Why Didn't Starfleet Command Use Starfighters? | Star Trek

[@TemplinInstitute]

Anyone who replied "but they DID use fighters!! 😡😡😡" before watching the video is sentenced to follow us on Twitter for life. Please arrive for your punishment here: twitter.com/TemplinEdu

[@napsterxxl]

Hey Templin. Have you guys ever looked into Honor Harrington universum created by David Weber? It's really interesting how the space combat evolves over the course of the series, starting with almost 18th century style ship of the line engagements to emergence of fighters, and then on to strategies to counter those.

[@TemplinInstitute]

@@napsterxxl There's no way to know. No possible way to search for what videos we've already made. Your best bet would be to keep replying to unrelated comments we've posted about our Twitter.

[@magical_catgirl]

They DIDN'T use fighters. They used modified shuttles and training ships. ;)

[@warmachine5835]

@@TemplinInstitute well this made me spit my coffee.

[@ditzydoo4378]

Thank you, I too would say space based fighters are only useful when neither side has zero time of flight weapons like Phasers / Lasers.

[@fightingfalcon777]

Another point to consider is that some ships we see in Star Trek have maneuverability/agility akin to that of starfighters in other franchises. Smaller attack ships like Starfleet’s Defiant and Saber-class, the Jem’Hadar Attack Ship, or B’Rel-class Klingon Bird-of-Prey in a lot of ways have almost supplanted the role of a fighter in some ways, still being large enough to be capital ships, but having mobility comparable to that of a starfighter

[@igncom1]

Perhaps inertial dampeners work better with smaller spacecraft, then larger? Or some sudo science like that!

[@USSAnimeNCC-]

Now imagine if they rid of anything that aren't useful in combats like labs and carry more photons torpedoes and and phaser because not free up space yeah they did made purpose build warships but I mean something like we see with real warships as in they'll add a weapon if they can imagine the enterprises-e with phaser and photon launcher in more places than just the neck and a black line in the saucer section

[@marcosbravo9645]

Indeed, they behave almost like fighters. Take a bird of prey with only forward facing cannons to Star Wars, for example. Although it would fair well against capital ships, assuming its frame isn't large enough to negate turbo laser inaccuracy, it would likely be overwhelmed with fighters that aren't penalized for staying on its tail indefinitely.

[@salenstormwing]

Ships like the Defiant and Saber-classes are more akin to real-world Destroyers, where they are small, nimble ships who can easily sink a larger ship but tend to act as the front-line of any naval fleet action. You have the smaller ships acting a front line while the larger, less maneuverable ships use their firepower to punch holes in the enemy line. You want the Defiants and Sabers up front, because they can take out smaller ships similar to their own, and punish the enemy fleet who lets such heavily armed, smaller ships in closer ranges. Plus, smaller ships being lost is better than losing the same number of larger ships. So that's why I'm okay with Mirandas filling in some of those spots in the fleet, because it's better to have a ship you can sacrifice be destroyed than one you can't, because even a Miranda can still pack a punch, despite being inferior to a newer Saber-class. Torpedoes can do big damage. Honestly, with as big of the naval fleets in Trek are, you'd think fighters armed with torpedoes and using stealth technology (such as cloak or the like) would be a possible option for naval space warfare... but I guess you can't make cloaked fighters easily.

[@terran6686]

@@USSAnimeNCC- May not be so beneficial. Probably would be better to increase the firing rate of the existing weapons than add on new ones.

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

Because they're main weapons have perfect tracking. Starfighters then become more akin to sloops during the age of sails. Cheaper and apt for backwater deployment. But completely incapable of threatening the battle line even in great numbers.

[@mattstorm360]

When you are dealing with a massive force like the borg you need a big ship. When dealing with pirates you need a small ship. The Empire from Star Wars had that problem. They star destroyers can't handle small fighters well.

[@angelofbliss]

@@mattstorm360 rebels resorted to fighters out of necessity / desperation, anything heavier would get destroyed. Y-wing had to be made durable/shielded. xwings had to have reactor for shielding. But even like that, it doesn't make sense that a ship would not have "anti-air" in some form, even if its just guys shooting thru a one way shield. a random imo.

[@everythingsgonnabealright8888]

@@angelofbliss that guy shooting through the shield won’t be able to track the fighters, not to mention hit them. Star destroyers had AA, it just was much more harder to hit fighters in open space then in the atmosphere.

[@QarthCEO]

Perfect tracking my ass, phasers miss all the time on screen. And we see fighters in Trek using torpedo launchers. So in a manpower shortage during a war of survival, it makes perfect sense to use 100 men to field 50 fighters with hundreds of torpedoes.

[@leightoncressman6188]

Wrong there targeting is not perfect at all they have missed targets plenty of times and let’s not forget about ECM that would prevent accurate targeting.

[@zenkomenhi]

It's also worth noting that there is an episode where an alien race sends small drones to attack the Enterprise, and the Enterprise vaporizes them in a matter of seconds with pinpoint-accurate phaser fire.

[@FallenEpic]

Alien Race: >:( Enterprise Crew: :)

[@ronin3381]

3:04 Indeed.

[@rommdan2716]

What episode?

[@ronin3381]

@@rommdan2716 The one where the Enterprise crew lose their memory. I believe the name of that episode is ‘Conundrum’.

[@chrisjohnson1146]

I think the only time we actually see fighter sized craft win a battle against a larger Federation starship is Krall's massive swarm against the Kelvin Timeline USS Enterprise in Star Trek Beyond. The phasers, even if they were more rapid firing bolts with accuracy, could not put a dent in the swarm because there were just WAY TOO MANY. Even with the advantage the Kelvin Phasers had of actually being able to emulate a flak field and just saturation firing in a direction, sheer numbers overwhelmed the Enterprise, dismembering her in every way possible.

[@drksideofthewal]

The lack of fighters in (most) of Trek makes battles more defined, in my opinion. When it's nothing but capital ships, each and every ship seems more significant.

[@igncom1]

I do respect the idea that with fewer ships on screen, each with a name I can remember, that I will be more invested in their battle then 1000 copy pasted no name ships.

[@darwinxavier3516]

@@igncom1 Even when there's 1000s of ships, you can still make the battle feel more personal by focusing on several specific ships/groups of ships at a time and seeing their perspective. Babylon 5 did a really good job of this in it's gigantic fleet battles. The Orville also managed to convey real stakes when they had 300 Union ships defending against their version of Wolf 359. Especially by naming at least 3 of the ships that were lost while still fighting. Or like how DS9 name the 2 Mirandas that were destroyed while escorting the Defiant. Its not hard at all, people have just gotten lazy.

[@igncom1]

@@darwinxavier3516 yeah I know what you mean. In the Legend of the Galactic Heroes series, you'd know various fleets, admirals, their flagships and the occasional other ship of particular note.

[@dylanwight5764]

The abundance of fighters in (most ) BSG 2004 makes the battles more defined, in my opinion. When it's little more than fighters, each and every ship seems more significant. Coming at this from a different angle, the fewer ships you have, the more you feel each loss. When Pegasus is sacrificed to save Galactica, the audience can immediately understand how great that loss really is because that's more than half of humanity's core firepower gone in an instant. And this is only possible because of starfighters. Each loss betrays the loss of life of a pilot whose name you probably knew and who you've come to expect to see fly alongside your other heroes. Moreover, fighters have the apparent tactical function of being either attack or defence craft. They can either perform deep strike missions against enemy vessels, or they can act as a forward anti-ordinance screen supported by flak behind them and CIWS closer again to their mothership. Only in Star Trek does it make sense _not_ to have fighters since the existence of apparently limitless range and power phasers makes the need for a layered defense like that immaterial.

[@petermgruhn]

Not "the battle more defined" but "Kirk more important" ;-)

[@mr.incorporeal7642]

I've always felt that Star Trek actually has the right idea on fighters (even if a lot of other aspects of ST combat is silly), they really wouldn't be effective in space. Most sci-fi treats space battles as just bigger versions of real-world dogfights with fighters zipping and banking around each other and weapons fired every which way. But everything we know about how space operates suggests that once we get to that point ships aren't going to be fighting from thousands of feet apart, they're more going to be fighting from thousands of miles apart (if not more). Obviously it's less visually exciting, but space ship combat would likely be most effective at distances where combatants can't even see each other except for heat signatures on long-range sensors. Because weapons wouldn't work like they do on Earth, where you can have a dogfight over the ocean and have everything just fall into the water below. If you fire a weapon in space that munition is going to keep going without slowing until it hits something. If you don't hit your target, you could just as easily hit something belonging to your side... ten years after you fired the weapon. Anyone would be completely insane to mount high-volume ballistic projectile weapons on their space ships. And if you blow an enemy ship to bits? Hooboy, you've just set off a shrapnel bomb with potentially infinite range. You don't want to be anywhere near that. Then there's the matter of heat. Space is extremely cold sure, but a vacuum conducts heat extremely poorly, meaning almost all of the heat your ship generates is staying with you. It would also make your ship light up like a billboard to any enemy sensors. So most likely a huge amount of a ship's systems would be dedicated to managing and reducing heat as much as possible (which you probably wouldn't be able to fit into a little fighter-jet sized thing). Most likely, real ship-to-ship combat will be fought at extreme distances, with large ships (large enough to be completely self-sustaining on long space flights), with extremely accurate weapons, and with combat not ending when someone blows up but rather when one ship or the other gets hot enough to stop functioning or cook the crew inside (if they don't surrender in order to avoid that). Hell, I could see most ship weapons being more dedicated to generating as much heat as possible once they hit a target rather than doing physical damage. Like AI drones that latch onto an enemy ship and set off some sort of superheated chemical reaction inside themselves rather than exploding or piercing the enemy hull. Sorry, that turned into a big ol' tangent, lol.

[@darthhodges]

You would love the battles in The Expanse, most of them are almost exactly what you described.

[@Zernium]

Have you ever played Mass Effect, or at least read parts of the in-game "codex"? A lot of what you're talking about is directly addressed in Mass Effect lore, though they still use fighters. I don't know how "realistic" it is that the series acknowledges that most battles take place between ships hundreds or thousands of miles apart and they still use fighters, but it does at least specify that fighters are only used in the closest range fights in specific situations. It also talks about the danger of weapons missing and hitting unintended targets due to the effectively infinite range, as well as the fact that ships using weapons (and most other systems) causes them to heat up, making them more visible to sensors and requiring the heat to be vented somehow. The ship that your protagonist commands is actually a unique, newly developed design that "cloaks" itself using technology that can store extra heat without venting it for longer, making it effectively invisible in most fights, but still visible if the opponent is right on top of it. Granted, a lot of this is not actually manifested much or at all in the actual game, it's just written about in the in-game encyclopedia, but that's arguably justified by the fact that your own ship is meant to be a reconnaissance ship meant for espionage and for transporting a small crew of ground combat personnel, so it doesn't get into a lot of fights, and the ones it does get into are highly unusual due to the unique features of the ship. But someone at Bioware at least really, really thought about how space battles might actually work, and not just be a carbon copy of air or naval combat.

[@absalomdraconis]

Anything that actually _reaches_ the enemy ship in such a situation is either reaching a heavily disrupted ship and thus might not need to do anything, or is going so fast that it'll punch right through no matter what it does. Similarly, shrapnel fields will almost never be a point of concern, as space is so large that they'll be listed on navigational charts in a way similar to reefs and shoals instead of being a major danger. The only time you really have to worry about them is if either they form in an orbit of importance (e.g. "salting low Earth orbit"), or the immediate path of the debris intersects the path of something of yours that can't safely avoid the debris (zombie ramming). As for small craft, when lasers are your primary space weapon, small craft naturally fall into the roles of "laser relays" (because more maneuverable vehicles can get closer to the target before being vulnerable to guaranteed hits, thus allowing them to redirect allied lasers with newer sensor data), and "relay killers" (aka fighters).

[@Llortnerof]

@@Zernium It's also clearly explained that being a fighter pilot is pretty much a death sentence and humans are considered somewhat insane for using them. They can't do anything until the enemy point defense overheats. And eezo does eliminate one of the major issues with fighters, allowing them to accelerate much faster than would otherwise be possible.

[@chrisstarring2991]

But you've forgotten one thing: electronic warfare warfare. Put a 100 small agile slender fast targets out there to disrupt enemy comma and wep systems , and you'll have increased your chances for victory manyfold. Look at today's navies, and the USN is paramount. Why? Because of its carriers. One fighter can carry enough destruction in one missile that can cripple a ship. Add more, and the devastation increases. The main argument is their price tag. Now if the UFP had gone all in on the Dominion War long enough, at the cost of its social projects, we would have seen them build carriers. The odds are better with more than one ship attacking the enemy And last but not least, Star Trek was always more fantasy than hard science like The Expanse. But I love both shows. Hopefully we'll see the last books of The Expanse as full blown movies I'm their own right. I just can't wait to see what protomolecule Amos can do!

