History Analysis / SpaceFighter

Notably, the way modern fighters deal with active radar homing missiles is to release chaff, material that provides false radar signatures to the missile. The way this can be defeated is by measuring the doppler shift from the radar signal, because chaff loses speed quickly when shot out of an aircraft - however, this is not the case in space as there is no friction or air resistance, meaning that even modern countermeasures would be significantly more effective against radar-homing missiles in space, possibly to the point of rendering them incapable of hitting their target.

A9 above might be a way through this.

Quite simply, space fighters are easier and cheaper to build than large ships. If the setting has a tech level close to what we currently have in RealLife, building a StandardSciFiFleet of capital ships may simply be impossible, or at least prohibitively difficult and expensive, but small, single-person spacecraft could be realistic enough. In such a setting, fighters would be launched directly from a planet, and combat would take place in orbit or otherwise in nearby space. Space fighters may be the most practical way -- or the ''only'' practical way -- to get any combat capability into space at all in such circumstances. This is the alternative that has come closest to becoming TruthInTelevision so far.

An easy way to make this happen is to create something like a smoke screen yourself. By firing a specially designed projectile which will be inflated and/or spread out small particles that are magnetically attracted to a centre zone, one can form an area that can block incoming directed energy weapon for a short while (similar to whats being used in ''LightNovel/StarshipOperators''). Smaller ships (i.e. space fighters) can use smaller versions to shorten the distance and use solid projectile weapons, or simply move to another angle to attack.

!!A12. Because there are the celestials

!!A13. Prolonged war

The arguments are strong, that missiles are superior for a single fleet battle. How about a dozen fleet battle, maybe maintain peace and order on captured colonies? It does matter, whether an attack craft can be only used at once, or multiple times. Especially, if smaller rockets can also have advanced hardware, nuclear heat engines for example. Unlike missiles, fighters can return, if you can gather resources in space, refueling is much cheaper than getting new missiles. Yes it is also possible to build lots of new missiles with advanced electronics and drives, if you can get every kind of rare material just as easily as fuel, that can be produced even from ice comets.

Also if the attack fleet already has a high closing speed (at the magnitude of 100 km/s) then it doesn't count much, whether a missile add a further 10 km/s, or a fighter only add 4 km/s, and save the rest of the fuel for return.

!!A14. Time Lag

As noted in B9, space combat may take place at extreme ranges measuring in light seconds or even minutes. At such ranges, even lasers have to lead and predict the movements of their targets, making lasers more akin to naval artillery shells, and the overall battle much like an old fashioned battleship duel. A large craft like a battleship or even a cruiser would have its ability to maneuver and change course limited by its mass and volume. However, small craft could use its size to its advantage to make it significantly harder to lead. Thus, space fighters could get much closer to the enemy than its larger companions while maintaining the same relative ability to evade incoming fire, while having an advantage in their own accuracy due to the decreased range.

Modern fighters and bombers are a threat to wet navy capital ships and land fortifications because they can carry weapons that effectively damage them. However, even in space where they do not have to fight against gravity to launch, engineering limits would prevent a relatively small fighter from carrying too big a weapon. As a counterpoint to A1 though, you can probably imagine a world where torpedoes and air-launched munitions never gained the punch to be useful against battleships or land fortifications, leaving battleship cannon as the kings of the battlefield. Alternately, future defenses such as DeflectorShields might scale with size such that even the heaviest strikecraft weapons barely damage capital craft, or not even that. Either way, strikecraft would be effectively useless in the offensive role. While a larger projectile would have more mass, it would also have more space for propulsion, fuel, '''payload''', all the useful jazz. A good existing example of this is the Literature/HonorHarrington series, where until recently the aversion of ArmorIsUseless meant that subcapital weapons lacked the punch to usefully damage (super)dreadnoughts.

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).

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 refuelling, etc.)

By simple physics, a small fighter just can't carry as much fuel and ammo as a larger warship. And unlike naval gun fire support, where targets can be far enough inland that a fighter can reach but a ship's guns cannot, almost everything planetside can be hit with the right orbit. Maybe for some reason you can't or don't want to dedicate an all-up battleship to fire support, but some kind of corvette or gunboat equivalent would still be able to remain on station longer than a fighter squadron, which would have to more frequently return to the safely-distant carrier for refuelling and rearming.

