Defiant-type ships in sci-fi

[Battlehymn Republic]

As Darth Wong mentioned in his excellent analysis of Star Trek combat, Defiants are an interesting blend between fighters and capital ships.

It has better acceleration and maneuverability than a capital ship, but it is much larger and more heavily armed than a fighter.

...However, a crucial difference between the Defiant and a capital ship is the fixed-axis forward-firing weapons on the Defiant. A capital ship doesn't need spectacular maneuverability because it has so-called "omnidirectional" weapon arrays. The Defiant, on the other hand, can only fire forward, just like a fighter. This means that it must point its nose toward a target before firing.

...The fact that it can engage capital ships without requiring a numerical advantage (like fighters) indicates that its weapons are highly effective in spite of this problem. One way to explain their effectiveness in spite of severely decreased targeting flexibility is that they may be much more powerful than the omnidirectional weapons on Federation capital ships.

I've come up with similar ideas myself when I was younger, about exploratory Trek-type ships but only with a crew of twenty or less people. And the idea about a large "fighter" that actually has a bridge of its own a nd multiple people at the controls seems rather interesting.

So, what I want to know is:

1. Are there any other ships in sci-fi similar to the Defiant?

2. In hypothetical "actual future combat", where starfighters are unnecessary thanks to missiles and mechs do not exist, would ships similar to the Definat be useful at all?

[Noble Ire]

The Imperial Skipray Blastboat, though far smaller and with a crew of only four, seems to fill a similar niche. Its hyperspace capable, and has the armament of some capital ships, while only being 25 meters in length. Of course, taking into account its considerable advantages over most fightcraft, it's is both under used in the Imperial starfleet, and probably a bit overly-wanked as well.

[Sam Or I]

1) The Whitestar (B-5)

2) I guess the only thing close to this in the real world would be a PT boat, although it sacraficed armour. Why not have a cone shape or a V (Stardestoryer) ship? It would be the best of both worlds. Almost all guns could face forward, while maintaining a large firing arc.

[AniThyng]

Well there are the "Assault Ships" such as the one the protaganists crew in the anime Banner of the Stars, which are basically heavy gunboats or corvettes, with a relatively powerful fixed axis main gun and a handful of point defences and weak shields. Their major role is scouting and counter-scouting. They can only challenge heavier capital ships in swarms or with support from other capital ships. (in face they operate in squadrons of 6, or better still, groups of squadrons.)

There are no fighters in this universe, only guided missiles. As it is, the largest capital ships size-wise are little more then spacefaring arsenal ships.

With a crew of roughly 5 officers and ~20-40 enlisted, I'd say this fits the criteria perfectly. Just agile enough to be able to give its limited point defense some breathing room against missiles and dodge large caliber capital ship guns, and just heavy enough to mount a gun that can hurt capital ships.

Even so, they still take horrific losses in the major fleet engagements they were involved in...

Then theres that ship from I-War...

[Nephtys]

You mean every ship from I-War.

There's plenty of ships of that sort, the kind of 'light corvette' warship. A super heavy fighter? Fairly common.

B5's White Star, Kilrathi Sorthak, Imperial Skipray, Homeworld Corvettes, Goa'uld Al'Kesh, Vasudan Isis, Honorverse LACs and so on.

[Stofsk]

Spinal mounted weapons are also common for large capital ships. In Traveller, big ships carry spinal weapons as their primary offensive weapon with turrets onboard for omnidirectional firing. B5 had that with a few of the big ships (the Narn heavy cruiser, the Hyperion and Omega destroyers, and the Minbari war cruiser, among others). Star Wars has it with the superlaser on the Death Star and the Eclipse SSD.

In TNG's "All Good Things..." we are introduced to the Galaxy-X or whatever class it was. It mounted a spinal weapon too, sometimes called the phaser lance or whatever. It made short work of a Klingon battleship (or perhaps it was a battlecruiser, to explain how the GCS finished it so quickly).

Incidentally I never liked the Defiant pulse phaser things.

[Uraniun235]

You mean every ship from I-War.

Nah, the big Destroyers and Cruisers weren't much on the zoom-zoom.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

The problem (yes, there is a problem) is that Sci-Fi pretty universally butchers Real Life naval classifications. Ships like the Skipray would be about equivalent to a PT boat, thats true, this is where the comparison get's funky though. in a space navy, A PT boat would be about equivalent to a medium bomber or heavy fighter. So then, we have to ask the question of what is in between a heavy fighter and a capital ship? well, lets go back to the PT boat, what is between the PT boat and the Capital ship: The Corvette provides a fire base for heavy weapons which you might find on smaller capital ships, with the speed and versatility of a good PT boat.: The Defiant class is a Corvette.

[Lord MJ]

The Defiant does have omnidirectional weapons, although the omnidirectional phasers are less powerful. The Defiant also has aft torpedo launchers.

[Stark]

So... it's got secondaries. How is that relevant to the discussion, about ships with rigid primaries? Oh wait it isn't.

I wouldn't even put the I-War ships in this category. They had powerful missiles, and their weapons were quite flexible. Maneuver was mostly used to make up for the Fucking Crap shields... at least IIRC.

