Jump Dog Fighting

[vger]

Westi, if you're interested in some spacey futuristic 'dogfighting' that 'might' be possible, check out the Descent series. Basically zero-gravity combat in hollowed-out asteroids, with a successor to RCS for maneuvering. Other typical sci-fi elements (lasers, near infinite power, shields, etc) persist but the flight concept is pretty interesting. Always wondered what the game would've been like with persistent vectors.

Edited July 31, 2014 by vger

[Eric S]

A person (and basic life support) may be cheaper to supply than electronics of sufficent complexity and rad-hardening.

Given that the person and basic life support isn't going to be able to do anything without electronics almost as sophisticated and definitely as rad-hard as a drone would require, I'm pretty sure you'd be wrong on that. Furthermore, the person and basic life support will adversely affect the delta-v of the craft, meaning you'd need a larger and more expensive propulsion system to match the same level of maneuverability. While swarms of cheap weapon systems may in fact be the way space war goes, manned craft won't fit that definition.

Getting back to the original topic, Scott Manley did a video on space dogfighting and how Star Citizen was approaching it, and he basically said that in order for space combat to feel like atmospheric dogfighting, you'd need maneuvering engines more powerful than your main engine, though I'm pretty sure that only applies to newtonian physics powered drives. If you assume non-newtonian propulsion, anything is possible because we don't have the rules for that.

If, for some assuredly stupid reason, we ever do have space combat that goes beyond surface/air-to-space satellite killers, it will probably come down to drones/RPV. The history of the battleship shows that it's easier to destroy than create, and baring technology beyond our current ability to predict, it will be easier to destroy one large craft than a number of smaller craft that sum up to the same cost. The largest craft you'd see would probably be the craft deploying the drones/RPV, and those would stay as far back as possible.

[vger]

Given that the person and basic life support isn't going to be able to do anything without electronics almost as sophisticated and definitely as rad-hard as a drone would require, I'm pretty sure you'd be wrong on that. Furthermore, the person and basic life support will adversely affect the delta-v of the craft, meaning you'd need a larger and more expensive propulsion system to match the same level of maneuverability. While swarms of cheap weapon systems may in fact be the way space war goes, manned craft won't fit that definition.

Heh, from what I'm seeing, and this doesn't only apply to space, warfare is about to get EXTREMELY boring as far as the human element is concerned. Computers, computers, robots, more computers, and a few more robots. That's all there's going to be.

[Eric S]

Heh, from what I'm seeing, and this doesn't only apply to space, warfare is about to get EXTREMELY boring as far as the human element is concerned. Computers, computers, robots, more computers, and a few more robots. That's all there's going to be.

Agreed, and I don't think that's a bad thing. You'll still need boots on the ground to hold territory until they come up with some drone capable of dealing with room to room combat and the very broken terrain you tend to find in those kinds of situations, not to mention the ability to take prisoners, but a lot of the shock and awe of war is going automated.

One other thing that I meant to mention, and has been lightly touched on already, is that in space combat, the craft that can make evasive maneuvers fast enough to cause humans to black out will have an advantage over one that can't.

Then again, this is all thoroughly sci-fi. Until such time as we can create self-sustaining bases elsewhere in the solar system, surface/air launched satellite killers are really about the only space combat capacity that we would "need" since we can wait out just about anything else. About the only way around that I see would be to envision a robotic craft that goes out and deflects asteroids into a path that brings them down on your enemy. Might be tricky finding asteroids that wouldn't be planet-killers but couldn't be easily deflected/destroyed, which would force some kind of non-LEO counterstrike. I still have to think that anyone that could afford to do that could just buy the land they want, but that could change depending on more cost effective space technology.

[Idobox]

Thanks for the responses! Definitely talked me out of writing this into a plot lol.

It's Sci-Fi, you can make it work.

The two main issues are:

why small dogfighters rather than missiles or battleships? warp drives are super expensive, and large craft are more difficult to warp. Making them more expensive (let's say cost and energy scale with cube of craft mass) mean all ships will be small. Making them slower ( time to compute coordinates scale with mass) makes big crafts useful for long range stuff, useless in a fight.

Why put a human in it? More difficult, you can handwave technical issues (electronics don't survive the warp, but somehow the human does, or there's something a machine can't do), or you could use some social reasons (banned AIs, warrior's pride, we don't like killing machines not controlled by humans)

[vger]

Agreed, and I don't think that's a bad thing. You'll still need boots on the ground to hold territory until they come up with some drone capable of dealing with room to room combat and the very broken terrain you tend to find in those kinds of situations, not to mention the ability to take prisoners, but a lot of the shock and awe of war is going automated.

