Star Trek and Fighters

[Crazedwraith]

Say you have 5 fighters in a diamond slot formation. Fire a single phaser blast at centre fighter and take it out. Fire a photon torp and you take out or severly damage all the fighters. Torps may delive less energy om one target but they can affect MORE THAN ONE TARGET.

[Rogue 9]

Say you have 5 fighters in a diamond slot formation. Fire a single phaser blast at centre fighter and take it out. Fire a photon torp and you take out or severly damage all the fighters. Torps may delive less energy om one target but they can affect MORE THAN ONE TARGET.

IF THEY HIT ANY OF THE TARGETS. Use your brain. Fighters are survivable for one reason: Their ability to evade attacks. They're not tough enough to trade body blows with a capital ship. If they see a torpedo coming there goes that diamond slot formation. Its called evasive maneuvering, and for fighter pilots it is life. Do you really think they'll sit and take it?

[Alyeska]

Say you have 5 fighters in a diamond slot formation. Fire a single phaser blast at centre fighter and take it out. Fire a photon torp and you take out or severly damage all the fighters. Torps may delive less energy om one target but they can affect MORE THAN ONE TARGET.

Do you have any idea how much firepower is lose in a spherical detonation? Just being 20 meters away from the detonation can be the equivlant of having a mosquito bite. This of course supposes you can even detonate the torpedo that close.

[Peregrin Toker]

[image of countless Swarm fighers]

Thats how many fighters it took to take down Voyager.

My point was just that there was somebody in the ST galaxy who used fighters as the primary vessel of their space navies. (The Jem'hadar ships commonly referred to as "fighters" are probably more correctly identified to as corvettes)

[Alyeska]

[image of countless Swarm fighers]

Thats how many fighters it took to take down Voyager.

My point was just that there was somebody in the ST galaxy who used fighters as the primary vessel of their space navies. (The Jem'hadar ships commonly referred to as "fighters" are probably more correctly identified to as corvettes)

Jem'Hadar Attackships (also known as fighters) are in the same size range as Sabre and B'Rel class ships. They are destroyers.

[Knife]

Better to kill one enemy rather then do NOTHING to all of them.

Dude, your being an idiot. With my example, I've shown that one proximity blast with a torpedo can impart comprable or greater damage than a phaser blast BUT TO MULTIABLE TARGETS. Even at 1% impartation of damage(your the one that came up with the 5%), you still deliever 64 KT on target, per target, per blast. Thats the equivalant of 64 seconds of phaser blast on the hull on ONE target, but guess what?, you've just did it to multiable targets instead of just one.

I don't know what the shields on a fighter are rated and if it can take that but thats really moot at this point because a torpedo either does comprable or greater damage than a phaser blast but with the cherry on top of doing it to more targets at once, which is the whole point of this strategy. Do as much or comprable but to more at once!

Are you really sujesting that it's better to take longer to completely destroy a target than to impart comparable damage to multiable targets in the same time frame. Hello, combat ineffective. You don't have to out right destroy something to render it ineffective.

Mike's Data is years out of date and is CONTRADICTORY. Can't you fucking see? You are claiming order of magnitude differences between phasers and torpedoes.

Then post your numbers that are correct.

Watch the fucking SERIES! Ever see the hull eat away and disapear? NDF is when phasers cause the target to "vaporize"

I don't see how this supports you at all. Yes, yes. NDF makes shit 'vaporise'. We're talking about total yield. At one KT, I'm sure it can make the armor and metal 'vaporise' as seen on screen.

Unfortunatley for you, at 3.2 MT (5% of yield) it will do it quicker and more efficiently especially if it does it to multiable targets at once.

USE YOUR FUCKING BRAIN. You just said that the entire phaser compliment of a Galaxy class starship is weaker then a SINGLE torpedo.

No I didn't. Use your brain, asshole. I said that the yield of one torpedo does more damage in one blast than one phaser blast does in one second.

You have yet to prove it would do any good.

Phasers:
1KT/sec on armor and 7 MT/sec on shields

Torpedo:
64MT.

1% of yield gets transfered to targets=64KT per target
5% of yield gets transfered to targets=3.2MT per target
(so forth and so on)

In one blast I can do either comprable or greater damage than a phaser blast and I can do it to multiable targets instead on just the one that the phaser can.

PROVE IT.

