New specs

[Coalition]

(caution, it grew long as I began parsing ideas)

I'd see 'fighters' as a form of small ship that has a lower mass fraction dedicated to endurance. Instead of having several months worth of supplies, advanced medical support, etc, they only have a couple weeks, with most of the fuel attached directly to the warp core instead of in jettisonable antimatter pods. This would give them a larger surge power, but very poor endurance. They would burn through most of their fuel in ~half an hour of combat, and need refueling afterward. They do not have any of the other features of a standard Federation ship (medical support, science capability, cargo capacity, etc). The only non-combat function a carrier with fighters would have is using the carriers command center for coordination purposes. The fighters might be used for scouting, but they would not have as much capability as a shuttle. Even the Defiant would have a longer operational endurance and more options available than a 'fighter'.

Reddit has ideas here.

They would be a very short-term combatant in a fleet action, but the power available might make the difference. You'd have heat issues from using the power, so building the ship small (for greater surface area:volume ratio) would allow dissipating proportionally more heat compared to a larger ship. You'd also have multiple smaller signatures rather than a single larger signatures, so the fighter pilots would have weaves and other maneuvers to confuse enemy targeting systems. Instead of a large solid target you'd have a blur of smaller targets.

Tactically, you would lose dozens of them every battle, but they would rarely be used in the first contact where both sides are at full strength. I'd see them being kept behind the main ship line, so as the fleets interpenetrate, the fighters would go after damaged ships while the capital ships were the main threats. A cluster of fighters would rapidly rotate to go after a single target, so all enemy ships within range would have to keep an eye on them, while also keeping shields towards the enemy capital ships. This frees up the capital ships to go after the more intact enemy ships, while damaged enemy ships are dealt with by the fighters. We have seen the Galaxy class's effectiveness towards multiple enemy targets (the Lysian sentry pods in Conundrum), so presenting the fighters first would be an example of mass suicide. This is why they would not be part of the Borg studies group, as the Borg ships require too much damage before fighters are even useful (capital ships would be the fighter scale for vs Borg).

You would also be able to take advantage of industrial style manufacturing, instead of a large shipyard needed. One thing that would make a good propaganda video would be a video of a Willow Run style factory building the small fighters (with a worker monitoring a molecular welder, looking at the camera, and saying "I'm doing my part"). To give a relative example, there were a total of just under 19,000 B-24 bombers made. The Willow Run facility made over 8,500 of them. One B-24 bomber every hour, and cut the cost to make a bomber by half.

Transportation and deployment could even be handled by freighters along with dedicated carriers. The freighters just drop them off, while a carrier would be capable of downloading advanced tactical information to the fighters, and is tough enough to take a few hits in combat while recovering and refueling the fighters. The important detail is that both the fighters and the carrier are not front-line units. They cannot operate independently, and need to be part of a fleet. This is contrary to normal Federation practice, which is why they haven't been seen before.

To explain why you'd have pilots on board instead of remote controlled drones, just handwave it as enemy hacking/jamming actions, that human initiative in a complex situation is better than automated routines, or that to prevent destruction of the mothership from leaving the drones on autopilot before another vessel takes over (and takeover is delayed due to enemy jamming).

For armament, I'd see a spinal type phaser (like the Defiant) and scaled down photon torpedoes for forward fire, and a rear-mounted strip type phaser (like the Galaxy) for dealing with enemy torps or small stuff on their tail. The photon torpedoes would be optimized for short-range engagements (no warp sustainer, no longer-range capacity) so they delivered as much damage as possible for their size. They would not have the flexibility of a proper photon torpedo, but would still do similar damage. The design would also try to include as many common parts as a regular photon torpedo to make manufacturing and maintenance easy. For defenses, I'd make it where a photon torpedo would be overkill against a fighter. If the enemy uses a photon, they are effectively overkilling, and wasting their firepower. Long-range photon fire might still be used to whittle down fighter numbers, but the same long range means the fighters can use their forward phasers to damage the photons enough to avoid being killed. At closer range the enemy ship will be using phasers to kill fighters instead, but the capital ships should be distracting the intact enemy ships. Fighters are there to engage weakened shields and damaged enemy vessels, not intact ships. They are a distraction, not a main weapon.

