Traveller fighters

[phavoc]

Was reading the Aug 12 - Sep 1st Aviation Week and there is an article about the USAF reconsidering what the next-generation air dominate fighter will look like.

It's relevant to Traveller because the idea if needing maneuverability and speed vs range and payload are perhaps even more applicable for space fighters.

In essence the idea is that as the cost of fighter airframes approaches the cost of bomber ones, a bomber with a bay full of long range missiles can arguably exert more air dominance than a fighter with a more limited payload. The article cites early analogy of WW1 fighters with their limited gun arcs to today's fighters with off-bore engagement capability.

Traveller dogfights don't actually match the concept of how spacecraft work with newtonian movement. But ships engaging one another at long range with missiles does work better.

Since the LBB were originally created during a period when aircraft guns and fighter mentality wasn't a lot different than WW1, it does make a lot I'd sense that you'd see missile heavy platforms that can increase your strike range and platform count while not having to commit a full-up starship.

There'd obviously need to be some tinkering of rules to accommodate these changes. What thinks the hivemind? Reasonable to change fighter jocks into missile monkeys?

 

[Vormaerin]

No, but it is reasonable to replace fighters with actual expensive to train people in them with drones that serve as extended range missile platforms and keep the expensive and prone to dying pilots with expensive and safer drone operators.

 

[ottarrus]

There's long been a discussion in Traveller about Fighter Pilots: Yes or No, and this goes all the way back LBB Book 5.
Over the years the debate has boiled down to three basic arguments:
1. Keep fighter pilots! They're canon in the OTU, they're cool, and what's the point of deploying a carrier without them?
2. Dump fighter pilots! Rocket jockeys are just missile delivery systems with a squishy biological component installed. They have all the deficits of being human and their capabilities can easily be replaced with TL 15 computer systems.
3. Fighter pilots should be relegated to flying robotic drones. The drones can be smaller [less easy to hit], carry a larger payload of ordinance, don't have the deficits of human beings, and there is still a sophont in the shoot /no shoot decision curve.

A. The traditionalists have Top Gun, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and Space: Above and Beyond backing them up. The Third Imperium, Zhodani Consulate, Solomani Confederation, most Vargr States, and the Aslan Hierate are all in the OTU as deploying manned fighters. And, of course, there's the cool factor. But it takes a million credits or more to train a fighter pilot and no matter how skilled they are they still have human perceptions and reaction times -- not a good thing in a TL 15 electronic warfare environment.

B. The gearheads naturally gravitate to arguments 2 and 3. They argue that drones and missile systems are cheaper, but they forget that those high-speed /low-drag computer and sensor systems are essentially disposable... that's a lot of money for a flushable diaper, man.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I always wanted to be a fighter pilot as a kid and I am a member of the generation grew up AVIDLY watching Erin Grey as Colonel Wilma Deering prance around in Spandex every week. Hey, what can I say, the young guys now have Instagram, we had television So I'm kinda biased towards argument 1.

Last thing: If you're interested in drone operations, there are some interesting movies that deal with that. The big one just came out this year and is called 'Land of Bad' starring John Goodman. Think of it as 'Bat 21' for modern era. But there have been some laudable lower budget offerings out there if you look for them.

 

[Vormaerin]

Fighter pilots are certainly way more cool than drone jockeys or robot fighters. But I don't believe that the rules as written support them as viable in space battle. As patrol forces and counter piracy? Sure. A group of fighters can totally wreck a corsair or smuggler.

But the kinds of direct fire weapons you can put on a spiffy fighter are generally not going to hurt anything except other small vessels. The frigates and other adventure class ships. Fleet Escorts have 15 armor. Even a triple pulse laser, which is a lot of power for fighter also pushing high Gs, is very unlikely to do more than scratch the paint. Anything actually supposed to be *in a fleet battle* is out of fighters' league, unless the fighters are missile platforms. Which is why Traveller's battler carriers deploy Heavy fighters (which are a missile platform) and Torpedo boats (also a missile platform).

So, essentially, the role of space fighters in a fleet battle would be to provide more point defense. That seems like a lot of expensive pilots and easily destroyed hulls to replace having more fleet escorts.

Or you can rewrite the rules so that your Vipers and X-Wings can actually damage fleet class ships.

 

[Condottiere]

Cost benefit analysis.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I always wanted to be a fighter pilot as a kid and I am a member of the generation grew up AVIDLY watching Erin Grey as Colonel Wilma Deering prance around in Spandex every week.

Beedeebeedeebeedee!

