posted
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.
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posted
Yes by definition, a fighterplane is used because it can go somewhere the ship cannot: in the air. Since starships are free to move in the third dimension, they have no such limitation. Removing the inaccessibility of the z axis removes the need for the fighter. However, as in Star Wars, fighters seem to be used because they have the advantage over large vessels.. i.e. a Star Destroyer has difficulty dealing with an X-Wing attack on its own.. it batteries are just too big to accurately pick off snubs. Hence the need for TIES. Also, TIES are used for patrols of the area around the ship, much as a modern carrier will often have continuous overflights of its own planes to spot intruders in their airspace. In Star Trek, this seems unnecessary because of advanced magic sensor technology. And Trek shields and deflectors being magically powerful also make fighters inadequate for the task of assaulting a capital ship. Now, with the rationale of fighters being used where he main ship cannot go, where can't a starship go? Atmospheres and debris fields like asteroids mostly.
This technology served its purpose, as battles in Star Trek often categorize themselves like Napoleonic era battles, ships floating past each other exchanging broadsides. Probably the most unintentional of Roddenberry's 'Hornblower' homages
However, if you remove the magic sensor and the magic shield, the Trek universe might find itself needing fighter support. Perhaps this should be the crux of the pre-TOS fighter concept.
[ February 28, 2002, 07:25: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
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Some of this has already been posted before, but I'm going to put it into my own words.
First, I don't think that fighters would be very useful in front line combat. If Starfleet tried to send a squadron of fighters (ten or twenty) against a Klingon D7, they'd probably be cut to pieces.
The main problem is that "Star Trek" beam weaponry has always been highly precise, and easily targetable. There's no ponderous turbolaser turrets like in "Star Wars" -- the phaser emitter stays in place and just shoots in whatever direction it pleases.
That being said, I guess you'd have to decide just how accurate the targeting scanners and response fire can get in the 2240's. If a fast-moving fighter can really avoid at least most of the fire from the enemy, then they might be useful. Otherwise, they're likely to be cut to shreds by an enemy heavy cruiser.
That being said, there are still possibilities for using overwhelming numbers of fighters against a single target. For instance, there's TNG's "Preemptive Strike" where several dozen Maquis fighters overwhelmed a single Cardassian Galor-class cruiser. The advantage there is that, even if a lucky shot hits one fighter, there are still a dozen more -- or even more than that. One hit does not do much to detract from the collective firepower of the squadron.
As for potential uses...
Well, planetary assault is one option that was already mentioned. Given the wide range of targets to be covered when you're attacking a planet, spreading your firepower around allows you to cover more area.
Escort duty is also a possibility. If an enemy attacks from multiple angles, the fighters can adapt and cover all areas at the same time. However, the drawback there is that the fighters are likely outnumbered or outgunned by the interstellar cruisers that are attacking.
One possible aspect you might address is piracy. Most interstellar pirates (the Orion Pirates?) probably operate much smaller ships, and fighters would be ideal for those circumstances.
Fleet action is the toughest aspect to consider. I'm thinking that fighters would not work well on their own, but WOULD be effective if they operated ALONGSIDE the heavy cruisers. If the big guns can keep the other ship busy, then the small fighters can sting the other ship to death, effectively.
One more aspect to consider: these fighters are certain not to exist in a creative vacuum. If the Federation starts introducing warp-capable fighters on the front lines, then wouldn't the Klingons do the same thing? If that happened, then you'd just end up with the same "Star Wars"-type fighter-to-fighter battles that you want to avoid.
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posted
It also occured to me that tiny warp-capable vessels need not be used just to shoot at things. If you could make their warp drive look, just for a moment, like that of a much larger vessel, then they could be deployed by...I don't know, strike cruisers or something, for a psychological advantage. Instead of one or two ships attacking, the enemy sees twenty.
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posted
Haveing read most of the Starfleet museum I would propose another use for fighters/gunboats in pre-TOS: colonial defense. If they were equipped with just enough weaponry to cause damage to an enemy or at least distract him from the planets in system long enough for capital ships to arrive they could be faily small ships. The fighter would then need only limited FTL range; it would then have more room for defensive and offensive systems. As for starship carried fighters, I would imagine that they would mainly be used for ground attack and to cover planetary landings. The purpose of the fighter carrier is negated by the three dimensional nature of space and the speed and manouverability of the starships in Star Trek; in Star Wars the capital ships we see are usually very large and sluggish. Not to mention the size of such vessels if they have warp drive with decent interstellar range; what if their carrier is destroyed or Starfleet loses? I can't see Starfleet leaving people and equipment behind. Granted, the pilots could be beamed off by other ships but what if they're out of range? Starfleet would provide a back up i.e. a warp system. Therefore I don't think starship carried fighters are likely.
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quote:Originally posted by CaptainMike: However, if you remove the magic sensor and the magic shield, the Trek universe might find itself needing fighter support. Perhaps this should be the crux of the pre-TOS fighter concept.
What's with all the "magic"? Maybe Star Trek equipment are just very good. If anything, it's hard to imagine that the X-wings, being the size of a mite compared to a Stardestroyer, can pack sufficient weaponary to even scratch it.
*sense a vs debate coming on, flees the scene*
I think warp capable fighters have a lot more going against it than for it, especially in a pre-TOS setting. Personally, I don't even see them as practical for ground support. A starship is perfectly capable of accurate ground bombardment. Remember when the Enterprise stunned a whole block?
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posted
Well, we already know that a warp engine is easily packed inside of a shuttlecraft-sized ship. The range is questionable, but a fighter could manage for at least a couple of hours on its own.
