How Practical are Carriers in Space Warfare?

Spacedock delves into the much-debated topic of sci-fi carriers.

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Battlezone II Music by Carey Chico

Spacedock does not hold ownership of the copyrighted materiel (Footage, Stills etc) taken from the various works of fiction covered in this series, and uses them within the boundaries of Fair Use for the purpose of Analysis, Discussion and Review.

[AFNacapella]

Cylon raiders used to reverse into their bays, but the eights kept complaining about the beeping

[mikemaresca]

"How do Cylon Raiders return to their Toast Racks?"

Viper Pilot: "They don't."

[ralterdrake]

The Starcarrier series of books by Ian Douglas bring up early-on a rather great point about magnetic-acceleration launch tubes. Once the flight wing is away, there's nothing stopping the carrier from just loading a giant car-sized slug into the tubes and turning them into perfectly functional giant coil guns. Just as long as you have the capability of (literally) amping up the power output.

[DefianceIndustries]

Lest we forget, the Wing Commander game series was literally about pilots on a space carrier. The franchise was very much inspired by WW2 in space, so the carriers (Tiger's Claw, Victory, Lexington, etc.) were vulnerable to capital ship and fighter/bomber attacks, later entries were also through-deck carriers to boot. :)

[Marcomies]

I think the hybrid carrier-combat vessels make sense in most settings where they are present. A real world dedicated naval carrier can be operated without fear of a battleship jumping, warping or dropping out of hyperspace right next to it without any warning.

In an universe where FTL requires no gates or other fixed locations, every capital vessel is at risk of direct combat with another capital vessel. That means every sensible capital vessel should have decent protection and if you are going to make it protected, you might as well arm it to fend for itself against smaller threats so you don't need to dedicate escort ships (which the FTL renders less important in screening role) or half of your fighters and bombers (since just fighters isn't enough when bombers aren't the only thing that can realistically jump you) to protect the carrier.

In real life naval carriers, the whole top surface and lengths of the ship needs to be dedicated for that role. In most sci-fi settings, carrying and operating fighters/bombers only requires a relatively compact and enclosed space on the vessel. That being said, even real life non-carrier combat ships often had or have catapult launched spotting aircraft or helicopters respectively, which similarly only require relatively little space but offer a lot of flexibility.

[bottasheimfe]

Honestly space Carriers make more sense as mobile patrol craft bases. They’re big and slow and not meant to actually fight anyone, but they are really useful for setting up quick garrisons or anti-piracy operations

[dardell]

In BSG we don't see a dedicated Carrier or other ships is because they were all destroyed. A Battle Star was supposed to be part of a battle group like our Aircraft Carriers

[timberwolfbrother]

"Carrier has arrived."

My favorite is Starcraft's Protoss Carriers. They're JUST flying mobile factories for interceptor drones without any weapons of their own, but they still feel epic in presence. Automatic fire from enemy forces will end up locking onto the interceptors instead of the carriers, and even manual targeting can end up accidentally locking onto the drones instead of the intended target underneath.

One argument that can be made for a lot of sci-fi carriers doubling as battleships could be that a lot of these settings also tend to have some sort of FTL movement. In real life, carriers are usually protected by the distance they can keep from the actual battle, acting like the mobile airstrips that they are. In a lot of sci-fi settings, that doesn't work as well when enemy forces can just triangulate where fighters are coming from and then speed over to a carrier's location, so it could make more sense to just park the carrier on the front lines with heavy weaponry and shielding rather than leaving it relatively undefended at a back line.

[pomp]

I think the Gamillon Carriers in Space Battleship Yamato 2199 are a good example of semi-well thought out sci-fi carriers. Carriers in the show in general are shown to be able to launch fighters nearly instantaneously in a vacuum because, well, there's no gravity, but they retain the catapults for atmospheric launches (such as the Battle of the Rainbow Cluster)

[GaldirEonai]

About halfway through the series, the Honorverse novels introduce the CLAC - Carrier, Light Attack Craft. LACs aren't typical space fighters but rather small warships that save volume and mass by not mounting an FTL drive. CLACs carry them into the target system where they deploy, coordinate and maintain their LAC wings well away from the main combatants (at least until FTL-guided MDMs become the standard, after which "well away" ceases to exist).

