i was debating this guy on youtube about the practical reason of one maned fighters in science fiction, mostly about the all present wings and the pilot. his position is that it stupid, and that it is better to have drones. for details, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi9ekEYPiiA&feature=feedu. im ryagful, hes retepvosnul.
Manned "fighters" for space combat are inane. There's nothing an unmanned drone couldn't do better, cheaper and with less technical difficulty. Except look cool. Note: for genuine space combat at least, possibly not for science-fiction battles where dogfights are common. Take a look at SFCONSIM-L sometime where it's all been put to rest years ago. The only purple/ green dispute worth having is DEWs vs. drones...
yes, i agree. only danger and drawback: they turn against you! they need an AI. so, as technology evolves, so will the drone AI, until.... also, you can't rely just on drones. what if your caught with no drones?then what?
Or make them cheaply enough that you can send out dozens... What if you run out of fighters? or all your pilots are sick/ dead? For a given capability (in a realistic space combat scenario) you could store at least three drones for every "fighter" and probably buy five or more for the cost of one fighter.
A missile is very similar to a drone. It is unmanned, seeks out a target and destroys it, the same as a drone only the drone has more missiles.
the problem with cheaply is that they might not be advance enough to handle battles. that's the problem; to advance, to dangerous. not advance, not dangerous enough. building a perfect one is hard and,well, expensive. and what if your drones encounter a virus? missfabricated? as i said, to cheep usually means what it dose: cheap.
Then use relatively dumb missiles. In the hundreds. They'll still have a better transient delta-V than a fully-crewed warship. Cheap compared to a manned fighter. Hell, even today the average fighter has tons of computing power. And the newer ones even more so. Typhoon even has DVI, that takes a lot of processing.
but in most scyfy's, they have shields. now, fighters are always used as fighter-to-fighter ships. heavy shield ships are usually immune to them. although fighters are a VERY bad idea for large scale battles, they, even today, are mostly use for hit and run lighting attacks, bombing, and other stuff. so it is practical to have them. exactly! in SW for example, they use fighters for the reason i mentioned; fast attacks. and cuz their fast and small, only other fighters can take them usually. but they are not often used against capital ships. in ROTJ, they had no choice but to kamikaze the executor, and with no fighter small enough to get pass the defenses... again, cheap is cheap, and not useful if it can't pull something out fast when in critical situations. a droid would have probably never kamikaze the executor.
So why are fighters any good? Just to shoot down other fighters? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Today they are. In an atmosphere. What's unrealistic in most sci-fi is that fighters are "faster" than larger ships. Which can carry more engine? More fuel? If you can get hold of a copy try playing GDW's Star Cruiser (there's probably a couple of semi-bootleg variants for free download* if you can't find the "real" thing). GDW went to considerable effort to make it as realistic as possible (within the constraints of a hard SF setting. * I think I have Star Cruiser Lite (a free variant) on my hard drive I can send you if you can't find it on-line.
Yeah, cost and size is important. But the real nail in the coffin for manned space fighters is acceleration. A manned fighter is limited by how much acceleration the pilot can stand before he blacks out/dies. An unmanned drone isn't. A manned fighter couldn't hope to compete with a drone's flight performance. And that doesn't even get into the tactical flexibility that the drones have thanks to being unmanned. For example, no one will be too sad if you decide you want to send some of your drones on a suicide mission, etc. Bullshit. Just don't make the drone's programming self-evolving. Problem solved. A combat drone probably wouldn't need to be particularly smart anyway. It just needs to understand "Go here, shoot anything that isn't ours, then come back." We're not exactly talking super-advanced computer science.