If torpedoes have trouble hitting ships a thousand times larger then a fighter, you haven't evne proven you can get close enough to a fighter to do any damage. The further away you get from the originating point of the explossion, the less damage you recieve. Just being 50 meters away from the explossion will net you less then 1% of the total firepower of the torpedo. That is a 100 meter large spherical energy front with absolutely no power to it because it has been reduced in effectiveness. A torpedo can't even hit mid sized ships all the time. You have yet to prove you can even fire your torpedo close enough to make proximity explossions work at all.

I never said it is 100% effective. Just more effective than your idea. Besides, by utilizing the torpedo as an area weapon, I don't have to physicaly hit a fighter with the torpedo. I have to detonate it inside the formation.

As to evasive manuvers, jinxing a fighter around is one thing, manuvering a large formation of fighters is another. Changing a heading for a large formation takes practice and alot more time than if you just had one fighter out there juking and dodging.

And to bring it back to where it started, this all came about because I noted to the OP that fighters in Trek are not reasonable because their weaponary is not a suffiecient threat to capship uless they use overwhelming numbers, hence a large formation and using a torpedo as an area weapon.

I find it humorous that a few posts ago you thought that using mines against fighter formations was an interesting idea, but by god, don't strap an engine to that mine.

Enough with the smartass comments. You completely ignored the fact that torpedoes can't even get near fighters most of the time.

A single fighter, yes, your right. A large formation?

More efficent? Each shot is going to be more efficent then your fucking torpedo because they have a better chance of hitting. You have to detonate MULTIPLE torpedoes on target to hope to cause enough damage.

If you have numbers to illistrate that, please post them. Other wise the numbers I posted trump your handwaving.

You can't even support your own side and you've yet to prove either proximity deonation nor have you supported that you can even cause damage. Furthermore you show a complete lack of knowledge of phasers and how they work.

BS. Ive presented my idea and backed it with numbers and even sourced the numbers. You've jumped around yelling and handwaving and have produced jackshit on how I'm wrong.

[Lancer]

Better to kill one enemy rather then do NOTHING to all of them.

Dude, your being an idiot. With my example, I've shown that one proximity blast with a torpedo can impart comprable or greater damage than a phaser blast BUT TO MULTIABLE TARGETS. Even at 1% impartation of damage(your the one that came up with the 5%), you still deliever 64 KT on target, per target, per blast. Thats the equivalant of 64 seconds of phaser blast on the hull on ONE target, but guess what?, you've just did it to multiable targets instead of just one.

I don't know what the shields on a fighter are rated and if it can take that but thats really moot at this point because a torpedo either does comprable or greater damage than a phaser blast but with the cherry on top of doing it to more targets at once, which is the whole point of this strategy. Do as much or comprable but to more at once!

Are you really sujesting that it's better to take longer to completely destroy a target than to impart comparable damage to multiable targets in the same time frame. Hello, combat ineffective. You don't have to out right destroy something to render it ineffective.

Watch the fucking SERIES! Ever see the hull eat away and disapear? NDF is when phasers cause the target to "vaporize"

I don't see how this supports you at all. Yes, yes. NDF makes shit 'vaporise'. We're talking about total yield. At one KT, I'm sure it can make the armor and metal 'vaporise' as seen on screen.

Unfortunatley for you, at 3.2 MT (5% of yield) it will do it quicker and more efficiently especially if it does it to multiable targets at once.

Uh, dude, what everybody's been screaming at you is that phasers aren't conventional directed energy weapons. They cause a chain reaction that does more overall damage than the actual energy of the beam.

Or would you try explaining how phasers can vaporize Dodges and blow up rock without any significant heat transfer without NDF?

[Sarevok]

Photon torpedoes have proven to be more effective against shields than phasers.

[Rogue 9]

Photon torpedoes have proven to be more effective against shields than phasers.

But putting the torpedo on target on a fighter is problematic. Very much so, since putting a torpedo on a D'dedirax Warbird (I know I spelled that wrong) is problematic sometimes, and its several times bigger than a fighter, and also considerably less maneuverable. Alyeska posted numbers on phaser vs. torpedo accuracy in another thread when I first joined the board. I'll go see if I can find it. I think it was X-wing vs the Delta Flyer or something. Maybe Defiant. I'll look.

[Uraniun235]

Hold the damn spacephone, since when did anyone have a hard time landing a torpedo on a fuckin' Warbird?

[Rogue 9]

I don't know episode names other than All Good Things and Best of Both Worlds, and that's because they were the last in the series and the one most often referenced around here, respectively. So I can't tell you when. Wish I could.

