[Hunpecked]

Imperator Fyron writes about scifi "fighters":

"You can quite easily face your target and fire at it while moving in any direction."

And future weapons systems may not even require that the vehicle face the target. On the other hand, stock SE IV uses non-Newtonian movement (constant speed vs accel/decel), which might require both "fighters" and DNs to "face" the direction of movement at all times.

"The difference between tiny craft, such as fighters, and gigantic craft, such as dreadnoughts, is that the tiny craft do not have much mass to whip about, combined with being rather small."

Actually not entirely mass; more like thrust-to-mass ratio. In WW II, for example, not only did aircraft operate in a different medium (air vs. water), but they also had a ferocious power-to-mass advantage (TBF Avenger vs Iowa BB, ballpark estimate: the plane has about a 60-fold power-to-mass advantage for a 6-fold speed edge).

As for maneuverability, that depends on your fictional universe. In SEIV Gold stock even dreadnoughts can reverse on a dime, at least at the scale of the battle map. Perhaps DNs are clumsier on a smaller scale (don't fighters get a defense bonus?), but the non-Newtonian movement system may impose similar micro-maneuverability on both.

Actually, since "space fighters" are basically just miniature capships, I'd say a better analogy is the WW II era PT boat. Compared to its big brothers, the PT boat was much smaller (50-odd tons), more maneuverable, and maybe 2X faster (tops). The PT boat was perhaps harder to hit with WW II weapon systems than the SE IV "fighter", but given future computer fire control, scifi beam weapons (light speed or a significant fraction thereof) and the vacuum environment (e.g. kinetic kill via ball bearings scattered in the fighter's path), one can rationalize the effectiveness of SE IV anti-fighter fire.