Space combat

[Slycne]

Anyway, if you're interested in a more realistic form of sci-fi space combat (more realistic than Star Wars, Star Trek or Warhammer 40,000 at least), I really do recommend the Honor Harrington books by David Weber. The first two in the series are up, in full, on the publisher's website for free. You can't beat free

http://www.baen.com/library/067157793x/067157793x.htm

I just wanted to put a second stamp of support for this. If you like "realistic" starship combat, the Honor Harrington books are some of the best.

 

[LtWigglesworth]

I feel that it will likely be an extremely long range fight based upon capital ships using kinetic weapons, at least in open/deep space. There is no maximum range on a kinetic projectile and the strategies involved will end up being each side attempting to detect the other and fire first.

Manoeuvring will be important to face the best side of your fleet to the enemy, and flank them, as I image most capital ships will be armed with railguns that stretch the main axis of the vessel. Therefore "crossing their T" lets you have the best firing position and forces them to wheel their fleet in order to get a firing position.

To this end, intelligence and scouting parties/wolfpacks ahead of the main fleet will be vital.

I feel lasers will be utilised less, because they will be easier to counter with metamaterials/ablative armour than a 2 kg slug of tungsten heading at 0.2c. Which will fuck anything up, no matter how much armour is present.

Stealth is a pointless as there will be a thermal signature due to the fact that crew areas will be 290K above the ambient temperature of space and so cannot be disguised.

The use of fighters/ bombers and landing parties can only happen in "confined" spaces, such as in the vicinity of planets or space stations, as in open space there is too much time for kinetic weapons to draw a bead on them.

Overall I feel it'll be short, brutal and decisive.

 

[FalloutJack]

There was a guy who was talking some incredible science that proposed the idea that actual space combat would involve spheres. Spheres with engines and guns on all sides, because there is no up, down, left, right (B, A, or Start) in space. So, viable combat angles are...all of them, even at once. Might not HAPPEN, but it IS logical.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

Frankly I've always thought Mass Effect had a pretty good grasp of space combat surrounding their universe besides the whole "Reapers can just ram through everything" answer. If you read the codex, you actually learn a whole lot more about the use of bombers, frigates, cruisers, and larger warships like the dreadnoughts. I actually found it pretty enthralling.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Spoiler: snip

To be fair, I do think small-craft (fighters, attack-craft and such) *could* be viable in more realistic space combat. They would however require one thing, some form of internal FTL drive. If you could jump them in close and get them to motor in close to the enemy ship, it's possible that the vessel's point-defense guns might have trouble tracking them. They would still be turrets and turrets can only track so fast. Not to mention things like electronic warfare coming from the small-craft and/or larger ships, sensor decoys and such.

The point is, if you could get "bombers" inside the enemy's point-defense envelope, you can start plugging at him with anti-ship missiles from a distance where his point-defense guns would have little to no time to react. Granted, a small-craft wouldn't be able to carry the same heavy-hitting anti-ship missiles as a full on warship... but even minor hits can do damage, kill the crew and such. Even something as simple as destroying his point-defense guns or damaging his engines could greatly stack the odds in favor of your big friends plugging away from 100,000's of kilometers away.

Even the enemy ship switching over some of it's point-defense to try and shoot down small-craft could potentially create enough of a wrinkle in its defense-grid for a big missile from down range to slip through.

However, faster-than-light technology small enough to fit into something the size of a starfighter or attack-craft would probably be... tough. Without that though, yeah, small-craft are probably not viable at all in more realistic space combat.

I don't buy that. If you can get a bomber inside the defenses somehow, why not just send a bomb? Taking out a chunk of their defenses won't work that way either for reasons I'll get to in a bit.

