Kreanoltha wrote:Caecuser wrote:I'm going to regret this but can somebody tell me the problem of fighters in space combat? Apparently it is like a taboo here or something.
Read --V--
If point-defense can mow down far more aggressively-maneuvering missiles like cavalry before Gatlings, then there is nothing to save a more sluggish fighter from being ripped to shreds by the same DP. If there is no Stealth In Space, and if combat takes place over large distances, it could give the defenders plenty of time to detect incoming fighters and take them out from afar.
Missiles can do whatever a fighter can better. They're less expensive, they can pull maneuvers that would liquify a living pilot, they don't need to make return runs, they don't need pilots who will take up room in the barracks allowing the ship to mount more missiles, weapons, and generators (or more fuel), and they don't have to slow down as they approach their targets. By that same logic, you'd think that drones might be a happy medium, but we'll see why they're aren't so good in the next post.
Modern fighters and bombers are a threat to wet navy capital ships and land fortifications because they can carry weapons that effectively damage them. You might think that the same would hold true in space, but even without gravity to prevent from mounting massive weapons, there are still engineering limits to keep the fighter from mounting large enough weapons to damage a capital ship. The fighter’s power source can only power so potent a weapon, and as capital ships no longer have to worry about buoyancy, they can mount as much armor as they please. With a reactor several dozens of times larger than the fighter itself, it will still be able to maneuver while shrugging off hits from the fighter as through it was nothing. If the techbase includes shielding then this shielding's protective abilities will doubtless scale with the power output of the reactor it is tied to. This means that even the heaviest of the fighter's weapons barely be able to scratch the capital ship, much less disable it, making the fighter hopelessly outmoded in an offensive role.
While there are advantages as well as disadvantages to space fighters when directly compared to larger ships, a good look at the concept from the very base upwards is necessary. The first question shouldn't be "What advantage does a fighter have over a big ship?" but "What can a space fighter do?". Because we're talking about military ships here, the answer is generally to bring some sort of weapon payload (bullets, lasers, blaster bolts, missiles, bombs) in contact with a target. But the conditions of combat in space make fighters pointless for that. On planet, fighters are needed to extend the range of whatever deploys them (an airforce base or a carrier). If the base were to shoot the guns or the missiles that a fighter carries directly, it wouldn't have nearly the range that a fighter can achieve. The horizon on planet prevents direct targeting beyond a limited range. The friction of the air slows down bullets and missiles so they drop to the ground short of the target when they have been slowed down enough or their fuel has run out respectively. The engines and shape of an fighter allow far more efficient travel in atmosphere than those of a missile (or bomb or bullet).
Not so in space. There is no horizon, so everything can be targeted directly. There is no friction, so ranges are not limited. There is no aerodynamic design, so missiles are far more effective than fighters. For comparison: if one were to use a missile that is the same size as the fighter i.e. using the same engine and same amount of fuel, it would have four times the range of a fighter, because the fighters needs a lot of fuel to brake and return to base again. So, unlike in an atmosphere, where mounting missiles on a fighter extends the effective range of the warheads, in space it would seriously limit it.
As for guns, those are even less effective. Unless there is some sort of magical technology at play that makes 5 tons of gun components, propellant and bullets somehow capable of more destruction than just 5 tons of warhead (not the case with real physics) then carrying a small gun close to a target to shoot it is a colossal waste of time. With energy weapons, the smaller reactor (or power source) of a fighter makes them even more useless.
Targeting is another thing that potentially looks like a reason for fighters to exist. But it is again not the case. Getting closer to the target does exactly the same thing as using a bigger lens (because there is no horizon) so the bigger lens wins. (does not get closer to danger, doesn't need refueling, etc.)
Intercepting incoming missiles works pretty much the same as launching attacking missiles, attaching a space fighter makes it worse, not better. This for a point defense role, fighters also have a worse sensor suite than a capital ship, making the same anti-missile missile attached to a fighter worse than the ones attached to a capital ship.
In the end, while one can point out plenty of advantages that a space fighter has over a larger ship (in a universe with real physics), there just is no task that a space fighter is best suited to perform. Either a bigger ship will outperform several small fighters, or one or several missiles will outperform one fighter.
Cost is usually played up as to why fighters might be used, but in the end this is a pointless, misguided argument as well. This comes in two flavors. The first being the high-end SF post-scarcity society where resources are not an issue. Assuming some other kind of limiting factor that will be what determines ship sizes. For example if resources are infinite but the number of pilots is limited, ships will be designed in a way to capitalize on that i.e. the most powerful ships operated by the least crew.
The second flavor being the erroneous (but often told) assumption that space fighters being cheaper than bigger ships is an advantage. Yes, a space fighter is cheaper than a space battleship. No, that does not necessarily translate into an advantage for space fighters. A single space fighter may be cheaper, but would not stand a chance in a fight alone. For space fighters to be a viable alternative to big ships, one needs to have enough of them to win against the bigger ships, so the question becomes what that whole swarm of fighters costs compared to the single big ship. And there is no reason why a whole group of fighters would be inherently cheaper than a single bigger ship. Maybe economics of scale make fighters cheaper. Maybe the greater efficiency of larger systems make big ships cheaper. There's no hard answer which will be the case. What it comes down to is that you aren't likely to loose a lot of capital ships, but you'll probably loose half that swarm of fighters. The cost isn't so much a factor hear as the effectiveness of the ships.
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:11 am