[Graham Kennedy]

I'd certainly go with the idea of Peregrines as Federation fighters, but I think it's unlikely that they are Starfleet ships. More likely they're akin to the local defence craft, something a system or starbase might have on hand for self defence.

[McAvoy]

They are probably used where a shuttle or even a runabout isn't enough and a starship is too much.

[Graham Kennedy]

To judge from DS9, they're about comparable to a Runabout in power. Sort of "super shuttle" territory, but no more.

[Coalition]

They are probably used where a shuttle or even a runabout isn't enough and a starship is too much.

Maybe the Peregrine is a smaller version of a Defiant? Sensibly designed, from before the Borg program, but having the same short range so they have to be based from a planet or Starbase. The problem is the slow warp speed (top = 5.1), meaning that if you want to go from Earth to Alpha Centauri (4 ly away), it will take a Peregrine a week to arrive. A fast freighter traveling at warp 8 will take less than 2 days.

They don't qualify as ships for whatever reason (probably their slow speed/low endurance), but they have FTL capability, some defense/offense, scanners, and basic medical systems. Anything else would be put in the Peregrine's cargo bay (what little cargo bay there is). It is a better version of the ship from "The Cold Equations", but not by much. I'd see them used as in-system vessels only and delivered to another star system by transport, either carried internally or limpet-style on the outer hull.

The problem is the only use I can see for them is a stronger gun platform. Everything else can be done better by a shuttle or Runabout. Their description here says thy are a 1-2 person craft, and the space for the second person is swapped for cargo when available. As noted there, the Raider is an identical looking but much larger vessel (almost 100 times the mass).

The fun part is their relative sizes. Using real world tonnages, a Nimitz supercarrier is ~100,000 tons. An F-18 fighter (fully loaded) is ~30 tons. So the rough ratio of fighter to capital ship is .03% the capital ship's mass. A Galaxy class masses roughly 5 million tons, so a Federation 'fighter' should be roughly 1500 tons (both are ~50 times more massive than their RL counterparts). The Raider (~2600 tons) would be the right size for a heavy Federation fighter, while the Peregrine would be along the lines of an interceptor to deal with enemy fighters, or ground support for Federation troops.

[IanKennedy]

But he called him that as a result of him flying the Defiant around. So it could be equally taken to mean that their fighter pilots do not in fact pilot fighters, but pilot small Starships.

Bashir says that, and then continues the toast, extolling his exploits piloting the Defiant; the two statements seemed separate to me. Like the guy had been promoted up from piloting fighters.

At this point, with all the evidence, you'd have to bend over pretty far to fit the idea that either the Peregrine isn't a fighter, or that they aren't Starfleet fighters.

Sacrifice of Angels - Sisko orders fighters to attack the Cardassians. We then see fighters attack the Cardassians.

Field of Fire - Bashir states that Starfleet Academy trains fighter pilots.

The simplest, most plausible theory is that Starfleet operates fighters.

But nothing to say if those fighters where atmospheric only. After all there's a long history of fighter pilots moving into space.

[Tsukiyumi]

Sure, but the only fighters we've seen on screen are the Peregrines. Nothing says they don't have atmospheric fighters, but there's no evidence at all of that.

[Captain Seafort]

Sure, but the only fighters we've seen on screen are the Peregrines.

There are also the Academy fighters from First Duty, which may indicate that the "finest fighter pilots in the galaxy" comment might refer to the UFP's version of the Red Arrows.

[Coalition]

Sure, but the only fighters we've seen on screen are the Peregrines.

There are also the Academy fighters from First Duty, which may indicate that the "finest fighter pilots in the galaxy" comment might refer to the UFP's version of the Red Arrows.

Here is a picture of them. They look like one-person craft.

[McAvoy]

Hard to tell without a size reference

[Graham Kennedy]

Scaled to the cockpit, it's not very big