Spoiler: snip

There probably won't be lasers. They are too unreliable especially when cheap projectile weaponry is just as, if not more effective, much more simply and at a fraction of the cost. In a vacuum, there is no minimum range, so fights would consist of heavy capital ships smashing away at each other at extremely long ranges with chunks of metal. However, this would give an opponent time to maneuver out of the way (If they have adequate sensors at least). So, the best thing to do at that point is to close the distance, which means that you are more vulnerable, but then so is your enemy. Ramming is an option, but that risks damaging your ship, plausible, but not practical, unless your ship is extremely large in comparison to the enemy. At such close ranges, the best thing to do is to blow a hole in the enemy's hull and board it. The Space Marines (FOR THE EMPEROR!!! Sorry had to add that) would have to wear protective pressurized suits, since the best tactic to repel boarders would be to seal off sections of the ship and depressurize it. Then again, all they would have to do is plant explosives (or a nuke) and leave. The pinnacle of space combat will be the poor bloody infantryman fighting in close combat with a rifle. The more things change...

There is some truth in this. Projectiles have no minimum range. You could fire from Mars orbit to hit something in Earth orbit, if you didn't mind a bit of a wait. You could set it up so they don't see you fire, and you could probably blame it on someone else in Mars orbit if you were clever, and they might have less (though substantial) warning.

They'd still have lots of time, though, somethign they wouldn't have with lasers. But lasers are affected by the inverse square rule, double the distance and the beam spreads out to four times the area.

You aren't going to have military vessels boarding each other, the same way you don't have cruisers aircraft carriers boarding eahc other today, they have weapons that are far too long ranged.

Spoiler: snip

I feel that it will likely be an extremely long range fight based upon capital ships using kinetic weapons, at least in open/deep space. There is no maximum range on a kinetic projectile and the strategies involved will end up being each side attempting to detect the other and fire first.

Manoeuvring will be important to face the best side of your fleet to the enemy, and flank them, as I image most capital ships will be armed with railguns that stretch the main axis of the vessel. Therefore "crossing their T" lets you have the best firing position and forces them to wheel their fleet in order to get a firing position.

To this end, intelligence and scouting parties/wolfpacks ahead of the main fleet will be vital.

I feel lasers will be utilised less, because they will be easier to counter with metamaterials/ablative armour than a 2 kg slug of tungsten heading at 0.2c. Which will fuck anything up, no matter how much armour is present.

Stealth is a pointless as there will be a thermal signature due to the fact that crew areas will be 290K above the ambient temperature of space and so cannot be disguised.

The use of fighters/ bombers and landing parties can only happen in "confined" spaces, such as in the vicinity of planets or space stations, as in open space there is too much time for kinetic weapons to draw a bead on them.

Overall I feel it'll be short, brutal and decisive.

I mostly agree with this, (not so sure that lasers won't be used though).

I disagree very strongly about crossing the T.

One thing that's almost never mentioned in sci-fi nowdays is that things in space can easily turn on any axis they want.

If you are travelling along, and an enemy magically appears behind you, you can simply use gyros, rockets, or maybe depressurise bits of your ship (which is like having rockets) to start spinning. Then do it again when you are facing the other way. You are now travelling backwards, facing your enemy.

Alternatively, if the part of your ship facing the enemy gets damaged, you can turn to present an undamaged part to it.

 

[Apollo45]

Probably sets of rail-guns that fire shells at extremely high speeds and in some kind of radiation absorbing materiel so they could not be detected. My guess is that they would also sling-shot them around planets to increase speed and hide the ship firing them. Or firing extremely small pellets near the speed of light that become ionized gas to rip though a shield and obliterate the ship upon hitting it. (proof of concept)

Plus the way I would develop shields is just a field the deploys for milliseconds at a time when ever it detects a foreign object (asteroids and other projectiles) that don't respond to the ship's IFF. Because a cloud of sand moving a several km per second can reek havoc on a ship's hull. I would also make the shield to deflect light around the ship to appear invisible and to fly in close to a star with being vaporized. And If possible, make the disturbance of the star's radiation recharge the ship as well.

"A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base."

That was by far the best part of that article.

On topic, it'll really depend on how we develop spaceflight first, but in the end (in in-system combat anywhere, where speeds are limited by reaction times) it won't be too different from modern naval fights. The three dimensional space will have to be compensated for, but unless we develop some sort of shielding or some pretty extreme armor ships will be relatively fragile, and therefore will rely on hitting first and defending themselves before they can actually be fired on. Maneuverability will be key, and heavily armed fighters/drones will feature heavily, as has been said. That would change significantly in inter-system combat, where ships are moving at near-lightspeed, and if FTL travel is invented it'll change drastically depending on the dynamics of that (are they wormholes? Or is it non-instantaneous travel? Can it be used freely or does it need a build-up period? Etc).

