Space fighters

[aramis]

Originally posted by Evo Plurion:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Aramis:
You won't eliminate the need for man-on-the-scene in space warfare until the lag times are down below destruction times.

Or until true artificial intelligence, if it's at all possible, removes the need for constant communication between the mothership and its fighter drone squadrons or missiles.
[snip]
A space fighter has no tactical advantage over a starship. In fact, its relative cost, limited payload and limited range make it a particularly disadvantageous combat unit. </font>[/QUOTE]I doubt true AI will evolve without requireing a tangible body. but that's a whole different argument.

Actually, Evo, there are advantages to small combat craft.
1) they can be spread out to form a detection grid
2) for initial contact purposes, they are infact cheaper if lost than larger craft
3) they can be built faster and in far greater numbers.
4) to disfuntion the same tonnage of missile launch capability, fighters take more time and weapons than an equivalent single hull.
5) fighters can be better tonage to function than ships, because the requisite support systems are back on the carrier, thus allowing hgiher speeds easier.
6) Under FF&S, big ships wind up limited by the lack of surface area..... and thus mind up not being able to build as big a reactor, and thus are in fact slower accelerating due to less power for thrust systems, and less surface area in which to mount them.

 

[Evo Plurion]

I doubt true AI will evolve without requireing a tangible body.

A contradiction in terms? A human may be required to monitor AI-drone operations from onboard a mothership, but the drones themselves will function independently. We're only at TL 8-9 now and we've begun to develop functioning AI-aircraft.

Actually, Evo, there are advantages to small combat craft.
1) they can be spread out to form a detection grid

Well, since we're discussing what we really think will happen, I must reiterate my belief that in space the absence of terrain, horizon lines, atmospheric distortion, etc., and the extreme levels of waste heat generated by most proposed future spacecraft propulsion systems, will allow starships to detect each other at extremely long distances - we're talking across entire star systems. Refer to Winchell Chung's excellent site, which includes a very realistic look at the future of spacecraft and their systems.

2) for initial contact purposes, they are infact cheaper if lost than larger craft

See above regarding detection ranges.

4) to disfuntion the same tonnage of missile launch capability, fighters take more time and weapons than an equivalent single hull.

Not sure what you mean here.

5) fighters can be better tonage to function than ships, because the requisite support systems are back on the carrier, thus allowing hgiher speeds easier.

I believe that a spacecraft's delta-v capacity - the degree to which it can change its velocity vector - will be of greater importance than overall velocity in determining tactical advantage in space combat.

6) Under FF&S, big ships wind up limited by the lack of surface area..... and thus mind up not being able to build as big a reactor, and thus are in fact slower accelerating due to less power for thrust systems, and less surface area in which to mount them.

Spacecrafts' reactor capacity will not be limited by surface area.

 

[Straybow]

I agree with EvoP. Given the detection ranges of space a fighter is pretty much dead. A ship can carry larger, more powerful weapons with greater effective range. The fighter can be detected and fired upon before its own weapons get in effective range.

A fighter is useful as a weapons platform for attacking targets on the ground, where the fighter can take advantage of the horizon, ground clutter, etc. This is more of an economical measure, where orbital weapons are diminished by atmospheric effects or dispersion of resources is desired.

 

[mike wightman]

I think what Aramis was saying under point 4 is that if your opponent fields 10 missile carrying fighters versus one 1000t ship with 10 missile turrets, it is much harder to hunt down all 10 fighters than to take out that one ship.

 

[Evo Plurion]

As Dr. Frankensteen declared, "All right. I think I've got it now." Thanks, Sigg.

I agree with Straybow (not just because he agreed with me) about fighters in ground attack roles. They might also be necessary to protect drop ships on their descent from orbit.

 

[Straybow]

It's a problem with Traveller canon, rather. A missile that could out-thrust and close with a 6-G maneuvering ship over tens of thousands of km would need to be the size and mass of a fighter, rather than the "50 kg" or roughly air-to-air missile sized.

 

[flykiller]

It's a problem with Traveller canon, rather. A missile that could out-thrust and close with a 6-G maneuvering ship over tens of thousands of km would need to be the size and mass of a fighter, rather than the "50 kg" or roughly air-to-air missile sized.

only tens of thousands of kilometers?

 

[aramis]

The delta-V issue is the same. Also, with the nature of fusion, heat dissapation will be an issue; the question is where the scaling comes into play.

SA climbs as the square of the radius (times a correction factor)
Volume increases as the cube.
Maximum size of heat generating power production is limited by the volume.
Maximum radiant output is surface area derived, coupled to working fluid temperature range width. (Dr skull has more details on this than I...)

Therefore, heat generating systems are limited in part by the cooling systems.

