Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

In space you would still have fighters, but you wouldn't likely employ them in the fashion we see in Star Wars (i.e. bombing runs against a Star Destroyer). Fighters would potentially be used for scouting, attacking smaller ships (perhaps only a few times larger than themselves - think shuttles or micro-frigates?), performing attacks in non-permissable areas such as asteroid fields or whatever other geographic hazards exists in space, and would perform many more tasks if they can break into the atmosphere of a planet.

Likewise, if technology permits and they're able to operate at vast distances (distances beyond which a normal "capital" ship could engage) then they would serve the same purpose they do now: attacking the enemy with cheaper, harder to hit vehicles.

If we're engaging at 10'000+ kilometers with beam weapons and we have the optics to do it, then fighters would prove less useful, but would still exist. Maybe in a far more defensive role than they are used now. If we do develop consistent FTL capabilities, fighters would also make more sense in quick raids than larger ships. If we consider Star Wars - imagine X-Wings and Y-Wings just jumping within a mile or two of a Star Destroyer, firing off everything they have, then jumping away. It would be extremely effective if done right.

Existing naval fighters are a thing because they can operate in places that ships cannot, and are orders of magnitude faster.

neither of those things apply to spaceships (in fact, from a "standing start" a larger ship will probably have a larger total delta-v), so a "space fighter" is just a small spaceship.

If you're thinking of the asteroid belt like the one in Empire Strikes Back, then that's not realistic - you need to make a particular effort to find an asteroid, never mind hit it. I mean, look at all the probes we've sent through it with no issues. For radiation hazards, the main form of shielding is to basically put more stuff between the radiation source and the things needing protected - a battlestar will be better protected against a radiation hazard than a squadron of Vipers.

The problem with a manned fighter is that you need to get the pilot back again. That means firstly wasting space and mass with a cockpit and life support (also making the fighter more detectable because you need to keep the cockpit at ~300 Kelvin), and also increasing the required delta-v (and thus reaction mass) by a factor of 4. With a missile or disposable probe, you only need to accelerate it once - point it at the target and go. With a fighter, it needs to accelerate onto an approach vector, then decelerate roughly to a stop relative to the target, then once it's done what it was doing, accelerate again to a return vector, and finally decelereate to a stop relative to the carrier.

Our Asteroid belt is in the plane of the ecliptic. Sure, it's massive, but it's a ring and it's relatively flat.
Go over or under and your chances of successfully navigating it are pretty damn close to 100%.

They tend to have asteroid "fields" in SW that fill a more 3d space, they're "thicker" so to speak. Also they don't seem to be a donut of dirty iceblocks and rocks.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Existing naval fighters are a thing because they can operate in places that ships cannot, and are orders of magnitude faster.

neither of those things apply to spaceships (in fact, from a "standing start" a larger ship will probably have a larger total delta-v), so a "space fighter" is just a small spaceship.

If you're thinking of the asteroid belt like the one in Empire Strikes Back, then that's not realistic - you need to make a particular effort to find an asteroid, never mind hit it. I mean, look at all the probes we've sent through it with no issues. For radiation hazards, the main form of shielding is to basically put more stuff between the radiation source and the things needing protected - a battlestar will be better protected against a radiation hazard than a squadron of Vipers.

The problem with a manned fighter is that you need to get the pilot back again. That means firstly wasting space and mass with a cockpit and life support (also making the fighter more detectable because you need to keep the cockpit at ~300 Kelvin), and also increasing the required delta-v (and thus reaction mass) by a factor of 4. With a missile or disposable probe, you only need to accelerate it once - point it at the target and go. With a fighter, it needs to accelerate onto an approach vector, then decelerate roughly to a stop relative to the target, then once it's done what it was doing, accelerate again to a return vector, and finally decelereate to a stop relative to the carrier.

This is essentially what I was thinking. There is certainly no reason why a human would be in this "fighter" ether. Adding life support and human tolerances to a space craft overburdens and diminishes a spacecrafts capabilities. This is why I assume small drones will do most of the scout work in space. Drones could actually be doing more of the fighting BUT I think missiles are much more elegant. Today we have drones to carry missiles to a target and it makes sense because it saves a lot of fuel for the missile and you can engage targets of opportunity. In space though - you don't need a lot of fuel to get to the target. You can launch a missile into an area under the ship launching it's momentum ( maybe with a little extra push like a torpedo) then the ship can change course. It can be days or weeks before the missiles arrive but when they get into range they activate their own propulsion and shower the target.

