Eh, we don't really have a great track record at predicting the future of warfare. No doubt what we *think* space warfare will look like will change completely when its actually viable.
Hell even The Expanse which literally advertises itself as the definitive hard-sci fi, probably has some things blatantly wrong with its depiction of space combat.
Personally, I think it's going to be a combination of NASA meets the US Navy, when it's all said and done.
New Survey coming this weekend!
Its not about dodging, its about the fact that your going to die in one hit any way, so your not going to get the massive battleships any more then you get a B-52 loaded with A2A missiles functioning as an interceptor.
However there is still use in a larger ship solely for transporting on better engines, or not having to take your entire fuel budget into the fight with you.
edited 20th Jan '18 7:49:10 PM by Imca
Tactical: I actually think The Expanse has one of the better depictions of what a space fighter would look like in their Roci. It probably wouldn't have the range it's shown having, but a small-ish ship suitable for patrol/interdiction and light combat would be super useful and I think would most likely be the smallest combat vessel fielded outside of non-recoverable AK Vs/attack drones.
Humorously, before powered flight air combat was typically imagined as flying battleships performing naval combat maneuvers in the air, the same way we often imagine space combat as being aerial combat but in space. I imagine our depictions of space combat will be looked back on the same way we look back on that.
Imca: They're actually considering using the new B-21 as an A 2 A platform. I think maneuverability will be going out the window in air combat soon, missiles are so capable now that it's all about stealth, speed and endurance, and magazine depth. I really wonder what the next generation of combat aircraft will look like. It's a massive shame they didn't pick the YF-23 for the Advanced Tactical Fighter program. That thing is sweet and it would be even more relevant today.
They should have sent a poet.
Again, its not about maneuverability, its about cost.
The bigger you go the more you spend by default on work and materials..... I do agree with he Y-23 though, they don't seem to make good choices on which airplane.
Actually, Imca, I dont think that's true. Why would one large spaceship cost any more than 100 spaceships one one hundreth it's size? The cost of atmospheric fighters vs. water-bourne ships are determined by the requirements of the medium they operate in (air vs. water), but in space it's just vacuum, and a space fighter is nothing more than a very small spaceship. The costs should scale such that the larger ships are more cost-effective (in other words, it will be cheaper to replace the carrier than the squadron it is carrying).
Because Size does affect costs through materials and labor, it doesn't scale proportionately, so 100 small ships 1/100th of a big ones size wont have 1/100th the cost but they will be cheaper, even if your comparing in the same medium.
Look at the Litorial combat ship to a destroyer(one-fourth the cost of a destroyer if its development hadn't been botched) for instance, or better yet, to go for the same time period but with just the size of ship being the variable, a pensicola class cruiser cost 11 million dollars, an Iowa class battleship cost 100 million.... you could literaly buy 10 cruisers for a battleship.
Only in space weapons are so lethal that you don't get the battleships survivibility out of that investment, your stuck with two ships that are both going to die in one hit, but one is literally 10 times cheaper, which of the two are you going to buy?
Hell, your "the cost of atmospheric fighters vs. water-bourne ships are determined by the requirements of the medium they operate in (air vs. water)" actually favors the ship in the argument, by a massive amount, water being the simpler medium, and the cost density of a ship being lower, the air wing of a carrier is actually worth more then the ship by a factor of 4 on the Nimitz due to the complexities of aircraft.
edited 20th Jan '18 10:13:36 PM by Imca
LCS vs. Arleigh Burke isn't really a good comparison, as the LCS program has only produced a few ships and the Arleigh Burke has long since been in full rate production. As you pointed out the projected full rate production price for the LCS is around 1/4th of the current price for Arleigh Burkes, and the LCS is also about 1/4th the size. In other words, if both production lines were operating at full capacity both ships would cost about the same per ton. If we're talking exact same time period and differing ship size you could compare the Iowa-class to the Baltimore-class which was commissioned the same year and ends up being a similar cost per ton as well.
It's the same situation in space, fighters aren't essentially different enough from larger ships to cost a different amount like with naval vessels and planes. Modern naval weapons are also lethal enough that being hit is a mission kill or worse, and we still have larger ships in service because they offer flexibility and performance that smaller ships don't have.Small vessels could potentially be far less survivable as well because they may not be able to carry the defensive systems a larger ship could. That's before even factoring in the inherent issues with very small spacecraft.
