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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

#201

Post by electromagnetic »

JDulin wrote: post #187
sliverstorm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue this over in your head a lot, but it's really quite simple in my mind. If we assume space travel becomes relatively easy (that is to say it is used for more than initial colonization) there will be interstellar commerce. If there is unprotected commerce, there will be pirates. Any time there are pirates, protection will develop. Let us call these peace-keepers the Navy. If you engage in commerce and you…

I think your argument is aiming at the right target, but is using the wrong ammo. The essay outlines why piracy is not possible (or at least practical) for space commerce. However, it is very plausible that nations will fight over shipping routes and try to destroy each other's freighters and merchant ships. Like you said "Anywhere you have commerce, you are liable to develop conflict." This will be true, but probabl…

Incidentally it was the nations of England, France, Spain and Denmark that caused piracy. Not only did they give charters to captains to give them the right to attack another nations ships, but they harboured them.

The British ports were notorious for this. Spain had control of the gold, so Britain allowed their pirates to attack the gold galleons and haul it back to British ports. The pirates would eventually spend said gold in the port buying items imported from Europe and transferring wealth back to the old world (incidentally this actually faired better for England than it did Spain, as the Spanish gold went into the governments coffers. The stolen gold entered the economy).

I agree, piracy isn't likely to happen just randomly. Without ports harbouring pirates the oceans became clear pretty quickly. The European superpowers didn't want to go to war with each other, but it was still in their own best advantage to sabotage the other.

Remember the majority of 'pirates' were privateers. Many privateer ships were commissioned when their host nation went to war and decommissioned when the war ended. Whenever you see in the movies a pirate ship landing at Port Royal or Tortuga, then they likely had letters of marque from Britain or France against the Spanish, if not they would be real pirates and even then they'd have safe harbour if they didn't piss off the authorities.

Steed Bonnet for instance was a pirate attacking British/any vessels. However he received an official pardon (along with Blackbeard) from his life of crime. However (unlike Blackbeard) he set sail for a Dutch settlement to buy a letter of marque and become a Dutch privateer against the Spanish. However, this didn't happen. He turned to all out piracy very shortly after his departure and when news got back that it was him, then the governor that pardoned him sent the military after him. Then he did the neck hanging dance.

Privateers were even known to reclaim colonies from pirates for being issued letters of marque.

IMO piracy and privateers have a very strong likelihood of occurring. We're already seeing signs that it's going to be companies to exploit space before governments, similar to in the Caribbean. It will only take one nation permitting privateers to operate before all nations and companies of size will be operating privateers. It's the logical step if governments aren't capable of exerting their force more than corporations.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#202

Post by electromagnetic »

brazzy wrote: post #145
sliverstorm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue this over in your head a lot, but it's really quite simple in my mind. If we assume space travel becomes relatively easy (that is to say it is used for more than initial colonization) there will be interstellar commerce. If there is unprotected commerce, there will be pirates. Any time there are pirates, protection will develop. Let us call these peace-keepers the Navy. If you engage in commerce and you…

Read TFA, it argues pretty convincingly that there will not be pirates because A) you can't hide in space and B) Any ship is a WMD, so governments will do anything to keep them out of the hands of criminals, and protection rackets would be a far more profitable use for them than raiding commerce.

Pirates are generally noted as coming after privateers. Privateers had plenty of places to hide. Notably privateers with letters of marque against Spanish shipping had British, French and Dutch ports to hide in.

Piracy developed when the pirates could appear easily as privateers. If you didn't piss of your host nation, then you were free to loot the ships you wanted. Then pirates gained enough money and power that they could start their own micronations. Note that privateer ships were often enlisted by the military during wars, so it's safe to assume an assault on a pirate haven was out of the question for the military. Especially when pirate controlled settlements were often cleared by privateers issued letters of marque on condition of clearing the settlement.

I don't see how governments will keep ships out of the hands of criminals when governments show little desire to exploit space, where as corporations do. Corporations will grow very quickly in space, governments won't. Governments are likely to spread via colonies rather than commerce or expansion.

The guy doesn't argue convincingly that there won't be pirates, because his argument should have meant pirates wouldn't have existed in the 1700's. The Spanish knew where the pirates and privateers were running to, but they were well enough armed that you wanted superior numbers. So it was a matter of attacking a solitary ship with more fire power before it could reach a safe port.

Even though Port Royal and Tortuga were known as lawless ports, there was plenty of law there. The Spanish weren't about to invade a port with cannons on its battlements and dozens of privateer and pirate ships docked. Many of these pirate ships were better crewed and equipped than their respective nations military ships. Stede Bonnet had a sloop with 120 men and 16 guns. He was captured when he only had 50 men and was beached in a harbour. Notably the military brought 2 of the same tonnage ship, notably 8 gun vessels which Bonnet's ship had originally been at the start of his life of crime. [Edit: IIRC Rhett had 130 men on his two ships and simply outlasted Stede whose crew surrendered - Stede wanted to blow his ship up rather than surrender]

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#203

Post by davedx »

zeteo wrote: post #133
tuppy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, why do you require human-like AI to control a bunch of high-velocity objects, calculate intercepts, and release other high-velocity objects on those intercepts? The only human-level decision that needs to be made is simply confirming the object is a target and should be attacked.