A fighter could do that I suppose - but it would be larger and easier to detect. It would also need to return to the carrier (more required fuel). Just doesn't make sense to me.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Existing naval fighters are a thing because they can operate in places that ships cannot, and are orders of magnitude faster.

neither of those things apply to spaceships (in fact, from a "standing start" a larger ship will probably have a larger total delta-v), so a "space fighter" is just a small spaceship.

If you're thinking of the asteroid belt like the one in Empire Strikes Back, then that's not realistic - you need to make a particular effort to find an asteroid, never mind hit it. I mean, look at all the probes we've sent through it with no issues. For radiation hazards, the main form of shielding is to basically put more stuff between the radiation source and the things needing protected - a battlestar will be better protected against a radiation hazard than a squadron of Vipers.

The problem with a manned fighter is that you need to get the pilot back again. That means firstly wasting space and mass with a cockpit and life support (also making the fighter more detectable because you need to keep the cockpit at ~300 Kelvin), and also increasing the required delta-v (and thus reaction mass) by a factor of 4. With a missile or disposable probe, you only need to accelerate it once - point it at the target and go. With a fighter, it needs to accelerate onto an approach vector, then decelerate roughly to a stop relative to the target, then once it's done what it was doing, accelerate again to a return vector, and finally decelereate to a stop relative to the carrier.

This is essentially what I was thinking. There is certainly no reason why a human would be in this "fighter" ether. Adding life support and human tolerances to a space craft overburdens and diminishes a spacecrafts capabilities. This is why I assume small drones will do most of the scout work in space. Drones could actually be doing more of the fighting BUT I think missiles are much more elegant. Today we have drones to carry missiles to a target and it makes sense because it saves a lot of fuel for the missile and you can engage targets of opportunity. In space though - you don't need a lot of fuel to get to the target. You can launch a missile into an area under the ship launching it's momentum ( maybe with a little extra push like a torpedo) then the ship can change course. It can be days or weeks before the missiles arrive but when they get into range they activate their own propulsion and shower the target.

A fighter could do that I suppose - but it would be larger and easier to detect. It would also need to return to the carrier (more required fuel). Just doesn't make sense to me.

Scouting drones would probably exist, but as a combat platform they'd be of minimal use. They would simply not be fast enough to avoid attacks while also carrying enough payload to be a threat.

The physics of movement in space simply favor making your ships larger and larger because as the ship's size increases the size of the engine relative to the total size of the ship gets smaller. Thus a bigger ship can have more non-engine parts to it, be that weapons, armor, life support, fuel storage, etc...

However, missiles aren't as good an idea for a weapon in space because of lasers. Lasers can damage a target far faster and more efficiently in space than in atmosphere, something they would do just as effectively to a small incoming missile as to a huge ship. Except the huge ship could actually have heat sinks and other countermeasures to dissipate the heat from attacking lasers. A missile couldn't have really anything to help. Meaning a laser would be free to overheat the missile until it simply detonates its fuel and warhead, or just fries its guidance system so that it can't continue to the target.

Ships will also be vulnerable to this same tactic, but they can at least absorb some amount of heat and have more systems dedicated to dealing with it.

Yeah I think defensive lasers will be a thing. I was really thinking about a lot of missles... though. Like a ship whose main offensive weapon was to launch several hundreds to thousands of missiles. Then there is also the issue that even if destroyed there is a literally wall of material still flying toward the target probably at speeds of 20-40k MPH. Even metal fragments penetrate armor at those speeds.

Just my idea of what futuristic space combat might be like. In any case - I think it will be very impersonal. Ships will be VERY VERY far apart and often just finding your opponent first will be the cause of victory or failure.

I think a good fiction book that touches on kinetic and laser weapons in space is "Silver Tower" by Richard Herman Jnr. It's very "Star Wars" in style (missile defense not the movie)

NVM

 Xenomancers wrote:
Yeah I think defensive lasers will be a thing. I was really thinking about a lot of missles... though. Like a ship whose main offensive weapon was to launch several hundreds to thousands of missiles. Then there is also the issue that even if destroyed there is a literally wall of material still flying toward the target probably at speeds of 20-40k MPH. Even metal fragments penetrate armor at those speeds.

Just my idea of what futuristic space combat might be like. In any case - I think it will be very impersonal. Ships will be VERY VERY far apart and often just finding your opponent first will be the cause of victory or failure.

back to the blue ocean. Do you think Laser Avenger will beat things like Exocet if such antimissile defensive system was installed in any warship?