Federation Fighter ideas
Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 12:00 am
(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.
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.