[@liljenborg2517]

You're actually spot on. In Star Trek, starships have massive anti-matter reactors that power phasers (or other various beam weapons) that can blow holes through starship armor and they power shields capable of deflecting phasers that powerful. They have impulse drives that might not have the acceleration of a fighter, but they can still match a fighter's speed and (at warp) even exceed the fighter's speed. Those reactors also power ten-story tall supercomputers wrapped in a low level warp field so they're actually process information at FTL speeds. And they're processing targeting data from sensors that can pick out life forms on the surface of a planet from orbit to aim those light speed phasers. Fighter simply don't have the power capacity to power shields that can take phaser fire from a starship or fire phasers that could penetrate a starship's shields. And, unlike modern fighters that can launch ship-killer missiles from three times the range of a ship's anti-aircraft weapons, fighters in Star Trek actually have LESS range than a starship because their phasers aren't as powerful, so they HAVE to close inside the ship's weapons envelope to attack. That's why, in Star Trek, the smallest practical sort of warship is something the size of the Defiant or a Klingon Warbird that can mount a full sized warp core (or, in the case of a Klingon ship, two). Runabout class starships can only survive combat because they have that impenetrable defense known as Plot Armor (tm). And we actually see ships like the Defiant flying in formation with fighters, so they have all the maneuverability of a fighter (the fighter's ONLY advantage) but they have shields and cannons that can actually let them survive in combat with full size ships and damage their targets. Fighters dominate naval combat because, today, fighters can use three dimensions, while naval ships can only use two. Fighters fly as supersonic speeds while the fastest capital ships can pull maybe 60 knots (so they're 10 to 20 TIMES faster). Fighters can launch ship-killer missiles from 100 miles out while naval anti-air missiles only range about 30 miles. That's why the only defense against fighters are other fighters. But fighters in Star Trek have NONE of those advantages. A swarm of something like TIE Fighters in a Star Trek universe would be like World War 2 era propeller driven planes with weapons that can only be fired from a couple hundred yards away flying against modern destroyers equipped with Phalanx point defense turrets that could easily hit planes that big and slow 2-3 miles out.

[@dparky1627]

That's also likely why in the Honor Harrington universe of books the smallest warships are the Light Attack Craft, which are usually manned by around ten personnel. They still mass something like 20,000 tons and are usually capable of acceleration up to 636 gravities. The craft are that big because in that universe the limitations of their power systems, impeller drives, weapons loadout, and other factors simply can't be fitted into a one-man craft. Ships that small wouldn't be able to accelerate like bigger ships nor would they have the space to fit the inertial compensators necessary for accelerations upwards of several hundred gravities. Even courier boats or dispatch boats were upwards of 40,000 tons and had crews of around 10 and could max out their acceleration at 800 or so gravities. Again, I cannot see a one-man craft being able to do this. In a lot of ways, as the original poster implied, the reasons why a fighter craft cannot exist in some universes is because of that universe's technological level. Either the level is too low or so high that it makes something like a one-man fighter craft impractical or less than meaningless.

[@liljenborg2517]

@@dparky1627 And the LACs also have to mount powerful stealth and ECM systems, because in the Honorverse, where the energy weapons have realistic effective ranges of 400,000 kilometers (the moon is 385,000 km away - but in a novel, you don't have to try and fit both fleets visually on a TV screen), a capital ship could otherwise easily kill a whole squadron of LACs before they got into the effective range of those ship-killer grasers they mount. David Weber (the author of Honor Harrington) and Steve White helped design the Starfire game system and they introduced fighters in Starfire 2. (Yeah, I'm old, I was in college when On Basilisk Station came out). And even in a system designed for fighters, a well designed fleet could eat fighters for breakfast. You had to have massive swarms of the things (and carriers to launch them) and protect them by swamping the enemy fleet with missile fire from your capital ships to tie down their point defense systems for the fighters to last long enough to really do much damage. They also had to make sure starships had built in blind spots for the fighters to exploit.

[@dparky1627]

@@liljenborg2517, it also amuses me that Star Trek and Star Wars routinely depicts warships firing energy weapons at almost rifle ranges (300 meters or less). I might be exaggerating a little, but not by much. I think I remember a DS9 episode where the Defiant was firing at 50 meters. Why in the hell would you get that close? Even in the episode “Sacrifice of Angels” the two fleets were flying close enough that collision alarms should’ve been screaming. I get that what we read in books such as Honor Harrington or the Lost Fleet wouldn’t make for good television or movies, with engagement ranges at hundreds of thousands or millions of kilometres, with engagement times measured in less than a second. In fact, Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet routinely points out that when fleets are moving to engagement range the speed at which they’re moving makes it so that only computer controlled weapons could aim and fire in the milliseconds they’re in range.

[@dparky1627]

@@liljenborg2517, for movies like Star Wars or shows like Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica it must mean that ships are moving significantly slower than we think or they have inertial compensation technology that is far more efficient or just plain falls under the category of “hacks.”

[@liljenborg2517]

@@dparky1627 There are ways to do this sort of thing visually. Hunt for Red October manages to play most of the ship-to-ship action from the windowless bridges of submarines with only a few external views to show the audience how the subs are actually moving in relation to one another. Sink the Bismark plays a lot of the action out on a strategy table in the Royal Navy command bunker. Even Battleship manages to pull it off the idea that a lot of naval combat occurs at distances where the ships can't actually see one another. But movie and especially TV science fiction (and even video games - in STO your phasers have a TEN KILOMETER max range!) are really limited from "realistic" depictions of space combat by the need to keep the action visible on the screen. So they constantly default to starships trading broadsides at close range like tall ships during the Napoleonic Wars, or fighters dog-fighting like WW1 biplanes.

[@terran6686]

The Federation's Defiant Class, the Klingon B'Rel, and Jem'Hadar Fighters are already the analogues to Star Trek's version of fighters. Space's lack of air resistance allows for "fighters" to be the size of what would be frigates or small cruisers in Star Wars without sacrificing maneuverability and range. A similar case can also be found in Halo, where UNSC Longswords are more like what we would think of as PT Boats. They have small crews up to around half a dozen and serve as short range scouts, escorts, and (when in wings) strike craft. For real world similarities, I consider the question to be like the replacement of horses with tanks in cavalry roles. Tank technology allowed them to eventually become faster, stronger, and more powerful than Dragoons or horse towed guns could. Now it's gotten to the point where even an entire cavalry regiment of the past can't even begin to fight a main battle tank, even though they are deployed in a relatively similar fashion. So essentially, Star Trek saw X-Wings evolve into "tanks", frigate sized ships with crews, and without losing any mobility while increasing firepower dramatically.

[@markfergerson2145]

Yeah. The Defiant and similarly sized ships still have reactors similarly sized to full sized ships because they need to be able to successfully offend full sized ships as well as defend against them. When you need to deal in terawatts of power you have to generate terawatts.

[@aiosquadron]

Imagine a world where the main gun also works as fast as point defense, while having a near 100% hit rate. Of course, small craft wouldn't work.

[@Llortnerof]

Which is pretty much guaranteed if we ever make it to space. Small craft won't be able to maneuver quickly enough to dodge(because doing so would liquefy the pilot). The only reason anybody ever uses fighters is rule of cool. They make no logical sense. Space combat will likely consist of large craft taking potshots from distances of hundreds of thousands of kilometers or more. People also have vastly skewed perception of acceleration and speed in space... most manned combat craft will likely have the same acceleration limits, and speed is only limited by how long you can accelerate. The idea of the small, nimble fighter is complete nonsense, since the biggest limitation will be g-forces.

[@aralornwolf3140]

@@Llortnerof , "the biggest limitation will be g-forces" *Inertial Dampening and Artificial Gravity have entered the discussion*

[@Llortnerof]

@@aralornwolf3140 Sure, as soon as we actually have that stuff. Though whether that would make fighters more practical than drones is still an open question.

[@aralornwolf3140]

@@Llortnerof , Depends on the Minimum Effective Size... if the MES is too big for fighters, then there won't be any fighters. Even then... it comes down to the acceleration and deceleration rates compared to max velocity. If max deceleration is only a tiny fraction of max velocity, then fighters might not even be viable... as the large ships would go straight for their targets... and the fighters can only tag along and be destroyed as the two sides close... assuming they are even effective to include.

[@shocker1209081]

Exactly. The amount of power your reactor can give is what decides whether a ship can take a hit or do enough damage. Like, it is possible to swarm and maneuver in a way that you can bring 12 phasers to bear while your enemy can only use 2 or 3, but those 2 or 3 will overwhelm smaller shields easily. Thus fighters are only useful in swarms.

[@GamePlayer553]

I like the idea of weapon accuracy such as that of phasers, disruptors, etc. will cause the naval composition of states to return to the days of "bigger ships and guns = better". Makes me wonder what universes like BSG and Babylon 5 would be like with hyper-accurate weapons like those of Trek.

[@Paerigos]

You can just look at stargate - in essence even tactical bombers had virtually no chance of penetrating capital ship shielding (when a Hattak with Apophis era level shielding can stay in stars corona for 10 hours...) and any time Darts or Gliders were set even against railguns they were obliderated en masse - hell they stood more chance against Hattaks clumsy weaponry. At such point you dont even have to cosider defence of the fighter to not get hit... but also you are fairly limited in the amount of mayhem you can pack on fighter. X302 is an excellent fighter, but its space role can simply be described as completely trumping the obsolete opossition who had fighters either to collect food (wraith) or for ceremonial purpose of inciting terror (goauld). there is a reason why you simply dont see Asgard starfighter- their weapons simply obliderate anything that small instantly. Even if you would just consider disintegrating it with a transporter. (and even Ori did not bother to launch them in space - granted their ships had so overwhelming firepower that only Asgard vessel could take the fire and outmaneuver the main gun) Fighters... well they in essence become the Battletech "aerospace assets" - support craft for either influencing ground operations - or support of capital ships - hell even there fighters cant really harm capital ships... if we discount the honored bloodname of Tyra Miraborg whose honored liniage was started by Rashalhague pilot who rammed Il´Khans command ship bridge killing him. Hell largest Warships like the Leviathan II and III can tank a full volley of strategic nukes on their armor and keep on fighting... at that point you simply can not pack enough destructive power on the fighter... plus those ships have gauss guns (hypervelocity railguns) hit-scan lasers, pulse lasers which go speed of light... at such point - fighters simply stopped competing... it was only when Warships(minus comstar) died out that inner sphere earospace fighters became the norm.... and except for given example - they failed abbysmally against our warships during operation Revival.

[@Edge-wx7hv]

not just accuracy. Phasers are on the Low End for TNG+ ship weaponry and can entirely disintegrate anything not specifically designed to block phaser fire. your shields then are gonna need as big of a reactor behind them as possible (and armor if you have materials capable of withstanding disintegration); for comparison, Star Wars weaponry (at least in the movies) cause damage similar to modern firearms (maybe a bit less because you rarely see a ship getting a hull-breach by a firefight in the corridors from hand weapons) with the primary advantages of their energy weapons being not having to worry about gravity or environmental 02 (or putting holes in your battlefield if you're in space). Fighters in Star Wars have survivability cus nobody does ship-mounted disintegrators (with perfect accuracy)

[@littlekong7685]

@@Edge-wx7hv In the expanded universe for star wars it is explained that fighters are viable mostly because of such heavy, universal ECM, even small ships like the Falcon have sensor, communication, and targeting scramblers. You see with the targeting systems on screen how long it takes to get a lock on even a tie fighter or a limited motion Y-wing flying in a trench. So you need dedicated gunners at close range fighting visually with computer assistance to get solid shots on target, or blanket fire in systematic barrages. In Star Trek combat is similarly short ranged because at long range the target can move to lightspeed and avoid incoming missiles/torps/fighter waves. So combat needs to be close enough to hit with directed energy weapons, so close that fighters can't approach without numbers or capital support (thus acting as a shield for the payload delivery fighters).

[@jamesricker3997]

In Babylon 5 the Minbari were able to target fighters with the main weapons

[@Edge-wx7hv]

@@littlekong7685 and the existence of widespread, stable sapient AI technology supports the assertion that Star Wars computation is significantly in advance of the Milky way up until ST: Picard's era at least, and we rarely see competent ECM on federation starships (Or klingon, romulan, etc.) i think the Borg are the first time we even see ECM in a recognizable form, variable shield frequencies and so forth

[@Technobabylon]

There was that PS1 game, Star Trek: Invasion, which was focused around a gigantic Federation fighter-carrier, with Worf as your commander

[@ADEADSKELETON]

Sounds fun

[@Chezeehat]

In that game you could dodge main battery phaser fire, there was a flashing red line which indicated phaser aiming. Which you could then fly around

[@McSkumm]

I remember renting that and having an ok time with it.

[@theonyxknightknightmaster3792]

@@McSkumm damn right it was ok!

[@Nu11u5]

Star Trek: Invasion was a pretty decent space fighter game for the Trek universe, but it was essentially a reskin of the game "Colony Wars" which had a much more interesting storyline with narrative branches and multiple endings. There are three games in that series and it is worth checking out as a "retro" game.

[@vaniellys]

After watching The Expanse, I prefer when sci-fi universes don't have fighters. It feels too much "planetary battle but in space".

[@devontodd3512]

Same, though I do like the idea of the corvette-type spaceship idea: Not technically a fighter (far to big to be one), but fulfilling similar roles, albeit in a much more realistic way. I'm pretty sure the MCRN does this very well

[@cmedtheuniverseofcmed8775]

@@devontodd3512 Same here. Small shuttle/gunships would still have an important support role to do.

[@alexisfights5773]

There's a very good article on the Atomic Rocket blog that explains why a manned fighter would be pretty much useless in space, the gist of it is : a missile would fulfill the same role, but better and cheaper.