They should have sent a poet.
The only larger ships in service with the modern navy are carriers which need there extra space to service planes.
If you go to ships that fight with just there own armament, they are large enough to operate on the open ocean, and carry there weapon systems and not any more then that..... The only cruisers still in use are old ships that haven't been retired, namely the Ticonderoga class which hasn't been built since the 80s and was originally classified as a destroyer any way, and the Kirov class .... and no battleships exist at all.
No modern cruisers exist or are commissioned, because exactly as you said, one hit is a mission kill on the ocean now too, so it is better to build lots and lots of little ships then to put all the eggs in one basket so to speak.... so you have nothing big enough that its loss is a hindrance.
edited 20th Jan '18 10:40:26 PM by Imca
We're talking about fighters though. The most numerous ship we have is the Arleigh Burke which isn't exactly small at 500 feet. When they first were commissioned there was even talk of calling them a cruiser given their size. For all intents and purposes those are the "larger ships" we field. With the new Standard missiles and upgraded Tomahawks they're taking over the anti-surface role too.
If you're arguing for more numerous cruiser and destroyer ships filling out a space navy rather than super-massive capital ships, then I agree. We are talking about small tactical fighters though, which is a different story.
They should have sent a poet.
I am arguing for a fighter that, really isn't a fighter...... but there is nothing equivalent in existence right now due to there being no reason for it to exist terrestrially.
What you have is a carrier, big ship, big efficient engine, lots of fuel for getting around, lots of food and life support for endurance, and computers for commanding... that stays out of combat the best it can (though at the viable ranges in space it is going to have a harder time of this) a lot like a modern carrier..... but launches non-traditional fighters, not zippy little things that rely on maneuverability like you have now, but more along the line of preferably drone micro-ships.
Big enough to mount a full sized naval gun, or whatever weapon your choice is and probably not much more, just enough engine and fuel for maneuvering around in the immediate area, and getting to combat..... minimal power supply, just enough to keep the guns running and powering the computers and AI if you have it... minimal to no life support if you have a crewnote ..... It doesn't need long legs, it isn't designed to operate on its own, or for a long period of time, thats what the carrier is for.... its whole purpose is to fight, and nothing more, literally nothing more.
Basically an incredibly tiny and minimal or entirely crew-less ship that rides into combat on a bigger ship, and does the actual fighting because its just too lethal to have any form of guarantee it will recoverable, obviously you would WANT to get it back after combat, its probably not going to be the cheapest thing.... but if there destroyed, you have the option to turn tail and run.
Fighter and Carrier are the only terms I have for this setup, because it just doesn't exist currently, and has no reason to exist currently.... but the lethality of space and the tight resource binding involved, that would favor stripping out as much redundant weight in your battle fleet as possible to save on delta v put more reason on it existing.
edited 20th Jan '18 11:12:29 PM by Imca
Even with ships like those you run into the delta-v budget issue, basic survivability issues, and the question of why they even need to be recoverable. In the space for the launch/recovery gear, maintenance shops and storage hangars you could fit missiles that would serve the same purpose and be more numerous and effective. You could also field a group of cruiser/destroyer ships instead of one big carrier which would carry enough missiles to be effective in a fight and be able to accomplish a wider variety of missions as a group.
There's definitely a place for attack drones like that. I would think that cruiser/destroyer ships would probably have attack drones onboard. I also imagine the missiles of the future will have many "drone-like" qualities. Having recoverable fightercraft pf any design that fit in the same niche as aerospace fighters doesn't make a lot of sense in outer space though.
edited 20th Jan '18 11:14:33 PM by archonspeaks
They should have sent a poet.
Its not the same niche as a fighter, thats what your not understanding.
It is more the niche of a frigate, only without the legs of a frigate, or the ability to move around the system on its own, and a bit more disposability coming from it being striped down and operating on minimal to no crew.
Once you launch it though, for the short duration it has to operate it is 100% more frigate then fighter.
Its a quick burst brawler without ANY endurance for going between planets, because all of that fuel and lifesuport have been striped out to reduce the mass and cost, leaving it with just enough to do its fighting and then await recovery.
Its not a fighter that zips around and makes multiple attack runs, nor is there any reason you cant mount your missile loadout to it
Also in such a setup there wouldn't be hangers, these beasts are too large for that, more likely they would just clamp on to the outside of the carrier, since there isn't aerodynamics to concern yourself with.
