""space fighters" should be aerodynamic" Topic

Guys,

I am in the proccess of working up drawings for my ships and fighters/bombers and a thought came to me. I know it is or has been popular to point out that space fighters are often aerodynamic looking even thought there is no need in space.
Trying to put myself in the position of the military and everything they think of when deciding what weapons to use a thought came to me, hear me out:)
One of, if not the biggest factor in deciding what weapons system is adopted is often what is the cheapest or gives the most bang for the buck, NOT just what system is clearly the best. So take this one step further for the missions space fighters will need to do. Not only will they have to do fleet actions but they may be called upon to do ground support missions, hid in a gas giant to ambush an enemy, act as planet side defense or something of the like.
Lets say your carrier force has 1000 fighters and has to first clear a defending fleet and then support a planet side invasion. If you have an aerodynamic fighter then you can use all 1000 in the space battle AND the ground support. If your space fighters are not aerodynamic and you need another design for that then it means a split of force say only 500 for the space battle and 500 for the ground support.
Lets add to that equation that if only one type of design is used that makes logistics alot easier(training, spare parts, etc).
With this in mind I would think admirals would not only perfer a multipurpose design but would insist on it. Ya you could argue that a design not restricted by a aerodynamics would perform better but using the above 1000 vs 500-500 example it would have to be twice as good and I doubt aerodynamics would restrict a design that much.
So anyway, am I missing something, has this been brought up before? What do you guys think, a good point to make?

Travis

Yes, but that assumes the military procurement process of the future uses logic. Since the current ones don't, I submit there is no reason to assume they will in the future either – see the F4 Phantom, without guns, for an example of that.

To support my argument further, the History Channel recently ran a story on future space combat, in which little fighter cubes and balls fought with one another in the vacuum of space.

These are optimal shapes, since they use vectored rocket thrust, and want to be as small as possible to avoid being hit when fired upon. Made sense at the time, especially without cinematic, curving space maneuvers.

I do agree though, that those dedicated for planetary atmospheric entry will be vastly different.

I'm guessing if it ever does come down to large forces in space, specialist types will be developed, e.g. those capable of fighting in atmospheres, and those dedicated only to zero-G combat in a vacuum.

Leaving aside the whole 'space fighters don't work' issue….

1) If you're aerodynamic and carrying the appropriate equipment, you're carrying around a lot of weight you don't need for space combat- hence your fighter is going to be inherently inferior to enemy space-only designs. Not a good thing unless you can assure absolute numerical superiority all the time.

2) If your drive system is powerful enough to make a fighter-sized craft worthwhile (ie, very high thrust), then it might not even matter if you're aerodynamic or not- you can muscle your way through the atmosphere all the same.

3) Why are you using your expensive space fighters for ground support anyway? A cheaper atmosphere-only design would do the job just as well and for cheaper. I'd rather have 800 space-only fighters and 400+ VTOL rough-field aircraft I drop with the troops then 1000 craft that can't do either job well.

4) continuing on the thought above, the problem is that an aero-space fighter is going to lose to *both* enemy space fighters and enemy combat aircraft- and be more expensive then either. It's neither fish nor fowl and will not perform as well as a dedicated craft in either environment. If you're just intervening against lower-tech forces that's probably fine, but against a comparable tech-base you're going to be in trouble.

If you're going with space fighters making some atmospheric would be reasonable- they would have a niche to fill. But the top of the line craft are going to have to be specialists.

-Will

Aerodynamic spacecraft look better. They are Pulp. The space-only ships are interesting to look at but they are not beautiful. Unless beauty vanishes from our appeal for objects future spacecraft will have design built into the. Not just function.

"…little fighter cubes and balls… These are optimal shapes…"

AWWW, that ain't sexy!! A pox on your house! We want sleek, sexy devilishly lethal asthetics!!

To Will's points:

1.) Not necessarily. Nobody said a streamlined craft would use atmospheric control surfaces, or even wings. Just that it would be "aerodynamic." A lifting body fits that description, as does a Delta Clipper. So there's no inherent reason an aerodynamic fighter would have significantly more mass than a non-aerodynamic one, certainly not in a way that would significantly inhibit performance.