[@devontodd3512]

@@cmedtheuniverseofcmed8775 Oh absolutely, especially for atmospheric/boarding operations and just general transportation

[@devontodd3512]

@@alexisfights5773 Plus higher g-force maneuvers, cause, ya'know, no human

[@lukasperuzovic1429]

I feel fighters in Star Trek are more for patrol, scouting, police or support duties than open warfare. Fighters fill that little niche that a shuttle is too clumsy to handle.

[@pavarottiaardvark3431]

Whenever we see Runabouts fight, we see them do okay, as does the Delta Flyer. So while swarms of fighters might not be a thing, it's kinda surprising that there isn't a doctrine for "stick a bigger shield unit in the back section of your Runabouts and launch them" for fleet actions.

[@QarthCEO]

Fighter squadrons did fine in the Dominion war. When you are in a war for your very survival, and you have a manpower shortage, getting one phaser bank and one torpedo per man is a great deal even if they get killed after one hit of an enemy's main weapon. The math works out. You can inflict massive damage from 100 men in 50 Peregrine fighters or Runabouts than 100 men in a starship.

[@jamesricker3997]

Swarms of fighters wouldn't work 1 photon torpedo set for maximum blast radius would take out a lot of them

[@NoobNoobNews]

I think it has to do with the power levels of the reactor cores. A 1 terawatt phaser on a capitol ship against a 1 gigawatt shield array of a shuttle is the difference in power. Three orders of magnitude is a difference of 1000 times the power output. Torpedo boats would be the only real option at that point, and you will want more than 1 torpedo per man. If you can get 5 men crew in a metal box with 100 torpedoes, you automatically have an order of magnitude scale difference. A small ship with a crew of 100 could hold thousands of torpedoes in storage. Internal ship volume and reactor output is the deciding factor in these battles.

[@allnamesaretakenful]

@@jamesricker3997 When have we ever seen that in Star Trek?

[@grayscribe1342]

@@NoobNoobNews And if I remember that right, torpedoes have a higher range than phasers.

[@theodoremccarthy4438]

You’re right that Star Trek combat is mostly a “battle of reactors”, but there were technological innovations in the mid 24th century which undermined that and made fighters more viable. There is the development of miniaturized torpedo technology first seen on Federation runabouts. Then there is the pulse phaser which concentrate energy into discrete bursts with greater shield penetration. Finally, there is ablative armor, which allows an unshielded craft to survive directed energy fire for a time. I would argue it was the convergence of these technologies which lead to Star Fleet deploying fighter craft more widely in the Dominion war than at any other time in their history. Prior to that it made more tactical and strategic sense for an starship to carry more torpedos than to divert resources to expendable small craft.

[@rightsideup6304]

The fact that they're also having a hard time keeping up with the Dominion also plays into this I think. The alliance was more or less capable to fight the dominion but not without incurring heavy losses, especially the Federation early on where they're not really using state of the art equipment for their ships. I wager that this made it so that they were forced to also rely on smaller crafts as it's significantly easier to produce than, let's say even a Miranda. After the Dominion war, you see that they reverted back to the ships first with the new or better designs like the Akira, Sabre, and Steamroller for example.

[@danielansell577]

Thing is, though, every time we saw a Peregrine hit on-screen it pretty much fell apart, so whatever 'advanced defences' they had weren't all that effective. Their weapons fire wasn't all that effective either. Massed fire had some effect, but they mostly just died whenever fired upon.

[@SantomPh]

starship combat in ST is often very clumsy and both ships will take many hits in a battle of attrition. Good captains will use all the tactics they can to avoid getting into one, but in a situation like Operation Return it was simply bash through the other team's line. The main issue with fighters is that they lack the operational range to perform any significant missions. In Colony Wars and Star Wars small fighters can jump entire systems and destroy entire space stations on their own. In ST, the smallest craft that can do this is a runabout (Delta Flyer be damned), and a runabout is not tactically sound to perform long range combat. The ships are the main operators, which is why Klingons and Romulans prefer cloaking tech to move about on long range missions

[@DarthSpock1]

I think "battle of reactors" sums it up perfectly. Both the available technology and the majority of hostile encounters (prior to the Dominion War at least) would render fighter swarm tactics impractical for ship to ship combat. In 'Trek tech, pretty much anything a fighter class vessel can do, a larger ship can do better, and if the main manufacturing investment lies in the warp core, it makes sense that they would simply build around maximizing each reactor's singular potential. That said, I think it's worth noting that it would be considered *impractical* not useless. As shown in those clips from the Dominion War, and episodes like TNG S:7E:24 "Preemptive Strike" fighters were far from helpless, but if you could field bigger, you would. Consider DS9 S:4E:19 "Shattered Mirror" where the Defiant basically operates as a "fighter" against the Negh'Var before being joined by a runabout. It would seem ships like the Defiant, Klingon BoPs and Dominion Scarabs are about as small as they can go before they start losing more functionality than they gain from compactness.

[@aiosquadron]

It's not just battle of reactors. Cyber warfare, power optimization, and more are also being involved. Look at the Romulan war of the Archer era. Starfleet was totally outgunned and outnumbered. But Starfleet won due to the use of smart tactics. (And I mean, Human-Covanent war of Halo level outnumbered.).

[@ForgottenHonor0]

I always thought the Federation preferred bigger ships due to their exploratory and scientific driven nature as it reduced the special needs that fighters would need. As time went on they developed weapons that would counter debris that would tax the shields and ablative armor too much as they travelled through space, thus the highly accurate phaser banks. Ironically, their electronic warfare is shown extremely lacking at times, so a clever enemy could equip enough fighters with the proper electronic interference systems to counter the Federations advanced targeting.

[@andreassewell7413]

So fighters with ECM would be a good counter to the phaser heavy, supercomputer Federation naval doctrine.

[@ForgottenHonor0]

@@andreassewell7413 Bingo.

[@terran6686]

Or better yet, torpedoes with ECM. Small probes with disruptive signals that swarm a target even more densely than fighters while also keeping maintenance, required manpower, and storage space to a minimum while also allowing a fleetwide upgrade as any ship with a torpedo launcher can now double as an ECM ship.

[@ForgottenHonor0]

@@terran6686 Similar to the swarm ships in Star Trek Beyond?

[@terran6686]

@@ForgottenHonor0 Exactly!

[@mj101inf9]

I remember back in the 90’s a lot of fans wanted to believe that Starfleet wasn’t a military organization, even though it was obviously based on a modern navy. Their primary focus was exploration and diplomacy but starships were still armed and saw combat.

[@Idazmi7]

You can thank TNG for that nonsense. TOS was always clear that Starfleet is a military.

[@AlexanderVonish]

They kind of had to arm them irregardless of what they really are or were, since they sent NX-01 into deep space and they kept getting punched in the face despite trying to show an act of good faith and docile behavior (Wether it’d be misunderstanding or refusal/inability to cooperate). The need of some military capacity in otherwise previously exclusively science ships, Especially when the xindi outright tried to destroy Earth and later conflicts on down the line, was quite evidentially beneficial if not downright required, as Enterprise gained more and more powerful armaments and eventually shield technology, all the while they fought belligerent races left and right. Starfleet basically became extremely multi-role. Capable of mass Defense, while still having enough science labs in many of their ships to study and categorize anomalies or what not, and relegating older or less capable ships ships for internal security or lower end duties (Old Miranda and Excelsior classes or ships like the California class, which more often than not are just faced with the mundane, with a few exceptions such as Cerritos’s Shenanigans of course.) they however pale in comparison to true warships later made during conflict, Such as Defiant, which lacked science labs and fancy holodecks and was basically the size of an escort ship, meant to throw down against far larger vessels. (Which it demonstrated when fighting USS Lakota.) I wouldn’t call them exclusively a military since they specialize quite heavily in science, diplomacy, assistance, etc. but it would also be imprudent to ignore that they still house ships that can tear apart vessels bigger than them in terms of tonnage and general size, and the ability to call all ships to the frontlines if required. (Shown in DS9 when a gargantuan amount of Starships were fighting against the attack fleet in the midst of the Dominion War being one example.)

[@eldrago19]

Fighters are a long-standing complaint of the hard sci-fi crowd (e.g. Atomic Rockets). They say that without the medium difference between air and water a fighter would be no more manoeuvrable than it's carrier. To which the objection in cases like star wars is "yes but it looks cooler."

[@jonskowitz]

The funny thing is that a fighter is potentially LESS maneuverable than its carrier because they're getting clobbered by the inverse of the square-cube law. Even if their instant maneuverability is superior their total energy (aka "Delta-V" if you're the correct kind of nerd) is going to be PATHETIC.

[@sethb3090]

@@jonskowitz Counterpoint: assuming manned vessels, you don't want to be putting a warship through the kind of constant high-G maneuvers a starfighter does. Any job that can't be done while strapped in is going to suffer heavily. Any unsecured cargo will likewise suffer heavily (also assuming no magic inertia field).

[@UnknownSquid]

I always wrestled with the plausibility of fighters in my own sci-fi settings. Even if effective, the potential for gratuitous losses in even routine engagements just felt too high to excuse for most civilisations. My general best solution was to present them as unmanned drones, though that obviously defeats half the point of that "ace fighter" trope people most enjoy about them in the first place. In a different setting (that was by no means hard sci-fi) I made them mainly fielded as a mix of both psionically controlled drones, but which could also be directly manned. Piloting them directly allowed the user to apply their own psionic power to enhance the fighter in nearly all regards making them objectively superior to remotely piloted ones by a considerable margin, but obviously at great risk to the pilot. It was kooky, but I felt like it did work fairly well for "plausible" fighters, so long as you could accept the psychic aspect of the setting.

[@danishsyed1068]

I would just use Drones it makes more sense and you can use them more than once.

[@jonskowitz]

@@sethb3090 counter counter point. The command, "ready for action stations" means accomplishing a lot more than just heading to the guns. Loose objects need to be secured, flammables stored (or even jettisoned), fuel lines would be purged and filled with either nitrogen or CO2 (not the main engines of course). There's a reason why ships that got caught flat-footed usually suffered terribly. See USS Franklin, see also Battle of Cape Matapan. Compare USS Yorktown @ Battle of Midway.

[@thedragondemands5186]

Fighters are also non-existent in The Expanse, for similar reason of "Technology" - though in this case, it's that REAL space combat is done at a distance - long before you enter visual range. They use missile platforms and countermeasures and PDC grids. One man fighter craft? Obsolete compared to guided missiles.

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

Yeah, it’s a case where directly comparing it to real world naval combat is just silly.

[@xSoulhunterDKx]

Fighters still make Sense since they could outnumber the Enemy quite heavily and could carry 2-4 or even more rockets. In the expanse they just dont use Fighters, cause it isnt very realistic at that Point. Long Range Missions are prioritized and so the Fighters would Need More fuel and Stuff like that. They would Need some sort of a Carrier to make them More Efficient

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

@@xSoulhunterDKx I’m not sure I get your point. Several small targets still don’t beat a missile barrage from a gunship. And beside that a gunship is about the smallest ship I can imagine working within The Expanse’s more grounded physics.

[@DanielHCassidy]

It seems fighters in the modern sense of beyond the horizon air superiority. In the expanse the roci is a multi purpose assault boat that has torps so many pdcs it's like a hedgehog, could have a squad of marines can enter atmosphere. But can be successfully handled in combat by two people. If the roci was a third the size removing all living spaces hell theirs the cargo bay and machine shop they could go too. So we still have a vessel that has more room for torps and PDCs and their rounds but now we have three of them. Their you have yourself an expanse equivalent modern fighter. If the donnager had deployed a few of those it wouldn't have been boarded.

[@felixjohnsens3201]

@@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes You are forgetting some very important things, first of all, ECM (Electronic Counter Measures), which can make missiles nearly obsolete + missile even more so larger missiles with more sophisticated targeting computers are really fucking expensive and last missiles are not as maneuverable as you think, because speed makes them less maneuverable, but less speed makes them easier to hit.

[@BackgroundSpace]

I remember playing a game called Star Trek: Invasion that was centered exactly around this concept. It was set just after the Dominion War aboard an experimental ship called the USS Typhon. It was supposed to be akin to Aircraft Carriers today: Send them to a small scale dispute area or to use as a mobile outpost for low-scale operations. It supposedly only carried 28 Valkyrie class fighters according to the Wiki entry on Memory Beta which I always felt was far too low for a mainstream project but it was a testbed which sort of made sense. Sadly the video game has been rendered non-Canon supposedly. The game was actually rather solid I felt back in the day and even had Lt. Worf commanding the vessel. Maybe that was ultimately why it was sidelined. Aside from that there is a concept that I could see being developed in Star Trek that would counter the accuracy of phasers: chaff/reflective particles. I was watching one of the old Gundam series and they deployed an anti-particle beam field so as to even the odds. A similar concept could be developed as method of being able to go toe to toe with a larger enemy. Maybe the field wouldn't last long but it wouldn't need to before being dispersed by interstellar winds. Certainly with all of the "out of the box" thinking Starfleet encourages it would have come across their minds eventually to try it.

[@Tigershark_3082]

Countermeasures are one of the most important things for any sort of combat, especially air/space combat. While shields are good, ya gotta have something for if they fail.

[@warhorse03826]

in the RPG "traveller" by GDW they used "sandcasters" that spread clouds of flaked ablative armor..it adsorbed energy weapons and projectiles. simply spraying water would work as well..in space it would either freeze as a "snow" or boil making an opaque cloud. a replicator could make as much of it as you liked, and you could even beam it into the appropriate locations based on predicting where the enemy would fire.

