Question about the Lakota

[Teaos]

I could see fighters being usful in colony defence. They can't justifie a big star ship so they have a few fighters.

Then in big fleet actions 3 or 4 fighters get assigned to the high price capital ships like the Galaxy to draw fire and piss the enemy off. Rather lose one or two fighters rather than a Galaxy.

[DBS]

I too agree that "fighters" are not very useful in Trek battles .... BUT: like you said, there are situations in which it makes sense to have them. So the result is that we see a few every now and then. If they really worked, we'd see thousands of them and tons of carriers. We see a few dozen, and MAYBE one or two ships that could be carriers.

Anyway, back to the Defiant. I like to think of her as a gunship rather than a fighter. The idea being to pack the required firepower into the smallest package. But yeah. Basically a fast and maneuverable escort for more powerful ships. In general, I think that she gets most of her combat usefulness from her agility, and not from sheer firepower and sturdiness (though they do help )

Now for the Lakota. My theory is that the design actually did work as planned, and was in fact a substantial improvement. But before the rest of the class could be refitted (assuming a leisurely schedule), the war breaks out and every ship is needed. It didn't get done before the war because the Federation was too busy building newer ships (maybe which ton for ton were still better, even), and then when the war broke out every ship was needed on the lines, ready or not. I bet more than a few were made, but not enough for us to ever SEE. By the time the Federation would get around to building many of them, there were more cost effective platforms that did the same thing.

[Teaos]

I could see it being a test ship. Starfleet upgraded that ship to see if it were viable. It proved to be a good ship but maybe it proved to be just as easy to build a whole new ship.

[Devore Sergez]

alrigt. the defiant is an extremely experimental ship and has such problems as the phaser coils overheating. with the defiant being so small with one good hit you could disable half of the systems, eventhough she is well armed she has less power to use. and there for not good for proloned battles.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I don't buy the "it was a prototype" argument. We have seen a few other Defiant-class starships around, and except for the stupidity of some cadets, all of them were running at peak performance.

And, it has been a prototype for about 2 years about that time. Maybe even more. I think it's time Starfleet started to build appropriate-sized replicators to create them.

[Teaos]

If you mean replicators that can make a defiant sized ship or large chucks of it I'm pretty sure thats impossible. The defiant is fine if they power it down a bit.

[Mikey]

Look at it this way - a modern naval D-E packs close to the same firepower as a true capital ship, but doesn't have to be as efficient, sturdy, long-lived, etc. While both types may pack the same punch, it doesn't mean that they were made to fill the same role.

[Captain Seafort]

Look at it this way - a modern naval D-E packs close to the same firepower as a true capital ship, but doesn't have to be as efficient, sturdy, long-lived, etc. While both types may pack the same punch, it doesn't mean that they were made to fill the same role.

Does it though? When you say capital ship I assume you mean late-era battleships - I can't see an escort being able mach the anti-ship capability of an Oscar-class SSGN or a Kirov-class battlecruiser. Even if the individual weapons are as powerful, the sheer number of weapons a modern capital ship can mount is far superior to the capacity of an escort.

[I Am Spartacus]

1) Requirement - destroy enemy sensors, communications, weapons and the like.

Sure, in the low-intensity warfare role. In situations where you can't justify assigning a battleship, a smaller fighter would be useful. But in fleet combat, a fighter would be useless.

2) Long range fire is too inaccurate due to ECM, so a veehicle must get in close to the enemy.

That doesn't change the fact that fighter attacks would be suicidal; see below. The only way to survive is to heavily armour and shield a larger vessel that can withstand multiple direct hits, since those would be the only kind of hits being scored.

3) Must be manoueverable enough to avoid being hit as weapons are significantly more damaging at short range.

Manoueverability in space is pointless. There's no air resistance or gravity to slow weapons down, so they just keep on going outwards until they smack into something, or enter into a gravity well and orbit around it. Velocity is also permanent, and with modern aiming technology at close range with high velocity projectiles traveling in straight lines, free of air resistance, how could the defenders possibly miss? Any fighter attack against a seriously defended target would be a kamikaze attack with a 100% loss rate.

4) ECM prevents an RPV from doing the job, so it must be controlled from within.

How on Earth do you jam a remotely piloted vehicle?