2. Not really. You're also wasting fuel fighting atmospheric conditions, not to mention the dangers of heat-build up. Plus, if you don't have some sort of lifting surface, that means considerably more of your energy (and fuel reserves) is being used simply to counteract the pull of gravity. Also, air resistance will affect maneuverability, hull integrity and materials fatigue, etc. Not streamlining therefore hampers combat performance and limits effective operations range. (It's no different than a submarine or a ship. Both float due to buoyancy. So why streamline their hulls? Efficiency, speed and maneuverability.)

3. You use a dual-purpose craft so you don't have to lug around extra mass in your mothership. Basic spaceflight 101.

4. Not really, as established by all the above.

"in which little fighter cubes and balls fought with one another in the vacuum of space."

Space battles will then look like a game of Pong, and thus everyone will loose interest in engaging in them. Afterwards there will be peace in the galaxy and no child will ever have to hear the sound of 'pew pew pew' in space ever again.

In space, no one can hear you say "pew pew pew."

Ok Sergeant Crunch, I do alot of space games and I intend to steal your quote and use it often.

In Ian Douglas' latest military scifi novel "Star Carrier" (basically high tech Battlestar Galactica) the space fighters at the center of the story are made of a type of nano/memory material that is dynamically configurable.

For high-G in system boosting the fighters reconfigure into a tear-drop shape (to minimize the impact of stray particles and dust at extremely high velocities). For space combat they configure into an ovoid form, and if they have to go atmospheric they configure into an aerodynamic form.

Kinda cool, the spacecraft morphs into the shape required based upon the mission need.

link

Will, you make some good points. And I ought to stress that I've been convinced that space fighters as usually portrayed in fiction are altogether ridiculous anyway. BUT, given that they are somehow plausible:

It all depends, obviously, on the required tradeoffs between roles. A combination speedboat/tank/winnebago is obviously going to work as you describe. However, most air forces have fighter-bombers. So either scenario might work, depending on PSB and setting-specific considerations.

But there are some roles where multi-role fighters are particularly useful.

Frigates for example are small vessels designed for a variety of operations. They are designed for missions short of all-out war such as commerce raiding, patrols, special ops, diplomatic missions, relief operations, and escort duties. They don't typically take part in the main line of battle like a ship of the line, but they will have a few fighters aboard because they are so darn useful. Multi-role fighters make perfect sense; you can't carry enough individual ships to have specialist vehicles for both air and space missions, and you don't expect to face A-list opponents anyway.

Other warships will have similar needs. Pirates, civil patrols, insurgents/guerillas/activists, armed tramp merchants, mercenaries and plucky do-gooders all need flexibility more than they need specialization.

Think of them as the zodiac boats / hind helicopters / humvees of their age.

To the sexy > logic people:

I take it you don't want combat webbing on your infantry figures, or any kind of weathering or stowage on your vehicles? Guess you don't like camo either.

The reality and science of such things can provide beauty, function, and idea hooks better than most anything goes projects.

In this instance, you cite fighter- bombers as a model of how you can get away with a one size fits all fighter. I guess you forgot all the specialized aircraft. Tactical and strategic bombers, transport, search and rescue, E.W. aircraft, fighter, interceptors, and ground attack models. Plus if an space navy admiral (gotta find better terminology than naval equivalents as well) wants air superiority, that's easy, bombard enemy air strips from orbit. Even if they have aircraft aloft, they can't stay there forever. :)

That's one of the major problems I have with SF combat, hardly anyone ever considers the full ramifications of the technology at their disposal.

Babylon 5 probably had the most "realistic" space fighter (the Human Starfury) picture . It has reaction thrusters on arms so it can change vectors quickly – if not stop on a dime as the thrusters also fire forward. I believe that it also was depicted in atmospheric flight, so those wings/pylons theoretically can provide lift. Ailerons and rudders aren't necessary – again because of the tip-mounted engines.

In theory, a good compromise would be an X-Wing with thrusters on the end of wings and turret-mounted weapons (think FLIR turret picture ) and missiles to target enemies even off-boresite.

A purpose-built atmospheric fighter of the same tech level is better than a trans-atmospheric one because it is built to take advantage of the specific atmospheric conditions found on that planet. However, if you're chasing other ships in and around gas giants or planets with thin atmospheres, a design that can make use of aerodynamics, is better than a souped-up Gemini capsule in that environment.

Fighters make sense unless you're just planning on nuking every target from orbit.

Wyatt

Actually the Earth Alliance Aurora-class Starfury was not atmospheric. In fact in one episode Garibaldi states that as and advantage against the Raider's Delta V fighters that were atmospheric capable as they were fighting in space and the Delta Vs were compromised in being an atmosphere/space fighter and the Starfuries were purely a space fighter.

