What future space combat would really look like
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What future space combat would really look like
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Re: What future space combat would really look like
#2I admit to skimming this, but there are a couple of things I see wrong with this.
1. You can see a spaceship from the next solar system for sure. But it would take years for you to see it.
2. I doubt the future of combat will involve humans. I envision giant fleets of spaceships that are too big for humans to control. Thus, I forsee space combat as being driven by complex algorithms.
Re: What future space combat would really look like
#3I think Hamilton nailed it when he talked about kinetic weapons and 'wasps' (aka small bots that can move in ways a human occupied ship can't)
Re: What future space combat would really look like
#4My favourite space combat scene is the one on the way to Home in Protector.
Re: What future space combat would really look like
#5I admit to skimming this, but there are a couple of things I see wrong with this. 1. You can see a spaceship from the next solar system for sure. But it would take years for you to see it. 2. I doubt the future of combat will involve humans. I envision giant fleets of spaceships that are too big for humans to control. Thus, I forsee space combat as being driven by complex algorithms.
I imagine that the individual ships themselves will also be very small. In fact, if a fleet is big enough, the communications gap becomes a problem - space battles may end up looking like a fight between two ant colonies, with small independent ships working together as a swarm, without any central guidance.
Re: What future space combat would really look like
#6My favourite space combat scene is the one on the way to Home in Protector .
I also enjoyed Niven/Pournelle's descriptions in Mote in God's Eye - to paraphrase, space combat is incredibly boring except for brief flashes of terror.
Re: What future space combat would really look like
#7This essay isn't all that realistic. I found this one [1] to have a far more realistic view of what space war would look like.
Tl;dr: it's much cheaper and much more effective to lob comets at your enemy's homeworld than it is to fight with ships.
Re: What future space combat would really look like
#8"there's no stealth in space, but there most certainly is stealth in an atmosphere."
It would allow for ambushes, and fake-ambushes.
A lone-ship running from a fleet, carrying a local governor, running past an uninhabited planet, away from a chasing enemy fleet. The lone-ship passes right next to the planet and keeps going. The enemy fleet follows. When the fleet is passing next to the planet, will there be an ambush waiting? Will missiles hidden in the moon orbiting the planet emerge and fire in a cloud of ?
The algorithm deems the chance of an ambush springing from the planet atmosphere as "possible", and the fleet retreats.
Re: What future space combat would really look like
#9This essay isn't all that realistic. I found this one [1] to have a far more realistic view of what space war would look like. Tl;dr: it's much cheaper and much more effective to lob comets at your enemy's homeworld than it is to fight with ships. [1] http://www.gwern.net/Colder%20Wars
Ender's game spoiler alert! Hope it doesn't ruin it for anyone else... (grumble.)
Anyway, how the heck does one lob a comet? If throwing one was so easy, why wouldn't they just throw it right back at you?
Re: What future space combat would really look like
#10This essay isn't all that realistic. I found this one [1] to have a far more realistic view of what space war would look like. Tl;dr: it's much cheaper and much more effective to lob comets at your enemy's homeworld than it is to fight with ships. [1] http://www.gwern.net/Colder%20Wars
Ender's game spoiler alert! Hope it doesn't ruin it for anyone else ... (grumble.) Anyway, how the heck does one lob a comet? If throwing one was so easy, why wouldn't they just throw it right back at you?
Well, both gwern's essay and the essay linked by OP assume that both sides have ships capable of interstellar travel. In gwern's case the idea is to not bother with the ship; just bolt an interstellar drive to a comet and point it at the enemy's homeworld.
As for them throwing comets back at you, that is addressed in the essay. In short, there is nothing stopping them from throwing comets back. Space war will resemble the Cold War much more than any active engagement. Mutually assured destruction will be the overriding doctrine.