[AniThyng]

The I-War ship fits in the sense that it has the requisite crew size and is too big to be a fighter, too small to be a capital ship...I would think the lack of a fixed axis gun is secondary to that description. But I didn't actually play I-war, so i'll accede to more learned opinions if i'm mistaken.

"And the idea about a large "fighter" that actually has a bridge of its own a nd multiple people at the controls seems rather interesting. "

But yeah, to echo everyone else, this is a niche the "corvette" fills just about everywhere.

Or undernourished frigates, for that matter.

[Stark]

Oh I thought the I-war ships had piles of dudes in the rear section, not just the four guys up front? I mean, I know we all abandoned them, ran away, then came back later when it was fixed, but I think the manual says there's like 120 guys back there.

[Uraniun235]

Oh I thought the I-war ships had piles of dudes in the rear section, not just the four guys up front? I mean, I know we all abandoned them, ran away, then came back later when it was fixed, but I think the manual says there's like 120 guys back there.

My manual says "45+4".

[AniThyng]

Well yeah, most corvettes, space-faring or otherwise would have a few dozen or more enlisted to do all the dirty work while the officers have all the fun up in the bridge.

[Parallax]

I'm not entirely sure if it fits or not but...

In The Gallifrey Chronicles, Marnel configures the exterior shell of a Type 40 TARDIS into a fighter like space craft and uses the weapons grown on said exterior shell to do straffing runs.

[Darwin]

So then, we have to ask the question of what is in between a heavy fighter and a capital ship? well, lets go back to the PT boat, what is between the PT boat and the Capital ship: The Corvette provides a fire base for heavy weapons which you might find on smaller capital ships, with the speed and versatility of a good PT boat.: The Defiant class is a Corvette.

A Monitor or Escort, really. Classifications break down towards that end of the scale.


The I-war ships had decent size crews.. which by i-war2 100 years later were mostly replaced by tech, allowing most corvette-size ships to be run by 3-4 bridge crew alone. The 1-person advanced command module the player character gets is supposed to be a one of a kind super-prototype.

[HRogge]

The Honorverse LACs have a similar design.

[Netko]

Well yeah, most corvettes, space-faring or otherwise would have a few dozen or more enlisted to do all the dirty work while the officers have all the fun up in the bridge.

AND those ships can be flown with very little crew (infact, just the bridge crew for short missions) and be combat capable as seen in I-War 2, altough some credit has to be given to the advanced pilot section used there compared to the original.

All the player ships in I-War 2 (except maybe the tug since its a converted utility ship) fit the bill. Their main armaments are relativly fixed axis (just the foward arc), with secondary turrets and missles (altough missles become primary later on when missles that can wipe out entire enemy formations with one shot become available).

[Admiral Valdemar]

So... it's got secondaries. How is that relevant to the discussion, about ships with rigid primaries? Oh wait it isn't.

I wouldn't even put the I-War ships in this category. They had powerful missiles, and their weapons were quite flexible. Maneuver was mostly used to make up for the Fucking Crap shields... at least IIRC.

Those shields at least obeyed the laws of physics in universe, so you couldn't sit there and fire away, you had to actually do something else your drive got a nuke up it. The patcoms and even the larger corvette had agility approaching fighters, but with the far better weapon loadout and reactor output. In fact, I'd say the Tachyon class patcom, the latest vessel from NSO-Laplace, was better than the NSO-2002 Devastator Class Heavy Corvette because it had a far lower mass (2 kilotonnes versus 20 kilotonnes) and crew count, but had the edge in agility and acceleration. In other words, the return on increased power output of the corvette was an insignificant gain or even a loss in some respects.

The fact that each of these vessels could use the new command module that had a single pilot system that enabled one human to control practically every aspect of the vessel made it far more automated than the older corvettes or patcoms. You could have a smaller crew that dealt with any engineering problems or comms while one person aided by hardware and software was capable of keeping the fight going.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The Honorverse LACs have a similar design.

Manticoran Shrikes do; they are the ones with the huge spinal graser for main armament. The others use missles. Weber does point out that they are more like PT boats than fighters, though.

Homeworld Ion Frigates may qualify.

[Batman]

Just a sidenote; Both the Sharlin and the Omega can fire their main weapons severely off-axis. They may not be omnidirectional but they're sure as hell not forward-firing only.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That would mean more energy put into the magnets that can direct the beam weapon. Typically, an axial weapon that has a clear run with no redirection mechanism will enable you to output more without losing energy by retuning the beam etc. Just think of it like a missile tube that's straight, versus one that has bends towards the exit that require deceleration.

[Jason von Evil]

Klingon Bird of Prey. All three of its weapons are forward facing.

[HRogge]

Manticoran Shrikes do; they are the ones with the huge spinal graser for main armament. The others use missles.

Havenite Alphas use a powerful spinal mount laser.

Weber does point out that they are more like PT boats than fighters, though.

Exactly like the Defiant...

[starfury]

Klingon Bird of Prey. All three of its weapons are forward facing

Not the only one, Dominion attack ship and Cardassian Hideki and Kazon Raider, all overgrown fighters.