Hell even the recovery probably wouldn't be like a traditional fighter, due to the resource distribution involved, it would actually make more sense to have the "carrier" come pick these drones up, then to have the drones return to the "carrier"
Another way to think about it is as a setup of Frigates and a Tender/Command Ship, only the frigates dock to the tender outside of combat because they are incapable of long journeys.
If I had any kind of artistic capability I would actually draw this out. :/
edited 20th Jan '18 11:24:08 PM by Imca
Frigates are typically expected to provide anti-air and anti-sub defenses for a battle group, or to do maritime patrol or screening of shipping. A lot of those tasks have been offloaded to destroyers, which is why they aren't too common these days. The ships you're describing fit into the exact same niche tactical fighters fit into now, except since they're in space they have to deal with unique issues.
If the ships don't have a lot of fuel they can't perform evasive maneuvers. They may not even be able to move or change directions quickly. Since they're too small to mount defensive systems and armor, even basic weapons make quick work of them. There's no horizon in space so they don't provide any additional awareness, and they're unable to perform a variety of other roles that a more fleshed out frigate/destroyer could.
On Earth, fighters provide the battle group with capabilities ships can't have. There's no advantage gained sending a ship like that over just firing missiles.
They should have sent a poet.
You need much less delta-v to perform evasive maneuvers then you do to skip around from planet to planet, a little movement goes a long way in orbital manuvering and the frigate comparison is from the size.... the weapon mounts are designed for ship killing.
These are not fighters at all, there close full sized warships, that are only really smaller because they have been striped of literally every thing that isn't needed to survive a couple hours of fighting.
They have defenses, they can maneuver, they don't have much armor, but then again no ship would when your able to travel between planets with reasonable velocity you are able to punch through any thing that could be considered armor, but they don't really have less armor then a warship.
What they don't have is massive amounts of reaction mass needed for interplanetary travel, food, water, oxygen scrubbing, any kind of endurance equipment, fuel to run for more then an hour or two..... hell you might not even want a reactor on them unless your going to mount energy weapons since removing the reactor would save weight.
It is a normal ship, that has been stripped to the bone, and has no survivibility outside of the fight it is released into.
They are NOT comparable to missiles at all, nor are they comparable to fighters, because these are full warships.... just with zero independence because all the longevity has been crammed into a carrier so that you don't need to carry around 10 of every thing.
Instead of thinking of a Nimitz when visualizing you should think something like this
◊ only with the Sumners either being remote, or skeleton crewed down to just a couple men, and a bit of there mass chopped off because there is no living area in them at all, they are reduced to fighting only, no bunks, no mesh, no medical, no nothing, if it is not related to shooting you don't need it because there not in use outside of combat.
Hell there is no reason you couldn't use them in the same role destroyers are used, just like a terrestrial carrier can keep part of its airwing on patrol when outside of combat, there is no reason you couldn't rotate out a picket ship or two off of this carrier to handle the roles outside of combat.
What you gain out of this arrangement is not risking the majority of your crew to a fight that is literally going to be suicide. The carrier itself avoids that at all cost. A traditional missile cruiser is going to have to fight directly and die directly, its going to die FAST and all 100 men aboard are going to be gone.... that's why you use these things and give them the missiles, rather then carry the missiles yourself... when these things die you can turn tail and GTFO... so you can stay out of that shit-show where even one hit leads to the spacing of your crew... Additionally you get to avoid carrying redundant systems outside of combat saving mass and delta-v budget its a win all around.
edited 21st Jan '18 12:19:35 AM by Imca
You’d need at least enough fuel to get up to speed and then cancel out that momentum in parts to perform evasive maneuvers. With the size of the ship described, that’s a pretty good amount of fuel. You’d also probably need fuel to get back to where you came from, or to leave the battlefield in a different direction.
At this point these are just drone warships and you may as well give them extra endurance because they’re hardly expendable any more and they’d be much more useful that way. Make the carrier an underway replenishment ship and you’re basically back at the setup of modern navies. Lethality in space is significant but with defensive systems not so much so that you’d need some elaborate setup, at least not any more elaborate than what we have now.
I think that gets right to the heart of the issue with fighters in space, which is how this conversation got started. To be practical they’re overengineered to the point where they’re not fighters any more.