As for the cloud thing, you don't need fighters to overcome. You can send recon drones or infantry spotters. If defenses are so strong that even those can't get through, you should still be working on orbital superiority and destroying surface-to-orbit defenses rather than whatever else you need more precise aiming for.

If the dominant weapons are solid projectiles, interceptors would be useful as a complement to the point defense screen, thinning out incoming fire so the PD on capitals would have an easier job. Obviously, you can't do the same with energy weapons. This would also be contingent on the projectiles not being too fast, else the interceptors would have difficulty running them down.

An easy way to make this happen is to create something like a smoke screen yourself. By firing a specially designed projectile which will be inflated and/or spread out small particles that are magnetically attracted to a centre zone, one can form an area that can block incoming DEW for a short while (similar to whats being used in ''LightNovel/StarshipOperators''). Smaller ships (i.e. space fighters) can use smaller versions to shorten the distance and use solid projectile weapons, or simply move to another angle to attack.

Space [[SpaceIsAnOcean is not an ocean]], but space fighters would still be more maneuverable than larger spacecraft thanks to the SquareCubeLaw. The larger a spacecraft is, the harder it is for its structure to handle the stress of rapid acceleration during maneuvers -- see [[http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Science/Size.html this web-page for more on this.]] In this case, rather than being a space version of an aircraft fighter, the space fighter would be more analogous to a PT boat or other "fast attack craft". The main question is whether this added maneuverability would be enough of an advantage to make space fighters sensible -- missiles and robotic drones would have the same strength, after all, and likely even more when you take out the mass of the pilot or life-support gear. Still, some critics of space fighters do occasionally argue that larger ships have no disadvantage at all when compared to space fighters in a realistic setting, and this is one plausible counter-argument.

If you enter the gravity well of a planet, it is hard to get out with a big ship or the big ship simply doesn't have the power to fly in the atmosphere, but the small fighters can enter it and be back. Arguably not space fighters, but if the enemy intercepts in space, than these need to have space combat ability as well.

Also arguably that the big ship can perform orbital bombardments, but it will be hard to aim a few hundred km away, with clouds and with orbital defence shooting at you while you are zooming through your target at 7.8km/s.

You cannot really distinguish a space fighter and a space frigate if it is operational with a 2 man crew, or even less than 10 like the heavy bombers of [=WW2=], while having much larger ships in your fleet.

While ''Star Wars'' isn't hard-sci, Death Star-like scenes can be put to hard SF too, if the target is a lunar base, or an asteroid mine. Lets see the lunar base scenario. Taking advantage of horizon, prepare to be attacked from multiple directions, by multiple types of threat (lasers, missiles, drones) requires something more than a simple missile. If one build a smart enough missile, why don't give it a few more km/s delta-V, so it can return after a successful mission? In the asteroid mine scenario, it can be possible to enter into big enough shafts, and fight like a river boat. The celestial body offer cover from single missiles, fighters can decelerate, and fire from point blank range. Or if they can handle lasers strong enough to harm point range defence at least, or fire really fast coilgun slugs, they don't necessary have to decelerate. Yes big ships can come close also, but a metallic asteroid offers lots of hiding places, even for big guns. Would you rather risk your battleship, or a fighter squadron? In case of a planet, yes it is plausible to land surface units, if nuke everything isn't the desirable outcome, but in this case, the shuttles carry the troops are vulnerable when they try to land. A battleship on high orbit cant react fast enough to an inbound threat, unless there are very strong and well-focused lasers. A battleship on low orbit is a huge and barely maneuverable target, stripped from its main advantage, superior range.
Even if a battleship could do everything better even on low orbit combat, why would someone waste a battleship for bombing down guerillas, capture smuggler ships, eliminate pirates, if these tasks can be easily handled by fighter squadrons (or gunboats, corvettes, in W40k, even a 70m long ship is classified as a fighter), that don't require so special infrastructure?

If the universe has PD that can mow down far more aggressively-manoeuvring missiles like cavalry before {{Gatling| Good}}s, only blatant PlotArmor can protect sluggish strikecraft from getting torn to pieces even more easily. If there is no StealthInSpace, and if combat takes place over large distances, it could give the defenders plenty of time to detect incoming fighters and try to take them out from afar.