[@Kurlija]

Was hoping someone would mention Invasion, love that game.

[@travisbishop782]

That game was awesome!

[@Nu11u5]

Star Trek: Invasion was a pretty decent space fighter game for the Trek universe, but it was essentially a reskin of the game "Colony Wars" which had a much more interesting storyline with narrative branches and multiple endings. There are three games in that series and it is worth checking out as a "retro" game.

[@uzunaruMelonness]

In regards to fighters, the Hydran navy is the only one that incorporated them in the Star Trek universe. Squadrons of fighters from Cruisers assist in their support role. The lack of phasers and the heavy use of Fusion weapons limit the ships. Without an effective long-distance weapon, fighters were used to cover such disadvantages.

[@OllamhDrab]

I think one reason we may have seen the Federation and Romulans come out with (bigger?) fighter programs and deployments may have had a great deal to do with the Breen weapon and the interval when they could basically one-shot any big ship, nullifying the big advantage of size. Rather than two main combatants just sitting things out, one presumes they'd do the next logical thing: send smaller ships that are hard to hit, at least all at once, and don't have such a huge cost in crew if they are lost. They might be less common in the line of battle for all that time cause the Feds and Romulans would probably avoid giving such battle if they could while buying time, rather raid supply lines, harrass patrols, strafe ground targets, whatnot. It'd also seem to be a good answer to those Jem Hadar 'fighters' that seem to be forward firing and rely on numbers and maneuver a lot too.

[@jarradscarborough7915]

"strafe ground targets" yup! that was always my impression of what those fighters on the scimitar were for, probably the starfleet fighters too, just supporting ground troops and protecting the 'skimmers'. a starship would be too expensive and too clumsy to do that, but a small, maneuverable, expendable fighter with just a pilot and gunner/navigator? perfect!

[@OllamhDrab]

@@jarradscarborough7915 Well, I thinkthe Starfleet ones we see in space battle are significantly bigger than those Scorpions, they give me more images of F15s or PT boats to the Scorpions' sorta helicopter gunship role.

[@raw6668]

@@jarradscarborough7915 Either that or fighters have become the new tank for Star Trek Universe. I mean, imagine a city protected by phaser arrays. A tank may be a much more inviting target if it can't fly.

[@hypothalapotamus5293]

@@OllamhDrab I think the Scorpions are probably used for low intensity warfare on a planet.

[@Gothic7876]

When shields are a factor in universe, fighters start to lose effectiveness. Especially if they don’t have weapons that can actually slip through shields

[@warmachine5835]

In fact, it's exactly the opposite in universes where fighters can explicitly pass under shields to strike at the armor and hull directly. This combined with the tracking ability of the phaser makes this analysis pretty spot-on. If your main gun has the tracking potential of CIWS and capability to fire either quick bursts or long sustained blasts, fighters lose their advantages quickly.

[@superspies32]

@@warmachine5835 also it equipped with fighters, that’s mean all ship must have hangar which reduce the size for science bay and other functional bays that ship must carry during the long voyage.

[@robertagu5533]

Which is further proof no trek faction hardly understands fighters an how they should be equipped and used. Especially Starfleet that is supposed to an only thinks they truly employ them. What you pointed out should be "duh" common knowledge in their verse. So WHY theyd not have at least 1 or 2 if not ONLY powerful weapons capable of punching through most shields, and armor too, for the few trek factions realizing how dumb not having some sorta physical armor should your shields fail which actually happens quite alot.. is totally baffling. They shoulda had PLENTY of them and at least armed well enough even in relatively low numbers they can pose real problems even alone against even the most powerful enemy cruisers an battleships.. to the point of making said crews get nervous or strait panic if there's ALOT of them seen an detected. Launching well coordinated strikes and backed by considerable fleets of bigger ship types well aware of what they doing... Thats not what we saw at all.

[@dexdrako]

"for the few trek factions realizing how dumb not having some sorta physical armor should your shields fail which actually happens quite alot"@@robertagu5533 you are the one not understanding the power levels or type of damage the star trek ships face. there are few if any form of physical armor that could protect then form a phaser blast because phasers break atoms bonds. (which turn into radiation which would kill people)the only thing that can stand up to that has been the neutron matter the doomsday ship was made of (because its not made of atoms). this isn't bullets smashing into armor they're radiation and subatomic particles being shot at near the speed of light to them physical armor is still mostly empty space they can travel freely through

[@robertagu5533]

@@dexdrako Star Wars has similar issue with their Sabers... almost nothing can block a full on assault from one of these unless you have exactly 1 of a very select, rare an expensive materials either. But it STILL exists an plenty of people are smart enough to carry some sorta defenses for such a weapon. Which they also got they they share of projectiles that do much same. Surely Trek then can materialize magically anything they want from literally thin air. They then must have redundant systems. Even the term "ablative armor" Defiant would been lost more then few times if not for it. Cuz someone was ready and not totally trusting to chance. What good are emergency shields alone if the power goes out you can lose most of your ship. Radiation won't be any concern then. Its like not wearing a helmet I heavy combat but your a soldier. Saying it throws off balance or effects your vision, is heavy or, etc. MAYBE so BUT a bullet to the head will end your fight pretty fast. Similar concept an bout same thing

[@bubbasbigblast8563]

The biggest reason is a matter of doctrine: the Federation didn't want dedicated warships, instead preferring ships that could be useful in any emergency, not just military ones. Yes, a carrier packed full of fighters might gain an advantage against something poorly equipped to fight such a swarm, but that same carrier will fare poorly if it has a small science lab, and the crew have to suddenly negotiate with a sentient black hole, or if they have no ability to host a delegation of very powerful aliens that suddenly appeared in the middle of their borders. Carriers of different types did eventually appear in the old Star Trek canon,(?) but they were never war winners like their ocean counterparts, and a major military power could easily do just as well without them: by using flexible ships capable of exploiting scientific oddities in combat, for example, or by using a big conventional ship with a diverse weapons loadout. More commonly than carriers, the experiences of Voyager saw the Federation adding a squad or two of more robust shuttles to more conventional Federation ship types instead, which didn't cause a tactical revolution, but still proved a useful tactic.

[@Lashb1ade]

In other words, the Federation wanted to: Explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.

[@pavlothekozak827]

Problem was a ship built to everything, does everything badly. Specific purpose built ships, fighters excel when they are not created for the mult-purpose role. Aka the bug ship taking out a Galaxy Class by ramming in DS9.

[@anon6000]

Problem with the doctrine-based theory is that the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Dominion, etc, *also* don't generally use fighters.

[@bubbasbigblast8563]

@@anon6000 The Dominion did, with the Jem'Hadar fighter. The Romulans and Klingons used cloaked ships instead, and the Cardassians were basically a minor power with no real ability to challenge fleet doctrine.

[@twelfthknight]

@@bubbasbigblast8563 Jem'Hadar fighters are more small warships than actual starfighters -- they're the same size as a Klingon Bird of Prey. They're also only really threatening because of the Dominion's willingness to perform kamikaze runs. Otherwise they'd just be average scout ships in the hands of any other faction.

[@KoyomiHiroyuki]

1:35 that scene where the two Galaxy classes tearing up the Cardassian Galor class never gets old.

[@bjturon]

No starfighters in 'The Expanse' either -- likely a realistic take on space combat, although instead of manned fighters unmmaned drones might play a role, perhaps a decisive one 🤔

[@hellacoorinna9995]

Also can use those drones as missiles

[@warhorse03826]

the closest thing to a starfighter in "the expanse" is the Razorback. like a fighter, it's not meant for long term use (no cabins, no mess hall, ect), it's fast and light..the only problem is it's unarmed. a "happy medium" between the razorback and the other combat ships would be like a PT boat..a big punch, but a glass jaw.

[@warmachine5835]

An 'unmanned drone' in The Expanse would realistically just be a smarter missile. Unless the payload was expensive and limited, I don't see why you'd pick a very expensive missile that might be able to avoid PDC fire against a swarm of dumber missiles with better odds of at least one getting through. And even then, probably better to take a leaf out of Gundam's book and pack your expensive and limited missile in a swarm of cheap dumb missiles to lower the chance of the PDC picking the 'right' missile to shoot.

[@matthewcaughey8898]

The bigger reason a fighter does not exist is physics. Using fully Newtonian physics like the expanse does means you’ve got to get around that 3rd law of motion. You would need massive engines for quick acceleration and deceleration. Those forces alone would be enough to either liquify or pulverize your pilot into a pulp . And as others said, it’s just not worth it to waste millions training a pilot who’s not likely rot survive rapid acceleration and deceleration when you can automate it and call it a missile. To ensure a pilot wouldn’t die you would need either a liquid filled cockpit or a liquid filled flight suit and some significant genetic engineering for a hardened blood circulatory system wouldn’t hurt either

[@hellacoorinna9995]

@@matthewcaughey8898 Liquid breathing, ala "Abyss"?

[@TrogdorBurnin8or]

Agree with the thesis. I would also add two more: One, as in _The Expanse_, manned fighters operating with excellent propulsion are inherently limiting as far as acceleration, versus unmanned ships that don't have to deal with the "Chunky Salsa" problem. Inertia dampeners were invented to explain Trek capital ships' ability not to render their own crews into chunky salsa, and perhaps they're limited in the degree or rapidity with which they can skew their reference frame, particularly the small ones that would have to be aboard a fightercraft.

[@JoeKawano]

Since I was a little kid-I always wondered about this odd, but interesting difference between Star Trek and Star Wars (etc)…and now it all is laid bare-it comes down to this: You just can’t “dodge” phasers! :)

[@TheAnazrieth]

@@jeibal02 Turbo lasers can be dodged. They're slow as heck. So, fighters make sense. Dodge the enemy's turbo laser fire, get in close, and take out vital but small targets that are hard to hit with turbo lasers.

[@mill2712]

@@TheAnazrieth Turbolasers only seem to be as quick as/or a few times faster than modern day artillery in space. Considering the range ships fight in. You can see individual turbolaser shots traveling and track how far and fast they can go.

[@Grizabeebles]

@@mill2712 -- In my head I imagine that lightsabers, blasters and turbolasers are the result of a kind of pinnacle being achieved in the Star Wars Galaxy's arms race. Only a tiny number of very expensive materials that fully protect against blasters are light enough to be wearable. Plus, blasters are cheap enough to be nearly ubiquitous. So, virtually nobody actually wears armour and everybody gets really good at dodging blaster fire. This technically opens the door to widespread adoption of other weapons, but armour against anything other than blasters is cheap and easy to make and every single ship out there has particle shields that make them completely bulletproof.

[@MagiconIce]

Well, you can, otherwise Benjamin Sisko would've died very early on. "Evasive Maneuvers" are a thing in Star Trek, if you couldn't evade phaser shots at all, these maneuvers wouldn't be called "evasive".

[@Grizabeebles]

@@MagiconIce -- "Evasive Maneuvers" could also be about trying not to let too many consecutive hits land on one shield facing while also keeping the weapons ports pointed toward the enemy as much as possible. If you can't dodge completely, spreading the damage out among as much of your shields and armour as possible is probably your best move. That could also be why there are so many standard "evasive patterns" out there. The tactical officer would need to know when he had the best firing solutions and when he had time to focus on charging phasers and ordering torpedoes loaded.

[@paradox7358]

The Akira class was designed with a hanger bay arrangement. It had two large shuttle bays linked though the centre of the sauscer section which allowed for simultaneous launching and landing operations. During the Dominion War, it acted as a fighter carrier and was supposed to be able to accommodate up to one hundred attack fighters.

[@magical_catgirl]

The Akira class also has 15 torpedo launchers covering every angle. It's more of a artillery ship then a carrier.

[@amolchan001]

Paradox, Was about to cite the Akira. Also Amy Tomeo, there are 2/3 versions depending on Beta cannon source used. Originally was going to be a carrier in STFC but the scenes never made it into the movie. It was stated as a torpedo boat in a few beta sources and games and a torpedo/carrier hybrid in other beta sources. So take your pick as to what it really is

[@communiststatesofus8293]

Yes, but i allways vieved fighters as moskitos to annoy, distract ship while main ships do majority of work. You practicaly never ever saw in movies/games/books wings of fighters do kill capital ships by themself alone.

[@mystyle_jm8997]

Is the Akira-class Carrier capable to carry Peregrine Fighters? I hope those wings are folded.

[@raw6668]

Also, later material explained the huge hanger bay is used to transport a large number of the shuttle to evacuate a population or (in secret) invade a planet. Honestly, in my headcanon, the fighters take on more of escort role for shuttle and act like air support and a hover tank for ground invasions.

[@alonedoughnut]

You nailed it. With the accuracy that Starfleet ships can project their phaser fire, small attack craft are effectively useless against even an Oberth class ship. However, that isn't to say they don't have their uses in other roles. We see in DS9 that the Bajorans used small attack craft to harass Cardassian trade and military installations, and likely that was the plan for the Reman attack ship - to assault a ground or stationary target with little in the way of accurate defenses.

