To put it simply, a fighter's logistical advantages are virtually nonexistent. I'm going to take one of the more common scenarios, using a fighter as the first stage of a missile. Let's assume that we wish to launch our missiles at 50% of exhaust velocity. That gives us a starting mass ratio of about 1.65 (e^.5 if you wish to be pedantic). That means that about 40% of starting mass is fuel to accelerate. After we launch the projectile, we need 40% of what's left to decelerate to a stop, and then however much we want to get home. I'll assume that missile throw weight is 30% of launch weight. That leaves us with .3 launch weight to return. .12 of that is spent coming to rest. I'll lastly assume that we wish to return at 25% of exhaust velocity, which gives .072 fuel and .108 bringback. So, for 100 tons launch to put 30 tons on target, we spent 59.2 tons of fuel. Yes, a carrier might have a larger magazine, but that will be more then offset by the fuel requirements. And don't forget we have to cram engines, tanks, structure, and maybe crew into the last 10.8 tons, which likely means low accelerations and thus long cycle times, reducing throw weight farther. In comparison, for the 89.2 tons, if we chose to fire straight rockets, we would get 54.1 tons throw weight. That's an 80% increase. I know that a decent bit of that might be engines and tanks, but assuming we're firing kinetics, that doesn't matter.
That is a very limited analysis of the scenario.
1. You aren't considering that the larger fighter engines will be more efficient, aka have a higher exhaust velocity.
2. You are just looking at one scenario, and I'm not sure how plausible it is. 50% of exhaust velocity in NA is probably way more than you are going to be able to get, or want to get (Actually there is a pretty big issue here that needs to be addressed, I calculated the exhaust velocity of the Daring's propulsion system at 1.5c... ignoring that for now...). If you rerun all of those numbers with assuming a combat speed of 10% Ve and a coasting speed of half that then your same fighter will carry 77.2 tons of missiles, from there using missiles is only a 17% increase in delivered payload, once again ignoring any different efficiencies.
3. Now we are getting into the part I said we didn't have enough information to really model. You are saying that 1kg of long range missile delivered payload is equivalent to 1kg of short range fighter delivered payload. What if that's not true? What if, because of the fighter's closer sensors, or the shorter amount of time the enemy has to intercept a munition, a fighter's munitions are 10x more effective than longer range ones? That changes everything, and we don't know if that will be the case.
4. What about your own casualties? What if in high velocity fighting any one of your ships that enters enemy firing range has a 70% chance of being destroyed. Your first thought is "Well I guess that means those fighters won't be getting the 4 attack runs they need to be cost-effective." Your second thought should be "wait a second, if I'm not sending my fighters into the 70% suicide zone, then I am sending my cruisers and battleships into the 70% suicide zone."
Kinda what I was thinking, it seems rather silly to talk about what is done with wet navy stuff and then say it can't be done in space.
Or to talk about what is done with wet navy stuff and then say it can be done in space.
How about we use critical thinking skills to apply useful lessons from a variety of different combat environments to space warfare, while at the same time screening out incorrect conclusions caused by the different environment?
Both big ships and FACs operate on the water, while fighters operate in the air. A hypothetical FAC carrier is much closer to an Aurora carrier then an aircraft carrier is.
No, because the only reason FACs have fallen out of favor is because an alternative combat system that does operate in an entirely different medium is able to take its niche in fight. Applying that case to Aurora would be saying "See, we don't need FACs and Fighters because these extra-dimensional phase-blinking drones that don't use space as a medium of transit fullfill their role much better!"
If you look back to WWI when airplanes didn't exist with their z plane of movement (although submarines still did) then you see a much wider spectrum of combat naval vessels. In fact, the current "Destroyer" platform evolved out of the "Torpedo Boat Destroyer" moniker. FACs and torpedo boats filled a similar role to what many of us are proposing with fighters.