Look at Alistair Reynolds' novels for some interesting insights into the whole thing.

 

[Reiterpallasch]

Did somebody call for a stealthy spaceship?

 

[Twilight_guy]

It'd likely be a big pain the ass. Projectiles would literately travel almost forever. They're be no explosions. It'd be silent. It'd be dangerous as hell since even not getting hit can kill you (oh noes, hole in suit, dead, no noes ship gone, die of asphyxiation several hours later). assuming we have faster then light speed travel, it'd be far easier to run at all times, and if we don't then its unlikely two unfriendly ships would ever cross since in order for them to bother with ships the distance has to so great travel time would be a *****. It seems like a boring stupid gambit unless we basically have magic technology.

 

[Thaluikhain]

On topic, it'll really depend on how we develop spaceflight first, but in the end (in in-system combat anywhere, where speeds are limited by reaction times) it won't be too different from modern naval fights. The three dimensional space will have to be compensated for, but unless we develop some sort of shielding or some pretty extreme armor ships will be relatively fragile, and therefore will rely on hitting first and defending themselves before they can actually be fired on. Maneuverability will be key, and heavily armed fighters/drones will feature heavily, as has been said. That would change significantly in inter-system combat, where ships are moving at near-lightspeed, and if FTL travel is invented it'll change drastically depending on the dynamics of that (are they wormholes? Or is it non-instantaneous travel? Can it be used freely or does it need a build-up period? Etc).

One big difference is that there's no horizon, you see everyone coming well in advance most of the time (unless you are operating very close to a planet and something comes at you from the far side that wasn't orbiting before).

A modern warship is in trouble if it spots something coming in over the horizon, because it has very little time to decide if it is hostile or not. IIRC, the USS Stark was hit by two Iraqi missiles, because the people in charge didn't make a quick enough decision.

Additionally, Western warships are built to last some time in engagements, which isn't something that's likely to happen if you get struck by something travelling at the sort of speeds munitions would. By contrast, Soviet designers assumed engagements would be quick and decisive, with ships being sunk straight away.

assuming we have faster then light speed travel, it'd be far easier to run at all times, and if we don't then its unlikely two unfriendly ships would ever cross since in order for them to bother with ships the distance has to so great travel time would be a *****. It seems like a boring stupid gambit unless we basically have magic technology.

Assuming you have FTL travel, than you could build FTL munitions, but yeah, that's getting into the realm of magic.

 

[Twilight_guy]

assuming we have faster then light speed travel, it'd be far easier to run at all times, and if we don't then its unlikely two unfriendly ships would ever cross since in order for them to bother with ships the distance has to so great travel time would be a *****. It seems like a boring stupid gambit unless we basically have magic technology.

Assuming you have FTL travel, than you could build FTL munitions, but yeah, that's getting into the realm of magic.

That reminds me, if we have faster then light travel and faster then light projectiles, we wouldn't have ships. You could just build a gun, aim it and fire a bullet and have ithit your target. There may be some delay but space is big and empty, so it won't hit anything in between and it'd be hard to detect unless you have sensors to monitor the entire void of space, so a stationary base is just as good as a ship. Sit on earth and shot the heck out of other planets from the convenience of home.

 

[Thaluikhain]

That reminds me, if we have faster then light travel and faster then light projectiles, we wouldn't have ships. You could just build a gun, aim it and fire a bullet and have ithit your target. There may be some delay but space is big and empty, so it won't hit anything in between and it'd be hard to detect unless you have sensors to monitor the entire void of space, so a stationary base is just as good as a ship. Sit on earth and shot the heck out of other planets from the convenience of home.

That's fair enough, but you would want to have ships for other reasons, and they would need to defend themselves from whoever else is arming their ships.

If you want to attack a planet, or something in orbit, just launch FTL stuff from your place, yeah.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Except that you won't be using your engine all the time because there's nothing in space to decelerate you. Also, I'd assume that stealth technology would have vastly improved by the time we're fighting in space. Of course, even if both sides see each other, hitting a target would still be hard because most large space craft would be equiped with a CIWS or other effective anti-missile weapon.