[@anndra8687]

Looking at the clips you've shown really proves the point. From Enterprise to Voyager to that unnamed Galor class, it's like shooting quantum fish in a phased tachyon barrel. It is a bit weird that the Remans never used their Scorpions but they didn't need to and Shinzon only wanted to disable the Enterprise and get Picard, a plan that went horribly, horribly right

[@rainmanslim4611]

While starfighters don't make much sense in a universe like star trek, I feel like using unmanned attack drones could be quite effective. Hook up a launching mechanism for a few missiles on a few hundred or thousand, have them spread out across the battlefield and focus fire on whatever enemy ship is nearest. Even if this is just a distraction, or it just adds more variables in the deployer's favor, it could very well be worth it. For example, an armed guard at a bank won't be able to stop a group of armed robbers from robbing the place, but them being there adds in a major variable to their odds of success, which is enough to dissuade the vast majority of would-be robbers.

[@evilperson160]

You make up for the precision of large capital ships by swarming them with large numbers of strike craft that can be far smaller and more maneuverable than fighters since drones do not require affordances for a human occupant. Additionally, you can store many more of them than fighters since they do not require the same amount of hanger or storage space, and do not require setting aside living accommodations on a ship for pilots. This allows even small vessels to serve as carriers, and dedicated carriers as super carriers. It doesn't matter if the ship can eliminate single targets with high precision if they are being swarmed by dozens or even hundreds of targets that render them incapable of using their primary weapon complement to its full effectiveness.

[@mauricioos2294]

I think the last episode of the second season of Discovery is a good example why drones would be interesting in space combat, imagine something like a massive battleship full of drones, if some of them are destroyed you can just replicate more and overwhelm some ship defenses with them.

[@sethb3090]

Drones can also do some things in capital ship combat that fighters cannot, such as acting as a single entity. If they have a mechanism to combine shields, they can form barriers to give extra protection to valuable ships, open safe lanes to take advantageous positions, body-block PD for killer missiles, or even coordinate with capital ships to open momentary holes in their shields for devastating one-way barrages. If weak points are real and significant, it may become a viable tactic to get small guns where they can hit weaknesses instead of needing to brute-force shields.

[@terran6686]

@@evilperson160 Star Trek has these: Photon Torpedoes These torpedoes can take advanced active or preprogrammed flight paths, have variable yields from anti shuttle to anti ship, and are equipped on every vessel in Star Trek. They don't return to their point of origin like a drone fighter, but that just means they're easier to store in bulk and can be shot out much more quickly, delivering a constant stream of nukes. They're like cruise missiles with the maneuverability and profile of a short range AA missile.

[@Llortnerof]

A missile already is an unmanned attack drone. So what you're suggesting is essentially a MIRV.

[@warshield924]

Honor Harrington did a great job of technology change, like you mentioned at the end. The smallest possible ship that can carry the weapons, engines and defenses necessary to fight modern war were frigates and destroyers and at the beginning of the series frigates had become obsolete. Everything began to center around larger and larger ships with greater missile capacity. Then, the technology changed and we saw carrier based Light Attack Craft which massed 20k tons as the fighter analog.

[@charlespickering2726]

and even then they only became viable when shielding tech allowed them to put up bow/aft walls to cover their gaps in their defenses. Their top and belly grav bands are basically invulnerable so if you can just spin a tiny ship to present a section of shield that is effectively invulnerable it makes them somewhat viable but again you are still dealing with basically small corvettes.

[@ervinm.5065]

In The Expanse they don't use fighters either because counter measures are too quick and accurate. Missiles are better because they can accelerate a lot more than manned fighters could do

[@Poctyk]

And fighters give ships they launch a massive increase in range bubble. Consider this. Arleigh-Burke class destroyer can launch Harpoon Anti-Ship Missile, with a range of ~350km Or, Nimitz class carrier, can launch a plane with a combat range of 400km that launches Harpoon with another 300km range. Giving you 700km. In Spess, this can translate into increase time for controlled flight/minimizing ballistic time, instead of having to hope that while your missile in ballistic mode enemy fleet doesn't simply change course. Or if your sci-fi universe doesn't believe in ballistic modes for missiles -- pure increase in range by serving as a de-facto first stage. Nobody proposes to come to AA range, or even worse become the missile "Tennōheika Banzai" style, even in WW2 nations were looking into ways of minimizing time your plane will spend inside AA bubble. See "skip bombing", "ASM-N-2 Bat" or "Fritz-X", just use your "plane" (or whatever you want) as a returnable booster to missiles. Like they are used IRL.

[@matthewcaughey8898]

Actually with the fully Newtonian physics model the expanse uses there’s a limit to how much punishment a pilot could physically take before they either pass out, or their heart is unable to pump enough blood to keep them alive. Remember Bobbi Draper? She was able to take the abuse the racing sloop put on her cause of training and drugs. Her passenger was in far worse shape. The acceleration and deceleration forces on a fighter in the expanse would be physically beyond what a human is capable of withstanding. Chances are either the UNN or the MCRN tried this early on and after turning a pilot into a greasy spot on the seat quickly decided that torpedos ( missiles) were a far cheaper and far more effective option

[@mill2712]

@@matthewcaughey8898 Even if G-force was no longer an issue, human react still is. A machine like their torpedoes or PDC's will always be faster that a pilot or even a drone piloted by a human.

[@matthewcaughey8898]

@@mill2712 I know abs ships with bucketloads of PDCs like UNN Leonidas class Battleships and MCRN Donnanger class ships just simply make it suicide for a fighter to even try to close in. Let’s not forget the several Amun Ra stealth ships that attacked the Donnanger took very heavy losses to do so

[@Poctyk]

@@matthewcaughey8898 >Actually with the fully Newtonian physics model the expanse uses there’s a limit to how much punishment a pilot could physically take before they either pass out, or their heart is unable to pump enough blood to keep them alive. Yes, it's about 20-25G if you submerge person in liquid (source: ESA), which, I should remind you, is much easier to do in limited space of cockpit instead of massive ship, so you can have a ship that has endurance limited to 2-3 days, but with engine that can easily give you 15G of acceleration for scouting and missile deployment, instead of weeks of Roci or, (I assume) months of battleships. And again, I don't suggest "Dick Best" style rushes through AA clouds, that would be suicide since 50's when fire control radars became the norm, merely using the fighters as an additional stage of missile to extend its range of controlled flight.

[@mullerpotgieter]

One could certainly explain why they weren't deployed in front line battles, but I'm certain fighters would still have their role to play. Like precision strike missions or defending less critical outposts. Essentially a cheaper alternative to keeping entire ships of the line on duty for tasks a smaller garrison would be better suited for

[@fathead8933]

On top of the fact that when we see them used effectively they are used in conjunction with other ships. Kinda hard to instantaneously track something while your ship is getting pummeled by phaser and torpedo fire from a galaxy class.

[@sethb3090]

Yeah, fighters do lose out in Star Trek-style combat, but you're correct that "warships expensive" is a legitimate use case for them. Small ships in Star Wars exist in part because you can't afford to put big warships everywhere an enemy might show up.

[@zachparker9711]

Yea, especially when you are more concerned with things like criminal civilian vessels than enemy warships. I assume they also have a role in planetary combat as essentially conventional air support.

[@davepuxley7387]

The deployment of Curry class ships, hastily developed to carry Peregrine class fighters into the Dominion War, supports your point. Starfleet had to think past its usual uses for subcraft (a daring use is Data and Worf's capture of Locutus in Best of Both Worlds, Part II) in order to get there.

[@georgem1874]

Star trek is basically what happens if Anti Aircraft fire/ anti spaceflight fire is highly effective. In real life Aircraft carriers and fighters/bombers came to dominate because no matter how many AA guns you strap to larger ships, small nimble aircraft get through often. Sure there are losses, but eventually enough bombs and torpedoes do land and take down thr Yamato. If on the other hand it was rare that fighters and bombers could be reliably taken down with AA, they never would have come to dominate naval combat. In star trek the main ship weapons (phasers and disrupters) can reliable hit and destroy smaller ships. So instead of fighters you have nimble small is capital ships. Ie the defiant, Saber, Bird of Prey, Hideki class ETC. Because everything needs to be able to take at least a few heavy hits.

[@Idazmi7]

Exactly.

[@robertd686]

Well, why not have drone fighters? One of the advantages of carriers over battleships is that a carrier can engage an enemy without endangering themselves. Get a bunch of attack drones with rudimentary AI, have them mob a starship, then have them return to the ship. With replicators in play, you can afford to throw away a strike and then just build a new one.

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

Firstly, replicating drones is just adding steps to the fight being about who has the more powerful reactor. Secondly, the Picard Manoevre. Unless your drones are warp capable, they can leave drones behind. And if your carrier is at a safe distance, it can't interfere to prevemt that.

[@robertd686]

I suggested the idea of replicating the drones because I'm assuming the drones are going to take significant casualties in any strike against a starship. That way, a carrier can replenish it's strike group without having to return to port. I assume there are certain weapons-like torpedoes- that can be used by fighters to engage starships without the need of a powerful reactor. It will likely be expensive, though hopefully less expensive then an actual starship. The Picard maneuver is reliant on surprising an enemy with a sudden attack that can eliminate them before they can return fire. However, as the drone swarm is numerous, they can retaliate upon the starship that is currently firing upon them. Warping out is all well and good but what if they are on the defensive? Or maybe already engaged by a different vessel?

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

@@robertd686 The Picard Manoevre as originally applied defeated an enemy's sensor package by using a short warp jump. In this case, the drones ability totrack the starship is irrelevant, as they can neither prevent the starship going to warp, or keep up with it when it does, leaving them hundreds of thousands of km out of position and wholly out of the fight. Drones only work if the enemy can't leave.

[@boobah5643]

@@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t I'd add that, since you're (mostly) not expecting to get the drones back anyway, why waste the effort involved in making them reusable when you can get more damage/performance if you make them suicide? The only reason I can think of is that you're attempting to make 'fighters' whether the technology supports them or not.

[@SephirothRyu]

The way I see fighters ideally working in Star Trek is as an automated, disposable weapons platform. Basically controlled by AI, and launched en masse by battle-carriers as they enter battle, where they then swarm an enemy ship and basically try to get off however many torpedoes they have before their likely inevitable destruction. Not being manned, their disposable nature would not place people in direct harm's way.

[@Janoha17]

With Trek's holographic technology, you could easily make a single person craft that could be used by a biological pilot in an emergency, or used as swarm fighters with holographic pilots who have their data backed up.

[@Groza_Dallocort]

@@Janoha17 I belive swarm tactics are going to become a real thing with the next generation of jet fighters such as the BAE Tempest

[@DecidedlyNinja]

If they drones are disposable, then they're not drones armed with torpedoes. They're torpedoes with a booster stage.

[@Katzbalger001]

Kind of like the Andromeda in...Andromeda? Curiously, supposedly based on another Gene Roddenberry plot.

[@UNYEILDING]

Warp activation speed also negates fighter/bomber usage. Ships can disengage from combat so quickly that the attack wing would still be forming up by the time the enemy was an after image.

[@n.a.4292]

I agree: the moment we invent/discover an energy source to make direct-energy weapons more effective, we'll probably see battleships/cruisers again with huge reactors and dozens of point-defence laser emitters.

[@cp1cupcake]

I remember talking to a friend about the plan for turning one of the Zumwalt class into a railgun platform. He was a civilian contractor and said the reason they only planned to turn one is because you don't need a second. From what I've seen, its also getting to the point where carriers might be obsolete do to the range of missiles. Direct energy weapons will not really work except as point defence though. We have been at the point where a surface to surface artillery system is short range if you cannot shoot past the curve of the earth. Energy weapons are inherently limited in range because of that.

[@Idazmi7]

@@cp1cupcake Until you're in outer space, where there _is_ no "curve of the earth".

[@georgethompson1460]

@@cp1cupcake Hypersonic missile cruisers?

[@Llortnerof]

@@cp1cupcake Space completely negating your second point is one of the issues of space fighters. Another is that they're closer to torpedo (speed) boats than aircraft. Aircraft move in a completely different medium and can do things ships can't (you try flying a ship over a mountain). Space fighters don't.

[@cdlord80]

I agree with you 100% I would also add that the "capital" ships of the Star Trek franchise are super maneuverable compared to their counterparts in other franchises. The Defiant and B'rel are fighters in their maneuverability. Even the Galaxy class weaves through engagements.

[@Sp33ddialz]

Considering the average lifespan of a StarFleet shuttle... yeah, fighters wouldn't far much better :p

[@chukwudiilozue9171]

They've been used in combat sometimes and when they have stellar engieers, they do just as fine.

[@aiosquadron]

I'm wondering, why make figthers crewed, when you can just build a figther station and have it remote control the figthers.

[@viperstriker4728]

But considering the amount of damage sustained in one battle it might actually be more economic to build a fleet of disposable shuttles. Look at how quickly they designed and built the delta flyer for example, and we could still strip like 5 different systems and half the floor space to make it mass producible will maintaining combat effectiveness.

[@SwiftGundam]

I'm pretty sure I've seen this exact topic before. Its weird that scramblers and such ECM doesn't impair phaser accuracy.

[@Paerigos]

Well it seems that starfleet has no issue of doing just a visual scan around the ship and aim for that. The computing power is simply that good. You need a fully fledged cloaking device if the enemy is actually looking for you. and that takes so much power you cant really shoot (and if you can shoot you dont have shields)

[@williammagoffin9324]

ECM effectiveness is in relation to size difference between the ECM emitters and the sensors. A galaxy class cruiser can carry a main sensor array as big as an entire wing of spacefighters. Not to mention that it has three computer cores the size of apartment buildings to analyze jamming and defeat it.