Ultimately, I think the idea of fighters in space comes down to a quote I heard once, which is that people would much rather read about a fighter pilot than a sensor operator. If Luke Skywalker was sitting at a weapons console hundreds of thousands of miles away from the Death Star pressing buttons that wouldn’t be very interesting, but when he’s there flying around in the trench it’s a lot cooler and allows the audience to directly perceive the stakes of the battle.
In a soft SF setting I believe fighters should definitely be included but the further down the scale you get the more you have to build them up into full size ships.
edited 21st Jan '18 12:21:47 AM by archonspeaks
They should have sent a poet.
You dont need enough fuel to return, because the mother-ship can come pick you up..... these are not zippy little fighters, so there is little advantage to be had in having them be the ones that return to the main craft rather then having it come pick them up.
Except then you have to add life support, food, water, living quarters, medical, machine rooms, space for the crew..... and the crew that your going to loose the instant a shot connects, and ll of this is going to scale your fuel budget exponentially because of the fuel being used moving other fuel.
There is PLENTY of reason to not give them endurance, because your vastly underestimating the amount of space that endurance requires.
I have flat out said that's another way to think of the thing, sevral times in fact, but its still a "carrier" because the idea is that these things would spend MOST of there time docked to it, while it does the maneuvering in day to day life.
But really point of it comes down to this. and this much is true. but I don't think it disqualifies them, I feel the definition of carrier is overly narrow if you think they need "fighters" to be a carrier.
I would argue there is no reason you cant make a sensor opperator and console person an interesting story, and if you cant your probably not that great of an author.
Sure it is EASIER to give steaks to the guy flying around in the trench, but I don't think being easier is a reason to do only it.
And I don't think that's solely the reason for space fighters either... I have both argued for one that is "over engineered to the point that it is no longer a fighter" but that I think would be practical and if it was just narrative for others, a sense of putting them in the action, there is nothing stopping them from making Luke a destroyer captain, and having him brawl it out while he yells out orders over the communications equipment.... its still cool.... its still direct, but no one does it.... there has to be something more to the psychology involved.
Hell the one I argued for could still fit that narrative, a single baddass piloting something like a space gearing into a brawl, can still fit the same exact nice, if a bit slower paced.
edited 21st Jan '18 12:45:19 AM by Imca
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Immy: You always pick the worst hill to die on.
Having the larger vessel flit around chasing around drifting small vessels is neither time or fuel efficient for anyone. Where you get the idea that this is a practical solution is beyond me. You are significantly better off with actual disposable piloteless drones in this scenario. Once they are off, they are off. If you want round trip craft they are going to have short effective operational ranges compared to their one way trip equivalents.
Endurance matters a lot. Less endurance means decreased operational ranges, munitions and weapon loads, and missions times. You can't skimp and have a truly useful craft. Again a dedicated remotely operated drone would fit the bill far better as you would need to worry about meat sacks taking significant amounts of expendables.
Either it is a fleet tender or a carrier, pick one and no the definition of the carrier is not too narrow.
If you change a design so much it isn't one thing anymore but something new guess what it isn't. If you create a new craft so drastically different from a fighter it isn't fighter then you don't have a fighter. Kind of self defeating logic there.
Sci-Fi especially literature has plenty of from the command deck characters. Honor Harrington being one.
Who watches the watchmen?
Its not a fighter no, but the ship hauling them around would still technically be a carrier, which is where I am arguing from, that CARRIERS have a use even in space.
Additionally a drone was one of the points being suggested and the preferred one at that, the problem is that humans have a tendancy to not like AI driven weapons systems, and while I personally think the best rigged setup is to have AI driven warships commanded via directional laser (that way you would have to as stated before be between the drone and its command center and on a verry narrow angle to even have a HOPE of bothering its signal, and would still have to deal with all the traditional countermeasures) it is just flat out not possible to sell said idea to every one.... neither for storytelling nor as a weapon system.... at which case you can strip it down to the bare minimum needed for a meat sack and still get a similar approach.... but one that is very neutered compared to what you can get by ditching them
Having the larger vessel pick up the smaller ones is less fuel efficient in the short run, but more so in the long run, because it lets you not need to have return fuel on the smaller vessels, which means that each them can be a smaller size..... you burn more fuel during the actual recovery, but less in the time that you are going to be hauling them around outside of combat because they weigh less.... its not like they are going to be on hugely different courses any way, if you commit to orbital burns like you dodge on the ground your just going to end up on a suicide burn into deep space, or the sun any way..... any "dodging" in space, is just going to be correctly timed small burns, that provide a gentle nudge out of the way, into the "human crew would probably piss themselfs" level of near miss range, none of that "hard turn" or massive trajectory changes bullshit you get on the ground.... and if the projectile is guided you better off trying to shoot it down then even dodging it at all, since the intercepting object has the delta-v advantage due to any change being magnified over the entire distance of its flight.
