clips during Sacrifice of Angels, where Sisko used waves of Peregrine fighters to draw the Cardassian ships, the Galor's could take a fighter out in a single shot, and routinely did so. Most of the misses were only a couple of metres out. I would say Cardassian sensors probably aren't designed to lock on to small fighter craft. Most races with better technology would probably be even better at taking the fighters out.

Fighters do not make common sense in a space combat. If you want to send a small vessel towards the enemy ship to launch missiles, why not just use a drone? It only needs enough fuel for one trip, vs a fighter needing to accelerate towards the enemy, decelerate to match the enemy, accelerate back to its base, then decelerate to land. A drone can have four times the combat radius of an equivalent fighter, and if you lose 90% of your drones due to a surprise, the trained personnel are able to learn from the surprise, and be ready next time.

Fighters and ships both operate in the same environment, so there is no potential for amassive difference between speeds like today's fighters and ships. Both can float for hours, days, or weeks, unlike modern fighters and ships also.

The only thing fighters can offer is ground manufactured mass-produced cheap combat platforms that will pop like a bubble when they run up against regular ship weaponry. They would be used to deal with crippled enemy ships all over the battlefield, and work behind the main battle lines. If sent forward, their strike would be coordinated with long range torp and beam fire to make th enemy fleet have to choose which threat is greater.

Their best method would be serving as the offensive weaponry of a command ship. You don't want your admirals too badly risked, but their ship will have tonnage available for weaponry. So you turn it into a carrier. Once the carrier launches its fighters, it becomes less of a target compared to the heavier ships that have full torp bays and are eager to use them.

[Mikey]

Well said, Coalition. I'd even refine this:

If you want to send a small vessel towards the enemy ship to launch missiles, why not just use a drone? It only needs enough fuel for one trip,

I'd say, stop there. Don't even bother with the return trip. They could call them "photon torpedoes" or something.

[Aaron]

I mentioned this earlier and it got lost in the shuffle but we saw Maquis fighters beating the crap out of a Galor in TNG until the E-D chased them off. So obviously they can be a threat, even though they don't make a lot of sense IU. The Galor wasn't one shotting them either.

As for drones, they likely don't use them cause Trek computers seem to develop sapience at the drop of a hat.

[SomosFuga]

There are quite a few problems with the impulse speeds of ships. One we never really see ships move as fast as they are stated to move. If they were/could mover at speed even a quarter for light speed I don't see ship combat playing out the way it does. There would be far to little time to react. Enemy ships would be in weapons firing arcs one moment but out again before a weapon could even be fired.

Personally I have always believed that impulse speed are much lower then have been stated. One of the times were I believe the visuals do a better job representing how the ships move and fight.

Maybe the visuals are wrong and they are really moving faster than it looks like, if the dialogue establish they can go 0.25c or whatever, that is what the producers/writers mean and therefore it's cannon.

Guys, we already have a thread debating the validity of visuals. Take this argument there. I don't want the same debate cluttering up two seperate threads.

Just kidding, i'm in that thread too

[SomosFuga]

Fighters do not make common sense in a space combat. If you want to send a small vessel towards the enemy ship to launch missiles, why not just use a drone? It only needs enough fuel for one trip, vs a fighter needing to accelerate towards the enemy, decelerate to match the enemy, accelerate back to its base, then decelerate to land. A drone can have four times the combat radius of an equivalent fighter, and if you lose 90% of your drones due to a surprise, the trained personnel are able to learn from the surprise, and be ready next time.

Fuel doesn't look like a big issue in Star Trek, i mean of course it's important but we almost never saw them too worried about it.

Both can float for hours, days, or weeks, unlike modern fighters and ships also.

I don't think a small fighter can float for weeks, the pilot must go to the bathroom at some point, although that is aganist my position in this thread.

The only thing fighters can offer is ground manufactured mass-produced cheap combat platforms that will pop like a bubble when they run up against regular ship weaponry. They would be used to deal with crippled enemy ships all over the battlefield, and work behind the main battle lines. If sent forward, their strike would be coordinated with long range torp and beam fire to make th enemy fleet have to choose which threat is greater.

Their best method would be serving as the offensive weaponry of a command ship. You don't want your admirals too badly risked, but their ship will have tonnage available for weaponry. So you turn it into a carrier. Once the carrier launches its fighters, it becomes less of a target compared to the heavier ships that have full torp bays and are eager to use them.

Not that bad IMO.

[Aaron]

Ah ha! I finally found the episode:

Preemptive Strike

Gul Evek's ship

[stitch626]

Someone mentioned .25c as max impulse. That is sort of incorrect (Not sure if it is canon, but suggested in several TMs and is the general consensus). Most ships can travel faster than that. .25c is Full Impulse, as in the fastest they are allowed to travel due to the adverse effects of traveling closer to the speed of light. The GCS could go .92c. Never did (to our knowledge).

And Impulse is speed as it is called speed and we've had acceleration mentioned separately.

[Mikey]

Most ships can travel faster than that.

The GCS could go .92c.

I'm not saying I disagree with the logic, but do you have a source for that?