Actually, the "Mars Defence Perimeter" (in BoBW) was equipped with fighters, three of them got nailed in about five seconds, it's possible that more were sent after that, it's only not unlikely that some fighters/runabouts/tactical flyers were responsible for the retreaval of the escape pods at W359 before the E-D arrived.
I'd prefer that obviously. Certainly that is the speculation from DITL.org though they don't give sources for that*. - roughly the same length as the NX test ships, slightly shorter than a runabout and about half-again the length of a Maquis fighter - and roughly submarine/torpedo shaped**. * the following quote from st-minutiae.com's script for BoBW would appear to confirm this: EXT. SPACE - THE BORG SHIP (OPTICAL) moving by Mars... unmanned pods attack it... the Borg ship destroys them easily... moves on... and now we reveal their final destination... the familiar shape of Earth straight ahead... 97 INT. MAIN BRIDGE WORF It is confirmed... the Borg have broken through the Mars defense perimeter... ** the Star Trek Encyclopedia quotes Rick Sternbach that the 'Mars Defence Ship" was indeed kitbashed from three sub models - one Russian Typhoon and two smaller American LA-classes
Having been on an Ancient Roman kick lately, let me assure you there are good reasons why you wouldn't want every single fighter pilot the power of independent movement across the stars. They're less controllable than tying them down to a mothership, and due to their numbers, you can't possibly vet all the pilots very well. No, handpick the admirals and senior captains for their loyalty, let them pick the pilots. Because the pilots are 2-3 links away from the emperor, only give them enough freedom to f*** up a single solar system. Basically, the advantage of a free state is that nobody is really looking behind their backs for assassins. There is a LOT of freedom in that, and citizens with freedom of movement pay a bountiful dividend in a lot of ways. In an autocracy, you really have to portion out power (and freedom) carefully or someone is going to kill you with it. Oh, and as for the fighters in DSC S2, they are as incoherent as the episode itself. They make about as much sense as a ship designed to batter ram other ships in space. Okay, not that bad. That idea is truly stupid. Fighters were just...there? They didn't seem to do much.
In space they don't need to be aerodynamic, the shape would allow for powerplant, stock of torpedoes, shield generators, etc.
We get no good indication of scale or shape from "BoBW", but if we accept the backstage fact that these are identical to the soliton wave rig from "New Ground", we at least can nail the shape. So, no cockpit. But prominent nacelles there, plus something looking very much like a rolling door on dorsal stern, perhaps suggesting corvette or patrol boat size rather than anything comparable to the DS9 or DSC fighters/drones. And the missile hatches from the submarine hull are there. Which makes it attractive for me to think these are older corvettes that have had their crews removed and lots of kaboom charges installed for use as defensive projectiles... Perhaps fitting with the fact that these things never fire anything at the Borg. Certainly drones like this would be useful if a Space Amoeba or a Doomsday Machine tries to feast on Sol! Less useful against things that fire back, but the Borg are sort of borderline, a big bulky foe that is slow to fire. And of course, if all you have is a hammer, you just have to nail it with that. Timo Saloniemi
Very rough eyeballing based on eyeballing the soliton wave drone suggests a beam between 2 and 2.5% that of the Galaxy-class at about 9-12m, which is within the acceptable range of error to be slightly smaller than a runabout (beam is 14m), which makes sense as in order to be effective, they'd need to be able to launch full-size photon torpedoes and the Danube-class is the smallest platform implied to be capable of this. Lack of habitation volume could allow the defense drone to carry more than the anti-ship variant runabout's four torpedoes (per the DS9TM, implied in The Search).
One wonders what planetary defenses Earth actually has. Each time someone trying to attack the place, they are deactivated, or aren't used because the threat is taken care of before it reaches the planet. Probably the only time the were used was against the Breen, and we didn't get to see it.
OTOH, we did get to see the defenses of Chin'toka in action. Save for the cut-rate centralized power system, Earth probably has the same thing. But they never do. So probably their kill mechanism is completely different, and relies on a weapon with shorter range than that of the Borg beam that defeated them. A simple explosive charge seems like the only practical solution. (In theory, these could also have been breaching pods, since a boarding party had so far been the only effective anti-Borg weapon, but I sorta doubt that.) Timo Saloniemi
Woefully In-Adequate defense, almost non-existent IMO. If it was my Head Canon, the Federation would've learned from that incident and setup a Realistic Orbital Defense. Kinda Like Macross Plus where they have Millions of Defensive Platforms ready to take on Multiple Fleets Simultaneously along with Planetary Shielding + Orbital Weapons Platforms & Surface -> Space Anti-Ship Platforms as well as a large stock of Energy Reserves and Redundant Planetary Shielding on top of Orbital Shield Networks. Ergo Multi Layer of Planetary Shields while Weapons Platforms have their own Independent Redundant Shields and coordinated attacks with distributed targeting with each Quadrant of a Hemisphere controlling the space it protects. Don't forget protecting the Star that the Planets Orbit around with similar level of protections since we all know terrorists can easily trigger it artificially to go Super Nova. And a large network of Sensor Platforms around every orbiting planet & planetoid in the Planetary System. If I was the UFP, I wouldn't leave anything to "Chance" and setup plenty of defenses in all major UFP Planetary Systems with significant population counts (7 Digit Population Count and above).