The EA did have the Thunderbolt-class Starfury which was atmospheric capable and also did have engines mounted far out on it's 4 wings (like the Aurora).

Aurora-class Starfury
picture

Thunderbolt-class Starfury
link

Delta-V Raider
picture

Ah, the Thunderbolt was the one I was recalling. Of course, you have to figure out a way to get into the atmosphere without frying everything in any case. Heat shielding would definitely increase a fighter's mass and hamper it.

Wyatt

I liked the 'shape-shifting' vehical from 'Flight of the Navigator' from Disney?

picture

picture

and

link

and by the way, not only did Disney remake 'Witch Mountain' bue is also in process of REMAKING 'Flight of the Navigator'

link

BUT, in answer to your question about space fighters…I'd go 'semi' aerodynamic but have them be piloted by VIRTUAL REALITY systems…(sorta like UAV's???)…with backup internal/'learning' systems…(like in movie 'Stealth?')

They can pull more 'G's' than piloted vessels could wouldn't need life-support or other 'comforts' and while there are old pilots and bold pilots but very few 'old bold' pilots…pilots can LEARN from mistakes, if it doesn't kill them!!!!!

Just my humble 'two slishes' on the subject!!!!

Sgt DWW-btod

"Plus if an space navy admiral (gotta find better terminology than naval equivalents as well)…"

Psssh. That's easy. "Space Lord"

Muther, muther…

Allen

Dances took my example. I was thinking of "Flight of the Navigator" when Tankisti was describing the nano/memory material.

Say, that's right, "Flight of the Navigator." Good idea. The fighters in Douglas' book are powered by a singularity and presume mastery of gravity, etc. Fun space combat books that are least based on realistic science.

Even in an advanced tech world those things would cost enormous amounts of money/resources and would probably be huge just to take the power plants and gravity engines. We like to think such things can be made tiny but systems and materials can only allow so much shrinkage and still perform to your needs. Granted there are technologies and side stepping techniques we don't yet know about, but there's only so much the universe will let you get away with.

For example, how do you dissipate all the heat you would generate from boosting around and firing like a madman with energy weapons? Even assuming ultra advanced materials you'd probably go incandescent before you even got close to your enemy.

If you check on our current carriers you'll find a multiple of aircrafts, some with just a single purpose, others are multi roll craft, I would make several crafts, close air support, fighter close air support, fighter, fighter bomber, bomber, fighter counter electronic jamming, and I would make them aerodynamic just for eye candy, only because of the gamming side of things, after some point nobody is going to want to fight a handful of BB's

In the future I would expect there would be two types of crafts, space only and atmospheric ones. And they too will either have a single purpose or a multi purpose in both of these classes, and that carriers would be huge, maybe carrying 3000 fighters or even 5000 fighters! 1000 fighters for a land fall operation from one carrier may not be enough even if you had 5 carriers your going to need lots of fighter/bombers for support of such an operation, taking a planet would make D-Day looking like a very very tiny operation,

Carriers I would guess will be huge it would be easier to protect 3 or 5 of these huge carriers then 10 or 15 smaller ones. Larger ones would have mass amounts of weapons mounted on them and to destroy one would almost be impossible, the fire power that could be focus on anything incoming would almost assure it to be destroyed. with these huge carriers in the right formation flying through them would mean certain death.

As I see it, there are 2 main problems with a ship that has an atmospheric capability:

1. Cost, both in terms of money and mass, of heat shielding.

2. See the differences between a laptop and a PC – an atmosphere craft is a laptop, everything has to be crammed into a small, shaped space. The space only version you just keep sticking things on as upgrades.

So the space only version would be both cheaper to produce and carry far more.

The USAF is strongly biased towards shiny/pointy designs even if they aren't necessarily the best IRL, maybe that will still be the case in the future.
-Kle.

I think that a fighter that could enter the atmosphere and reach escape velocity would had a power plant that wouldn't have many fuel restrictions. The fighter could be any shape and lug itself around. A fighter, though doesn't necessarily have to do that. Think the turret in "The Last Starfigher" and you get he idea. Why point the ship when you can point the gun?

However, SF being SF is not restricted by logic, only guided by it. It is entirely possible that a science-fictional culture could have an esthetic that causes their building and vehicles to look a certain way. I'm thinking TOS Romulans and the Bird of Prey ships and their hawk like helmets. As long as the design is functional, there is no reason that it can be pleasing the eye as well.