In terms of keeping it relate-able, it doesn't leave much left for writers who want to do futuristic conflicts if they want to use hard science. Not without introducing ultra-convenient plot-hooks (X-class solar flare wipes out all electronic weaponry, we run out of silicon, etc). Heck, not just war, but practically anything. Goonies would've been over with a 5 second cellphone call if it happened today.

One other thing that I meant to mention, and has been lightly touched on already, is that in space combat, the craft that can make evasive maneuvers fast enough to cause humans to black out will have an advantage over one that can't.

Pretty scary to think about in some ways. Especially if things continue to degrade. Going way off into speculative territory now, but the possibility of humans becoming completely obsolete is quite real. Even to the point where we might spend most of our time in VR, connected to robotic avatars for recreation, because "outside" has become too toxic.

About the only way around that I see would be to envision a robotic craft that goes out and deflects asteroids into a path that brings them down on your enemy. Might be tricky finding asteroids that wouldn't be planet-killers but couldn't be easily deflected/destroyed, which would force some kind of non-LEO counterstrike. I still have to think that anyone that could afford to do that could just buy the land they want, but that could change depending on more cost effective space technology.

Even if you could plot it, it'd be very unlikely that the asteroid would hit its target though. Large chunks can break off at any moment during reentry, drastically altering its air profile.

Cheap space/robots probably stands a good chance at ending warfare, as long as we can build the dream of it. If everything is taken care of by automation, people won't be 'wanting' for much, and that'll do away with most convenient excuses for killing.

Edited July 31, 2014 by vger

[Seret]

The easiest solution would be to release a high power EMP. Once the computers are fried, the crew would begin to asphyxiate...

If EMP was particularly effective at disabling enemy systems, it would be in battlefield use today. It's of some use against civilian infrastructure, but combat vehicles are pretty hardened. Space vehicles in particular have rad-hard baked in (even civilian ones) since space is a pretty hostile place from an electromagnetic point of view. The effectiveness of EMP has been somewhat overstated IMO. It's not an automatic off switch for anything flying.

Heh, from what I'm seeing, and this doesn't only apply to space, warfare is about to get EXTREMELY boring as far as the human element is concerned. Computers, computers, robots, more computers, and a few more robots. That's all there's going to be.

Yes an no. There will be computers and robots, but you've got to look at the big picture. Combat doesn't take place for its own sake. There's always a political or strategic objective, which usually comes down to exercising some degree of control over a population or territory. There would be no point in fighting a war just to mangle the other guys robots, the main reason you'd engage his robots is because they're preventing you from influencing or observing his squishy humans, or moving your own squishy humans around.

Take modern air combat for example, why do fighters bother to shoot each other? Because whoever clears out the enemy fighters can use that air superiority to deliver strikes against surface targets, move and replenish their forces by air and conduct reconnaissance. Air (or space) superiority in itself is useless, it's what you do with it that counts. If we replaced all fighters with UCAVs today (as I'm sure will be the case in our lifetimes) you'll still be seeing people getting blown to bits with bombs. The air war will still have a very human face. Ditto space, even if the primary mission of space assets remains recce, as it is today.

Personally as an ex-serviceman myself I have absolutely no problem with machines killing the hell out of each other while the humans sit back and control it all on a screen. You may find that "boring", but I'm sure they guy who gets to go home to his wife and kids after all his drones were "killed" would appreciate it.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Seret

[Westi29]

Personally as an ex-serviceman myself I have absolutely no problem with machines killing the hell out of each other while the humans sit back and control it all on a screen. You may find that "boring", but I'm sure they guy who gets to go home to his wife and kids after all his drones were "killed" would appreciate it.

Yah but that guy's home and base/headquarters/wherever he controls the drones from is next on the target list.

[TheGatesofLogic]

Thanks for the responses!

The advantages gained by a person over an unmanned or autonomous drone vehicle:

Hacking. One person or an AI could hack into and take over unmanned vehicles. Now of course a person's computer can be hacked and so could their flight systems, I'm just coming up with a sci-fi rebuttal.

The advantages of warping fighters over warping larger ships alone:

As fighter aircraft developments have shown, multipurpose fighters actually suck at all areas. Now it doesn't matter if air superiority has been achieved, obviously. But purity always wins over compromise in fighter design.