Additionally, there are varying levels of endurance, a ship built for independent operation measured in hours, is going to be no where near the size of a ship built for independent operation measured in months, hell we went over this very recently in the other thread I think it was, that the longer your ships opperate, the biger they get, this doesn't change when you switch to smaller vehicles, it even applies to things as simple terrestrial trucks, with ones being built to operate for more then 8 hours being several feet longer.... endurance changes vehicle sizes, and you need a lot more of it to stay on combat patrol, then you do to flit around in combat even if you will burn through it faster in combat.
And you know what, hours are plenty to measure combat times in, conventional "fighters" already deal with practical endurance measured in minutes, but were still able to shape warfare.... even the most protracted naval battles lasted under a day..... and that's all you need, the endurance for one fight..... not the whole patrol.
Lastly you cant really pick one, because there is no comparable vessels on the sea, a fleet tender doesn't haul around the destroyers while they are attached to it, and a naval carrier doesn't carry warships, thus neither are a perfect match, but Carrier fits better as a term because it caries warships around.... plus I don't know of any tender loaded with the command and control equipment necicery for fleet command, but most carriers have that.
edited 21st Jan '18 4:31:55 AM by Imca
Because in space if you need to launch from fixed facilities such as space stations or ground bases the missiles you fire have a long warning and evasion/intercept window. Worse, such facilities are ripe for even the most basic of Orbital Bombardment or otherwise standoff attacks. Space stations aren't exactly able to dodge and the ground certainly can't. Fighters can be based anywhere. Space stations, moons, asteroid bases, ships, the ground, areas of the ground not readily visible to orbital assets (it's much easier to run a starfighter base out in the boonies than it is to have an ICBM facility) all of which have superior longevity.
Plus if you're actually doing any kind of space war, you're not pulling a Star Trek and fighting over literally the middle of nowhere and nothing with nothing of noticeable mass for millions of kilometers. You're going to draw them in range of your space navy and as many supporting elements as possible which means you'll be fighting near space stations, moons, planets, and the like. All of which can base fighters. Bonus is in such scenarios, you can have a horizon to hide behind if you're close enough to such bodies.
Plus, unlike an ICBM which can be shot down and its attendant launch facility, a space fighter can be re-used indefinitely and in very short order. You'll be dead and the ground you stand on turned to glass many times over in the time it takes to "reload" a missile silo. A fighter can get in, fire, get back, get refueled, rearmed and back into the fray in a relatively short time.
Speed and agility don’t really work the same in space as they do on Earth. You have to have enough thrust to fight the whole mass of the vessel, and in a combat situation you have to be able to fight that mass fast enough to get out of the way of incoming weapons fire. A small burn will eventually change your direction, but it won’t be enough to get out of the way of incoming missiles or gunfire. If you cut weight on your ship to the point where a small burn is effective in moving you around then your ship becomes either too fragile or too small. It’s a delicate balancing game, and it quickly becomes a Red Queen’s Race.
These ships are big and heavy, and they would need to carry a significant amount of fuel with them. Adding crew spaces or additional fuel stores would increase the amount of overall fuel required, but basic crew spaces or additional fuel would not weigh much compared to the weight of the vessel’s structure and all the systems it carries. Crew spaces hardly weigh much compared to reinforced superstructures and weapons systems. It wouldn’t be a significant increase in expenditure either, these ships are already essentially as expensive as a crewed vessel. That weight tradeoff would also allow the ship to perform the wide variety of non-combat tasks navies are expected to perform daily. Navies don’t just fight, they also do territory control, interdiction, search and rescue, aid delivery, shipping inspection, all sorts of stuff.