Most people haven't served in the military, but have you ever played a war game? Deciding where to move the weapons platforms and which objects are targets for what is the very essence of fighting a successful battle.

Have you ever played against the AI in Starcraft or other countless video games with AI?

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#204

Post by davedx »

zeteo wrote: post #60
quanticle wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He addresses that in the next paragraph: If that’s not bad enough, one could envision flinging appropriate small moons or large asteroids from other solar systems. Why not? Boosting a large body to fractional c velocities and aiming it at a far away planet isn’t inherently any more absurd than building a ship and boosting it to fractional c. The motion of stellar bodies is famously predictable out for many centuries.…

Reaching even a small proportion of the speed of light requires prohibitively high amounts of energy. Let's consider the energy required to accelerate Haley's Comet (relatively small at 2.2e14 kg) to half the speed of light (v = c/2): E = mc^2 / sqrt(1 - v^2 / c^2) ~= 1.15 mc^2 = 1.15 * 2.2e14 kg * (3e8 m/s)^2 = 22.77e30 J For comparison, the Earth absorbs each year about 3.85e24 J of solar energy, so we're talking a…

Your math is wrong. Accelerate Haley's Comet to half C in how much time?

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#205

Post by MatthewPhillips »

transphenomenal wrote: post #184
ew wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless we can effectively teleport, there won't be any interstellar commerce. Everything is too far away. Interplanetary, maybe, but within our solar system.

There was commerce between the Romans and ancient china that took around 10 years one way. I don't remember what was being traded, except for the silk from china, but it shows that distance and time are not absolute limiters for trading.

Here's a good article about traveling to Alpha Centauri[1]. It posits that it would take 85 years best-case-scenario technology and 81k years using current technology.

Absent the discovery of new physics that allows us to travel through wormholes or something of that ilk, traveling to the other side of the galaxy for a vacation will, sadly, not be happening. Instead long-distance space travel will likely involve putting humans into cryosleep and then waking them up when they reach their destination; hundreds of thousands or millions of years in the future.

[1] http://www.universetoday.com/15403/how-long-would-it-take-to...

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#206

Post by nyrath »

gwern wrote: post #55
Avshalom wrote: post #11

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacewarintro.php for all your back of the envelope needs.

I think http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/ is by the same guy as OP, actually - the forum post made many points I recognized from Project Rho.

Well, that turns out not to be the case. I'm the author of the Project Rho site, and I did not write the essay on the Spacebattles forum. But I agree with all the points the poster made, he just wrote the article more succinctly than I did in my website. ;)

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#207

Post by majmun »

I imagine, that this space warfare as described in article will only be preceding the real war. once this unmanned missiles are exhausted . if invading force has won. it will try to land on the resource that it is fought for, (planet, moon, asteroid, space station). and once they are landed it will be more classical warfare. (so don't worry there will still be blood). so this is very much like trench warfare.

All this is valid for current technology . and same species war (humans vs humans) , but war between aliens and humans will most likely be war between Von Neumann probes. if you lose you got terraformed or planetXformed. all will be very quick and precalculated. so if you are not prepared in advance for all possible situations. you will probably lose. (or not be able to terraform). pretty much all you can do to protect you r self from alien Von Neumann probes is find it first in space or early stages of development and try to reverse engineer it.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#208

Post by ramchip »

archgoon wrote: post #186
weavejester wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but even today, raw material resources tend not to be the sort of things criminals target directly. You rarely get thieves trying to steal lumber, or iron ore, for example, because they have a low price-to-weight ratio.

I think you need to pay more attention. Lumber: http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-CRIME-c-2011-12-05-19041... Iron: http://allafrica.com/stories/201112210073.html Steel: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11280/1180364-455.stm Copper: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/16/idUSLG73912 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/06/sheffield-cop... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-06/copper-theft/2873346

He's talking about raw ore, and you're citing articles about concentrated/refined/treated metals and construction lumber.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#210

Post by weavejester »

archgoon wrote: post #186
weavejester wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but even today, raw material resources tend not to be the sort of things criminals target directly. You rarely get thieves trying to steal lumber, or iron ore, for example, because they have a low price-to-weight ratio.

I think you need to pay more attention. Lumber: http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-CRIME-c-2011-12-05-19041... Iron: http://allafrica.com/stories/201112210073.html Steel: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11280/1180364-455.stm Copper: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/16/idUSLG73912 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/06/sheffield-cop... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-06/copper-theft/2873346

1. None of those things are strictly raw materials; they've all been refined, cut or treated in some fashion.

2. Coming up with a several examples doesn't show that such thefts aren't rare in comparison to other thefts.

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