The 1970's dog fighting style:

When both planes are sophisticated enough to evade all the long range weaponry they wind up face to face in a knife fight. This happened in Vietnam where the original F-4's didn't even have guns/cannons.

Warp Drive Doesn't Exist:

Totally agree on this and the reason I tagged it Sci-Fi. I do not think that exotic matter exists either. However, I just majored in physics and am not going to completely rule out pretty math just yet lol. I should have tagged the original post with a disclaimer that warp drive probably can't happen anyways.

Non-hackers trying to make statements like this make me want to bend over and bleed out of my eyes. Please, if you don't have knowledge in the area of an argument you are exploring then phrasing it as a question will make everyone happier. Seriously, there is no shame in that.

Also, if you majored in physics i'd expect you have experience with computers on a highly technical level since you almost certainly know MatLab and several other languages. I don't mean to be a jerk here and i might be totally wrong, but from the framing of your responses and their points i am finding it increasingly unlikely this is true. Be honest man, i'm almost certainly not the only one who noticed this.

Edited August 1, 2014 by TheGatesofLogic

[Westi29]

Non-hackers trying to make statements like this make me want to bend over and bleed out of my eyes. Please, if you don't have knowledge in the area of an argument you are exploring then phrasing it as a question will make everyone happier. Seriously, there is no shame in that.

Also, if you majored in physics i'd expect you have experience with computers on a highly technical level since you almost certainly know MatLab and several other languages. I don't mean to be a jerk here and i might be totally wrong, but from the framing of your responses and their points i am finding it increasingly unlikely this is true. Be honest man, i'm almost certainly not the only one who noticed this.

There is a complete difference between not liking an idea and attacking a person. I do not need to prove anything to you.

[Seret]

Yah but that guy's home and base/headquarters/wherever he controls the drones from is next on the target list.

Sure, it could be on the other side of the world though. US drones in Afghan are routinely flown from the US. If your enemy has got that kind of reach no one is safe, so good luck to them.

[linkxsc]

First question... whats the scale of this war. We talking interstellar, interplanetary. Or some gundam level fight where most of it happens withing a few 1000km from earth within roughly known orbital paths?

Also I'm just gonna put this out there right now. Any and all "fighters" in space, would probably be drones. Perhaps drones might head out with a small control craft to command them locally, but it would probably all be drones (unless there was crazy Ewar).

I can only really argue for the gundam level one having any validity because in that case, some forms of stealth could work. The assumption is that there already is enough debris around, and other things to interfere with the sensors of fightercraft. But well, at that point I might as well get into the base reason for the mechs in gundam. If you're gonna be fighting in space, you're gonna be spending lots and lots of fuel maneuvering. Yeah many argue that you wouldn't be able to put the delta-V needed to maneuver into a fighter or such, but I don't really think so. As long as it and its target were already on roughly similar orbits (moved there by a carrier craft) the deltaV requirements drop off drastically.

The main purpose why the mechs in Gundam lore became a thing was in that story, initially there were some space fighters tested out (and even still used later on), and as they progressed, they literally started adding arms to them to swing out and throw the COM off center to spin the craft around quickly using its main engines rather than smaller RCS thrusters. As time went on they developed more and more "limbs" and eventually turned into humanoid machines. Much of the rotational maneuvering within the gundam universe is done more by adjusting heavy limbs as a form of SAS wheel, rather than burning fuel to maneuver. Also there were added bonuses of they had basically all the handwork abilities of a human, when doing work in and around the space colonies, so truly multipurpose machines.

Though the only reason why the fights happened like that in gundam were mainly because guided missiles wouldn't work (magical scifi jamming particles, forget the name for them, M something.)

IRL, space fighters probably would never really work. Actually even now fighters are becoming more and more useless as missile interception systems on ships become more and more advanced. Although who knows. Naval fighters really started out as cheap weapons carriers meant to try and put fire on enemy ships without letting your own ships into firing range. What you consider "effective firing range" for a large "warship" in space, is really kind-of the major argument in any of these discussions.