I'd say that whatever defense Earth has, it's basically 100% effective. After all, Earth is still there. Perhaps the defense relies on a deterrent of some sort: if you as much as nova-bomb us, we'll go truly medieval on your sorry little culture! Perhaps it is a conventional setup of the sort that in "Tears of the Prophets" stopped a thousand starships on their tracks until <tech the tech>. Perhaps Earth has Guardians, demi-divine forces of protection that retroactively undo all destruction (it certainly has the time travel tech required, even if we typically see our random heroes freelance as those Guardians). No matter what the mechanism, it works. At least against all the conventional enemies, of which there are plenty, and apparently superfoes of Borg caliber are a fairly rare occurrence overall (because not only is Earth still there, but Qo'noS and Romulus and Cardassia are, too). Timo Saloniemi
I assumed many of them were drones. But it also made sense that Number One would bring what she could. She noted she’d already taken the liberty of modifying shuttles.
One then has to wonder how she could do any of that. If she had legitimate access to general Starfleet resources, why didn't she bring fifty dreadnoughts? If her access was illegal and she was essentially taking the Enterprise for a joyride on the former skipper's whim, what random factors conspired to allow her to have a shipful of combat drones? Or did she go to the extra trouble of stealing those, too (her choice of words was "commandeer"), and if so, why didn't she speak to a few close friends and bring at least two dreadnoughts? On the other hand, when Pike sent his message, there was no intent on having any combat with Control. They knew Control had a fleet of ships, but they were only planning on using the Enterprise to evacuate the Discovery crew before scuttling, after which Control would have no motivation to fight. Which then begs the question of why Number One nevertheless prepared for combat in the specific fashion described. If she was open about the plan with Starfleet (and why not be, as Control learned about the rendezvous anyway, and was heading towards it in the very next episode?), why wouldn't Starfleet insist on sending proper backup, in order to entrap Control and its out-of-control fleet of ships? Why the half-assed measure? Personally, I'd probably go for "Number One was an idiot and told nobody, out of irrational fear of Control overhearing", combined with either "those drones were slated to be aboard anyway, to bolster this old warhorse with this weapons tech recently developed against the Klingons in one o the many weird wartime projects" or then "those drones were being built/tested/idled at Spacedock, where Number One had easy access to them". Timo Saloniemi
Indeed, even in the RW if a senior three-star flag officer wants something done, it gets down unless it's a) illegal or b) a higher authority has already stated that it isn't going to happen...
And since the death of Cornwell leaves a gap in S31 ranks specifically (namely, at the top), we may speculate that she deliberately refrained from asking Starfleet proper to help in fighting S31 ships by conventional means, wanting to keep this dirty laundry in her own basket well past it beginning to stink. Timo Saloniemi
Cornwell wasn't in charge of S31. That was the Vulc-cicle from the station. She was in charge of the "red signal" mission. She had access to S31 resources to that end. As such, the death of the S31 leadership is not something she gets to cover up, especially when it seems like the whole fleet was involved with checking for onboard Control infestations. Why, in the end, it was just Discovery and Enterprise was never explained. Really, Enterprise just kinda shows up. No mention of reinforcements ever. It was all very contrived. And dumb. I can't understate that. Less coherent than the S1 ending.
I haven’t read if others commented on this yet, but it’s not their lack of aerodynamics alone, but that’s actually a better reason than one might imagine. If they’re fighters, they may be tasked with hard maneuvers in atmosphere too, so why not make them less bulky or give them wings, like the Peregrine Class or Maquis Attack Fighter?
If they were a drone ship then they could immediately sent out once a potential threat was detected, giving orbital and ground defences time to be manned and readied for an attack. A wave of manned fighters, capable of space and atmospheric flight, may have been next or may have been after the Cube smashed through all the available fighters at both Jupiter and Mars, since all we get is a few frames showing just three defence craft then its hard to judge just what makes up the Planetary Defence Perimeter.