Why Didn't Starfleet Command Use Starfighters? | The Templin Institute

[Timo]

A strategically timed multi-vector assault could bring a tactical advantage.

And flanking the enemy is a valid maneuver today. It still follows that knights are a piss-poor way to flank the enemy today. And apparently also that fighters are a piss-poor way to hit the enemy from multiple directions in the 24th century... Or, you know, they would be used for that sometimes.

Starknights, on the other hand… You mean Klingons in search of their Holy Grail, right?

What's there to search? Klingons already have it all, on Boreth - they just protect it from those who still seek.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Unfortunately, the Prometheus successfully demonstrated a multi-vector assault.

Yeah, but even the separated elements of the Prometheus are similar or larger than Defiants or a KBoP, hardly a "fighter" in the RW sense, although they do serve some of the roles of fighters in fleet actions.

 

[Dumbbell]

You do understand the terminology behind (Fore, Aft, Port, StarBoard, Ventral, Dorsal) when it pertains to sides of a vessel right?

Yes. I know firing and shield arcs. It is old-school.

And flanking the enemy is a valid maneuver today. It still follows that knights are a piss-poor way to flank the enemy today. And apparently also that fighters are a piss-poor way to hit the enemy from multiple directions in the 24th century... Or, you know, they would be used for that sometimes.

Could it be that the reason Starfleet chooses not to use fighters and warships is because of its design philosophy that makes it much more than just a military organization and not because fighters and warships would be ineffective in warfare? I think so.

Yeah, but even the separated elements of the Prometheus are similar or larger than Defiants or a KBoP, hardly a "fighter" in the RW sense, although they do serve some of the roles of fighters in fleet actions.

I agree. To gain an advantage with a multi-vectored attack, we need superior numbers of attackers. Could the Prometheus system be yet another attempt by Starfleet to get the combat results it wanted without deviating from its starship design philosophy that precludes pure fighters and warships? It looks like it to me.


The technology that might render multi-vector assault mode (and fighters) useless is arcing weapons fire: phasers and photons designed to “outmaneuver” shield arcs.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Could the Prometheus system be yet another attempt by Starfleet to get the combat results it wanted without deviating from its starship design philosophy that precludes pure fighters and warships? It looks like it to me.

Somewhat.

My headcanon on the matter that either the VFX team used the wrong models and the fighters in the fleet actions should have been the Val Jean-type raider which sits midway between the runabout and the KBoP size wise; or the fighters are actually drone vessels that the Maquis only retrofitted as conventional fighters because they don't have the computer resources to run them remotely.

 

[Timo]

Could it be that the reason Starfleet chooses not to use fighters and warships is because of its design philosophy that makes it much more than just a military organization and not because fighters and warships would be ineffective in warfare? I think so.

...Yet we do see fighters swarm ships in combat on a couple of occasions, and learn that they are utterly ineffective. In "Sacrifice of Angels", they die in droves to no apparent gain, and even in "Preemptive Strike", somewhat larger craft fail to achieve their aims against a single vessel. Heck, three-on-one by Klingon BoPs (one of them potentially larger than the others) fails in "Way of the Warrior" against a single Galor in a similar fashion; the threshold size for a swarming ship appears to indeed be "half a Prometheus"!

I agree. To gain an advantage with a multi-vectored attack, we need superior numbers of attackers. Could the Prometheus system be yet another attempt by Starfleet to get the combat results it wanted without deviating from its starship design philosophy that precludes pure fighters and warships? It looks like it to me.

Or then it's simply an attempt at a remotely controlled starship, with a separate remote command trailer pulled to the battle site by the pair of fighting ships, rather than an unreliable onboard AI allowed to do it all on its own?

The technology that might render multi-vector assault mode (and fighters) useless is arcing weapons fire: phasers and photons designed to “outmaneuver” shield arcs.

If you manage to divide the attention of your enemy, it always helps - the more he splits his fire between targets, the less there is per target, on a fixed power budget.

But if you achieve it by dividing your own forces... Not so much. It still seems that a big ship can always fire a meaner death ray than a small one, so you want to minimize the number of ships on your side, not maximize it, in a situation where you have a fixed budget in terms of total tonnage.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

I think the BoP got called a fighter.

Kralls bees might have been either neutronium or…off site powered. They, the Sullivan and Voyagers swarm ships were impressive. I wonder if they could be like the pancake parasites and share strength as a unit no one individual craft has on its own…

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I think the BoP got called a fighter.

Not officially AFAIK.

However some dubious VFX has given us ~20m and ~50m KBoPs on screen which would qualify.

You might also be thinking of the Jem'Hadar "bug" which was variously described as a fighter or attack vessel, and is about the size of a Maquis raider and roughly equivalent in firepower to the standard KBoP.

There's also the-class Cardassian patrol ship at ~85m that is sometimes described as fighter/attack ship but is allegedly between the above and the runabout in firepower.

 

[Dumbbell]

My headcanon on the matter that either the VFX team used the wrong models and the fighters in the fleet actions should have been the Val Jean-type raider which sits midway between the runabout and the KBoP size wise; or the fighters are actually drone vessels that the Maquis only retrofitted as conventional fighters because they don't have the computer resources to run them remotely.

Yet we do see fighters swarm ships in combat on a couple of occasions, and learn that they are utterly ineffective. In "Sacrifice of Angels", they die in droves to no apparent gain, and even in "Preemptive Strike", somewhat larger craft fail to achieve their aims against a single vessel. Heck, three-on-one by Klingon BoPs (one of them potentially larger than the others) fails in "Way of the Warrior" against a single Galor in a similar fashion; the threshold size for a swarming ship appears to indeed be "half a Prometheus"!

My take on these Star Trek “fighters” is that they are not really fighters. Disregarding the fighters of technologically inferior races, fighters of Starfleet and Klingon, Cardassian, and Dominion fleets are still very much multi-purpose craft commonly assigned the role of fighter in fleet actions. Not true starfighters, as I would imagine them to be. I don’t think we’ve ever seen true starfighters in Star Trek, well, because it’s Star Trek. (An exception might be the Magog-style boarding craft in the recent movie.)

Runabouts, Klingon birds of prey, Maquis raiders, Cardassian patrol ships, and Jem’Hadar attack ships seem to be weak even in numbers. I would think that the reason they are not up to the task—not up to the threshold size, as you put it—is because they are actually small starships and not really starfighters. These vessels have many of the same advantages/disadvantages of their much larger counterparts. Except that being smaller is a great disadvantage in Star Trek because power trumps every other tactical advantage in Star Trek.