Missiles right now are great because they get a lock, and they fly to their targets, usually masked a large part of the way by the curvature of the earth. Its only when they get within horizonal-range that CIWS can respond, and CIWS includes both guns and missiles of its own. They would be visible in space (mostly when they were burning, but probably on radars and such also) so a ship could begin firing/maneuvering to defend itself. This would mean that the missiles woul dhave to be either A, fired from close range relying on accelration and maneuvering to score a hit, or B, armored to survive defensive fire, adn probably quite slow to maneuver ad requiring lots of fuel, in the case of a longer ranged weapon. Also a long range missile would probably require its own forms of Ewar to help throw off the defense. Fighters could be deployed around a ship as added defense providing extra points of triangulation to defend against these long range missiles, be they just providing better firing solutions for the ships CIWS, or them physically shooting down missiles with their own guns/missiles.

If you're close enough to try for those fast acceleration missiles though, why not just use a kinetic weapons (conventional chemical cannon, mass driver, particle beams / blasters). Well, mass drivers, particle beams, and blasters all require large power generation systems (nuclear probably), but their ammuntion is concevably lighter than a conventional weapon. Projectiles could range from solid AP rounds, to HE shells, to shaped charge projectiles that explode in a shotgun blast (oh yeah, missiles could do that too, but probably not the AP role, due to the weight requirements) However drivers, blasters and beams all have a deltaV problem that needs to be made up for (a ship firing some big guns could probably throw itself off intended course) Conventional cannons would too, however they don't have the need for huge powerplants. The ammo is also heavy, and the ship would have a big volatile magazine of some explosive to use as the propellent (actually why not figure out how to use the sips regular propellent as the weapon propellent?) A more conventional propellent cannon though could pull some recoil-less solutions (LAAWs, Bazooka's and many other shoulder fired weapons would fall into this category, although they are often called "rocket launchers" many just fire a high explosive shell with all the propellent burned up before the shell leaves the tube.)

Problems? Well, dumb projectiles, can't maneuver to hit the target, have to hope they aren't too far away and that they burned a little to evade. Or you could just put some propellent, and a computer and burn a bit to change the bullets trajectory... but well you might as well be shooting a missile at that point, just a missile that accomplishes part of its acceleration before it leaves its launching ship.

Lasers.... they aren't really practical now, and assuming we hit the point where they become major weapons of war... I'm sure we'll have some up with some effective armors to them also. Though assuming they were effective. They''d still take a large powerplant, but would be by far the best space weapon for fighting at sub-relativistic ranges. However when you start talking firing at hundreds of thousands of Km, in the range of planet to planet... well then its again, missiles can be effective (just burn to get an intercept orbit, get close and burn to hit the target, assuming they haven't evaded or shot it down.) Lasers... well they'd hit a lot sooner than the missiles... but would they hit? Remember, even if shooting from earth orbit at a ship in martian orbit, not onyl are your sensors seeing the target as it was ~15 mins to more than an hour ago. The shot of the laser will be getting there, 15mins to an hour later. Whoever is detected first would be the 1 to probably get attacked... but can you pick up a ship, 50-100m long, trying to remain unseen, while its being backed by a planet, at ranges like that? And effectively fire at where it will be, more than 2 hours later? Hell, can you even point a turret... or your whole ship, at a target at ranges like that. Yeah they point the hubble at points in the universe, but the hubble and other space telescopes are rather small. We're talking a ship or weapons platform large enough to mount this weapon, and a power source to fire it (we'll assume its getting target info from another source), aiming at a target, with... well Wolfram alpha spits out a number of 1.5*10^-6 rads assuming a 100m target at 55million km (a close distance between earth and mars) but you know, we could probably do that... the detecting the target though maybe not. And then, say it was happening at even longer ranges, shooting at someone from earth to jupiters moons, or out farther. The only real time when you'd have good shots on people in this sense woudl be when they are traversing large open spaces moving from planet to planet. Also you'd need a lense on that laser able to get a good focal point at those ranges, each shot would basically need a lense specifically designed for it.

Ya know, before arguing if space fighters are possible. Maybe we should try just the waging war in space as a whole first?

[TheGatesofLogic]

There is a such complete difference between not liking an idea and attacking a person. I do not need to prove anything to you.

Please don't respond to this first part, it's off topic and irrelevant to the discussion except in terms of credence given to opinions.

That wasn't an attack man, and i'm sorry if that came off that way, the first part was a generalized request for anyone to not assume things. The second part was a supporting background for an apparent inconsistency. I may be totally wrong and as such my observation is simply immaterial. I apologize if i offended you, that was never the intent.