The colonial defense idea sounds feasible. Fighters would probably take a lot less maintenance compared to a full-fledged starship sitting in orbit. Even one of Masao's Kestrel-class patrol cruisers isn't well suited for long-term defense of a single planet. A dozen or two small fighters could collectively hold back an attacking Klingon cruiser for a short while... and certainly keep any Orion Raiders or other nasties at bay.
As I said, the fighters wouldn't be able to take on the full-fledged cruisers, like the D7's or even smaller D6's. Or to pick Starfleet equivalents, I wouldn't want to send a squadron of fighters against a Miranda, and certainly not a Constitution. It's mainly the smaller fry that the fighters would go up against.
Which means that the fleet-scale options for fighters are pretty limited.
As for carriers, I'd say that carriers are necessary, because fighters can't travel interstellar distances on their own. They'd have to rely on the speeds of a heavy cruiser (carrier-type ship) in order to get from point A to point B. The carriers would definitely be necessary. I just don't think that they'd be very useful in a Dominion War-type setting.
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posted
I'm going to get smacked for this, I'm sure.
I've always considered Birds-of-Prey and ships the relative size of the Defiant as fighters. They're fast, small, and pack a punch. Why do we have to classify a "fighter" as a one or two-crew vehicle the size of an F-18?
posted
The Defiant is more of a frigate, officially classified as an escort ship. We sometimes see it escorting convoys. In fact, one inspiration according to Gary Hutzel were pocket battleships (such as the Graf Spee in WWII that had to adhere to established limitations on tonnage and weaponry). The Bird of Prey is classified as a scout ship, not a fighter. I'm also thinking of Babylon 5, where Shadow scout ships are bigger than Shadow fighers.
We've seen what the Federation fighters look like, and they really are smaller.
[ February 28, 2002, 14:43: Message edited by: Boris ]
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"The Menagerie" -- Kirk's shuttle took off after the Enterprise at warp speed and sustained that high speed (IIRC the E was travelling at Warp 6) for at least four hours.
"The Galileo Seven" -- I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I do know that the shuttle was far enough away from the Enterprise to observe the Murasaki Quasar (when the E couldn't see it, for whatever reason) and then ended up crashing far enough away for the Enterprise to not know where it was.
"Metamorphosis" -- Some people have suggested that this shuttle was just traveling in-system, and that's possible -- but consider how long it took for the Enterprise to find the shuttle in that asteroid field. If this were just a short interplanetary hop, then the Enterprise would have been near enough to see them disappear in the first place.
(All of this is admittedly with a hazy memory of the TOS eps -- haven't seen them in a while.)
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posted
The speed in "Metamorphosis" was given as warp two initially (but of course Spock could have ordered an acceleration when we weren't looking, and Kirk would have compensated for that).
In "The Galileo Seven", the shuttle was lost mainly because of the interference of the quasarlet on the ship's sensors. I suspect the shuttle was sent out for that very reason (and later the Columbus was sent to search for the Galileo): the ship's sensors weren't working very well, so the heroes had to get up close. And the ship herself couldn't be risked because she was carrying a priority shipment.
In "Metamorphosis", the shuttle was supposedly traveling between Epsilon Canaris and Gamma Canaris or something, suggesting two separate star systems. We could be talking about a close binary here, though. The 'roids were in the Gamma Canaris "region" (so probably within the said star system). However, we were given no good reason why the captain was using a shuttle instead of the ship. The Big E wasn't engaged in other activity or anything. So one possible logical explanation would be that the ship couldn't penetrate the asteroids safely, so Kirk took the shuttle for that part of the journey and intended to rendezvous with the ship outside the system. The 'roid hazard was also slowing down the search.
Incidentally, if the GC system is that hazardous to big ships, it would be a prime candidate for a fighter-based defence...
Someone mentioned that ST has magic sensor tech and it makes fighters useless and then used the modern aircraft carrier as an example of the other situation. This was incorrect.
Aircraft carriers have a little "magic" device called radar. It helps them detect incoming craft from from up to 300 [I think] miles. And let's not forget the "super magic" level of sonar...
Fighters are not used to detect incoming threats, they are used to counter incoming threats faster than the capital ship can. This is the reason why SFC sends out patrol ships, instead of waiting for threats to come to the nearest Starbase. Ships send out fighter squads to counter incoming threats as the approach-- not when they get there.
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posted
Back in the old days of sail, wooden ships rarely got sunk from enemy fire, what really sunk them, was the fire, the weather, or poor navigating. However with a ship with a lenght of 150-200 feet with 70 guns will do far better than 70 ships with 1 gun. Because back then, ships were designed to withstand their own weapons, and there still was no iron. Not only that, those 1 gun ships will most likely either be propeled by oar or by small sail.
IMO, Pre-TOS was like that, due to the slow warp, weak weapons, no shields, very little comunication etc.
Thats what Star Trek is like, and not only that most ships have very good aim. Star Wars, none of the ships could seriously shoot down fighters unless they were either lucky or experienced. In either case, thats why fighters in Star Wars can defeat a larger ship.
Star Trek fighters as seen in DS9 can destroy or seriously damage ships but with a very large causlity rate. Only used to brings ships out from the main fleet where the opposing fleet can corner those seperated ships and easily destroy them.
For Pre-TOS I propose a U-Boat type fighter. A small ship equipped with massive torpedoes going in really fast perhaps near warp speed towards a ship fire the torps, and run away.
Lasers will not work, becuase you would need alot of fighters (I doubt a smaller ship like a fighter will near the power of a battleship) to even damage a ship, let alone muliple sips.
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![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
If anything, it's hard to imagine that the X-wings, being the size of a mite compared to a Stardestroyer, can pack sufficient weaponary to even scratch it. 
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