[Knife]

Uh, dude, what everybody's been screaming at you is that phasers aren't conventional directed energy weapons. They cause a chain reaction that does more overall damage than the actual energy of the beam.

And as I told Alyeska, if you have different numbers than the ones I used, then by all means post them.

Or would you try explaining how phasers can vaporize Dodges and blow up rock without any significant heat transfer without NDF?

And as I mentioned on that reply, I'm talking total yield. It doesn't matter how that total yield comes to be, just that it gets there and in the torpedo's case, can be spread out in a limited area and impart damage to multiable targets at once.

In this instance, what we're arguing about, it really doesn't matter if its a NDF because if a phaser blast can only deliver 1KT/sec using NDF on a single target and a 64MT torpedo detonated in the middle of a formation can impart even 1% of its yield to more than one target, you have a more effective strike with the one torpedo than a beam weapon in that moment.

[Knife]

Photon torpedoes have proven to be more effective against shields than phasers.

But putting the torpedo on target on a fighter is problematic. Very much so, since putting a torpedo on a D'dedirax Warbird (I know I spelled that wrong) is problematic sometimes, and its several times bigger than a fighter, and also considerably less maneuverable. Alyeska posted numbers on phaser vs. torpedo accuracy in another thread when I first joined the board. I'll go see if I can find it. I think it was X-wing vs the Delta Flyer or something. Maybe Defiant. I'll look.

Of course there is always the fight in 'The Wounded' were the Phenoix struck a Cardassian ship at range with torpedos.


Ah, here we go....

TNG Season 4, Ep# 86: "The Wounded"

(watching tactical display)
DATA: The warship is three hundred thousand kilometers from the Phoenix. It is opening fire. The Phoenix has taken a direct hit ... the Phoenix is beginning evasive maneuvers ... it has positioned itself outside the weapons range of the opposing ship ... the Phoenix has powered up with both phasers and photon torpedoes ... the Phoenix is firing photon torpedoes.
(little blips move toward other little blips on the screen, indicating the destruction of the Cardassian warship)
MACET: He has destroyed our warship ... the warship carried a crew of six hundred... the supply ship... fifty.



....so unless the Cardassian warship can either

A. Not detect the incoming torpedo
B. Not out manuver the torpedo
C. Had a case of the stupids

the torpedos were able to track and close with a warship at a range of at least 300,000 klicks.

But look, I've never said that I think that a torpedo strike against a formation of fighters is a 100% effective means. I've only argued that using a torpedo as an area weapon against oncoming fighter formation would be more effective than using a phaser strike.

[Uraniun235]

I don't know episode names other than All Good Things and Best of Both Worlds, and that's because they were the last in the series and the one most often referenced around here, respectively. So I can't tell you when. Wish I could.

That's okay, just describe the episode, or even just the situation surrounding it.

[Sarevok]

Torpedoes take long time to reload. If a ship uses torpedoes against fighters in a fleet battle then the enemy capships could freely pummel her without worrying about incoming torpedo salvoes. Also torpedoes require a ship to turn so the launchers are properly lined up against the target. This can be difficult to accompolish against a fast moving fighter.

[Knife]

Torpedoes take long time to reload. If a ship uses torpedoes against fighters in a fleet battle then the enemy capships could freely pummel her without worrying about incoming torpedo salvoes. Also torpedoes require a ship to turn so the launchers are properly lined up against the target. This can be difficult to accompolish against a fast moving fighter.

And from my first post on the subject, I said I don't advocate it for point defense. Only at range. But I doubt that a formation of fighters would want to get too close to capships with out some sort of capship support since the closer you get to a capship the more the firing arcs of that capship become relevant.

There is also the issue of prevailing threat when in a fleet action. Fighters are really not a crediable threat to ST capships uless in large numbers. In a fleet battle, a capship would be more concerned with other capships and want to deal with them first before dealing with fighters.

[Isolder74]

Which is why a truly effective fighter would be such a trump card in a fleet battle

[Darth Fanboy]

Im not taking any sides here, im not supporting any opinion, I would just like to remind everyone that Wayne Poe's "Trekmiss" is an interesting clip that might have relevance.

[Alyeska]

Im not taking any sides here, im not supporting any opinion, I would just like to remind everyone that Wayne Poe's "Trekmiss" is an interesting clip that might have relevance.