However, you still have that 280 Kelvin patch on your ship that you can't get rid of. All that waste heat has to go somewhere, or your crew will roast. All the enemy has to do is spot this hot patch, and they know your vector and velocity. And if you don't make another engine burn, revealing your position in greater detail, they'll know exactly when you'll get where.

And CIWS aren't exactly possible against laser, which could reach out and touch you from 300,000km.

A Laser that's effective at dealing structural damage to a ship at 300,000 would require a ridiculously high amount of energy because its intensity would degrade over a distance.

Oh, at 300,000 a realistically sized laser wouldn't be able to do much more than damage your sensors. But hold on a second.

http://panoptesv.com/SciFi/LaserDeathRay/DamageFromLaser.php

Check that rather good calculator for damage rates.

So, it looks like either guided railgun rounds or missiles at that range. Fair enough, we'll use the laser at 0.3 light-seconds or so.

 

[rcs619]

Frankly I've always thought Mass Effect had a pretty good grasp of space combat surrounding their universe besides the whole "Reapers can just ram through everything" answer. If you read the codex, you actually learn a whole lot more about the use of bombers, frigates, cruisers, and larger warships like the dreadnoughts. I actually found it pretty enthralling.

Oh yeah, Mass Effect certainly as a good grasp on its own in-setting logic. Heat build-up and dissipation would actually be quite an important thing to consider on realistic starships as well.

However, the Mass Effect universe and space-combat within it, is very much sci-fantasy themed. Ships lob extremely slow (able to be followed by the human eye) projectiles at each other from visual range. It makes for some really great visuals, but it's not really a realistic view of what space-combat might be like in real-life.

Also, if you think about it, Reapers are terrible as warships. They one-shot things, sure... but they only have three guns (the two main guns and then the big fixed-gun they have where their tentacles merge, all of which are basically facing front. They don't even seem to have any sort of point-defense guns, or smaller guns to hit smaller ships. They just kind of... float around, occasionally shooting at ships, which they one-shot, to be fair. Really makes me think that being warships was not their primary role, and that it was something they just adapted their forms to do. The only reason they do as well as they do is because they shrug off anything that hits them.

I will admit that the idea behind the reapers' guns is pretty damn creative though.

 

[Ledan]

Space ships would be round, or at least designed with no front-back-up-down. This will only become a liability in a three dimensional battle field. Windows would only exist as a means to look around in an emegency (hit by an EMP, system malfucntion, hacking attack) otherwise the pilots would look outside with cameras.
Spaceships would be more like submarines than ships or airplanes. Every nook and cranny would have a use.

I'm thinking you would have a three stage system: One large battleship that houses many smaller vessels. These vessels could be droid controlled if the technology was secure and advanced enough, making them more compact. If we needed to have human pilots inside the vessels (perhaps due to cyber warfare) there would be means of controlling the ship with limited software, in case of malfunctions. Guns would either have to be fitted on all sides of the ship, or be capable of rotating all around the ship. Same for the engines.

-_- I've spent many a nerdy nights thinking about this.

 

[Froggy Slayer]

Finally found it. A thread on Space Combat, an interesting read. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.100198-Space-Warfare-Almost-Everything-You-Know-Is-Probably-Wrong#1554585]

Though I agree with a lot of the things here, I think that there will always be a need for ground forces; for example, if you need a city that would be of no use to you in ruins.

 

[Froggy Slayer]

Frankly I've always thought Mass Effect had a pretty good grasp of space combat surrounding their universe besides the whole "Reapers can just ram through everything" answer. If you read the codex, you actually learn a whole lot more about the use of bombers, frigates, cruisers, and larger warships like the dreadnoughts. I actually found it pretty enthralling.

Oh yeah, Mass Effect certainly as a good grasp on its own in-setting logic. Heat build-up and dissipation would actually be quite an important thing to consider on realistic starships as well.

However, the Mass Effect universe and space-combat within it, is very much sci-fantasy themed. Ships lob extremely slow (able to be followed by the human eye) projectiles at each other from visual range. It makes for some really great visuals, but it's not really a realistic view of what space-combat might be like in real-life.