I do have a concern wiht the cube and ball theory. If you are an air…err…space traffic controller, how do you know which way the craft is facing? How 'bout flying in formation? Would the ball craft have a big dot to demark the front? They would be eyeballs in space! Perhaps the cube ships would have stenciled on the front, "THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY".

xrays: the ranges and lighting environment we're talking about mean that you won't be navigating by eye. Instead everything would be either fully automated or computer augmented.

Human pilots might still navigate by eye, but they wouldn't be looking out a window, they would be seeing an augmented reality view that enhances the size and shape of other ships to permit navigation. Much as we do currently with glass cockpits and heads up displays. It would probably also provide an augmented audio environment, same logic.

It probably WONT look or sound like space fantasy, but a specialized shape purely as a visual cue isn't likely.

The tradeoffs may or may not make this all feasible. Atmospheric flight may put severe constraints on shape, but space combat doesn't put very many at all, so it may not be a problem. Highly advanced tech might be both cheaper and better (what strategists call a dominating option). That's why we don't put oars on our navy's ships anymore: they are worse in every way including cost.

But even if you assume reaction drives it might make sense. B5's thunderbolts were an aerodynamic compromise that was highly competitive with the specialist starfury (due to new tech that made compromises practical).

The viper in BSG had a long, narrow nose but most of the heavy gear (including pilot, engines and weapons) were concentrated in the bulbous fuselage at the back. In space, the wings act as radiators and the long nose housed the reaction thrusters for a longer moment arm and greater maneuverability. So that's another compromise where you don't lose much of anything by building a hybrid, and gain a ton of flexibility.

I am still trying to figure out why Tie fighters make that horrendous noise when they fly past in the vacuum of space :)

I think the question is do you want realistic designs, or do you want people to say wow those are cool (thus selling product)?

Most of the truly cool space battles with cool looking fighters violate the laws of physics. The ships maneuver like they are WWII fighter planes or something out of Topgun.

Exciting, but not very realistic. For looks it is the same thing, cool wins over practical.

My impression is that most ScFi designs start with the "I want ships that look like this" approach, and then they try to justify the designs later with explanations of the "technology" that drove the design.

Now the Honor Harrington series may have started with a technology concept first, but the ships are boring as heck to look at? Giant cigars in space…….

Star Wars has a lot of really cool ships, the science is crap, but the ships are cool looking.

For example you can make a ship non-aerodynamic, and then explain that the energy shields around it create a "smooth" surface for high speed flight in atmosphere….etc….

The key is what do you want it to be like? How do you envision the battles and tech? Then make stuff to match.

Garrison Miniatures said:

everything has to be crammed into a small, shaped space

Why small? Size has nothing to do with aerodynamics— only shape is important.
The Space Shuttle is aerodynamic. So is a C-130. Neither are small.

The ideal shape may be more or less that of a submarine, minus the conning tower and the rudder. Fluid dynamics and aerodynamics are largely the same thing. However, I think a near-conical lifting body shape is better, as it gives you the advantage of a hypersonic lifting surface along with atmospheric streamlining to reduce heat, while allowing for a significant interior volume for ship components, crew, etc. A present day example: link
Given more advanced engines, the control surfaces could be replaced with maneuvering thrusters, if that's a concern.

As for fuel usage, there is no "magic" fuel that allows you to ignore the military necessity of efficient operation. Spacecraft will always be designed with efficiency in mind as well as functionality. (Provided, of course, that too many politicians aren't too closely involved.) I find it ironic that two arguments being made against aerodynamic fighters are essentially at odds:
1.) The control surfaces add unwanted mass in spaceflight, which is inefficient.
2.) "Big enough" engines mean you don't have to worry about inefficiency in atmospheric operations.
If the former argument is valid, it renders the latter invalid. If the latter is valid, it renders the former invalid.

Interestingly enough, at very high rates of acceleration, spacecraft may actually need an aerodynamic leading edge (at the very least) to help deflect interstellar dust, gases and other particles.

Found this little thing today: link

Note that it doesn't use control surfaces, but thrusters for maneuver.

If you want to be really, really realistic, you should just have an empty starmat on your tabletop because we will never, ever achieve this kind of tech in the real world, never mind sprawling intergalactic empires. I think we're all overthinking this.

