Fighters and FlatTop Carriers

On the topic of usless fighters:

> Wasn't a similar arguement made in our own history about the

> Beth wrote:
<Snippage>

Except the navy failed to learn from the ground command and fledgeling Air
Forces. Their excuse was that they didn't have the "ground space" to have an
airfield, besides we could just mount a bigger gun there. The problem being
that naval gun rounds don't report back about what they saw on their trip over
the horizon.

In the Tuffleyverse fighters have certain advantages that larger ships just
don't have. First: (Brian Bell wrote:)

> 2 - Cost. Because of the power of today's fighter launched weapons,
They
> can also send recon patrols.Second is that fighters are too small to be

Then add:

4 - The simple fact that fighters exist forces the big capital ships to
divide their mass between anti-ship and anti-fighter weapons.

Think about it this way: A capital ship that had only large-bore ship to
ship guns would have truely impressive firepower, and become a challenge for
military tacticians to find it's weaknesses. Someone would make the coment:
"You know if only we had some of those 20th century fighters refitted for
space combat, one could get in close and drop a proton torpedo down that vent
shaft." (flashbacks of Star Wars episode 4 anyone?) Such an attack would
become common against capitals, designs would begin to include
anti-fighter defenses.... And we end up with fighters as we have them in
FT.

5 - Reaction Speed: Everyone who has taken driver's ed has seen the
video about how far a vehicle moves in the time it takes for the eye to send a
signal to the brain, and the brain to send a signal to the foot to apply
brakes. In any massively crewed ship this effect is multiplied by the number
of command levels between the captan and whoever is actually steering, running
the engine, targeting the weapons, ect. plus the time it takes to actually
speak the commands.

Modern ships don't have a big problem with this because there is only so fast
that they can turn, accellerate, decellerate ect. so the difficulties in
cumulative reaction speed aren't a factor. In space, assuming that a ship has
sufficient thrust to have the manuverability of a fighter, AND that is has the
structural integrity to withstand that thrust applied laterally to the hull,
you still have to deal with giving orders to up to two levels of inferiors
(Usually in engineering: Picard gives the order to Geordi, Geordi gives orders
to various faceless underlings, ect.). Fighters only have one pilot, you only
have to go through the "sense,brain,action" cycle once.

As far as flat top carriers in space:

One obvious use of a flight deck has been overlooked in the discussion: If you
look at the "Tubes" in Battlestar Galactica, they are pretty form fitting.
Even the bay doors in Babylon 5 don't leave much room for error. It is
concieveable that a fighter bay become "Bent" rather than "Broken" or have a
wing half shot off and dangling from a number of cables or fuel lines. A
fighter in such a condition could not be recovered by a "Tube" recovery
system, you would need a deck to land on and recieve basic hull repairs before
being transported to the fighter's cradle. If the deck was large enough (one
for a supercarrier) it could be used to assist in repairs for other ships in
the fleet. Having a "mobile ship engineering platform" in the form of a
fleet's fighter carrier would aid in
long-range repairs for patrol, reconnissance or "exploratory" fleets. In
fact my patrol carriers have disproportionatly large decks because they ARE
the "drydock" for their light cruisers and escorts on long missions.

okay that's my $0.02 plus tax and intrest

Jim

> On Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:02:48 -0600 djwj <djwj@eazy.net> wrote:

> One obvious use of a flight deck has been overlooked in the

Which is what is done in both BSG and B5; the launch tubes/cobra bays
are _launch_ bays, in which the fighters are placed when ready to
launch. Vipers and Starfuries recover through a large opening big enough
(especially in B5's case) to take cargo ships, from where they are transported
to maintenance facilities to be repaired, refueled
and/or re-armed. I don't know of any case in which fighters have to
_land_ using "form-fitting" tubes, and I wouldn't care to try it!

> If the deck was large enough (one for a supercarrier) it could be

That could work, but wouldn't it make more sense to have this platform
_inside_, where the ships could be worked on without the need for
spacesuits? Or at least where the enemy can't see them to shoot at?

The "problem" with, say, NAC carriers is that the "flat-tops" are _too_
big (interestingly, the Valley Forge SD's fighter bays merely have a
smallish balcony -- do they recover through the aft shuttle hatch?). A
modern carrier's deck size is dictated by 2 things: the need for the "runway",
and the need to have somewhere to put the aircraft that aren't flying or being
worked on below. This is one reason why the
angled deck was such an innovation -- suddenly, it was possible to
store aircraft on deck _and_ keep them out of the way of flying
operations! Now, this isn't going to happen in space because the pilots have
to get out of their ships, and it makes rather more sense to do that inside a
nice pressurised hangar.

The Ark Royal/Invincible "flight deck" has what looks like 2 catapults
running along its length, and I can accept that that might be a useful thing
to have for, say, an emergency scramble, although it's not
necessary for day-to-day operations. But there seems to be no need for
the full width of the deck unless it's been found useful for mass
recovery of fighters (the Oshkosh principle -- three or four parallel
landing strips as opposed to the one or two used normally) -- and it
might make sense structurally or for reasons to do with the overall balance of
the ship (affecting the drives or something).

Of course, Jon's said that the ships were designed for looks rather
than by "logic" and/or PSB, but it's interesting to speculate.

> okay, that's my $0.02 plus tax and interest

Fine. That'll be $37.48, please. <g>

Phil