[@SwiftGundam]

@@williammagoffin9324 And no one has tried to counter all that? Typically, when one side find a way to counter something, the other side tries to find ways to counter that. But no one has tried to?

[@LewisUpperton]

@@SwiftGundam the problem is that Starfleet ships (at the least) have amazingly capable sensors and stupidly powerful computers (for the latter for example, the Voyager computer is powerful enough to simulate over 100 million human brains). Put short, if a Starfleet ship can see your ship, then short of plot convenience, it will be able to maintain a target lock on your ship. The only two feasible ways around this would be cloaking and holographics, both of which have their own issues which would likely make them non-viable for a fighter sized ship.

[@williammagoffin9324]

@@SwiftGundam The counter is the bring a jammer just as powerful as the sensors the enemy has... then you need a reactor powerful enough to run it... at which point you're just building a full sized starship and not a fighter.

[@francesco8000]

An equally interesting question would be "why no sci-fi universe (exceot the star wars prequels) use robotic starfighter?". I'm pretty sure that once you have reached that technological level it's not really hard to create an automated drone to fight in space with human skills but withouth the human limitations. Positive points for universes where the technology exist but it was banned for historical reasons.

[@ninjaman815]

The real reason is because having humans in the fighters make the story more interesting

[@Croz89]

Ender's Game uses massive drone swarms.

[@rnukes]

Battlestar Galactica would have something to say about automated weapon systems

[@nahuelleandroarroyo]

I would argue that in most cases remote controlled drones can be a liability, maybe you can cant hack them but maybe the data link can be cut or maybe you can screw their IFF, human would not shoot a friendly because it witched colors

[@DecidedlyNinja]

It can be hard to find a reason to not use autonomous weapons that is more compelling than their military utility, especially when a space nation is facing the possibility of destruction through military means. Decent reasons do exist though. In Star Wars, the Galactic Empire banned droid armies. Enter some headcanon: droids are relatively easy to hide because they can just sit in a box for years, and the Empire didn't like the idea of someone hiding the strength of an army from them. However, ultimately any excuse to get rid of robot armies in a sci-fi setting is motivated by Burnside's Zeroth Law of Space Combat: Science fiction fans relate more to human beings than to silicon chips.

[@WolfeSaber]

The Expanse doesn't have fighters as they will be swiss cheese if they get too close.

[@manuelcjr52]

I'd imagine they'd be relegated to planetside close air support if gunships hadn't done the job already

[@thedragondemands5186]

@@manuelcjr52 ....do their dropships count for that? (shrug) they must have SOME atmospheric support stuff but...ALL combat is in space. Earth and Mars each have a unified government and they're vying for power in asteroid colonies.

[@jiiimmyjum]

@@thedragondemands5186 there was some sort of atmospheric fighter like craft escorting UN One in the latest season.

[@lelandlove5472]

The Federation lack commanders that use this type of strategy and the ones that can or will this strategy are battle group commanders with many starships not fighters but use them as such. Its a shame that Starfleet don't outfit Star Ships with photonic drones. They do have the technology. (Drones that can pose as any large or small ship with faster movements.)

[@fluffymuffin4910]

I was JUST talking about Starfighters in Star Trek with my friend, Templin sure knows what content we want

[@OzrikTentakles]

I think there's an other issue as well... casualties. I always assumed the Federation didn't use fighters because of the likely high number of losses. Crews are placed in the most survivable positions, aboard capital ships.

[@bernardwills9674]

Well presumably they would be drones...in swarms. No need to risk pilots in fancy sci-fi universes.

[@StephenRichmond89]

You are entirely correct in this video. I think the only added point would be that there seems to be some diminishing rate of return on reactor size that means defiant/saber/bug ships/birds of prey act sort of like fighters as ships with the minimal viable reactor size for sustained combat. The runabouts could just about take on ships of this size but were comically outclassed by anything bigger.

[@deinekes9]

Leaving aside the effectiveness of fighters in Trek, there is a good argument for Starfleet not having fighters: fighters are only really good for combat. Starfleet likes to think of itself as more than just a defense and patrol force, doing all the science and humanitarian stuff. Fighters just don't contribute much to that compared to cutters or frigates. Once the Dominion came, Starfleet became an explicit military force and fighters came accordingly. Also, we have to change our entire mindset regarding fighters in Trek. Most see a naval equivalent to modern day, but I go back to the Napoleonic period. Fighters are like cavalry: not good against dug in infantry/cap-ships, but good against loosened formations that usually happens in battle. They also inflict a tactical opportunity cost on the opponent, requiring significant force to check them. And just like cavalry, they are fast and harder to hit with long range weapons if they maintain their range, making them a sort of fast acting tactical reserve. In the context of Trek and phasers, all this assumes that you either have a way to mitigate hyper-accurate beam weapons or are willing to accept the casualties as the cost of operation like the Dominion does. For Starfleet, good ECM or long range torpedoes would do the trick.

[@seancarroll9849]

Just like with some of our modern fighters, they have some form of EW ability in the more technically advanced birds. I'd imagine that Star Trek era EW would be pretty metal in ability. But for some EW, the larger the craft the better since that is a function of your power generator, again.

[@Civilunit]

Thank you for being like the first person on the internet that gets this. Power is everything in Startrek, Ships in Startrek are incredibly powerful. Just one can lay waste to an entire planet, not only are phasers pretty much OP but shields are crazy tough in star trek, so much so that while the hull of your typical star ship is considerably tough until ablative armor it was pretty much meaningless without shields. As these things tanked anti-matter warheads and energy blasts that pretty much destroys matter. The bigger you are the more power you make and the faster you go, the more damage you can take and the more damage you can deal. Not that phasers can't miss but they have such range and accuracy that it makes missing a quick and temporary tactic as sooner or later you will be hit. While not true on all trek ships federation ships have excellent weapons coverage and a spread of torps would easily clear out wings of fighters before they had a chance to do much. Probably the best argument for fighters is the Runabout class of ships, while still large for a 'fighter' these super shuttles had the best you could squeeze into a ship of that size. warp 5 reactor, decent shielding and weapons while being very nimble at impulse. Another well proven tech is the tractor beam, which can pretty much paralyze small ships with ease. Fighters in the traditional sense simply don't make sense even though they do technically exist but they don't have the power to bring the bigger fish down as there simply is no weapons platform small enough to destroy or cripple a Starship before it gets you. Not to mention that Starships can do battle at ranges far in excess of most genre's space craft. When you have vast territory of space it simply makes more sense to create the huge ships capable of taking on any task rather than a fleet of specialized ships to support each other.

[@ricdavid]

In reality: cost, yeah? Easier and cheaper to animate 10 big beefy ships fighting than 1,000 small ones. Semi-related question I just thought of: Wouldn't projectile warfare in space be super dangerous and irresponsible? Just thinking about those space-gatling-guns going off in The Expanse. Looks great (and there's an argument that it takes a ton less energy (therefore $$$) to fire a projectile than a laser blast so projectile warfare makes more sense and also it's why we haven't invented laser guns ourselves, yet- they're possible but way less efficient than a bullet) but every time you miss, that bullet is flying off at that speed halfway across the galaxy until it hits something. These projectiles would probably be too small to penetrate the atmosphere of an inhabited planet but if bullet hell space battles were common, you gotta figure every so often some random innocent ship a million miles away is getting lit up out of nowhere. At least a phaser/laser blast is gonna attenuate into SFA after a certain distance. Right? Or am I wrong?

[@ninjaman815]

Space is very big, so those bullets have a 99% chance of flying off into the middle of nowhere

[@BuriBuster]

You are somewhat right. We have developed laser based weapon systems against small target like drones (for example Rheinmetall HEL) and there are speculation of anti missle weaponry for 6th generation aircraft. The biggest reason we are not using laser weapons en masse is they are inefficient IN ATMOSPHERE. In atmosphere, the beam is dissipated as is passes through the air and thus rapidly loses energy with distance. This would not be the case in space, where there is generally nothing to dissipate laser beam on, thus hitting target with full energy.

[@mill2712]

@@BuriBuster Also you could potentially put more armor on your ships, and habitats to protect against that since micro-meteors are a risk anyway.

[@brendanblanks4438]

I believe the "phasers" argument is spot on. Ultimately speaking, the presence of phasers and analogous weaponry renders space fighters almost hilariously obsolete. Phasers have the ability to: fire with pinpoint accuracy propagate literally at the speed of light toward their target fire with a highly calibrated level of power versus fire rate, allowing for more shots more quickly if you don't need as much power. burn clean through most material defensive measures with enough power applied Fire as often as needed, as long as is needed, within the limits of the emitters' heat tolerance Fighters (and other strike-craft) have the ability to: Move with high maneuverability and speed proportional to their size at short ranges Bring high firepower to bear against a target proportional to their size Dodge most conventional heavy armament and evade sub-light weaponry tracking Present a smaller target profile, while maximizing armor in critical locations Be cheaply and rapidly fielded en masse Considering these, it's clear that the phaser's strengths directly counter the defensive strengths of strike-craft; their pinpoint accuracy, light-speed propagation, high precision of fire-rate versus strength means they can blow clean through the armor of a fighter with ease without wasting energy on overkill. In addition, the strike-craft's evasive abilities do almost nothing to protect against incoming phaser fire. Without a powerful suite of ECM (which strike craft would be too small to field without drastically reducing their combat effectiveness) to confuse targeting, fighters may as well have big signs saying "shoot me here." Further, the theoretically infinite fire-rate means that fighter massing is of little value, as the phaser can quickly sweep across a fighter squadron with a constant beam, or a spray of pinpoint shots. The phaser primary weakness is against shielding. Ultimately, this doesn't matter when it comes to fighters. Shielding strength is going to follow the square-cube law. Assuming shield strength is proportional to the size of a craft, this actually makes them far more efficient with larger craft; the surface area affected by shielding increases much more slowly than the size of the shield generation capacity. What this then means is that the shielding will be MUCH stronger for larger craft when controlling for space and energy usage proportional to how much is available. Put simply, you can pack more gigawatts per square meter of defensive emission with a larger ship with larger emitters and generators. Ergo, way stronger shield strength, even controlling for size. Conversely, it means that small craft will have very weak shielding for the same reason; tiny shield generators with few emitters, spreading the reflective power over an area much greater proportional to the amount of energy available. Weak shielding can be easily punched through with enough concentrated phaser fire, and you can determine the optimal power level pretty quickly after destroying the first few fighters to rapidly wipe out the rest of the squadron without much effort. At that size, any increase in shielding strength must either come at a cost to engine speed, fire power, or maneuverability. Alternatively, the craft could be made bigger. However, it's pretty easy to see that you're directly weakening their greatest strengths in favor of strengthening something they'll never ever be good at. In short, this means that the weaknesses of phaser fire are nullified due to the inherent weaknesses of fighter and other strike-craft, while the strengths of phaser fire directly counter the strengths of fighters and other strike-craft. Put another way, phasers are OPTIMAL weaponry for rendering strike-craft obsolete. Quite literally the only viable combat theatre that strike-craft makes sense in is atmospheric, or against targets that lack phaser-style weaponry.

[@jimtilley1158]

Federation Fighter can carry 6 Photon Torpedoes. That means a Squadron of 6 would have 36 Torpedoes. Torpedo range is 3,500,000 kilometres Phaser Range is 300,000 kilometers Fighters can warp in. Fire their Torpedoes and warp out all without even entering Phaser range. 6 Fighter Squadrons can carry the entire Photon Torpedo compliment of an Akira-class battle cruiser. 36 individuals, less people than the crew of the Defiant. Carries the firepower of an Akira. You lack Imagination if you cannot see the applications of fighters in Star Trek is exactly the same as Fighter application in today's real world.

[@brendanblanks4438]

This is the problem with thinking about warfare from a purely tactical sense. Fighters make sense in the real, current world because it is feasible to field large numbers of them, and hard to counter them. Modern day fighters are viable because the only reliable counter to a modern fighter is another modern fighter or dedicated anti-fighter weaponry. They're fast and maneuverable, in operational and tactical theatres, in ways no other warfighter can possibly be. This is simply not the case in the ST context. "Warp in," you say, but from where? You also list the operational rated range of photon torpedoes, but that lists the range of targets they can reach. It is not the same as the range to targets they can reliably hit. Fighters warping in at max range and then warping out will hit only immobile targets, and only if countermeasures are not in place. Further, fighters are short-range craft and would need to be fielded from somewhere. In space combat, that's going to be a cruiser-class or larger, which denies the viability of hit-and-run tactics as a strategy defining means of fighting a war; the source-craft will be spotted before the strike-craft can reach the target. There's a reason the Maquis were limited in their effectiveness; if this tactic were as viable as you think, the Maquis would have been a considerably larger threat. Further complicating matters is the number of fighters per craft. How many shuttlecraft were present even on a Galaxy-class starship? Even further, there is nothing stopping the target craft from merely engaging its warp engines, breaking lock from the torpedoes in the process, and easily pursuing the strike craft. The smaller the craft, the less efficient the warp drive is, and the lower its viable speed. Fighters would have neither the top speed nor the survivability to make fielding them in such a manner viable. Impulse maneuverability does not translate to warp maneuverability, unfortunately. A large target already at warp could easily outrun the fighter craft, remaining out of reach...or even turning the tables entirely on the would-be predator. Weapons are irrelevant if they can't get to the target, a problem which has been relevant in the real world through all of history. The two contexts you describe are simply not analogous. On Earth, the Small Craft Doctrine is sensible and viable. In space, at least with ST tech, the reverse is true. Small craft have their place, but it is niche and limited in scope, and not comparable to modern warfighting. Ironically, as I stated in my original post, their best use would almost certainly be as supporting fire for surface warfare on atmospheric bodies, much as they are used in today's warfighting. They won't win wars, especially not interstellar ones, but they sure will make the other combat arms' jobs easier.

