Sci-fi Military Tactics and Strategy

Putting the main drive engines out on pylons like a Starfury does will create some powerful tension during extreme manuvers, such that the engines will tend to rip off? So therefore keep the drives closely in line with the main body?

It operates in atmosphere as well as space. It is both Space Fighter and Space Plane.

Logistically it'd make sense since you'd only have to have one model for both atmospheric operations and space. Just like how an F-18 can operate from either aircraft carriers or airfields.

Planes look the way they do because particular shaping is required to generate the lift needed for atmospheric flight, and to keep that flight stable. Therefore the only reason you’d need a space fighter to look like that is if they were expected to fly in atmosphere.

I’m not sure you’d want combination space and atmosphere fighters, but I’m sure there would be plenty of ships designed like that. Ground-to-orbit transports for cargo and people come to mind.

For a pure space fighter you’d probably want something like a sphere or tube. Since it doesn’t need to be aerodynamic you’d want to just make the most mechanically efficient shape possible.

With the right boosters it also means you can use planets as staging grounds for anti-orbital raids. Just pop up over the horizon, fire, and duck back down before they can counter attack.

Of course, standard anti-ship tactics apply. Try to get an entire squadron engaging at once.

The shape still matters for spacecraft just for different reasons. It determines internal volume, armor if any shaping, and also your ships center of gravity with all the accouterments. Spheres are not a bad idea given they have the rounded shape for armor and center of gravity is easier to work with provided you balance your internals right.

COADE does have something like fighters just not manned ones. They use attack drones that are considered disposable craft. They are basically a fancier version of a missile. With the right set up, they can be downright nasty but you have to have large numbers and hope the enemy doesn't use nuclear counter missiles or projectiles.

A sphere might actually be the single best shape for a space fighter.

That is one possibility. The closest you to manned fighters in COADE is small orbital patrol craft some folks have crafted. They could never operate outside of an orbital infrastructure as their potential Delta V is way too low but just fine for orbital combat or patrols.

Why do people think a sphere is the optimal shape? Yes, you've limited surface area but you've given the perpendicular to everybody that wants to take a shot at you and your optimized for insulation.

No, a dagger shape would at least give you some protection at the front and a flying wing would mean you can minimize your profile by just rolling.

Bel: No you are not ever at a perpendicular to rounded armor. Even if it looks like you are dead on your always slightly off of perpendicular. The more perfect your spherical the shape the more that holds true. The second you add in the fact it is an object in motion you will almost never be at that near point. Any angling off of dead center notably increases the severity you are off compared to firing on a flat surface and notably increases the chance of deflection. It is a very effective armor to the point you can achieve the equivalent of thicker armor with far less mass. This is space, fire can come from any possible direction or vector. Flat angles in any shape or form are not in anyway ideal.

What it isn't is the most efficient form for internal volume but is significantly more efficient in regards to surface area which is a major aspect of all armor.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Aug 12th 2018 at 11:57:01 AM

Wouldn't center of mass shots or near center of mass shots be the most dangerous? In fact, the shots that are the least dangerous for a sphere would be less dangerous in general. Moreover, this is space. You can roll on your axis of thrust to manage your angles.

Edited by Belisaurius on Aug 13th 2018 at 8:00:54 AM

Irrelevant, since most weapons fired at you would be moving too fast for any possible counter maneuver to occur in time.

Ah, but you can make such moves ahead of time. You know which angle the enemy approaches from and they likely won't have much time for precise adjustments last minute. So you angle your strongest aspect against the most likely direction of fire.

You can't cover everything, you end up covering nothing.

Let's not forget this isn't a question of realism, the original question was "why make a space fighter a plane in shape".

How close to a plane are they? Just generally reminiscent or right down to the airfoils?

Usually pretty close with wings, a cockpit, think like a fighter jet but just transposed into space.

This is where you get your vipers or your Macross.

The only reason to make a space fighter aerodynamic is if you intend it to operate in atmosphere as well. Beyond that, it's all function and aesthetics.

The old FASA game Interceptor made a point of this: a fighter design could not operate in atmosphere without antigrav or streamlining, at a cost of power or weight, respectively. Both technologies had maximum operating speeds above which a fighter would crash.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 13th 2018 at 10:26:53 AM

Maybe they took a fighter design and adapted it for space. During an emergency. Where they didnt have time for a new design.

Or maybe the "wings" are really heat radiators. Or provide an electromagnetic sheild. Or provide manuvering thrusters with more leverage. Or help keep the radioactive power plants away from the cockpit.