5) AI is out due to either a) not advanced enough, or b) not trusted.

If you can design software that can become human, have fellow software as family, or work in mines, there's absolutely no reason to suggest you can't build a drone craft. The very contention that Trek AI would be not advanced enough when we can give Data emotions is patently absurd.

[Captain Seafort]

*snip rebuttal of fighter argument*

I'm not questioning that fighters in space are a stupid idea - my list was approched more from the angle of a "We've got fighters, here's a list of excuses for them"

A few points however:

1) Manoeuverability is not irrelevant in space - it's just not measured in the same way, in terms of acceleration.

2) Jamming RPVs is no different from jamming communications.

[I Am Spartacus]

Yes it is, because even in space you are limited in terms of speed. Try to manouevre in combat at anything higher than 700 or 800 km/h, and you'd kill everyone on board due to excessive g-forces. At those speeds, defending gunners would never miss a single shot. So no, manouevrability in space is not relevant in the slightest.

Attack in a straight line at high speed and you've effectively solved this problem, but there's no way the defending gunners would be able to miss, no matter how fast you're travelling.

And could you cite a real world example of a remotely piloted vehicle being successfully jammed? I find it very difficult to believe that the control of such a vehicle operates on the same principle as a crystal radio, or even a radar set.

[Captain Seafort]

Yes it is, because even in space you are limited in terms of speed. Try to manouevre in combat at anything higher than 700 or 800 km/h, and you'd kill everyone on board due to excessive g-forces. At those speeds, defending gunners would never miss a single shot. So no, manouevrability in space is not relevant in the slightest.

Intertial Dampers? This is science fiction we're talking about, with an emphasis on the fiction. I specifically said that I'm not questioning the stupidity of space fighters from a physics standpoint, I'm inventing excuses that make them reasonable from an IU perspective.

And could you cite a real world example of a remotely piloted vehicle being successfully jammed? I find it very difficult to believe that the control of such a vehicle operates on the same principle as a crystal radio, or even a radar set.

The mechanics of the equipment are irrelevant - if something requires communications to operate, it can be jammed, as this article discusses.

[I Am Spartacus]

Intertial Dampers? This is science fiction we're talking about, with an emphasis on the fiction. I specifically said that I'm not questioning the stupidity of space fighters from a physics standpoint, I'm inventing excuses that make them reasonable from an IU perspective.

Yet, in Sacrifice of Angels we see federation fighters flying at speeds no higher than this; I don't have precise figures available, but take a stopwatch and time how long it takes them to fire on a Galor class destroyer and clear it, several seconds at least. This means they have to be travelling at such low speeds to make such a run suicidal.

If they really are capable of travelling that fast, they would be next to useless in combat anyways. You'd blow past an enemy ship in mere nanoseconds, too fast for even the most advanced weapons control systems to lock on and open fire.

And yes, sci-fi writers do have an artistic license to violate the laws of physics when necessary. But an artistic license is not a blunt instrument, it's a scalpel to be wielded only when absolutely necessary. If you quantify every technical problem in any sci-fi movie or TV show ever made with "I'm not questioning it from a physics standpoint," then there's never anything to discuss about anything.

Furthermore, you have to give us, the viewer, a reason to suspend disbelief when you're violating the laws of physics, particularly when it's so blatant. Trek often fails to give us such a reason, when the quality of episodes varies so greatly.

At some point, science fiction has to involve some science.

The mechanics of the equipment are irrelevant - if something requires communications to operate, it can be jammed, as this article discusses.

Not really. Can you jam my wireless keyboard?

[Captain Seafort]

Yet, in Sacrifice of Angels we see federation fighters flying at speeds no higher than this; I don't have precise figures available, but take a stopwatch and time how long it takes them to fire on a Galor class destroyer and clear it, several seconds at least. This means they have to be travelling at such low speeds to make such a run suicidal.

But they still proved effective. This implies that Trek ECM is effective enough that the Cardies can't hit them at that range.

Not really. Can you jam my wireless keyboard?

Given a powerful enough transmitter on the right frequency, yes.

[Mikey]

I think one of the major problems with fighters is that they wouldn't be able to power weapons really capable of useful damage against a front-line ship. I think the true place, if any, for these craft would be in support of ground troops, and possibly policing duties.