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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

#21

Post by talmand »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #6
elmindreda wrote: post #4

My 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.

I really liked Lucas' treatment of space combat with capital ships in Episode III. You line up next to each other and start blasting, just like they did back in the good old days of pirates on wooden sailing ships. Of course this is incredibly stupid and immensely destructive to both ships but it makes for awesome explosions.

But I think doing this within range of a planet's gravity well isn't too intelligent. Lose power and down you go.

I always appreciated the space battles in the X-Wing series of computer games. That's the way I see it, large capital ships with single-man fighters buzzing around them. But since we have semi-automated drones with human pilots on the other side of the world with a satellite link, I would have to assume those single-man fighters would be unmanned.

But Niven/Pournelle's idea of space combat is most likely what we would get.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#22

Post by talmand »

makmanalp wrote: post #9
quanticle wrote: post #7

This 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?

Spoils Ender's Game? Bummer. I recommend you read it anyway.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#23

Post by pavel_lishin »

meric wrote: post #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…

Unless you need to make a gravity-assisted course correction, why would you follow in the path of a ship? Ambushes aside, they can drop all sorts of things behind them that you don't want to run into.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#24

Post by pavel_lishin »

talmand wrote: post #21
pavel_lishin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really liked Lucas' treatment of space combat with capital ships in Episode III. You line up next to each other and start blasting, just like they did back in the good old days of pirates on wooden sailing ships. Of course this is incredibly stupid and immensely destructive to both ships but it makes for awesome explosions. But I think doing this within range of a planet's gravity well isn't too intelligent. Lose p…

> But I think doing this within range of a planet's gravity well isn't too intelligent. Lose power and down you go.

Sure, if you're dumb enough to park yourself in a decaying orbit.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#25

Post by blake8086 »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #15
makmanalp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Do you really need a spoiler alert on a young-adult novel that has been out for 26 years?

It's not like they stopped making young adults 26 years ago.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#26

Post by talmand »

Avshalom wrote: post #12
j_baker wrote: post #2

I 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.

As to 1: It would take years for the light to get there, it would also take several MORE years for the ship to actually get there. The important take away is distance can't be used to hide, there is no "Oh they won't notice us we're still outside the orbit of Pluto."

How can that be? Space is big, we cannot even properly comprehend how big it is. I'm talking just in our immediate vicinity. If I took, say, three of the world's largest ships, put them together to form one ship and then placed it in a random spot somewhere within the orbit of Pluto; how long would it take you to find it? Keep in mind I'm not talking within the orbital plane, I'm saying within the sphere of the solar system.

Unless someone is watching 100% of the sky for even the slightest miniscule changes, I imagine you could get mighty close (granted, close is Pluto) without being detected.

Isn't most of the information we have about newly discovered far away objects is how they interacted with other known far away objects?

But, of course, there's the given that if we've advanced far enough to engage in space combat then we've likely created technology to help in detection.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#27

Post by johngalt »

The author underestimates guns while overestimating "kinetic missiles". Speed imparts a lot of energy, but it wont transmit all of that energy to the target. You'll have a hole in the ship.

Your ships are closing at 1000km/s and your cloud of missiles have a 10km/s Delta? A cloud of slugs would be almost the same, and you could put up a lot more of them. Of course a hybrid approach is likely, with shrapnel filled missiles. Better to impact like a shotgun than a needle.

Edit: Also gets it wrong on point defense. If you have enough energy weapons to mount an effective defense you'd make yourself such a large/vulnerable target that you'd be impossible to miss. Once again putting a cloud of slugs in the path of an inbound missile would be easier and more effective. With the speeds/distances involved all of the missiles would be approaching from a very narrow cone, and a small deflection would mean a miss.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#28

Post by jasonkester »

I think Banks' The Algabraist got it about right.

In fact, that whole book is crammed full of good "things we currently believe to be true about physics extrapolated as far as theoretically possible" ideas:

  "How do you navigate this thing?"
  "Point."
  "Point?"
  "Yes, point.  It's all about having enough power.
   Fiddling around with calculations about DeltaV is really
   just a sign that you don't have enough power."

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#30

Post by talmand »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #24
talmand wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really liked Lucas' treatment of space combat with capital ships in Episode III. You line up next to each other and start blasting, just like they did back in the good old days of pirates on wooden sailing ships. Of course this is incredibly stupid and immensely destructive to both ships but it makes for awesome explosions. But I think doing this within range of a planet's gravity well isn't too intelligent. Lose p…

> But I think doing this within range of a planet's gravity well isn't too intelligent. Lose power and down you go. Sure, if you're dumb enough to park yourself in a decaying orbit.

I believe it is well established in Star Wars canon that the drivers of the capital ships don't always seem to be the brightest guys in the fleet.
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