Additionally, letting the individual ships have some degree of independence ends up saving fuel overall as your tender no longer needs to have the delta V for itself and every ship on it, as well as all the fuel needed for moving fuel.
There’s really no comparison to aerospace fighters. Planes operate in a fundamentally different medium compared to ships, these craft are all operating in the same medium.
Essentially what this design leaves you with is a ship that is as big and as expensive as a cruiser, but unable to do the things a cruiser will spend the vast majority of its time doing. There’s no reason to not just make it a cruiser at this point. And whatever it is it’s definitley not a tactical fighter, which was sort of the whole point.
The quote about sensor operators really refers to pop culture and the idea of a space fighter in general. As someone who’s fairly invested in the profession of operating sensors I’d much rather read about that, and there is a lot of good fiction about bridge crews. Space fighters loom large in pop culture though, and I think part of that is because it’s a more singular and personal task than directing a bombardment or working on a command deck. What I’m trying to say is that they exist first and foremost as a storytelling device.
Major Tom: Anything that could shoot down a missile could shoot down a fighter too, as there’s little difference in space between the two. Missiles in space would have a lot more in common with present-day cruise missiles than ICB Ms anyways, and cruise missiles can be launched from compact cells and reloaded fairly easily.
They should have sent a poet.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Immy: Hardly. Carriers carry fighters. If your nothing more than floating tender ship your not carrier. Pretty simple. At this point your trying to desperately shoe horn this in and it really doesn't work.
Manned fighters are grossly impractical by a huge margin and you know it. That and we already accept and use AI driven things provided they have the option for a human to step in and has been a facet of military tech and for decades. So your not making any real solid points there either.
No Immy there is nothing about your big ship chasing assorted scattered smaller ships with little or no fuel left being an efficient method of doing business. No matter how you try to justify it the time and repeated amount of burns and adjustments in both direction and thrust you would have to execute to try and recover scattered launch craft is grossly inefficient by leaps and bounds. Your launched ships are not going to stay in nice neat clean vectors and formations. Especially once combat happens. For someone trying so desperately to shoe horn carriers your failing to understand how they work at a fundamental level, the carrier doesn't chase its launched craft and for a good reason.
The point you seem to be missing by a mile Immy is that endurance is paramount. In space the distances required for anything to travel is pretty large. 8 hours of endurance won't get you very far. Low endurance is a pretty shit metric for anything operating in the black rather than around say a short distance around space station. You pretty much cripple your own idea and again miss the point of carriers and that is their ability to project power over long range. Long range which means higher levels of endurance. Your not escaping this.
You frankly don't know what your talking about when it comes to modern combat craft. They can operate for tens of hours but across scale far smaller than what you would face in space. And only certain craft have low combat endurance like the A-10 which is due to flaws in its designs. How about this try and actually look at how long those missions especially the long range strike missions take. It isn't a short time frame and they are typically carrying stand off weapons. Your going to need a lot more endurance to make a fighter matter in space. Your still not escaping a need for endurance greater than what you get from wet navy largley because your operating at far greater scales of distance by a massive degree. Low endurance is not a point in your favor.
No carrier does not fit and you pretty much gutted your own point carriers don't carry warships either. You basically describe a glorified fleet tender and shoe horn carrier onto it. Sorry but you have not made a valid point here.
Tom:
Fighters launching from fixed locations would suffer the same issues, missiles can be fired from a variety of mobile and static platforms as well. There is nothing stopping someone from slapping any variety of launchers onto mobile platforms as well as fixed locations.
No it is actually easier to run a missile base than a fighter base. You need a lot less to support the missiles than you do the fighters. Fighters need a lot more maintenance than a missile and greater support facilities operate even a single fighter manned or otherwise. Missiles you only need a launch facility.
All of those space navy assets can quite easily carry far more missiles than fighters and quite project them a lot further.
Finally you can shoot down space fighters as well your not getting any unique advantages there. The one shot missile has a distinct advantage in range. It doesn't need to reserve anything to go back and no one really cares if you blow a launched munition all that much. As long as you have the launcher you still have the asset. You lose a fighter though it doesn't matter if you still have a place for it to go the fighter is gone.
Who watches the watchmen?
I'm not sure the question about dropping fighters out of the ship was ever answered, but in the case of Babylon 5, the station lacks artificial gravity in the traditional sense, and instead simulates gravity by spinning the entire station like a centrifuge. Would that work in Real Life? Golly no, but that's sci-fi for you.