Needle shapes do create less of a cross-section directly forward (or to the rear). You can slope the armor much more in the forward direction that way. And putting a single engine in-line with the rest of the craft's mass makes a certain amount of sense.

It's soft sci-fi, right? You can hand wave it anyway you like.

A sphere presents sloping armor to every possible angle of attack, requiring no maneuvering. It also has both the smallest surface area for any volume, and the largest volume for any surface area, making it a highly practical shape, and is well suited to mounting omnidirectional engines and weapons.

Wouldn’t these fighters be best on worlds with no atmosphere like the moon? Especially manned ones?

Tho, I’m not sure if you’d simply keep the design of the hybrid fighters.

Bel: Your chances of trying to perfectly angle approaches zero. Missiles can attack from any possible angle, lasers literally cross the distance instantly from a human perspective, and any practical unguided projectile will at most have a flight time measured in a few short seconds. Then there is the fact that unlike two tanks on the ground facing each other the ships have a much wider and larger cone to try and guess which angle a shot will come from. You're trying a next to impossible task. To make matters worse it forces a ship trying such a maneuver to overtly adopt a predictable facing or position which is to their disadvantage. The flat surface type of sloped armor is not very practical when in such an environment. Unlike a tank, a ship can't take a simple 30-degree oblique. Before I forget a center of mass hit on pretty much anything isn't going to be good for it and on small craft like a fighter it is even worse. Center of mass tends to imply the large heavy important equipment like engines and fuel tanks tend to be either in that location or very near it.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Aug 13th 2018 at 8:21:28 AM

@archon

Classic mistake of trying to do everything and end up doing nothing. If you've got thrusters for every angle then you end up not able to focus your thrust to a single angle. Bobbing and weaving isn't going to save you. The enemy will just average out your maneuvers and hit you with saturating fire.

What you want to do is to pour on the acceleration, even linear acceleration. You want to control the distance and be able to escape saturation fire and engagement envelopes.

@tuefel

First off, you don't need a perfect angle, just anything greater than 30 degrees off perpendicular. If the edge of the ship is already 60 degrees then you've got 30 degrees of leeway.

Second, there's no stealth in space so you're going to see which way the enemy approaches from far before they actually shoot at you. If it's kinetics then they'll need to be fairly close, maybe only a couple hundred kilometers. If it's lasers then you'll have plenty of time to reorient the ship before the lasers can deal significant damage.

Third, missiles are still bound by Newtons Laws. A missile that wants to attack your side is fighting against it's inertia from the approach. Furthermore, if it's a kinetic kill missile then you've got to build up inertia from scratch.

You’re stuck in an aerospace design mindset. There’s absolutely no reason a space fighter would want its engines clustered in a single direction, that would actually be a net downside for a potential space fighter design.

A space fighter with huge monodirectional engines would be at a maneuvering disadvantage to one with omnidirectional engines. Don’t forget that It wouldn’t really be able to stop or turn around, or perform sharp maneuvers, and linear acceleration is pretty much the worst thing you could do.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 14th 2018 at 9:41:35 AM

Except it's all down to linear acceleration when you get down to it. This isn't some kind of WW 2 dogfight. You don't get an advantage for getting on your opponent's tail.

No, what you want to do is to get out of your opponent's kill box before they overwhelm your countermeasures. That's the only evasive maneuvering that matters in modern war.

And you can still turn with gyros and vectored engines so don't claim you're completely unmaneuverable.

Edited by Belisaurius on Aug 14th 2018 at 12:55:42 PM

Neither CM Gs or thrust vectoring will give you the kind of manuverability omnidirectional engines would.

Also, fleeing in a straight line is a great way to get blasted out of the sky. Pilots don’t even do that now, because most modern anti-aircraft systems can “skeet shoot” and calculate an aim point ahead of a moving aircraft. Evasive maneuvers are still a thing, even in the age of BVR combat. I’m not sure where you got only acceleration mattering in modern war from.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 14th 2018 at 10:11:14 AM

Mostly because of the SAM revolution causing a push for stealth planes. Most missiles are faster than the planes they're used against and can push more Gs. Moreover, they're usually armed with proximity fused fragmentation warheads so even a near miss is deadly. As a result, the US has developed stealth planes despite early stealth measures being unaerodynamic and radar absorbing material still being expensive.

Fact is, most planes defeat missiles with countermeasures and ECM and the only plane that evaded missiles without them was the SR-71 Blackbird.