So, I know that the Imperium, on the whole, looks at Attack craft (fighters, specifically) as mostly a waste of resources, but I have a certain fondness for them, that I blame on Star Wars. The Imperium, and its neighbors, have a huge variety of ships at their disposal, and I wonder if this extends to their fighter craft? I see they have the Fury Interceptor (crew 4) and the Starhawk Bomber (crew 9), but do they employ other space fighters? I want a one-man craft, like every other space fantasy has, that works in space, but assume that ship scale, being what it is in 40K (MUCH bigger than everyone else's ships), that a one-man craft would just be pointless.

Then, I looked at the Chaos fighters, and see that they have single-occupant crews. Might the Imperium have these, too? Could the AM affix Servitors to a few other posts, and make a one-man attack craft? I surmise they wouldn't care to, seeing as they don't care for fighters, overall, but wonder if it would be possilbe. It just seems like a weird image in my head of a fighter squadron, 6 ships strong, moving like fighters do, but on the carrier, it's 24 people walking around, as a group, looking like they have the most bad-ass job in the universe. A story I am working on has a couple, and he is a fighter pilot aboard the RtT's ship, second-in-command of the squadron, and an ace. His coolness and accomplishments sort of lose something for me, though, if there are always 3-8 other people on his little fighter. If the ship could support more Hell Blade-style craft, that might be cool.

Anybody know anything regarding this?

The Wraith, which was the older pattern that the Fury replaced, apparently had a human pilot and a servitor crew. The Imperium tends not to throw things away, so there might be a few still knocking about on a Forge World somewhere, mothballed under dusty cloths.

Forge World make a bunch of kits of different atmosphere fighters and bombers, including some single-seaters. But I don't know enough about the fluff of the game they are for to say whether they can only be used as atmosphere craft (this is clearly their primary function) or if they can double as space fighters too. I suspect the former, but I don't know for sure.

I have to admit, I'd not come across the Wraith before; the fluff I've seen is pretty clear that, in the Gothic Sector, at least, the Fury and Starhawk were adopted as replacements for the Thunderbolt and Marauder respectively (which have both been relegated to "aeronautica", although they're still respectable void combatants), with the switch-over occurring in the run-up to the Gothic War.

If memory serves, though, the switch meant that carrier wings almost halved in size (in terms of birds, if not personnel). I suppose the added capability of the larger craft must have been considered worth it, my comments about the combat capabilities of older birds notwithstanding. I'll note that I've let my guys trade their Furies for Thunderbolts at a ratio of 2:3 and keep the same Squadron Rating, and swap Starhawks for Marauders at 1:2, on the basis they're using a carrier from the time of High Lord Vandire, and it's probably cheaper to buy older, void-capable "aeronautica" than refit the launch catapults for larger modern craft.

As for other single-seater void fighters, well, the Swiftdeath is technically an old Imperial design, and if memory serves is a on-man job,albeit possibly with a servitor backup; the Lightning is technically void-capable, having been built around virtually the same engines as the Thunderbolt, but it's designed for atmospheric interceptor work: I personally doubt it can carry sufficient consumables and munitions for a void sortie (according to the AdMech specs and the De'Aynes Guide, it's got 30 lascannon shots, up to 4 missiles and a 100round autocannon, which can be swapped for another pair of missiles); there's also the Locust, which is again pretty lightly armed, but it's got some serious game in maneuverability, acceleration and endurance stakes. Pity it's made of cardboard compared to the Fury or the Thunderbolt. Probably most likely to turn up in pirate hands, or as cheap colony/port defence fighters.

There's also the Faustus, which is nominally an interceptor, but is best thought of as a recon bird, as they built it big enough for a crew of six, including an astropath (evidently it's intended to operate at ranges large enough that lightspeed lag or vox range is an issue).
The Valkyrie, Vulture and Vendetta are pure atmosphere birds, although apparently Citadel of Skulls has a void-capable variant. They're all 2-4 man crews in any case.

Aand finally, there has been at least one case of a Fury pilot insisting his back seat be filled with a servitor instead of a human crewman.

I think in this case referring to Battlefleet Gothic (The game) is appropriate. In the entry for attack craft it mentions that the Fury Interceptor is just one of many patterns of fighter that fill the same general role. Now in the context of that game it didn't matter what those patterns were, in the same way that an Admiral is unlikely to care so long as those fighters do the job just fine.