[@VantasStrider]

I personally never viewed the federation attack fighter as a 'fighter,' simply an ad hoc vessel too small to be classed as a corvette. From the size, they seem comparable to a Maquis Raider (I believe they even share the same model) and I don't believe they were carried into battle, which to my mind makes them small craft rather than a dedicated fighter. I do think you're spot on about phasers though, when you have genuine laser weapons that are as accurate and instantaneous as light then fighter craft can no longer perform their intended function.

[@RedXlV]

Most likely, for Operation Return the Federation brought every ship they could strap a couple of phasers and photon torpedo launchers to, because they needed to match the Dominion's numbers in the largest fleet engagement of the war. The Federation had already seen how poorly Maquis radiers had fared against the Jem'Hadar, so they would've been under no illusions about how survivable a converted courier ship would be. But this was a must-win battle, so they brought everything they could find.

[@Firemind_EX]

I'd say that the main issue with phaser and disruptors in the Trek-verse, is that the main powers had to contend with Starfleet's increasing accuracy and power output of the phaser arrays (to which the advancements that the Federation went through through conflicts with the separate powers within the Alpha and Beta quadrants, and then with the Borg). The source of such accuracy is due to the collaboration between the member worlds in the advancement of shipboard computer systems along with the upgrades in warp reactor technology. With such a computer-based arms race between the Alpha and Beta quadrants, it's no wonder that the fighter-based fleets would have been smashed to pieces unless they were Quantum-compressed starships.

[@hunterpdx7061]

I think we also need to look at fighters (or lack thereof) in other major space faring civilizations to appreciate their lack of viability in the Star Trek universe. We know the Romulans have them, they are Scorpion attack fighters. Wasn't there one in ST:Picard too? I can't remember or look as my subscription lapsed. Anyway in Nemesis the Scimitar doesn't deploy them. Instead this massive ship chooses to use hit and run tactics rather than simply act as a platform for a massive squadron (there were a lot of them) providing a continuous barrage of high yield longer range fire support. These are about the smallest fighter craft we see. Most small ships allow for you to at least get up and move around a bit and I suspect the Peregrine attack craft we see might also be big enough. The biggest strike against fighters being viable in the Star Trek universe for me though, has to be in where we don't see them. The Klingons don't seem to have them, at least in the non-JJ verse. Other than I think a small shuttle, I can't recall ever having seen a Klingon fighter. Wouldn't you think a warrior race devoted to the idea of personal honor and glory would be lining up to jump into a flying gun blazing straight into the jaws of death? The songs and opera that could be made! But there aren't any. I can only assume that Klingons, though fearless, are not suicidal. There is no glory to be had in flying around in a pew-pew machine with a "shoot me" sign on you. It must simply be that stupid to do in the context of standard starship engagements. So why even have them at all? I think they are chiefly for use for air to surface tactical operations. Sometimes you need a live view in order to better target your weapons in real time to gauge their effects, like if you want to avoid a population or target them and avoid certain structures, as needed. There are some tactical operations for which a larger ship is just not optimal.

[@AbelMcTalisker]

I suspect that the real role of shuttle/fighters in warfare in the Star Trek universe are the roles that tank`s APC`s and strike aircraft do in the present day. You probably have craft designed to fill some of or even all three functions in use.

[@aceofspadesguy4913]

Small craft don’t do you much good when a ship’s primary weapons can destabilize a planet and also have pin-point accuracy. Makes me think of one of the episodes from ENT where the crew gets phasers for the first time and no longer have to lead targets to hit them. They’re true directed energy weapons meaning they’re exponentially faster than most weapons from other settings.

[@yeetman3143]

ok, now this is epic

[@Binkophile]

I like to think that they didn't use fighter-type ships for one reason: 'Fighters in space' is bad and wrong. For many reasons, but I'll mention the two main ones. 1. In space, Delta-V is king and a small craft packed with weapons, crew, life support, reactors, sheilds/armour, fuel, and powerful engines will have none at all. If it doesn't have all those things, it isn't a fighter. 2. Size matters. If you double the dimensions of the vessel, you square its surface area (i.e. the amount of hull required), but you cube the volume inside the hull. For example, a Borg Boxfighter is a 10 metre cube. It has a hull with a 100 square metres of surface area (weighing, lets say, 10 tons), containing an internal volume of 1000 cubic metres. If we make it twice as big, the 20m cube has a 400sq.m hull weighing 40 tons, enclosing a volume of 8000cu.m. You can fit 8 times as much fuel, missles, guns, reactors and engines for only 4 times as much ship. A battleship-type vessel could be packed to the gills with a vast array of planet-scalding weapons. A carrier is a hollow box full of highly trained and very expensive cannon fodder.

[@themastermason1]

I would say that a lot of this has to do with the fact that Starfleet isn't much of a military force. It's more like NOAA or NASA was suddenly given warships.

[@92HazelMocha]

*stares in space force*

[@themastermason1]

@@92HazelMocha Yeah, WW3 breaks out in orbit and the Marine Corps is screaming "Fighting in space and no Space Marines? That's heresy!"

[@leopoldbriggs7139]

Star trek= Submarines Star Wars = Naval Ships

[@trekwars5400]

It's not often I can watch a video and say wow that is spot-on

[@SlayerBG93]

In an age of shields and accurate phasers, fighters would realisticly be insta killed with every shot. That being said it would be more interesting to ask why are ships in the star trek universe so god damn small. We often see phasers and torpedos penetrating a few decks and not one shotting a unshielded ship and said ships seem to have armor in the range of a few inches. In the age of industrial replicators I want a god damn 2 mile long dreadnought with 50 foot thick duranium alloy. Also why the hell are drones not a thing? Like I want said dreadnought to spew out a few thousands drones serving as mobile shield emiiters and faser banks. Gone will be the days of captain we lost the port shield emitters . O no we are exposed ....

[@spaccorn]

That might have to do with the limitations on or energy required for a warp bubble large enough for your dream ship.

[@SlayerBG93]

@@spaccorn The enterprise J was mentioned at almost 2 miles long. The voth city ship was much bigger but to be fair used transwarp. There are no mentiones of mass being an issue in the star trek universe. As long as it can fit inside the ward field its fine. The enterprise J had a huge but flat soucer section. A more combat oriented designt could be much bulkier and still fit the same warp field.

[@AndrewJamesWilliams]

Given how powerful and accurate there weapons are it makes sense that the Federation doesn't use attack fighters. The thing to remember is that every single emitter on a phaser strip can - if the need arises - fire at a different target, thus it is not unknown to see a single strip fire multiple beams at different targets in the face of that kind of accuracy and power a fighter would simply be a flying coffin for its pilot.

[@mikemullen8174]

I mean I don't think anyone has ever been able to agree on whether Starfleet had an actual carrier. The fighters in the Dominion war really do seem like some sort of stopgap measure.

[@technomancer106]

The Akira class is designed as a carrier, it has a hanger that goes through the entire hull, allowing for the easy launching of fighters and shuttles whilst also allowing returning craft to land without interfering with the departing vessels

[@mikemullen8174]

@@technomancer106 I've seen that claim made, but I've also seen it pretty strongly refuted, especially given how the Akira is shown in action in First Contact. Not to mention estimates of the relative size of the Akira and the Peregrine fighter. If there's a canon reference to it being a carrier that would be fine but it just seems to be fan speculation.

[@technomancer106]

@@mikemullen8174 I agree that the relative size of the Akira and any starfleet fighter craft does make this particular piece of lore a bit weird, but it is lore nonetheless. I first read about it in the eaglemoss official Star Trek ship collection booklet on the Akira, and I saw it again when I finally got my hands on a (PDF) copy of the DS9 Technical Manual. (Sorry for the long reply, the Akira is a personal favourite of mine since I first saw it in First Contact)

[@technomancer106]

Actually it may have been a different PDF, but I just got the Star Trek encyclopaedia off my shelf and found the article on the Akira class, which says it’s was originally designed as a rapid reaction vessel, able to launch and recover shuttlecraft from its hangers quickly in an emergency situation, and in times of war those shuttlecraft could be replaced with fightercraft

[@fractalgem]

I don't think they have anything that would be considered an "actual carrier" in other universes, though they might have some stuff that could be thought of as one by their own standards. They just make far too little use of fighters to need one, and most of the niches that would normally be filled by fighters are either non viable or filled by how maneuverable their ships are by default (and that fighters don't really get much more maneuverability to make up for their lower surviveability when hit).

[@KellyStarks]

Two points. Fighters also allow attacking at great range with bomb as powerful as shells. So a battleship gets attacked by a carriers fighters while the carriers are hundreds of miles out of its range. In space with beam weapons like phasers or lasers, or really high speed rail guns or such. Ships can target each other at staggering ranges. Current laser tech allows precise targeting at hundreds of thousands of miles away. Telescopes lock on across the solar system. In Trek, Star Fleet ( in better battle scenes) engage and precisely hit opponents over a hundred thousand miles away… that’s about half way to the moon. With stealth. Battles are more like submarine to submarine. Quietly trying to lock on to a enemy and fire before scene. More like the battle of wrath of Khan, then those in BSG. Writers often don’t do their research, and just elaborate on what’s current, or current assumptions. So fighters are big in our world, so they write them (including the maneuvers) in stories set centuries in the future. By luck or thought, Trek actually made the right call. With Treks precise ranged weapons, fighters are just target drones.

[@tubehicks7037]

"Why Didn't Starfleet Command Use Starfighters?" - Budget.

[@lurkingstar]

the budget went into the TNT-laced consoles

[@SomeFrenchie]

I think it's a combination of two things. 1. Like in the video phasers can hit with nearly perfect accuracy to the point where a miss is almost unheard of entirely. 2. Starfleet is exploration first and military second the first vessels made specifically for war were close to and during the Dominion war so I would guess those fighters were converted from something else for the purpose think about who Starfleet faced before the Dominion, The Klingons who just prefer and all out slug fest with there biggest ships and the Romulans which a fighter is not going up against a D'deridex class. So big battleship like vessels were most likely the safest bet.

[@NewResistance]

Didnt they in DS9 though

[@TemplinInstitute]

damn, I wish I thought to address that in the video

[@NewResistance]

@@TemplinInstitute oh I'm misremembering then, I thought they said they were bombers or something. Well time to rewatch

[@rnukes]

@@TemplinInstitute that was mainly the maquis who never got in big fleet action

[@mho...]

If you mean the Runabouts? then yes & no 😅 They where "big shuttles" designed to have everything a starship has, but at a small scale , being modular and able to utilize full sized starship weapons, not the downsized shuttle ones. they are basically just a cockpit with an energycore in its "spine" and 2 nacelles, everything else is just a "underslung" container, depending on needs (imagine a caravan, where the living module is a "container" you can switch out, but in space) soo yes they used the Runabout "shuttles" as fighters , but they where more "small ships" in the end!

[@Madwand99]

Star Trek: Discovery did have an episode where our protagonists somehow supplemented their forces with fightercraft from (almost) nowhere, and it was cancer. I think the main reason fighters don't work in Star Trek is not phasers, but shields. The key to having fighters work is that they are capable of delivering enough firepower in their tiny package to achieve mission objectives: i.e. blow up capital ships. Shields in this universe make starships way more durable and thus make it almost impossible for fighters to have an effect on a battle. Massive firepower is needed to take down an enemy and that won't fit on a fighter. Instead, Star Trek uses an autonomous weapon system that is way more flexible and useful: torpedoes! These have a similar function to fighters but are powerful enough to make a difference in fleet combat.

[@kennethbedwell5188]

Isn't STD cancer anyway?

[@Madwand99]

@@kennethbedwell5188 Eh, it varies. Some of it is good, some of it is terrible.

[@RealChrisB119]

100% accurate. Fighters are only useful against less technologically advanced foes, which is why the Federation doesn't use them and also why the Reman warbird didn't bother launching them against the Enterprise. I was always annoyed at how effective the Dominion fightercraft were against the much larger Federation ships.

[@sh7de553]

Imo people are the most valuable asset in any military. Drones, missiles or torpedoes are more cost effective option if you want to throw punches with something nimble without worrying about survivability. While I doubt navies will do away with carriers in our own time, I imagine defending against hypersonic weapons will be a major tactical question mark.

[@Ditidos]

To be honest, fighters in general don't really make much sense outside of tecno-barbarians societies. After all, why use human pilots when drones are a posibility? In a similar point, with no friction, you are getting a lot out of any maneouber drive, this would allow for capital-sized ships (of naval size, not as huge as some capital scifi starships) to not be at a disadvantage against fighters in terms of speed and evasion, they would still be dedicated fighters, just not one-person crewed. Plus, if you wanted space ships that would really benefit by size for speed and being a small target, drones would again be able to be much smaller than human-crewed fighters. All that said, I understand why fighters are used since they are good narrative tool and all that. I can suspend my disbelief for this perfectly fine, but I assume we are having a purely realistic disscusion.

