All this talk about fighters has brought up a point that I've always had some
trouble with:
Can fighters survive in a futuristic environment e.g. space? The concept of
the fighter, manned or unmanned has a very strong romantic ideal associated
with it, and we build our universes accordingly.
However, the conditions that lead to the widespread use of the fighter seem to
fail under futuristic environments. For example, can fighters carry weapons
heavy enough to damage capital ships? Is fighter maneuverability an acceptable
defence against all possible weaponry? Does there exist a weapon that hits
with a high enough probability that it can take fighters down with very little
effort? Does a fighter have enough of a range and speed advantage over targets
to make it practical? And on and on.
For example, in a universe with practical laser weaponry and movement limited
to Newtonian reaction systems, fighters would have a tough time surviving
because they could not maneuver quickly enough within a certain range to avoid
getting hit by the laser.
Just a thought. If anybody asks, I can write a heck of a lot more, I
just have to get back to work here. (8-)
J.
> On Fri, 13 Feb 1998, Jerry Han wrote:
> All this talk about fighters has brought up a point that I've always
Well it's the age old problem of offense vs. defense. Any argument you can
pick to use against fighters could apply to capital, escorts or carriers. Can
a Battlewagon cary enough armor and shields to survive long enough to be
effective? Although there may be advantages to large size
-
surface area increases slower than volume therefore you have to add less
shielding/armor to get more usable space, you sacrifice maneuverability.
Even in a universe with high powered laser/beam weapons moving a few
meters in a second can mean the difference between a hit and a miss on a
target that maybe 10 meters in size. I'm sure that the military would find
weapons big enough to hurt a
capital ship, perhaps a stand-off type thing like a single shot pulse
torpedo. Fighters (like modern ones) maybe mostly relegated to relatively
cheap missile carriers (A B-52 costs less to maintain than an Iowa
battleship or even a 688 attack sub and probably carries more missiles
further..) Fighters have always been used to extend your offensive or
defensive ability further at a relatively cheap price. Missiles have somewht
taken over the shorter role, covering up to 100 miles but it takes fighters to
extend it further. We still use fighters today even though a CIWS can hit
targets approaching faster than Mach 1 and knock them out of the sky. But
trying to hit a missile further than 2 km away with the system is almost
impossible. Fighters in the future will follow a similar pattern, they will be
armed with weapons that have a chance to damage a capital ship, be able to be
fired from a range outside the effective range of
anti-fighter
defenses (except other fighters) and will be relatively cheap compared to the
big guys (not including the carrier cost.)
--Binhan
> Jerry Han wrote:
> However, the conditions that lead to the widespread use of the
Well fighters can carry nukes, that should be sufficient to put a dent in
something. And nuclear missles can be pretty lightweigt. There are manpack
portable Atomic Demolitions Munitions that weigh in at 60 lbs.
> Binhan Lin wrote:
See, this is where my problem is. Fighters right now can carry weapons that
can damage enemy targets many times their cost. As well, they are still
survivable enough to avoid enemy air defences; indeed, it can still be argued
that the best defence is another fighter.
However, in the future, with the coming of shields, of high quality armor,
active point defence systems that can blot targets out at
3000k; can the concept of the small, maneuverable, one-three man attack
ship survive? I guess I believe that starships (if we ever get starships) will
have such powerful defences that fighters don't have a hope in hell of getting
through their active defences or that, even if they do get through the
actives, the passives will prevent damage to their target.
To use an example given earlier, if a modern fighter comes within 2km of a
modern warship, and the warship is equipped with a modern CIWS, that fighter
is toast. Now, expand the envelope out for a futuristic CIWS. I think you
begin to see my concern.
I guess what it comes down to is that, in most concepts of the future, the
balance between offense, defence and maneuverability stays the same so that
fighters are viable. The more I look at the technology curve, and the more I
look at possible starship futures, the less I think this, and the more I think
that fighters will not be
cost-effective, survivable weapons on the battlefields of the
future.
And given that I'm a real Air Force nut, this really hurts to say.
(8-)
J.
Ooo, more comments! (8-)
> Los wrote:
But then you have to mount the thing on a missile. And if stand-off
is your key requirement (which the pilots will thank you for (8-) ),
you need to put a large enough atomic warhead on a missile that has both the
range to reach the target, and the defences (whether through speed,
maneuverability, stealth, what have you) to avoid
anti-missile fire.
> I think the key thing would probably be that the fighter needs to
In
> the case of a laser, a lock on is a hit I guess.
When close enough, yes. Here, however, the question is, can you make a fighter
stealthy enough or with strong enough ECM to outpower the equipment aboard a
starship?
For a moment, let's switch from general to specific, just to clarify some
things.
Case 1) Starship is equipped with laser clusters, 300km range, as point
defence weapons. (Yes, the range seems really puny, but there's a point to
that.) At max range, 1 degree of translation in the turret comes out to a
deflection of 5.2km. Hmmm. It seems that its possible to survive at that
range, depending on the fine control of the turret.
I need to think about this some more, and do some more math. I'll
get back to you all. (8-)
J.
> The more I look at the technology
OK so fighters may not exsist in the future, however, I think they look great
in the game and they are great fun to play with.
> Binhan Lin wrote:
> > For example, in a universe with practical laser weaponry and
I think the key thing would probably be that the fighter needs to defeat the
enemy tracking and detection system, not try to dodge the laser. In the case
of a laser, a lock on is a hit I guess.
I've followed this discussion on fighters with some interest.
Remember that with directed energy weapons (lasers or particle beams) there is
a minimum range where hits are automatic. For example, at a range of 0.01
light second (3000 km), a manned fighter executing a radical 9G direction
change moves only 0.9 meters from its predicted flight path (allowing for
travel time for the fighter's last EMS signature to the ship and the weapon's
return fire travel time.) The directed energy weapon will hit the fighter
(unless it's really small <grin>).
The laws of physics will limit how close starships and fighters can be without
allowing automatic hits from lightspeed weaponry.
I don't see how cinematic type (ie, Babylon 5) fighter combats can happen. The
most probable use for fighters as I see it will be more similar to the game
2300 AD, with fighters as remote objects launching missiles with detonation
laser warheads from some distance away while the carrier remains even further
out of range.
Kem
[quoted original message omitted]
> Kem wrote:
> Remember that with directed energy weapons (lasers or particle beams)
there
> is a minimum range where hits are automatic. For example, at a range
Or the laser was slightly unfocussed or slightly misaligned, of course -
a deviation of 0.0005 degrees at 3000 km causes your beam to miss the aiming
point by 25 meters (could be enough to generate a miss). Similarly you want
your beam to be focussed pretty close to where the target is, in order to
avoid beam dispersion effects. I suspect that these more mechanical factors
will reduce the "auto-kill" range a bit, at least in low-tech universes
like B5 or the "official" FT one.
> The laws of physics will limit how close starships and fighters can be
In the B5 case, it's easy. The younger races don't have lasers small enough to
track fighters (even though they seem to hit fighters once in a while by
accident - Severed Dreams, for example); instead they use plasma
weaponry
(where the shots travel much slower) for anti-fighter work. Minbari,
Shadow and Vorlon ships use their beams against fighters, and chew them up
pretty fast.
Later,