You can shoot down a projectile. You cannot do the same for directed energy; if it's already on-target, one can only attempt to absorb or deflect it. Sending interceptors out to aid PD would be worthless in this case.

As for the cloud thing, you don't need fighters to overcome. You can send recon drones or infantry spotters. If defences are so strong that even those can't get through, you should still be working on orbital superiority and destroying surface-to-orbit defences rather than whatever else you need more precise aiming for.

Space [[SpaceIsAnOcean is not an ocean]], but space fighters would still be more maneuverable than larger spacecraft thanks to the SquareCubeLaw. The larger a spacecraft is, the harder it is for its structure to handle the stress of rapid acceleration during maneuvers -- see [[http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Science/Size.html this web-page for more on this]]. In this case, rather than being a space version of an aircraft fighter, the space fighter would be more analogous to a PT boat or other "fast attack craft". The main question is whether this added maneuverability would be enough of an advantage to make space fighters sensible -- missiles and robotic drones would have the same strength, after all, and likely even more when you take out the mass of the pilot or life-support gear. Still, some critics of space fighters do occasionally argue that larger ships have no disadvantage at all when compared to space fighters in a realistic setting, and this is one plausible counter-argument.

A1 will still be valid countering B4 as long as no force field technology is developed. Physics tells us that no matter how thick your armour is, each attack is still going to chip away the armour bit by bit. Also, Hyper Velocity Impact tests(http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/ares/hvit/hit.cfm) shows that a thick armour is not an ideal defense against KEW at really high speeds.

While Star Wars isnt hard-sci, Death Star like scenes can be put to hard SF too, if the target is a lunar base, or an asteroid mine. Lets see the lunar base scenario. Taking advantage of horizont, prepare to be attacked from multiple directions, by multiple types of threat (lasers, missiles, drones) requires something more than a simple missile. If one build a smart enough missile, why dont give it a few more km/s delta-V, so it can return after a succesful mission? In the asteroid mine scenario, it can be possible to enter into big enough shafts, and fight like a river boat. The celestial body offer cover from single missiles, fighters can decelerate, and fire from point blank range. Or if they can handle lasers strong enough to harm point range defence at least, or fire really fast coilgun slugs, they dont necessary have to decelerate. Yes big ships can come close also, but a metallic asteroid offers lots of hiding places, even for big guns. Would you rather risk your battleship, or a fighter squadron? In case of a planet, yes it is plausible to land surface units, if nuke everything isnt the desirable outcome, but in this case, the shuttles carry the troops are vulnerable when they try to land. A battleship on high orbit cant react fast enough to an inbound threat, unless there are very strong and well-focused lasers. A battleship on low orbit is a huge and barely maneuverable target, stripped from its main advantage, superior range.
Even if a battleship could do everything better even on low orbit combat, why would someone waste a battleship for bombing down guerillas, capture smuggler ships, eliminate pirates, if theese tasks can be easily handled by fighter squadrons (or gunboats, corvettes, in W40k, even a 70m long ship is classified as a fighter), that dont require so special infrastructure?

!!B6. Everything Space Fighters can do something else can do better.

Space combat may take place at ranges well beyond radar detection, or from behind a convenient celestial the radars can't see through. Ambushes in particular, if you know where the target is, can be carried out by firing from outside their detection range and leading their movement correctly. Smaller craft such as the Space Fighter can be deployed, using their own radars to see around celestials and further out to report back to the mothership. Smaller craft with less radar visibility are also able to get closer to the enemy before detection, allowing them to see (and report back on) the target before being seen. Even if the fighters never fire their own shots and simply act as their mothership's artillery spotters, it's still a useful role to be sent ahead of the mothership to give them early warning and information.

!!A12. Becasue there are the celestials

An easy way to make this happen is to create something like a smoke screen yourself. By firing a specially designed projectile which will be inflated and/or spread out small particles that are magnetically attracted to a centre zone, one can form an area that can block incoming DEW for a short while (similar to whats being used in ''Anime/StarshipOperators''). Smaller ships (i.e. space fighters) can use smaller versions to shorten the distance and use solid projectile weapons, or simply move to another angle to attack.