A lifting body fits that description, as does a Delta Clipper. So there's no inherent reason an aerodynamic fighter would have significantly more mass than a non-aerodynamic one, certainly not in a way that would significantly inhibit performance.

A lifting body by itself doesn't make you capable of effective (combat level) atmospheric maneuvering, which is what you need for the mud-fighting missions that entail you sending down your fighters in the first place. If all you need is high altitude bombing your fighters can drop steel crowbars from orbit.

2. Not really.

Yep- all the more reason to not send them down there in the first place!

3. You use a dual-purpose craft so you don't have to lug around extra mass in your mothership. Basic spaceflight 101.

Nope- you have a single purpose craft so you don't have lug around extra mass on your fighter, which is even more mass-sensitive than your mothership due to it's small size. That's even more basic spaceflight 101.

4. Not really, as established by all the above.

I actually don't see how any of your points refute the fact that a dual-purpose craft will indeed be at a penalty vs. a specialist one. You will have to sacrifice *something* to build a craft that is just as capable a combatant in the atmosphere as it is in space. There's no such thing as a free lunch, even more so when it comes to spacecraft design.

The fundamental issue is that it what it takes to be a good space fighter is not the same, or sometimes not even compatible with, what it takes to be a good combat aircraft.

If all you're worried about is can your fighter survive reentry (for launching and recovering from a planet-side base, for instance), then it still doesn't really make sense to make them look like aircraft- a spherical fighter could just as readily be equipped to survive re-entry. Or go for a straight lifting body if you like- you could make it work. It still won't look much like an aircraft though.

It's trying to *fight* effectively in the atmosphere that makes things tricky- you're expecting the craft to have the right equipment and balance of attributes for two totally different mediums. It would be a bit like trying to build a fighter aircraft that could also submerge and fight as a (fast) mini-sub. There's nothing that makes it physically impossible, but the craft is just not going to be as good in either medium as a dedicated vehicle.

-Will

Isn't someone going to point out that most scientists say this will not happen because when one civilization runs into another, the more advanced with clobber the less advanced no matter what the ships look like, and that if they are fighting because of civil war or the like then both sides will pretty much be using the same stuff and basically the question will not occur?

Just asking.

Actually, the point about the military wanting the cool looking over the functional is true more often than not. It is why they wanted to get rid of the A-10 and just use F-16s, and why the F-117 is black rather than a shade of pink. It is also probably why the Boeing entry lost to the F-35 in the end.

Plus miniature casters would never be able to sell square and round fighters because everyone would be able to make their own out of BBs and balsa sticks.

What are you people trying to do, put miniature companies out of business?

"…little fighter cubes and balls… These are optimal shapes…"

For storage maybe.

If you are limited to normal engineering, however, your thrusters and weaponry need to have specific mounting points and will take up surface area. The cube and sphere are among the lowest surface area per unit volume shapes available. Aeroshapes provide more surface area to mount such things on, as well as more space to hang external systems on, so if you need to hang an extra fuel tank on your "fighter", it won't necessarily be occluding 30% of your weaponry and maneuver packages.

Also, look up the meaning of "moment arm". In space, wings, or at least booms, will help a vehicle spin around its center of mass with less effort from the thrust motors. Less effort means less fuel spent.

Where simple shapes excell is in safety. It is much simpler to make a simple geometric solid air-tight. At comprehensible levels of technology, however, I can't see a need to make an entire "space fighter" air-tight. You make the crew compartment airtight, providing a second layer of life support around the pilot's suit, and don't worry about the rest of the vehicle. You may have a pilot flying around a sphere, but that sphere is part of an armed (and probably mission-specific) aeroshell.

1.) The control surfaces add unwanted mass in spaceflight, which is inefficient.
2.) "Big enough" engines mean you don't have to worry about inefficiency in atmospheric operations.
If the former argument is valid, it renders the latter invalid. If the latter is valid, it renders the former invalid.

No, they're not exclusive- if #1 is true, all that means is that sticking flight control surfaces on a fighter is even more useless if #2 is true- they don't help in the atmosphere or in space. If #2 is true then flight control surfaces are useless mass, meaning #1 is still true- no matter how powerful your engines are every gram counts.

-Will

Also, to make my stance clear (which I apparently failed to do above), I'm not arguing that fighters *won't* be aerodynamic, I'm just pointing out that not *all* fighters would be. Some designs will be and some won't, with the exact breakdown depending on how the navy uses them plans to fight.