 

[ottarrus]

What can I say? I have a thing for brunettes with brains...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Space fighters are nothing like aircraft. The end.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Was reading the Aug 12 - Sep 1st Aviation Week and there is an article about the USAF reconsidering what the next-generation air dominate fighter will look like.

It's relevant to Traveller because the idea if needing maneuverability and speed vs range and payload are perhaps even more applicable for space fighters.

I disagree. "Space fighters" in Traveller - or should I say the Third Imperium setting - must obey they same physics as ACS and BCS, they all have the same maneuverability (until you get into that ridiculous dogfighting range that has no business being in a Third Imperium setting). Bigger ships have bigger powerplants and can carry bigger and more effective weapons in grater number than "fighters"

In essence the idea is that as the cost of fighter airframes approaches the cost of bomber ones, a bomber with a bay full of long range missiles can arguably exert more air dominance than a fighter with a more limited payload. The article cites early analogy of WW1 fighters with their limited gun arcs to today's fighters with off-bore engagement capability.

And that analogy has no baring on space combat. Space fighters are akin to motor torpedo boats, not aircraft.
Once again if a "fighter" can do it, a 400t escort can carry more effective weapon systems.

Traveller dogfights don't actually match the concept of how spacecraft work with newtonian movement. But ships engaging one another at long range with missiles does work better.

A ship with a 50t missile bay is going to be more effective.

Since the LBB were originally created during a period when aircraft guns and fighter mentality wasn't a lot different than WW1, it does make a lot I'd sense that you'd see missile heavy platforms that can increase your strike range and platform count while not having to commit a full-up starship.

So you just launch missiles or drones, you don't need the "fighter" intermediary.

There'd obviously need to be some tinkering of rules to accommodate these changes. What thinks the hivemind? Reasonable to change fighter jocks into missile monkeys?

The only reason to have manned "fighters" is to extend your sensor net and to coordinate the shooting down of the enemy missile-drone swarm heading your way. They are also a really good threat to civilian vessels.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on how you want to define (aero)(space)fighters.

I'm currently reassessing them, but prior to this, I had heavy as upto two hundred tonne primary hull.

Medium was (and currently is) thirty five tonnes plus.

And you might want to consider what defines a gunboat.

Or ship, not that I think it matters.

 

[phavoc]

I disagree. "Space fighters" in Traveller - or should I say the Third Imperium setting - must obey they same physics as ACS and BCS, they all have the same maneuverability (until you get into that ridiculous dogfighting range that has no business being in a Third Imperium setting). Bigger ships have bigger powerplants and can carry bigger and more effective weapons in grater number than "fighters"

And that analogy has no baring on space combat. Space fighters are akin to motor torpedo boats, not aircraft.
Once again if a "fighter" can do it, a 400t escort can carry more effective weapon systems.

A ship with a 50t missile bay is going to be more effective.

So you just launch missiles or drones, you don't need the "fighter" intermediary.

The only reason to have manned "fighters" is to extend your sensor net and to coordinate the shooting down of the enemy missile-drone swarm heading your way. They are also a really good threat to civilian vessels.

I think you missed the point of the summary of the article. It was stating essentially the same thing - the traditional speed and maneuverability of fighters that is useful to close to range and dogfight is less valuable in an era of beyond visual range engagements. This directly translates into the idea that your space fighters would be more akin to space bombers with larger payloads being traded out for maneuverability. I did point out that dogfighting in space is a bit silly with newtonian movement - it literally can't happen the way it does in an atmosphere.

Bigger powerplants are helpful to power your M-drive, but if you are building missile-heavy offensive craft then their size becomes less of an issue so long as they can power their drive and defensive systems. They have no energy-intensive offensive weaponry to worry about.

The question of "More effective" ships in larger tonnage classes vs. swarms of smaller ships is why I pointed out the issue of the rules would need to be tweaked some to accept changes. If you had a 400 ton ship vs. 40 10 ton fighters, your 40 ten-ton fighters would be able to launch more missiles per turn than your 400 ton ship. The 400 ton ship cannot launch the same total number of missiles. Missile bays are a different issue/topic though since they are a singular component.

Where the distinction and tweaks coming in would be how to fairly model the missile swarm vs the ship launched volley. Unless you are factoring in control of the missiles from the launch ship with it's more powerful computers and sensors, then your 40 missiles should be far more effective. Again, this is where you'd need to look at the rules to ensure that missile fire is fairly calculated.

Anti-missile fire by small craft should actually be more effective if they engage the missiles with counter-missiles. Intercepting inbound flights further away from the craft you are protecting means your missiles would need less propellant and can be smaller, thus you can carry more. This, too, is something the game doesn't model as it's more RPG than tactical.