[darthquigley]

One interesting thing in some settings is carriers for ships larger than fighters. If an FTL drive is so big and heavy that a ship built without one can be more effective in combat, or is rare and expensive, or requires the navigator to take a bunch of weird space drugs and turn into a caterpillar, then it makes sense to have even large ships rely on carriers to cross interstellar distances.

For example: Tarka Hunter carriers in Sword of the Stars, CLACs in the Honorverse, Guild heighliners in Dune.

[michaelramon]

I think part of the reason for the carrier/battleship trope (besides simplicity) is that a) space carriers don't have to make themselves as cripplingly weak in gun battles as real ones, since runways don't work the same way and b) space fighters and bombers are not usually depicted as having vastly longer ranges than gunnery. The entire point of the WWII carrier is that the planes can attack things hundreds of miles further away than guns can, so carriers can be extremely weak at short range but capable of extremely long-distance attacks. Space fighters, on the other hand, are rarely shown deploying far from their base on their own. This might be because of the nature of the extreme environment (large ships can hold much more life support and walking-around room) but also because with hyperdrives and big engines, large spacecraft are often depicted as being faster over long distances than fighters.

If the fighters cannot go very far from the base, relatively speaking, it makes sense for the carriers to be more prepared for close-range battle.

[lizardlady]

Homeworld has some really cool examples of sci fi carriers done right. Both the Mothership (effectively a massive carrier and fabricator) and actual carriers are not intended for actual combat whatsoever, they are intended as..well, carriers. They're for having a staging point for strikecraft to repair and resupply, and rarely are ever in direct combat.

[johannesmichaelalhaugthoma]

The Lucrehulk from Star Wars continues to be the best do-it-all platform I have ever seen in Sci-Fi.

[Somtaaw]

Sci-fi carriers usually have the dual-purpose gunship/carrier theme, because seriously... it's sci-fi and FTL drives are a thing. A well-prepared enemy can and WILL use that tactically to surprise your carriers at point-blank range. Case in point, Star Wars Legends version of Thrawn, used HIS OWN Interdictors tactically to force incoming reinforcements to drop out of hyperspace in the perfect locations to prevent hostile Rebels from escaping. He would LITERALLY drop his Star Destroyers, Lancer Frigates and other craft directly in your face, at the same moment that you are busy laughing thinking you successfully escaped and now you're caught with enemies effectively 5 feet in front of you and 20 feet behind you. Any carrier that isn't capable of direct gunnery and armored to withstand same is now a dead carrier, because you thought you could keep away from the fight.

This is also a semi-frequent thing of the Battlestar Galactica series, both original and remake; the Battlestars would send off their Raptors and Vipers for a long-range strike, and then SUDDENLY Cylons have shown up and they're forced into a gunfight because they can't immediately flee. While the Battlestars are calculating coordinates and spooling up their drive... they still gotta fight. And if you go full-hog carriers, with little to no armor and no direct fire capabilities, you're highly vulnerable to being destroyed.

Same things with the Stargate BC-304's, they had many similar conditions where they were forced to fight with no way to escape immediately. The only reason they could survive is because they were gunship/carrier hybrids, they had the firepower and shields/armor to survive, but also fighters for a force multiplier. And the Goa'uld pyramid ships were the same, heavily armored and gunned, while the fighters are force multipliers.

I can't think of many sci-fi's where a carrier can truly afford to be built like modern sea-going carriers, and focus 100% on being a fighter/bomber launchpad and effectively being a glass cannon with little to no armor/shields, and nearly non-existent main battery.

[nicholaswalsh]

Carriers are as practical as the setting makes them.

[mitwhitgaming]

In my setting, I have carriers that drop atmospheric fighters from orbit.
Like a mix of ODST and Top Gun.

[cpcupcake]

From what I remember, and it was a long time ago, I got the impression that (at least in the show) the Galactica in the original show was more of an armored carrier than a battlestar. The guns it had were mostly used for point defense against enemy fighters and the fighters were the heavy damage dealers.

[OfficialUSKRprogram]

In Space Engineers I build my carriers like how they did them in WWII, two big elevators in the middle of the deck, "stage" the deck when a battle is imminent, launch all fighters, and when they come back no need for complicated maneuvers for the AI, they just plop on the deck and that's it

[jamesstewart]

In the Expeditionary Force series of books, a star carrier is basically a space truck. Used to transport all manner of other vessels including battleships, etc. In order to reduce wear and tear on components and means every ship doesn't need a long-range ftl jump drive ability