-Will

"You may have a pilot flying around a sphere, but that sphere is part of an armed (and probably mission-specific) aeroshell."

Now that's a thought, a modular craft with central unit containing the pilot and expensive targeting and sensor gear, to which you can bolt different surfaces and gear depending on the mission? Either thrusters on arms or lifting wings, different propulsion packages etc.

"In space, no one can hear you say "pew pew pew.""

Interestingly enough, back before it had a name, a certain space fighter boardgame for miniatures was being playtested. It was nameless, until after another session of watching space fighters go BOOM! in rapid succession, one of the playtesters quipped, "In space, no one can hear you go BOOM!"

The game's principle author then reportedly exclaimed, "That's it! It's perfect! We'll call it 'Silent Death!'"

The rest is history…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

You may have a pilot flying around a sphere, but that sphere is part of an armed (and probably mission-specific) aeroshell.

Why did my brain just flash to Spike's Swordfish fighter from Cowboy Bebop?

Honestly, the most likely cockpit is going to be either a pure-nitrogen atmosphere or even some kind of fluid (maybe as simple as water, maybe an exotic gel). With force-feedback sticks like in the F16, the pilot's hands don't move more than a cm, and you can just put the pilot's display on his space-suits HUD. If you want a little more potential situational awareness, you can put the displays on the inside of the ball, and basically have the pilot strapped into a minimalist seat to not block the view (see the cockpit shots from Macross Plus). This assumes that you don't have cybernetic linkages… where you're either just a brain in a jar or seeing everything in your mind in a meat body (still no need for displays of any kind). With the kinds of distances that a lot of people assume for space combat, remotely-piloted vehicles will have multi-second control lags, and will actually be at a disadvantage. besides, it's not like there's an atmosphere around to pull an 11g turn in, you have to burn remass to maneuver, and the best drives are running in the fractional-g range *at the ragged edge of materials science*.

I'd assume that a space fighter would not be aerodynamic per se, but it would have long wing-like structures for radiators and maneuvering rockets. The Starfury design isn't perfect (wings are too close together to be good radiators), but it's a good start for the concept.

Honestly, let's look at the Carrier groups from the Vietnam war, or just after. You've got the air-superiority fighter of doom, the F14 (or it's predecessor, the F8 Crusader). F4s make up the fighter-bomber component. Depending on the exact timeframe, you could have Skyraiders, A4 Skyhawks, or A7 Corsairs as the heavy ground-attack option. Then you have RA5 recon birds and Hawkeye AWACs. Then you add the ASW birds and the helos. Aircraft were optimized for different roles.

Even today, you have Super Bugs as the air-sup component, FA18s for the fighter-bomber/heavy ground attack, Hawkeyes, ASW birds, and helos. Still some optimization for different roles, especially in the supporting cast.

In an environment where you would have dogfights in space (ignoring the likelihood of that for discussion), a superiority fighter won't necessarily be the fastest in a straight line, but it will have bigger RCS thrusters than the anti-ship version (anti-ship would probably have bigger main drives than the sup fighter, to get that big nasty payload moving).

They'll both need lots of remass (assuming your setting still uses reaction engines).

From a reality standpoint, the most likely use for 'fighters' in space is going to be around a planet, where there is a sensor horizon to worry about. Even then, an atmosphere-capable craft has a different set of concerns than the space-only version.

What happens when you get a pinhole in your thermal protection system that you don't detect before you are committed to re-entry? The Columbia disaster.

Now imagine that the multi-trillion-dollar do-everything aerospace fighter just turned into an expanding ball of plasma in the upper atmosphere of your home planet during it's demonstration flight for the people controlling the funding. Are they going to continue development of that project, or make you go to less-expensive-individually craft that are BETTER in either the atmosphere or in space?

What happens when you get a pinhole in your thermal protection system that you don't detect before you are committed to re-entry? The Columbia disaster.

Hmmm, excellent point- I forgot that the first time you take a hit you lose all effective re-entry ability anyway. So you'd want to hold back fighters planned to support ground operations from active space combat in any event.

-Will

Battlestar Galactica felt pretty plausible with two types of ships. The Viper, a high thrust single seat fighter for every role that ship could do (including atmosphere work if necessary), and the Raptor, a large multi-seat craft that could do whatever the mission called for because you could hang specialty equipment on it (also in atmosphere it could hover, making it a better ground support platform).