 

[phavoc]

There's long been a discussion in Traveller about Fighter Pilots: Yes or No, and this goes all the way back LBB Book 5.
Over the years the debate has boiled down to three basic arguments:
1. Keep fighter pilots! They're canon in the OTU, they're cool, and what's the point of deploying a carrier without them?
2. Dump fighter pilots! Rocket jockeys are just missile delivery systems with a squishy biological component installed. They have all the deficits of being human and their capabilities can easily be replaced with TL 15 computer systems.
3. Fighter pilots should be relegated to flying robotic drones. The drones can be smaller [less easy to hit], carry a larger payload of ordinance, don't have the deficits of human beings, and there is still a sophont in the shoot /no shoot decision curve.

A. The traditionalists have Top Gun, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and Space: Above and Beyond backing them up. The Third Imperium, Zhodani Consulate, Solomani Confederation, most Vargr States, and the Aslan Hierate are all in the OTU as deploying manned fighters. And, of course, there's the cool factor. But it takes a million credits or more to train a fighter pilot and no matter how skilled they are they still have human perceptions and reaction times -- not a good thing in a TL 15 electronic warfare environment.

B. The gearheads naturally gravitate to arguments 2 and 3. They argue that drones and missile systems are cheaper, but they forget that those high-speed /low-drag computer and sensor systems are essentially disposable... that's a lot of money for a flushable diaper, man.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I always wanted to be a fighter pilot as a kid and I am a member of the generation grew up AVIDLY watching Erin Grey as Colonel Wilma Deering prance around in Spandex every week. Hey, what can I say, the young guys now have Instagram, we had television So I'm kinda biased towards argument 1.

Last thing: If you're interested in drone operations, there are some interesting movies that deal with that. The big one just came out this year and is called 'Land of Bad' starring John Goodman. Think of it as 'Bat 21' for modern era. But there have been some laudable lower budget offerings out there if you look for them.

Conceptually fighters allow for power projections at large distances from their carriers. In the TV era we see fighters as pre-eminent attack platforms. Newtonian movement rules make for terrible close-in attacks. However, one big advantage a fighter would have over ships attacking one another at longer ranges would be the ability to make more pin-point attacks against different components that you'd not necessarily get at longer ranges - if the rules were adapted to such things. As it stands the RPG-based combat rules don't take into account facings or the issues related to targeting specific subsets of systems (weapons, engines, etc) at range. When you get into light seconds the ability to make a pin-point attack on anything gets extremely unlikely.

One would expect fighters to deploy at a distance from their carriers, get close to the enemy and then launch swarms of missiles and run away to reload. Unmanned drones would work better in some cases, but we've also been seeing (in reality) that jamming can make unmanned units ineffective or, worse, render them completely useless as attack units. Assuming a scalar progression of more capable drones and more capable jamming capabilities, seeing a degradation of unmanned platforms isn't necessarily an unreasonable assumption. There's all kinds of conceptual vectors one could take to argue either side of that discussion, but RPG gaming assumes having a person in the loop provides value.

SW and it's droid forces make for an interesting argument about the efficacy of using robots as your troops - though the SW tropes kind of rendered the argument a bit moot due to their desire to tell a story. Most sci-fi shows do the same - though I suppose the Terminator movies shows how AI can triumph over humans and also make similar tactical/strategic mistakes as humans do as well.

I also enjoyed seeing Wilma Deering in her space-spandex in the 25th century (as well as Princess Ardala). Season one was better written, though both seasons had a great deal of spandex in them.

 

[phavoc]

Fighter pilots are certainly way more cool than drone jockeys or robot fighters. But I don't believe that the rules as written support them as viable in space battle. As patrol forces and counter piracy? Sure. A group of fighters can totally wreck a corsair or smuggler.

But the kinds of direct fire weapons you can put on a spiffy fighter are generally not going to hurt anything except other small vessels. The frigates and other adventure class ships. Fleet Escorts have 15 armor. Even a triple pulse laser, which is a lot of power for fighter also pushing high Gs, is very unlikely to do more than scratch the paint. Anything actually supposed to be *in a fleet battle* is out of fighters' league, unless the fighters are missile platforms. Which is why Traveller's battler carriers deploy Heavy fighters (which are a missile platform) and Torpedo boats (also a missile platform).

So, essentially, the role of space fighters in a fleet battle would be to provide more point defense. That seems like a lot of expensive pilots and easily destroyed hulls to replace having more fleet escorts.

Or you can rewrite the rules so that your Vipers and X-Wings can actually damage fleet class ships.