I'm afraid this boils down to "do as you please", which you can see as a blessing or a curse … I like to think blessing

Did some poking around with Google, Aeronautica Imperialis, Lexicanum, Double Eagle…

Here's one:

The Thunderbolt fighter. Crew consists of a single pilot, void capable. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Thunderbolt#.UVaGIBdJNWI

Alekzanter said:

Unfortunately it also states in the Thunderbolt article that it is not a true Star-fighter, the rocket booster is more used to deploy from and return to a carrier in orbit.

All of the fiction i have read on Star-fighters has them having multiple crew - indeed some fiction even has them having navigator/telepath crew so as to better communicate over long distances and scout for warp transitions of hostile ships.

As with everything in 40k however it is ultimately down to your group. All i can say is have a good reason why certain ships have 1 crew and others have multiple (superior systems, servitors, pilot implantations and modification, ancient technology, swarms of the vessel used etc).

Kasatka said:

I dealt with the Thunderbolt in my post upthread, but I'll expand a little- there is at least one short story (from Inferno! if I remember correctly) set aboard His Divine Majesty's Ship Lord Solar Macharius (a Dictator-class carrier assigned to the Gothic sector) in which it mentions that they were shortly to return to Port Maw to refit and swap their "aging Thunderbolts and Marauders" for Furies and Starhawks. Admittedly, that's only one source, and everything else published on the Thunderbolt does suggest it would really suck at void combat, simply because that rocket booster uses a lot of fuel (there's one account of a pilot who, having used it for launch assist, then used it in combat, so it's not just a one shot jobbie. It did leave him dangerously short on fuel though, even after he recovered from the out-of-control spin using the booster in atmo while maneuvering left him in).

And the Astropath crewman on the fighter? probably the Faustus interceptor (mentioned in the intro to Dan Abnett's First and Only , right?).

Hmm, well crap. I really don't like the mob crew per fighter design, and it both surprises me that they'd devote that many people to a technology much of the Imperium disfavors (Fighter Craft), AND also partly demonstrates, to me, WHY they might disfavor it. Oh well, one will find a way to make it work for the story. Fighter Ace is a bit harder to portray, but still doable.

Thanks for the data-mining, everyone.

Now that I think about it, the Gaunt's Ghosts novel, Sabbat Martyr mentions Lightnings being used as void fighters, as well. And those only seat the pilot as well.

Likely a matter of the individual author's/reader's/gamer's interpretation … and the circumstances. From how I've understood the original source, the Lightning is capable of limited spaceflight, but - like with the Valkyries - this is only really used to launch the craft from a spaceborn vessel and have it enter the atmosphere of a nearby planet on its own power. However, whilst it may lack the manoeuverability or ammunition for "proper" space combat, it could still be used in this role if need be. With much reduced efficiency compared to a "real" starfighter, but perhaps just enough to still get the job done.

Or, one simply disregards these limitations and treats the Lightning like a real starfighter. At this level of detail, there are no universal facts in the setting, and I have to say the Lightning does look pretty.

Probably just an author, thing. Sabbat Martyr was pretty old, even for being one of the middle Ghosts novels right now. The Dark Eldar that appears in the book, is one of the old style Mandrakes, as opposed to the 'shadow-demons' we have now.

You want to wrtie about RT crew not the navy so chill out and just assume Lord Captain planted servitors in fighters because it pleases him/her.

Various aspects of the Silver Ravens (the Korvallus Dynasty) have detailed interactions with/history involved with the Adeptus Mechanicus. A thought I have pondered involves, at some point, the Hammerfall (ship of the story) cleared out and looted a Space Hulk. One of the components used to be a Mechanicus vessel of aged origins, and while the ship was beyond salvage, her fighter bay had remained nearly untouched. Inside, "Sentinel-pattern" defensive fighters were discovered housed. Smaller, faster, and more maneuverable than the Fury, the Sentinel was primarily designed to be a protector fighter, launched to shoot down enemy missiles and bombers (the usual fighter job), but the Mechanicus had copious access to servitors, and not the most abundant crew of organics, so they filled the extra spots with mono-task servitors (sort of like Karamazov, in the Witch Hunter's army), and left a pilot station for the sole organic.

This fits my bill, doesn't seem impossible, and doesn't require rev-engineering Chaos fighters. They are significantly more rare, so they will be harder to replace, but their size and such mean they get knocked down considerably less, which explains how the Hammerfall still has a number of them, without having to travel to a Forge World, and have TP's manufacture more. In a way, I see them as Archaeotech Fighters, much like there is a "better" version of the Nova Cannon, Torpedo Tubes, and such in BFKor. I'll stat them out in a bit, and post them; maybe someone else will enjoy using them, too.