Now here's some cold water on your plans. In Walter Jon Williams' Praxis series, they didn't have fighters. What they had were missiles. The high-risk single-seat ship did exist though. Large ships pre-battle would launch a cloud of missiles out to attain high relativistic velocities, then a pinnance with a living pilot would shepherd them towards the enemy ships. The missiles might fly around the engagement for hours or days before being sent into a target, and the pinnance would be closer to them, with thus shorter communications latency allowing for quicker course corrections and giving the enemy less reaction time. Of course that worked in reverse as well so the enemy would often take out the pinnances.

In my setting, I look at fighters as being most effective in atmosphere but are still capable of space combat. For planetary invasion, they are placed in expendable, maneuverable drop pods that would jettison after re-entry. But they also have the capability to attain orbit when the mission is complete.
For space combat, the retain a full RCS system, but that is more for jinxing than anything else as my fighters dont make sweeping turns or the like as on certain sci-fi TV shows.

Derval, The sound made by the TIE fighters is either broad band interference from there ion engines, or an audio cue from the sensor system to their presence. At least thats the options my gaming group came up with.

Robert

Wow guys,

Thanks for the imput, never imagined I would get so many post. May it never be said the folks on this forum didn't like a spirited debat. Many points where made I hadn't thought of.
Taking a step back to look at the posts as a whole, the "forest instead of the trees thing" seems to me you could make your case either way, just depends on what kind of universe you want.
Ironicaly even though I still lean toward the mutli-purpose fighter I will probably go against myself and have specialized craft since, well, lots of different stuff is cooler and more interesting then using the same craft over and over and over again.
Like in my WW2 games the russian T-34's get old after awhile.

Travis

As a game designer/player I'd like to have 1-2 models with possibly different capability options. Simpler to keep track of, simpler to play.

Same as a figure painter. Less work to be able to play.

If I was making and selling figures however, I'd want a ruleset that allowed for an endless variety of different specialized craft.

Fantastic, well-informed, intelligent debate. Thanks Travis for starting this one! However, I think we are all missing the primary issue here – the one true measure of the success of any fighter design is this – when a plastic kit of your space fighter is released, do 8 year olds want to build it and 'fly' it round their bedroom going "SHHHROOOOM!" ?

If yes – you have success.

If no – time to clear those cubes and spheres off the workbench, and try again.

Is this conversation more about what is possible or more about getting interesting miniatures on the table for game play?

If for game play then anything goes as long as it catches the eye and has some sort of appeal, IMO.

Hmmm, excellent point- I forgot that the first time you take a hit you lose all effective re-entry ability anyway.

Only if you are in orbit and intend to use atmospheric friction to slow you down. It's not like there's a hard barrier at the edge of the atmosphere. If you have enough thrust (or anti-G) to match the speed of the planet, then you can lower yourself gently to ground without any heat problems.

Of course in the Real World, atmospheric braking is by far the most effective way to slow down from orbital velocity since it costs no fuel and only requires a good heat shield.

But, gently lowering yourself to the ground also means doing it slowly. That's fine for a civilian ship doing a friendly visit, but a bad idea for anyone planning a hostile takeover.

Do you really want to be moving at 500kph through 400,000 cubic kms of airspace filled with enough outgoing lead, tungsten, uranium, and various energy weapons, all intended to stop something re-entering at orbital velocities?

I think that's the tactical situation of 'sitting duck'.

Now, stuffing a VTOL bird into a drop capsule once you're over the target planet to minimize the time spent vulnerable in re-entry, while the space-fighters do something else (drop rods from orbit on the enemy's launch facilities, probably)…

Holding a consistent vector (like you have to do during aero-braking re-entry) is also tantamount to being a sitting duck, and you even leave a nice ionization trail to track you with as well. :)

Coming in "cold" gives you duck and weave freedom, and doesn't announce your presence quite as loudly.

The "time spent during reentry" argument has definite merit, but if you're not actually in orbit to begin with, you won't take as long to travel the 300km or so straight towards the planet's surface. It would be more like a Space Ship 1 reentry than Mercury.

Or you do it the other way: The drop doesn't slow you down much, to get you close to the ground, then the retro-rockets fire to slow you down to something your airframe can survive (less than Mach 5). The re-entry shell pops open, and you fly the rest of the speed off.

True, semi-ballistic flight is different from orbital re-entry, but that wasn't how I read the SITREP from the OP.