So when they drop fighters from the hangar bays, it'd be more accurate to say they're flinging them out of the station like a heavily-armed shotput.
Also, strictly speaking, "launch" only describes the action of sending the vehicle off. Even land-based aircraft are launched, at least in the US military, even if the launching is entirely under the aircraft's own power. If you wanted to gently let the fighter roll out of the door of the mothership, that would still be a launch because it is no longer parked on the ship.
Babylon 5 also has some interesting twists regarding the calculus in how useful smaller ships are. With the saturation of jump gates between hyperspace and true space, anything capable of moving under its own power can usually be expected to make interstellar voyages provided they don't lose their way between jump gates. So it's pretty common for patrols of fighters to cover a span of numerous star systems from a fixed base or ship. The jump gates also, via some technobabble, act as a means for radio communications to cover the same distance in real time.
Bigger ships have, as their main advantage, the power generation capability to create their own jump points without the use of gates, allowing them greater flexibility (plus they carry more firepower). Usually fighters will get their chronometers cleaned by a capital ship, but fighters and a capital ship will often clean the chronometers of another capital ship, as the enemy ship will have to focus their efforts against the bigger threat, leaving the fighters free to pick away at their defenses (leaving them less capable of fighting off the other capital ship). Capital ships go into combat sans fighter support at their own risk.
Actualy, that does work as long as you build along the outside wall, and is why one of the most practical space habitat shapes is a cylinder.
@ Tuffy: I am afraid your the one that doens't know what there talking about there, pull up any Air to Air engagement, and how long do they last before the airplanes involved have run out of fuel or have died? Old 666? 45 minutes.... Battle of Britain? 15 minutes. Mig 19 in Vietnam? 30 minutes. Aircraft do not have operational times measured in hours, not even close, outside of specifically designed loiter vehicles once you arrive that clock starts ticking, and it begins ticking fast.
And in space none of those things you listed except mission times matter all that much. Ammo loads? Your going to cook like a candle if you take a single hit, why bother taking 100s of rounds when your not going to have the chance to use them because either your targets are dead or your dead. operational ranges? You should be using an AI driven warship any way, give it a push and put it into hibernation it will travel any distance you need it too. Unless you mean the Delta-V alone which I will agree is a concession, but one that is as designed because the more your individual warships need the larger they grow exponentially. Missions times? That was just talked about there not very long in the first place.
Also I know about the distances involved in space Tuffy that is exactly why space combat is so damned lethal, by the time you have the capacity to move between planets with a reasonable enough speed that a space navy even becomes viable, the amount of power output your generating is absurd..... the thing is that even with these large distances you can still expect fighting to be done at close ranges in a time scale because of the powers involved, you might be talking about a distance 1000 times longer then any thing a wet navy will experience, but at the same time your talking about projectiles that travel 1000 times faster as well.... your space battleship isn't going to have the distance scaled up, and then fire the same 750m/s slug that a wet navy battleship does.
And yes manned fighters are grossly inefficient, I fucking hat the idea of maned ships in general with a passion, but as much as you say that I don't think your going to be able to sell the idea of an AI driven warship that can make its own decisions on what to kill to most people, it doesn't mater if we have already been using similar systems, look at the amount of bitching drones cause when they are just an R/C airplane, and have been used since Vietnam.
By your logic of there being no logic to carrying another vehicle that operates in the same space around with no efficiency to be gained, why bother with ships at all? Don't even bother putting them in a ship because it is just inefficient, they in the same space any way. Want to stop the missiles just fire more missiles at each-other, the missiles can intercept other missiles just fine.
edited 21st Jan '18 1:02:54 PM by Imca
Kinetic weapons in atmosphere are limited due to gravity and friction (or compression), while energy weapons are limited by diffraction and dispersion. Being faster and smaller means being harder to detect and hit. In a space setting, weapons will travel far too quickly for dodging to be a reasonable option, especially when limited to the reaction speed of a flesh and blood brain. If energy weapons are practical, then they'll travel at the speed of light, or close enough not to matter, and maneuverability will be irrelevant. Computer targeting will render evasive tactics moot at ranges of less than a light-second or so.
The smaller a target, the easier a kill it is. It's as simple as that.
edited 20th Jan '18 8:29:47 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"