Wayne's video is completely irrelevent. Starfleet beam phasers score extremely high accuracy wherease other races beam weapons score much worse accuracy. Because of this the Federation can field fighters against their enemies whereas the enemies can't shoot down Federation fighters and wouldn't bother using fighters against the Federations accuracy.

[Stark]

Wayne's video is completely irrelevent. Starfleet beam phasers score extremely high accuracy wherease other races beam weapons score much worse accuracy. Because of this the Federation can field fighters against their enemies whereas the enemies can't shoot down Federation fighters and wouldn't bother using fighters against the Federations accuracy.

Alyeska, SF has higher per shot accuracy because their doctrine doesn't let them fire without a tight firing solution. Remember all those 'having trouble getting a phaser lock' lines? A manuevuering fighter should be able to evade much phaser fire, particularly with the early TNG slow-charge types. Frankly, once fighters become established in ST fleet battles, I imagine ships will be built with weapons designed to engage them, since cap phasers and torps both have issues.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Photon torpedoes have proven to be more effective against shields than phasers.

But putting the torpedo on target on a fighter is problematic. Very much so, since putting a torpedo on a D'dedirax Warbird (I know I spelled that wrong) is problematic sometimes, and its several times bigger than a fighter, and also considerably less maneuverable. Alyeska posted numbers on phaser vs. torpedo accuracy in another thread when I first joined the board. I'll go see if I can find it. I think it was X-wing vs the Delta Flyer or something. Maybe Defiant. I'll look.

Umm when has locking a torpedo onto a warbird been a problem?

[Kamakazie Sith]

Wayne's video is completely irrelevent. Starfleet beam phasers score extremely high accuracy wherease other races beam weapons score much worse accuracy. Because of this the Federation can field fighters against their enemies whereas the enemies can't shoot down Federation fighters and wouldn't bother using fighters against the Federations accuracy.

Alyeska, SF has higher per shot accuracy because their doctrine doesn't let them fire without a tight firing solution. Remember all those 'having trouble getting a phaser lock' lines? A manuevuering fighter should be able to evade much phaser fire, particularly with the early TNG slow-charge types. Frankly, once fighters become established in ST fleet battles, I imagine ships will be built with weapons designed to engage them, since cap phasers and torps both have issues.

Can you provide a couple of those lines?

[Stark]

Can you provide a couple of those lines?

Embarrassingly, no. There's the old Voyager line from Dragons Teeth - TUVOK: "Their vessel is highly maneuverable. It is difficult to get a phaser lock." - but I remembered these situations being more common. Regardless, given the (slight in modern weapons) firing delay, the slow ROF (nothing compared to modern AA), and the difficultly in doing whatever it is you do to point a phaser at a moving target, I'm not convinced they're as effective vs fighters as Alyeska suggests. The torp idea isn't any better, however (particularly since at short range, to keep flight time down you'd need to orient the ship directly towards or away from your fighter targets; fighters approaching from the beam and jinking would have a higher survival rate)

[Alyeska]

Wayne's video is completely irrelevent. Starfleet beam phasers score extremely high accuracy wherease other races beam weapons score much worse accuracy. Because of this the Federation can field fighters against their enemies whereas the enemies can't shoot down Federation fighters and wouldn't bother using fighters against the Federations accuracy.

Alyeska, SF has higher per shot accuracy because their doctrine doesn't let them fire without a tight firing solution. Remember all those 'having trouble getting a phaser lock' lines? A manuevuering fighter should be able to evade much phaser fire, particularly with the early TNG slow-charge types. Frankly, once fighters become established in ST fleet battles, I imagine ships will be built with weapons designed to engage them, since cap phasers and torps both have issues.

And yet SF fires just as often as their enemies. That leads us to the conclussion that they are indeed capable of much higher levels of accuracy with the same volume of fire. Logical assumption is SF can hit enemy fighters while enemies can't do so in return.

[Lancer]

Photon torpedoes have proven to be more effective against shields than phasers.

But putting the torpedo on target on a fighter is problematic. Very much so, since putting a torpedo on a D'dedirax Warbird (I know I spelled that wrong) is problematic sometimes, and its several times bigger than a fighter, and also considerably less maneuverable. Alyeska posted numbers on phaser vs. torpedo accuracy in another thread when I first joined the board. I'll go see if I can find it. I think it was X-wing vs the Delta Flyer or something. Maybe Defiant. I'll look.

Umm when has locking a torpedo onto a warbird been a problem?

When it's been equipped with the latest model Romulan cloaking device and cloaked. Which is how you will ususally find your warbirds.