As for the cloud thing, you don't need fighters to overcome. You can send recon drones or infantry spotters. If defences are so strong that even those can't get through, you should still be working on orbital superiority and destroying orbit-to-surface defences rather than whatever else you need more precise aiming for.

Approaching A9 from the other side, depending on how the technology pans out, the different roles a spacecraft's crew has to handle may get more complex, such that the traditional fighter's pilot-weapon systems officer two-man crew may no longer be adequate and larger crews are needed. For example, sensors could get more advanced and complex without data-analysis AI or software keeping up, resulting in the need to spin off a dedicated sensor officer to keep track of what's going on in the fight. In such a situation, crew complements could balloon to the point where they more closely resemble fast attack craft or patrol boats'. As such, although they might still technically count as "fighters" by virtue of being short-legged and reliant on carriers for operating away from friendly ports, their doctrine would necessarily differ from traditional fighters'. Once again, see the Honorverse's light attack craft for an existing example.

There is no StealthInSpace, for large and long operating ships. But the same may not apply to smaller and short operating vessels. If a vessel operates with cold propellant, has an onboard system that cools down its exterior, and traps the heat inside for only a few hours, it will be much harder to detect than any big ships that inevitably heat up faster.

While Star Wars isnt hard-sci, Death Star like scenes can be put to hard SF too, if the target is a lunar base, or an asteroid mine. Lets see the lunar base scenario. Taking advantage of horizont, prepare to be attacked from multiple directions, by multiple types of threat (lasers, missiles, drones) requires something more than a simple missile. If one build a smart enough missile, why dont give it a few more km/s delta-V, so it can return after a succesful mission? In the aseroid mine scenario, it can be possible to enter into big enough shafts, and fight like a river boat. The celestial body offer cover from single missiles, fighters can decelerate, and fire at point blank range, or if they can handle lasers strong enough to harm point range defence at least, or fire really fast coilgun slugs, they dont necessary have to decelerate. Yes big ships can come close also, but a metallic asteroid offers lots of hiding places, even for big guns. Would you rather risk your battleship, or a fighter squadron? In case of a planet, while it is plausible to land surface units, if nuke everything isnt the desirable outcome, but in this case, the shuttles carry the troops are vulnerable when they try to land. A battleship on high orbit cant react fast enough to an inbound threat, unless there are very strong and well-focused lasers. A battleship on low orbit is a huge and barely maneuverable target, stripped from its main advantage, superior range.
Even if a battleship could do everything better even on low orbit combat, why would someone waste a battleship for bombing down guerillas, capture smuggler ships, eliminate pirates, if theese tasks can be easily handled by fighter squadrons, that dont require so special infrastructure?

No cover, no hiding place, no horizont, entirely true in deep space, not if you want to capture something. If you want to capture an asteroid mine for example, mobile defender units can move behind the asteroid, or even hide in a shaft, missiles are a waste against them. Fighters can attack behind cover, and one don't have to bring the big ones close -- the later sacrifices the advantage of superior laser range, and make the big ships also quite vulnerable.

The arguments are strong, that missiles are superior for a single fleet battle. How about a dozen fleet battle, maybe maintain peace and order on captured colonies? It does matter, whether an attack craft can be only used at once, or multiple times. Especially, if smaller rockets can also have advanced hardware, nuclear heat engines for example. Unlike missiles, fighters can return, if you can gather resources in space, refueling is much cheaper than getting new missiles.

You cannot really distinguish a space fighter and a space frigate if it is operational with a 2 man crew, or even less than 10 like the heavy bombers of WW2, while having much larger ships in your fleet.

Another issue related to B8 is acceleration. InertialDampeners aside, a small space fighter may be able to reach a higher acceleration than, say, a capital ship but the former having small fuel reserves will stuck at a certain velocity (you'd better save fuel to brake or maneuver in both cases), while the larger ship even if it had a far worse acceleration could maintain it for a longer time as it has far more fuel, eventually overtaking the fighter.

Another issue related to B8 is acceleration. InertialDampeners aside, a small space fighter may be able to reach a higher acceleration than, say, a capital ship but the former having small fuel reserves will stuck at a certain velocity (you'd better save fuel to brake in both cases), while the larger ship even if it had a far worse acceleration could maintain it for a longer time as it has far more fuel, eventually overtaking the fighter.