Back on topic: if you begin contemplating a point at which warp drives are economical for even small vehicles you begin allowing for more efficient weaponology. For example, when warp drives are so "simply made" and applied one would expect incredible enhancement in the stability of the warp bubble. If taken far enough you reach a point where super-luminal missiles would simply rip through enemy ships. Once ships are within a light-second of one another then such missiles are impossible to dodge and serve as instant kill weapons. Since missile dodging would have to be unpatterned to prevent predictability, and when THAT happens you compromise the ability of fighter craft in that they begin to lose their ability to perfectly protect the parent ship since the random dodging motions would also be compromised if a fighter was familiar with the randomization pattern and fell to an enemy.

Unfortunately, now that i'm thinking about this again i realize how much more complex this becomes as the mother ship begins to continually jump around.

[Westi29]

Please don't respond to this first part, it's off topic and irrelevant to the discussion except in terms of credence given to opinions.

That wasn't an attack man, and i'm sorry if that came off that way, the first part was a generalized request for anyone to not assume things. The second part was a supporting background for an apparent inconsistency. I may be totally wrong and as such my observation is simply immaterial. I apologize if i offended you, that was never the intent.

Back on topic: if you begin contemplating a point at which warp drives are economical for even small vehicles you begin allowing for more efficient weaponology. For example, when warp drives are so "simply made" and applied one would expect incredible enhancement in the stability of the warp bubble. If taken far enough you reach a point where super-luminal missiles would simply rip through enemy ships. Once ships are within a light-second of one another then such missiles are impossible to dodge and serve as instant kill weapons. Since missile dodging would have to be unpatterned to prevent predictability, and when THAT happens you compromise the ability of fighter craft in that they begin to lose their ability to perfectly protect the parent ship since the random dodging motions would also be compromised if a fighter was familiar with the randomization pattern and fell to an enemy.

Unfortunately, now that i'm thinking about this again i realize how much more complex this becomes as the mother ship begins to continually jump around.

The warp drive itself can be the weapon. As soon as you turn off the warp drive at your destination, you might wipe out whatever lays in front of you with an expanding bow shock of photons and high energy particles.

[Seret]

Even if the warp drive itself isn't a weapon, why warp the platform anyway? Just warp the weapon. Attach warhead to warp drive > jump into effective range of target > detonate. Job done.

[WestAir]

By the time such technology exists, wars will be fought by mechanized infantry, drone fighters, and automated strategy algorithms.

[vger]

Personally as an ex-serviceman myself I have absolutely no problem with machines killing the hell out of each other while the humans sit back and control it all on a screen. You may find that "boring", but I'm sure they guy who gets to go home to his wife and kids after all his drones were "killed" would appreciate it.

Not saying this kind of warfare is bad for humanity, though it could stretch our numbness to conflict even further and become really messed up.

But I'm just thinking in terms of being able to write a good story. Seems that 'adventure' is almost synonymous with 'god of the unknown,' where the unknown is a rapidly-shrinking mental sandbox.

[WestAir]

I'm not certain we'll reach a point where the ENTIRE military is autonomous, mechanized, or droned. The next step in infantry is sophisticated mechanized infantry under the command of one or two human soldiers, I'd imagine, in your standard fire team.

It's just a guess, but I'm under the impression that the Generals, sub-committee legislators, and veterans aren't in a rush to trust our protection to microsoft and intel just yet.

[linkxsc]

By the time such technology exists, wars will be fought by mechanized infantry, drone fighters, and automated strategy algorithms.

And... what about the fact that you wouldn't have realtime control of your drones at range due to the vast distances involved? Mechanized infantry? Is this supposed to mean battlemechs (yep never gonna happen, tanks are simply mroe efficient, when the only bebefit a battlemech would have is the ability to sidestep... assuming it can react fast enough to incoming fire, and no just because you can dodge shots in Steel Battalion, it doesn't mean that it would happen IRL, bullets move a hell of a lot faster here than in videya games.), powered armor (might be doable) or just tanks, because well, we've had that form of mechanized warfare for years.

[mielgato]

this is sci fi :

fighters have a strategical strengh against bigger target, better mobility, can be stored, carried, and launched from a carrier/mothership, have less mass to move around so are the most nimble spacecraft, a good analogy would be a swarm of mosquitos attacking you, you could be able to kill some, but in the end more than 50% of the initial swarm would have bitten you, now say it is a battleship against a swarm of fighter, you see where I want to go ?

as for the weapons, ballistical weaponry is non-sense against small target in space since one can change it's direction vector way easier than in the atmosphere and it's harder to predict a trajectory, and the fire projectile would never stop until it encounter something, missiles would suffer the same problem if they overshoot their target, and missiles are dumb so countermeasures works against it (but still have better chance to hit than bullets), I believe the best solution would be laser-like weaponry which travel at the speed of light and fade with range, so basically can't be evaded at optimal range and won't drift forever.