This isn't too different than what it was during WW2 - fighters could do damage with their guns on unarmored ships (even DD's were basically unarmored and .50cal rounds could tear through their upper deck easily enough). It was the bombs/torpedoes that they carried that caused the destruction - in Traveller it would be missiles and torpedoes. And yeah, a swam of fighters with lasers has the capability to devastate lightly or unarmored ships.

Current point defense rules and systems do, in my opinion, leave something to be desired in the game (yes, I know there current rules have some anti-missile rules in them, I just don't particularly like their implementation) Using standard anti-ship energy mounts in the anti-missile role would seem to be ineffective to me. I'd rather see a layered approach where you have dedicated counter-missiles and point-defense gatling lasers as last-ditch defenses. That's more akin to how ships do it today - though I've always wondered about the paucity of defenses for modern ships. It's always a trade-off of offensive vs. defensive systems since ships have a finite amount of space and effective firing arcs.

As far as losing the fighters in anti-missile defense role, that would assume that incoming missile fire would go for the fighters instead of the ships they are (most likely) targeted at when first launched. Even basic missiles should have enough smarts built into them for target discrimination and would go after their programmed ship targets and ignore the smaller fighters. Now a smart enemy would try to strip away layered defenses and may target fighter screens first (though here we are diverging greatly into more defined wargaming than where Traveller is meant to be).

 

[Sigtrygg]

I think you missed the point of the summary of the article. It was stating essentially the same thing - the traditional speed and maneuverability of fighters that is useful to close to range and dogfight is less valuable in an era of beyond visual range engagements. This directly translates into the idea that your space fighters would be more akin to space bombers with larger payloads being traded out for maneuverability. I did point out that dogfighting in space is a bit silly with newtonian movement - it literally can't happen the way it does in an atmosphere.

Perhaps I was a little exuberant in my kneejerk

Bigger powerplants are helpful to power your M-drive, but if you are building missile-heavy offensive craft then their size becomes less of an issue so long as they can power their drive and defensive systems. They have no energy-intensive offensive weaponry to worry about.

Sensors should be energy intensive, as should EW, and you will need laser point defence to take out enemy missile swarms.

The question of "More effective" ships in larger tonnage classes vs. swarms of smaller ships is why I pointed out the issue of the rules would need to be tweaked some to accept changes. If you had a 400 ton ship vs. 40 10 ton fighters, your 40 ten-ton fighters would be able to launch more missiles per turn than your 400 ton ship. The 400 ton ship cannot launch the same total number of missiles. Missile bays are a different issue/topic though since they are a singular component.

How many missiles in total can your 40 ten ton fighters carry?
How many can a 400t ship? Not hardpoints, actual missiles, because I can not see a reason why you can't launch every missile, reload, launch again.
The 400t ship could have all 4 of its hardpoints as point defence lasers and use something like Rapid Dragon to chuck missile pallets out of the back of the ship.

Where the distinction and tweaks coming in would be how to fairly model the missile swarm vs the ship launched volley. Unless you are factoring in control of the missiles from the launch ship with it's more powerful computers and sensors, then your 40 missiles should be far more effective. Again, this is where you'd need to look at the rules to ensure that missile fire is fairly calculated.

This is why I think you need a fighter to hand off missile control to until the missile's own brain take over.

Anti-missile fire by small craft should actually be more effective if they engage the missiles with counter-missiles. Intercepting inbound flights further away from the craft you are protecting means your missiles would need less propellant and can be smaller, thus you can carry more. This, too, is something the game doesn't model as it's more RPG than tactical.

A laser is a better counter missile weapon, unlimited shots rather than limited anti-missile missiles.

 

[Vormaerin]

If you can render unmanned launch platforms inoperative with EW, you can do the same with self-guided missiles.

Fighter aircraft in WW2 existed to shoot down other planes and strafe ground targets. They did not serve a meaningful anti-ship role. If you decide there is some value in space bombers, then there will be some value in counter-space bomber craft.

And that's going to come down to whatever assumptions you make about EW. If a small craft can have the EW capability to get target locks on fleets without the support of their own specialist EW warships being in range, then being able to send a swarm of bombers out to extend the range of missiles will perhaps make sense compared to a dedicated missile ship. If you need a big ship's power and gear to get target locks on other ships defended by such, then the advantage of "bombers" over missile ships erodes substantially. As does the need for fighters.

You still have the issue of whether your strike wing can get back to base and on board their carrier before the fleet they struck catches them/follows them to their carrier. Aircraft can't be chased by surface ships. Small craft certainly can be chased by large ships.

