Trek Warp Fighter

[Graham Kennedy]

I did this a long time ago, wasn't even sure I hadn't already posted it and forgotten, but a forum search says no, so...

The concept was for a fighter capable of warp and impulse. Fast and agile as hell. Massive warp nacelles and impulse engines in proportion to the overall size, to justify a small craft being capable of high warp speeds. The tradeoff, I figure, is that this would be very low endurance. In that way it's probably most comparable to the English Electric Lightning, which when built was one of the fastest aircraft in the world (reportedly, the only fighter that was ever able to perform intercepts on Concorde, with the likes of the F-15 never managed). One of the downsides was that it was extremely short legged, reportedly running out of fuel within 35 minutes on a supersonic intercept.

So I figure this thing could probably reach Warp 8 or even a little more. But at Warp 8 it probably runs out of fuel in 35 minutes or so. (If we accept the TOS scale, that gives it a range of a little under 300 light hours). Naturally, at lower speeds it would have much longer endurance.

Armament is light, with twin Type 4 phaser cannon. That's not going to do much to a TOS era Starship, of course, unless you have ten or twelve of these launching coordinated attacks. I would think you could swap out the cannon for some sort of small photon torpedo. We know the TOS Federation can make a photon warhead that fits in the palm of your hand, and is a blast equal to a very small tactical nuke. A warhead ten times the size should be easily achievable, and a swarm of fighters with those would be a reasonable threat to a Starship, I'd think.

But I can't see fighters being the kind of dominant force in Trek that they are in the current world. Not fast enough, not powerful enough, not long legged enough.

The weird hatch on top is a result of the idea that these craft would be carried externally, clinging to the outside of their carrier ship like limpets. Hence the hatch is designed to clamp on to a tube sticking out of the ship, so you can crawl up and out. The downside of the design as it stands is that it means you have to have an empty void behind the pilot's chair, so he has space to crawl back and up. I thought about putting the hatch directly over the pilot, but it just didn't look right.

[Mikey]

As always I appreciate the thoughtfulness behind your designs, and this one sure looks kind of cool for the era. It is, IMHO however, a solution in a desperate and fruitless search for a problem. We had already discussed ad nauseum the viability of fighters in TNG+ era 'Trek, inconclusively as far as I remember, and that was with the concurrent miniaturization of warp equipment and weaponry; I'd be hard-pressed to even envisage shields more than a navigational deflector on this craft... and considering the fact that shipboard phasers required control rooms larger than this entire craft in TOS-era 'Trek, I honestly can't put much faith in what these phasers could achieve. It could, as you mentioned, carry a shipborne equivalent of the photon grenade launcher from TOS: "Arena," but even so I think these thing might be finished before it starts.

I do kinda like it, though, just from an aesthetic/fitting-the-era perspective.

[Graham Kennedy]

That's all perfectly true if you're thinking of going up against a Constitution or D-7 (though as I said, you might still give those a hard time if you could swarm them), but being useless against a capital ship doesn't mean you're useless overall, yes? How many ships are there in the Navies of the world which wouldn't stand a hope in hell against a heavy cruiser, or even a modern Destroyer? Even if you move to aircraft, there are plenty that would be all but useless. Nobody argues that the Tucano is useless because it couldn't hope to survive an attack on a Ticonderoga-class cruiser - it's not meant to. But if you want to shoot up a boat sailing down a river, it's perfect.

It's an outgrowth of the Border Patrol ship I did - it got me thinking that the Enterprise is the ultimate warship of her time... but there is probably hardware around that was never intended to be in the middle of major capital ship battles in the first place, and on top of that is two or three generations behind the cutting edge. Imagine if in the 2220s Starfleet had the equivalent of a Sea Control Ship, intended to carry a dozen or so fighters. It's job to serve in low intensity conflicts, hunting merchant shipping or the equivalent of Offshore Patrol Vessels, gunboats, etc. Never intended to go up against the destroyers or heavy cruisers of the day.

Then fast forward to the 2260s, and these ships are now 40 years old, relegated to some underfunded and badly maintained Starbase in the ass end of space. Maybe even showing up in non-Starfleet hands, like the 40 year old carriers some Navies buy from the Americans or British.

This kind of "making do with relics in the ass end of space" idea is appealing to me, lately. I find it a pleasant change of pace from the "three mile long ultimate force of destruction" battleships in my Coalition universe.

[Mikey]

Well, I'm certainly willing to be educated, but I don't see it on my own. They can't function as the equivalent of RL small boat naval assetts; PT boats and the like had weapons which made them useful in picketing against larger vessels, sub-hunting, etc. Modern littoral craft, RHIB's, etc., have the ability to (and some would say primary purpose of) moving personnel. Could they function as cutters, in a LE/interdiction role? I'd suppose so, although such roles generally involve being able to transport boarding parties/customs personnel/etc.

[Mikey]

As an addendum: So, TOS: "Operation - Annihilate!" was on this evening, and among other technical points I hadn't remembered there was a distinct and explicit mention near the beginning of a craft (the one that the Big-E picked up on sensors traveling toward the system's sun) being a single-person craft of Denevan design. This means that there was definitely a use for, or at least existence of, single-person craft that were more common than one-offs and capable of fairly quickly travelling at least about one-quarter of the way across a solar system. It also strongly implies that there was shipping of a type that was operated by UFP citizens or nations or by the colonial descendants of such; but almost certainly not Starfleet and not under the aegis of a Federation agency or oversight.

This, of course, is probably not of itself enough to justify the creation of an entirely new class, but it is something, so I apologize. I still think for this type of role, the extra two nacelles might be overkill, but it definitely gives it a certain look.

EDIT: also, really? Perhaps the smallest ship you've ever designed, and you call it "Ark Royal?"

[Graham Kennedy]

That's not the name of the fighter, that's the name of the carrier it's from. Much like the shuttles from the Enterprise have "USS Enterprise" all over them.

[Mikey]

K

[Graham Kennedy]

So here's the Ark Royal itself, which I've thrown together over the last half day or so.















I really love how this one turned out, considering that at first I only really threw it together as a demonstration of the "fighters mounted on the saucer" concept. The proportions have turned out really nicely, and as I went on I just kept adding little details and it just looked better and better.

In fact, I think it would look pretty cool without the fighters, with a standard saucer as a Starship from a generation or two behind the Connie. I will run up a test of that and see.

[Mikey]

I'm looking back at those fighters, and wondering: assuming that TOS-era UFP tech could produce a warp core small enough to sit in that little space ahead of the impulse engines, that looks as if it would preclude a transporter, as there was no transporter tech that small. So, with these things it's basically come back with your shield, or on it?

[Graham Kennedy]

I certainly wouldn't imagine there being any kind of transporter inside one of those. There wasn't one in the shuttles Enterprise carried, and those had much more internal space.

[IanKennedy]

Hmm... TNG has a type 7 shuttle with an 'emergency transporter' capability.

[Mikey]

Hmm... TNG has a type 7 shuttle with an 'emergency transporter' capability.

And... ?

[Graham Kennedy]

Hmm... TNG has a type 7 shuttle with an 'emergency transporter' capability.

But in TOS? Very unlikely.

[IanKennedy]

I was thinking about the first instance of there being a transporter on a small ship. Generally agreeing that it wouldn't happen in TOS.

[McAvoy]

Just an observation. Your carrier is about the same size as a Connie. There isn't really I would think an issue that would prevent the ship from being as well armed as the Connie herself. In fact the space taken up by the fighter cutouts and I would assume above it, you could say prevents this ship from being an Explorer like a Connie could be.