Had to pipe up in this one : First though your assumption is that just because it has more fuel it is going to go faster. Or even a bigger engine, this is not true. Actually the final top velocity will be determined by the engines exhaust velocity, which in simple terms is how fast the consumed fuel exits the engine, countered by the forces against it. The thing about 'fighters' is given a lower mass to impulse ratio, they will accelerate to top speed faster than the larger ships, .: meaning more manueverable. Yes the top speed should be the same given the same types of engines, however, if it takes a week for the capital ship to reach it, and 10 mins for the fighter... Well in combat you can see why you want fighters. Ok as to the OP : Fighters vs. Drones, Ideally you will have both, a purely drone system will fail if the drones are anywhere near as capable as humans are in the cockpit, because the drones may suddenly decide 'I don't want to' If you develop the AI to that point, you could have all types of issues of control, and the last thing you want is an AI that is a better pilot than humanly possible, decided it doesn't like humans. The argue that you can write in controls to prevent this is flawed, humans 'Technically' have software that prevents them from self harm.... However, it CAN be over ridden. Humans also can make non-machine type judgements, To a drone, all enemy targets are the same value, EVEN when you program in the variables of rank or other issue. A human can think around problems, and see the non-logical move that may mean the difference between victory and defeat. Sorry for the rambling mess, questions if you got them , I will try to answer, but I am really beat after a long day at work.
Yep. More fuel = greater delta V. It's simple. And you use the most efficient engine you have. I am assuming equal efficiency for each. Yep, acceleration is better. (Depending, of course, on how big the engine is in the first place: if a powerplant etc weighs 1,000 tonnes then a "fighter" isn't really a viable idea). I did specify "genuine" space combat. "Manoeuvring" isn't much of an option. Not even true today. We have terminal guidance that can select tanks from trucks, radar/ AA vehicles from tanks. And go for the "high-value" target. All else being equal a semi-smart drone/ missile is cheaper/ less complex than a manned vehicle (no crew space, no life support, etc): make 'em cheap enough and in enough numbers and you don't need to go for "non-logical moves" - you simply kill (or swamp) every enemy ship out there. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Not quite that simple, your fuel adds mass, and reduces your top speed, in addition larger ships that carry drones or fighters, as well as passengers will have a lot more larger complex , and mass-heavy weight, as opposed to the fighter/drone itself which needs either a limited (2-3 hours of air) or no air supply. Engine design is of course a major factor, but any engine you can build large, you can likely build smaller, yes there are exceptions of course. In genuine space combat, between two bodies in deep space, the problem simplifies to a 2 dimensional combat problem, with weapons range and velocity of the ships being the most important factors (Assuming the same accuracy). However, if your near any significant object, (where imho most fights are bound to happen) the ability to change direction, and velocity rapidly becomes a significant advantage. Assuming that in most scifi the engines on any craft have the thrust required to change the orbital direction, fighters able to move quickly in different directions have an advantage over larger ships which have to move more slowly. (This goes for drones as well obviously, more so even since drones can be built to higher tolerances than un-engineered humans. ) Yes, we have someone sitting there making the decisions, but remote guided drones will eventually have problems. IF I were in charge of another nation, one that was even friendly to the US, I would be working on counters to it. Think communications jamming, hacking through the wireless, etc. As this is simply good policy. Imagine all your drones are sent out and hacked, and told to come back and kill you... And yes, at current market values UAV predator at under 5 Million is three times less than a low end fighter (F-16 at 15 million) That fighter can do more. It is likely this will always be the case, but in the event it isn't ... Just remember smart enough machines will act like smart machines. You had better convince them of Silicon Heaven.
Um, no: We have terminal guidance that can select tanks from trucks, radar/ AA vehicles from tanks. The warhead sensor itself makes the decision/ choice.
These are pre-programmed responses, and no the warhead doesn't make the descision. It is programmed before deployment.
Which part of "distinguishing one type of potential target from another and selecting the high-value one as the impact point" escapes you?
What part of this being done NOT by the drone itself but rather by a controller on the ground escapes you?
The fact that it isn't done by a drone's controller. It's that simple. It's done by the weapon itself. Not a controller. Not a drone: the weapon.