 

[AndrewW]

How many missiles in total can your 40 ten ton fighters carry?
How many can a 400t ship? Not hardpoints, actual missiles, because I can not see a reason why you can't launch every missile, reload, launch again.
The 400t ship could have all 4 of its hardpoints as point defence lasers and use something like Rapid Dragon to chuck missile pallets out of the back of the ship.

Just need some pod layers from the Honorverse.

 

[Condottiere]

It's the electronics that are the big ticket item, at this scale.

It's balancing off capability against cost.

Per tonne.

And supporting infrastructure.

 

[collins355]

We should have a "fighter" design contest using MgT HG2022. We used to have fun with these types of things on the TML. And they might throw up some interesting takes on fighters in the Mongoose era. We have a very serviceable spreadsheet for ship design, so it wouldn't take long to whip up a fighter.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm observing, in real time, the (sea)airland battle concept being, not rewritten, but updated.

Pournelle's axiom - anything that flies, can and will get shot down.

You need complete aerospace coverage, for that.

Even if you have that, in a war of attrition, holes will develop, especially if your military industrial complex cannot keep up.

Also, incompetence has to be calculated in.

 

[phavoc]

Perhaps I was a little exuberant in my kneejerk

Sensors should be energy intensive, as shoulc EW, and you will need laser point defence to take out enemy missile swarms.

How many missiles in total can your 40 ten ton fighters carry?
How many can a 400t ship? Not hardpoints, actual missiles, because I can not see a reason why you can't launch every missile, reload, launch again.
The 400t ship could have all 4 of its hardpoints as point defence lasers and use something like Rapid Dragon to chuck missile pallets out of the back of the ship.

This is why I think you need a fighter to hand off missile control to until the missile's own brain take over.

A laser is a better counter missile weapon, unlimited shots rather than limited anti-missile missiles.

ECM/EW/ECCM should certainly be energy intensive. Which is where dedicated craft like the old A-6 Prowler and more updated variants had a reason to be attached to air attack wings. And why larger ships have more power and emitters (as would ground stations) to eventually overpower carried craft ECM - but at more distant ranges the attacking craft usually have the advantage, at least till they get closer to their targets and start to lose the power battle.

It's a fair question to ask what a reasonable amount of missiles an attack craft could carry. For the size of Traveller craft and with no limitations on where you place hardpoints you'd be able to carry a reasonable number for even smaller craft - but what that number is I couldn't tell you. Obviously there needs to be a reasonable limit as there are other design considerations for small craft (sensors, access points, etc) that gaming designers can ignore but actual ones couldn't. That brings up the sore point of why have turreted launchers on any Traveller ship when a VLS bay would be far more advantageous. Traveller doesn't factor in magazines which you'd want in reality to prevent internal sympathetic detonations if they launcher were hit. So you don't pay a tonnage penalty there. And with no bonus velocity coming from an internal launcher then using older 1970s Terrier/Tartar concepts don't really match well to a modern VLS cell-based launcher. Since no modern warship has fought with VLS or had to take damage, we don't actually know in reality how vulnerable they are to combat - just simulations. By design they are supposed to be able to take some damage and still be operational, so it's fair to say that I'd have Traveller ships with more than 1 VLS, but I don't think replacing every turret with one would match modern design. Some middle ground would be best.

Best missile defense is layered - destroy as many as you can at range (counter-missiles would be somewhat short-legged, though arguably the Phoenix missile carried by the F-14 for fleet defense was supposed to enage both air targets and, in later versions, inbound cruise missiles. If it missed then you still had additional layers to get through - both active and passive. Energy weapons would be the norm in the future with fusion plants in just about everything. The issue with lasers as the only weapon is that while they are light-speed weapons, they are light-speed weapons. Since you know your enemy is going to have them, no missile would follow a predictable straight-in course that would allow energy weapons to engage them at long range. They'd have randomized patterns that would make distant engagement difficult, if not impossible. And lasers would require a hit to do any damage. A missile would be able to seek out it's target and employ an area-attack (i.e. shrapnel) warhead.

Guidance could/would also most likely be based on light-speed control from the launcher ship. Fighters, unless they are carrying additional fire control or controllers, wouldn't have much advantage over the onboard controller. I think that's something a lot of people don't quite get - the amount of attention a pilot has to devote to flight, attack and defense is finite. Having multiple crew members and autonomous systems to take the load off them is invaluable. Same goes for lots of other systems. Having a driver/pilot, and a gunner/flight ops controller in same craft is very helpful for both attack and defense. I'd be interested to see how autonomous wingmen/drone carriers would work - and they'd be far more expendable than losing your human-crewed fighter.