I can't talk about manned/unmanned/AI controlled craft, I wont be objective since i'm not for the automated warfare (I actually dislike the idea of drones flying over my head and taking photos which is not scifi unfortunatly, so giving this a gun is actually a far worse idea to me) and I want to believe a human with experience can outperform any AI in these situations...

now for the warp drive, I don't find it necessary for fighters since they can be carried by a bigger ship with the warp drive, and sortie when the target is in range, but probably a "micro" warpdrive can be derived from the warpdrive technology, allowing fighters to do small jumps for a lower energy expense, giving them more flexibility, ability to hit and run, and such.

[Seret]

The next step in infantry is sophisticated mechanized infantry under the command of one or two human soldiers, I'd imagine, in your standard fire team.

The term "mechanised infantry" is in normal use, it means an infantry formation equipped to fight from IFVs, in high-intensity armoured warfare. Think German Panzergrenadiers and the BMP-equipped infantry regiments in Soviet tank divisions.

I don't think you'll see bipedal robot soldiers any time soon. The current developments in robots and automation for infantry deal mostly with exoskeletons, small robots for recce in built up areas (including µUAVs) and extensions of current IED and mine clearing robots. The infantry would be the very last place you'll find robots displacing humans in large numbers, part of their usefulness compared to other arms like armour, arty and air power is that they're humans.

Where you will see expanding use of robot vehicles is in the air obviously, where they're being brought in now, and in semi-automated ground vehicles. Unmanned vehicles will scout ahead of manned ones and do dangerous repetitive tasks like route security patrols. I don't think it'll be long before vehicles like the Black Knight are seen in warzones.

[Wanderfound]

Is this supposed to mean battlemechs (yep never gonna happen, tanks are simply mroe efficient, when the only bebefit a battlemech would have is the ability to sidestep... assuming it can react fast enough to incoming fire, and no just because you can dodge shots in Steel Battalion, it doesn't mean that it would happen IRL, bullets move a hell of a lot faster here than in videya games.)

And don't forget the ground pressure issue. When your giant robot tries to sidestep, what will actually happen is that it sinks up to its knees in the dirt. Tanks have a big ground contact area for a reason, and they're sending their driving force pretty much straight back, not down and back like a walker.

Autonomous just about everything, yes. But they'll be drones and tanks, not mecha.

[linkxsc]

And don't forget the ground pressure issue. When your giant robot tries to sidestep, what will actually happen is that it sinks up to its knees in the dirt. Tanks have a big ground contact area for a reason, and they're sending their driving force pretty much straight back, not down and back like a walker.

Autonomous just about everything, yes. But they'll be drones and tanks, not mecha.

Actually we had done some figuring back at the tech. Assuming a smaller mech, and you built the legs/feet oversized, you might not have as much of a ground contract problem as you think. Yes avoiding muddy and soft terrains would be important, but well tanks can fight there. Mechs are for the rocky terrains that tanks couldn't navigate, but thats assuming you an make a mech that could navigate those terrains. Though in a space future, on planets with lower gravity, a mech like design might have some use... who knows.

[WestAir]

I absolutely did not mean battle Mecha by mechanized infantry. I meant robots equipped with lethal weaponry capable of combating frontline soldiers. A simple 2 foot tall gun on tracks with an active denial system would suffice.

[vger]

fighters have a strategical strengh against bigger target, better mobility, can be stored, carried, and launched from a carrier/mothership, have less mass to move around so are the most nimble spacecraft, a good analogy would be a swarm of mosquitos attacking you, you could be able to kill some, but in the end more than 50% of the initial swarm would have bitten you, now say it is a battleship against a swarm of fighter, you see where I want to go ?

Unless you give the fighters some darned good shields, a auto-targeting laser turrets would make short work of them. Unlike a human gunner, a computer could easily pick out one target at a time and stay focused on it. The U.S. Navy is currently experimenting with this very concept.

It's also questionable at what point it's worth the trouble to launch a swarm of hundred fighter drones, vs launching a swarm of a hundred missiles. The former is probably only more cost effective if they're capable of using massless ammo.