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How would you use fighters?
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Woodside Kid: [QB] Using the aircraft carrier as a model may not be the best thing to do; in many ways, the basic relationship between a fighter and its carrier is 180 degrees out of synch with their spacegoing counterparts. The aircraft carrier concept works because the basic operational principles involved in flight gives the fighter speed and range capabilites no surface vessel could hope to match (at least until the invention of the cruise missile). With a starship, the relationship is much different. Both vessels are operating in the same environment, so the advantage aircraft have over sea vessels is lost. Actually, the best model for starships with fighters is really something the Air Force tried back in the 50's. In an attempt to protect its nuclear bomber force from enemy fighter attacks, the Air Force experimented with retrofitting B-36 bombers to be able to carry midget jet fighters as their own fighter cover. These planes would act as flying aircraft carriers. Unfortunately, the concept bogged down mainly because the designers had to greatly reduce the midget fighters' size to allow them to fit within the bomber. This limited the size of the engine and the amount of fuel the fighter would carry, and thus made them far less effective weapons than their land based opponents would be. With a space fighter (and I'm trying to be a bit more realistic than our friends in Star Wars), we have to ask just how small a vessel we're talking about. Not only do you have to have space for the power plant, the propulsion systems and the armament, but there are a couple of other systems a pilot will need. Unless you want to flatten your pilot against the bulkhead, you'll need inertial dampeners. I'd think you'd also want to equip your ships with deflectors, if only to avoid the "flying coffin" syndrome of SW and Galactica. Your fighters might wind up being closer to PT boats than F-14's, if only to house the necessary equipment. I suspect a warp-capable fighter (if such a thing were feasible) would be more effective if they were ROV's; indeed, at FTL speeds, making them totally automated makes more sense than manned crews. Perhaps the FTL battles would be capital ship combats, while sublight fighters would be used in areas where the battlewagons were not practical, i.e. deep gravity wells, asteroid belts, etc. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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