Assuming real-world thrust systems, those also require fuel, etc... and can shed SOME (but not all) in the exhaust fluid/plasma.

Even the US Space shuttle has need to COOL the systems, rather than heat them. It's radiant heat dissapation is limited, and it generates a considerable ammount of heat, in addition to insolation heat gains.

As for the point four: partially right, but not completely right...
in addition to being harder to assure hits on 10 targets than on 1, a hit on a single target has the potential to be a one-shot mission kill. 10 fighters are almost never a one shot mission kill while in flight.

as for detection: current stealth technologies can reduce reflective return by a factor of more than 100... according to PUBLIC sources (I'd estimmate it to be at least 200). Visual spotting also is not a guarantee. Therefore, detection ranges are limited to being derived from energy output and radiator output, and thrust agency reaction mass & it''s radiant signature.

assuming no gravitics, one winds up with "Stealth Fighters", which get sent on a vector, use low-signature auxilliary drives , and solar panels for standby power... detection is not going to be automatic, nro of need even long range... unless they engage the combat plant and active sensing/targeting systems.

adding AI into the equation makes it MORE likely to have small disposables, not less, as they can actually be smaller for the range, and have a lower "Loiter Mode" temp.

to be effectively invisible, one need only be less bright than the natural clutter, and not moiving in such a way as to be obviously moving against it; even so, there are thousands of bodies which do so, with greater signatures.

If gravitic drives develop, then we have nearly invisible drives, too.

 

[mike wightman]

Looks like the unmanned fighter is coming, have a look at this

 

[mike wightman]

And here are more pictures of it.

I should mention they are all mock ups, the real thing won't fly until 2006 apparently.

 

[Virus]

Originally posted by Evo Plurion:
I should clarify: I didn't say that fighters wouldn't be useful. I said that manned fighters would be wasteful, given that unmanned drones or missiles could do everything a fighter does without risking life.

.. and more: pilots are subject to G-forces, and to match the turns a UCAV can make, they´d have to have some very fancy anti-G suits to avoid passing out every time they change course (not to mention that they´d probably break their spine as well). Unmanned fighters don´t have that problem.
However, they have another problem: either you fit them with AI (virus fleet fighters in TNE might be like that) or you have to remote-operate them which leaves you vulnerable since a simple commo scramble could interrupt the remote. Also, you´d probably pool the "real" pilots somewhere (like on a capital ship or a planetary base) which makes them a big fat target (kill the guys operating the remote and you don´t have to worry about UCAVs anymore). So I think the only viable alternative here would be fighters with AI.

 

[parmasson]

I agree that as a weapon against capital ships they are problematic.
Installing an AI at TL-15 could work quite nicely, again just consult LBB 8.
It would not be cheap. A good AI is going to cost over MCr4 per unit + the cost of the fighter.

What about using fighters for?
For simple customs inspections two of them they could escort a customs cutter.

COACC could use them for law enforcement. An airframe fighter vs. an air raft or shuttle really changes things.

Planetary/System Defense Forces could use them for simple in-system patrols so they could be an early warning system.

As foreword scouts and observers? They are small, hard to spot, fast, maneuverable, and if at TL-15 quite stealthy. The 10 ton version could be really hard to spot in ones and twos.

 

[deadlock]

Greetings and salutations,

You can also use fighters as laser pointers for missiles. Played a game where I was of a lower tech than who I was at war. Had the fighters paint the targets for the missile cruisers.

 

[Evo Plurion]

One thing I should mention here (again, I think) is my tendency to play loose with the canon OTU technological limitations and parameters, especially where they are contradicted by our current understanding of science or any reasonable extrapolations thereof. For example, I doubt that it will be thousands of years before we can build AI machines. I think that small fighting craft will consolidate with unmanned surveillance and guidance technology until we use small, unmanned, AI-piloted missiles (or "missile boats") and surveillance craft for space combat and recon. I actually think we'll be using pseudo-AI technology for corresponding applications (plus bomb-sniffing, search and rescue, etc.) here on Earth within the next 50 years or so.

So in MTU, my addiction to at least a strong taste of realism would mandate a setting in which large ships duke it out with the help of unmanned AI combat and recon drones.

 

[Maladominus]

Originally posted by Straybow:
It's a problem with Traveller canon, rather. A missile that could out-thrust and close with a 6-G maneuvering ship over tens of thousands of km would need to be the size and mass of a fighter, rather than the "50 kg" or roughly air-to-air missile sized.

It's only a problem with CT canon if you still use the Book 2 rules of missile combat.

JTAS #21 long ago included Special Supplement 3, Missiles. That supplement greatly expands on missile variants, in addition to varying types of warhead sizes, components, and payloads of varying sizes. And the best thing about Special Supplement 3..... is that it belongs to Classic Traveller.