[@mill2712]

The only excuse I'll except for not using drones is hacking. But even then, unless you're using 60's technology, anything could potentially be hacked. (Speaking of which it actually is possible to make a space sci-fi setting with tech only slightly more advanced than our own/at our level or even at 60's tech.) Besides there are safeguards against hacking such as having good encryption, or a very active cyber warfare team. And if your setting is huge like a Dyson swarm, then diversity in technology is also useful.

[@Ditidos]

@@mill2712 I mean, if you can hack drones, you can definetly hack a manned ship anyway. And in a capital ship you would have more space to counterhack your enemy anyway or to try to get your drones/controls back. It's just more beneficial to have a huge central ship where you could potentially have multiple pseudoindepedent system checking for security all the time rather to have just one system with a person inside, meaning the pilot is now at total mercy of your enemy. Unlike with a drone.

[@Ditidos]

@@mill2712 And yes, lower tech space settings are possible. To be honest I wonder how much back in tech one could potentially go if the setting is a moon system of a gas giant (gunpowerd spaceship, maybe? I doubt it, but it would be interesting for softer scifi).

[@mill2712]

@@Ditidos I'd say 60's technology would be more than enough to go from moon to moon in such a system. Especially if gravity would allow it to be more sustainable and is similar to the civilization's moon of origin. Though if gravity is light enough, you could go as far back as 50's or even 40's tech. Though that's the likely limit. (Do not respond at the moment, I'm headed home so give 30 minutes to get there and add to this.)

Right. Due to the accuracy of weapons in ST, the fighters, if they are used at all, are usually just there as a distraction, maybe some extra firepower from flanking positions, or act as a swarm to overwhelm other ships.

[@TheNN]

"Why didn't Starfleet use Starfighters?" "So the shows and movies can happen!" "Very cool!"

[@zetoboogaloo8802]

In an episode of star trek they hit a 3 meter size object from 90,000 kilometers away... thats insane. They have extreme accuracy and fighters are so small their energy capacity, weapons and shields are abysmal and are so weak they would do no damage to the ship or even harm the shields. While a starship could wipe an entire starfighter Squadron in seconds and not waste much energy doing so. So fighters in star trek are more suicide vessels then being a critical weapon.

[@botondkalocsai5322]

The viability of fighters always boils down to the effective firing range of anti-fighter weapons and fighter weapons. If the fighter's target relevant weapons has a superior range compared to the target's anti-fighter weapons effective range, then fighters are viable. Otherwise, they are unviable because apart from a very costly saturation attack, the fighters will never get to damage the target with their weapons. In the ST universe, it is true that capital ship phasers are still very accurate and can destroy fighters way before they do any relevant damage with their phasers. However, there are some vast discrepancies in ST with the interaction of capital ship phasers and small, fast mover targets. One of the greatest discrepancies in ST is meanwhile fast fighters are easy targets for capital ship phasers, they never hit or even target torpedoes, as if they were unhittable. If they can also fulfil the role of a CIWS then they should be able to destroy torpedoes. The other discrepancy is based on the previous: torpedoes ranges vastly outclass phaser ranges, yet no one puts torpedoes on their fighters, as the main anti-capital weapons. Thus the idea of a fast torpedo boat-like fighter would tactically vastly outclass the gunskiff-like fighters in star trek, because they could easily mount lightning-quick multi-vector barrage or a focused barrage from a specific direction, and then escape without a scratch because they can do it beyond capital ship phaser range, and are enough manoeuvrable to evade enemy retaliatory torpedo fire. So actually fighters are viable in ST, just the authors of the show didn't thought-out well.

[@Idazmi7]

It's not a discrepancy: Star Trek torpedoes are heavily energy shielded: that's what that glow is. Also, torpedoes can be given proximity fuses, and scattered to intercept enemy fighters.

[@CHKNFRGZ]

0:59 seconds in and my statement of 'Well, Warhammer capital ships seem more important in fleet actions' is answered. Thank you so much, Templin.

[@TheEDFLegacy]

Templin Institute: Why doesn't Starfleet use Starfighters? Peregrine Fighter: "...Do I look like a joke to you?" 😅

[@TemplinInstitute]

Templin Institute: Here is a 4 minute long video. Commenters: I AM ONLY GOING TO REACT TO THE TITLE

[@traplordryab9881]

@@TemplinInstitute 💀💀

[@TheEDFLegacy]

@@TemplinInstitute 😂👍 To be honest, you were totally correct in the video. I was posting in jest. 😅 you're absolutely right that fighters in Star Trek in practically every single accounts her have lost tremendously. One of my most _hated_ episodes was the Discovery Season 2 season finale, because not only were the "combat shuttlecraft" practically worthless, I'd imagine almost every single one was manned, meaning that _hundreds_ of pilots were killed in the battle. Also, where would you fit them all? The _only_ time I've ever seen a practical use for a fighter in Star Trek were are those strange crafts that completely destroyed the Kelvin-Timeline Enterprise, but only through overwhelming numbers and a unique strategy of ramming that didn't destroy itself in the process.

[@Jandau85]

One thing I like about the Honor Harrington books is that the arms race and shifting naval doctrines were a significant plot element. From the first book onwards, major interstellar powers are trying out not just new tech, but new applications of older tech in an effort to find something that might break up the stagnant combat paradigm (in this case, massive lines of Dreadnoughts slugging it out). Eventually in the series, with advancing technology fighters and carriers become viable, to utter disbelief of experienced Naval officers who normally scoff at the use of such small craft in major engagements...

[@andybiz4273]

They definitely used fighters in DS9, I don't know why so many people don't consider fighters to be canon when they are clearly in DS9

[@westrim]

The video spends nearly a minute on that battle.

[@QarthCEO]

@@westrim The video is stupid. They acknowledge that there's fighters in canon, but then say they somehow prove that SFC didn't use fighters...

[@westrim]

@@QarthCEO Because that's the one time we see anything remotely fighterish.

[@QarthCEO]

@@westrim Because the Dominion War was a unique conflict for the very survival of the Federation. Putting 100 men in 50 fighters made their fire power far greater than if they were in a single Star Ship.

[@planthing2315]

I believe I watched another video explaining that the old trek style off ship combat was based off old submarine movies the constant reliance of scanners to find enemies the ship shaking from near hits. As the setting (and budget) expanded it increased the size and grandeur of the battles. Realistically though fighters in space would be incredibly stupid

[@barnettmcgowan8978]

Great video! I never thought about the role of phasers as an in universe reason.

[@gunh4129]

It simple. Because space is a one dimensional warfare. While Air-Sea battle on Earth is three dimensional battle. (Sky, Surface Sea, Under Sea). In Air-sea battle, airplanes are useful because they come from different plane. Sky. They have different design rule & Role than Surface combatants. But in a one dimensional battle, every military platforms follow the same rule. Small ship won't be able to stand against bigger simply because they have less power. Plus, in Star Trek, there is another factor. Force field / Shield. Bigger Ships can have everything that a star Fighter won't have. Stronger Shield, Stronger Warp Drive, Stronger phaser. The only weapon that they can depend is torpedo. The problem is, how many torpedo that a Star Fighter can held? And how big it is.

[@David_J_B]

Perhaps a good comparison is stargate sg-1 where fighters exist, but are only useful in small scale battles and for planetary assault. In large battles, fighters lack the power to be effective against capitol ships shields and just get picked off, or ignored. It takes something really advanced like the ancient drone weapons to bypass most shields, but they render fighters obsolete themselves as they effectively replace them. Also most of the ships we see used like fighters in star trek, like the marquis raider or even the runabouts are more like tiny starships than actual fighters.

[@tomastomasi975]

I was under the impression fighters wouldn't work in space and that's why Roddenberry didn't introduce them.

[@cquilty673]

I think it's pretty straightforward. By the time you mount a generator powerful enough to give a ship any chance at all of even harassing the patrol ships, you no longer have a fighter, you have at least a fleet support ship. (DD, DDE) Even in an economy not geared around wealth, resources still have to be allocated sensibly. If you must have a generator that big, well, wrap it in something that can use that power for something besides just running around looking for other ships to beat up.

[@raw6668]

I think the main Starfleet doesn't use fighters in most operations is that unless they use large swarms of them, they would be quickly destroyed in combat. Also, I wonder if Starfleet uses fighters more in a support role, like support planetary defense or tanks.

[@bemasaberwyn55]

Technically speaking, there is also the standard compliment of shuttle craft on Starfleet cruisers. Which is essentially small agile starships. So much so that they even have the lower grade of the standard phaser emitters in it's base design (as well as compliments of Photon torpedoes). This became essential in the early days of the Maquis as Starfleet Command at the behest of Benjamin Sisko used the compliment of shuttles from Deep Space 9 to enage Maquis fighters.

[@ImperatorZor]

In Star Trek one of the key orders that you always here is "Evasive Maneuvers". You fly your ship around janky to dodge enemy fire and as we see in basically every Trek series, it works. If a 600 meter starship can dodge phasers and torpedoes, a smaller nimbler 15 meter long ship can do so much better.

[@AlexandarHullRichter]

That depends on what is providing the maneuvering force. Starships can maneuver with their impulse engines. Those impulse engines can move the ship around at about half the speed of light. What Starfighter is going to be controllable by a person and still be able to out maneuver a starship that can maneuver at half the speed of light?

[@verybigbrain1]

Generally in space fighters loose a major advantage they have in terrestrial combat, the unlocking of an additional axis of movement. But a lot of Sci-Fi of course is guided by our own experiences and not hard strategy consideration because that makes for more accessible stories.

[@gjc21ful]

I always thought of it more in the reactor size as the video says. That the Battleships of our world became vulnerable because even their mighty armour could not stop the bombs of a tiny biplane. But that’s inversed through shields and reactors in most SCFI. Fighters just can’t penetrate capital ship levels of shielding with their smaller weapons loadout and tiny reactor power nor can they protect themselves. Well the video adds the finer point of SCFI level point defence as well. But as long as power and shields are a thing, things with more of such will win!

[@tarrker]

You're absolutely correct and, it's not just the Federation. In the Star Trek universe smaller ships simply aren't great for combat roles for pretty much exactly why you said. Phaser technology. When you have a weapon that can completely encompass an enemy vessel in a single shot, that vessel becomes pointless. Add to that weaponry like disruptors or photonic explosives and you're just not looking at a good write up for shuttle craft or "fighters" in a combat role.

[@Paveway-chan]

Well, there's a very good reason why there are no carriers in Trek. Carriers are mobile airports, the reason you need them is because Super Hornets and Rafales don't have the endurance to fly across the Atlantic, shoot missiles, and get back to base. Not without extensive in-fight refuelling anyway. And carriers allows you to, in a naval engagement, only risk fighter jets while the enemy must risk their principal surface combatants. Lots of benefits. As you point out, a ship's point defence against fighters is very strong in Trek, making such attacks perilous. If the enemy brought a carrier, you can just make a short warp jump and appear right on top of it and blow it to smithereens. Hell, large ships in Trek would probably be *faster* at warp than small fighters. And with how (I think) warp drives work, a fighter could piggyback on *any* ship at warp. You just bolt a dozen onto a Galaxy-class starship wherever they'll fit, and blow them loose when there's a battle. I actually don't buy the idea that fighters would play a major role in space combat at all, realistically. Just because that's how it works on Earth doesn't mean it would work that way in space. Carriers only work better because they can strike from farther away. In space, any projectile weapon has infinite range and energy weapons, while not infinite, has extreme range and you can't dodge them. Why send fighters out that travel at a few hundred meters per second and carry small payloads and can get shot down, when you can just point and shoot your laser canon / mass accelerator at the offending target? It makes very little sense to me.

[@dashiellgillingham4579]

Because they aren't spaceships, since no-one alive knows what that means. Space is an ocean, and the ships are all submarines. Building smaller such machines just means you might as well have launched a torpedo, since that's even less mass for killing power than a small craft. Interestingly, this logic is creeping up into the modern terrestrial battlefield as well, with fighters and small attack craft being increasingly without purpose as larger vehicles like the B-52 can do everything they can do for longer at much greater range.

[@Dan19870]

Hard to fault your logic Marc. I was thinking Maybe the Reman Scorpion class attack shuttles were equipped with cloaking devices, but they'd need to be a lot bigger than that. Honestly in a universe where beam weapons rarely, if ever miss, fighter craft are made obsolete. Anyone else think it was odd that the Dominion called all their small warships fighters, despite having crews of 50 or more? Also: Yay for drunken Freelancer Streams, vanilla vodka and vanilla coke is something to consider.

[@everythingsgonnabealright8888]

Many fighters in sci-fi are just WWII/Cold War era fighters but in SPAHSE. Nevertheless, I just cannot without them. It’s just such a cool concept - you and your enemy in tiny flying coffins, dancing the dance of death in the uncaring cold void of space. Just as I just cannot without mechs, however silly they are from realistic pov.

[@bluedragon3634]

A "sci-fi" universe that I like starfighter is Yamato Space Battleship, because there they have a reason to have starfighters, and the main power is from the Yamato aka The Capital ship, the fighter are more of a support role, of course they play a very important role, but when needed,the main weapons shine

[@patrickstewart3446]

In the ST Universe the best role for fighters would probably be in the ground attack role. Man portable phasers might not have enough punch and Capital ship phasers might cause too much collateral damage, but a fighter scale weapon would fill that niche perfectly.