Also, if you think about it, Reapers are terrible as warships. They one-shot things, sure... but they only have three guns (the two main guns and then the big fixed-gun they have where their tentacles merge, all of which are basically facing front. They don't even seem to have any sort of point-defense guns, or smaller guns to hit smaller ships. They just kind of... float around, occasionally shooting at ships, which they one-shot, to be fair. Really makes me think that being warships was not their primary role, and that it was something they just adapted their forms to do. The only reason they do as well as they do is because they shrug off anything that hits them.

I will admit that the idea behind the reapers' guns is pretty damn creative though.

To be fair, in the Mass Effect universe there is a fair deal of segregation between the Codex and what we see on screen. The battles that we see have things like slow projectiles and close range fights because that's what we expect. When you read the Codex, you see that they mention that most fights happen at ranges of hundreds of thousands or even millions of kilometers; close range is measured in tens of kilometres. It's obvious that the guys at Bioware have done a lot of research and have invested a lot of time into working out how space warfare could work.

In my opinion, it's more likely that rather than having warships in space, spacecraft, even FTL ones, will simply carry troops and the like to planets.

EDIT: Ooh, also, the thing about Reaper guns only facing front? I don't know how good of a justification this is, but Reapers can turn around far faster than any other ship. In the first game, Joker mentions how Sovereign makes a turn that 'would shear any of our ships in half.'

 

[LtWigglesworth]

snip

I do think that crossing the T will give a momentary advantage. I can imagine that engagement times will be extremely short, and once combat has been entered computer targeting and firing will take over, simply because the time window available is so short.

So to that end, even if you can rotate extremely quickly, the few seconds taken to re-orient yourself will put you at a disadvantage to the other combatant who was already orientated correctly and may already have a kinetic slug on its way to meet you.

 

[rcs619]

Weapon-wise, I imagine that electromagnetic guns, like coilguns or railguns firing the equivalent of canister shot, would be supplemented by missiles. Somehow, I don't imagine nuclear weapons being especially common, simply because the missile would have to get within one kilometre to really do any damage besides radiation damage. Lasers and plasma weapons seem more of the territory of soft SF.

Lasers are really dependent on technology, specifically on how advanced your power technology is. Railguns/coilguns are as well, but they are a bit simpler and have lower requirements in comparison. In theory though, lasers really are a good weapon for space-combat if you can generate the raw power to make one lethal to starships. They will always travel faster than any railgun/coilgun slug and, in theory, could draw power directly from the ship's reactors, negating the need for ammunition.

As for nukes... yeah, traditional nukes are not ideal weapons for space-combat. A missile with a fusion warhead could do a lot of damage, but it would actually require a direct hit, which makes it very vulnerable to point-defense interdiction. Hellbore-type weapons are another matter entirely though. Hellbores actually make nuclear weapons viable in space. The basic idea behind it is that you detonate a nuke, trap the resulting fusion reaction in some form of magnetic field, and then direct it at the enemy... you take all that energy, all that heat and radiation, and you focus it all in the same direction, instead of having it scatter everywhere like normal nukes. There are a lot of different variations though. This type of weapon has popped up in quite a few sci-fi settings.

I know in the Honor Harrington books, the standard anti-ship missile uses a fusion bomb to power a shotgun blast of x-ray lasers that rip the enemy ship to pieces from about 200,000-300,000 kilometers out. That way a direct hit is not required and the enemy point-defense has less time to intercept the missile.

If you haven't read the Honor Harrington books, do so They are a good series and take a more realistic stance on space combat. The first two volumes are actually up, in full, for free on the publisher's site. You can't beat free. http://www.baen.com/library/067157793x/067157793x.htm

Plasma could work, in theory, but its tricky. Well, for space combat plasma really isn't desirable. You could do as much or more damage with kinetic weapons or lasers in a much simpler fashion. For planetary operations, plasma guns could work. I forget where I saw it... but the plasma guns in this one setting were kind of neat. Basically, each blast of plasma was encased in this plastic-like material as it left the weapon. This kept the gasses concentrated and on target, and once contact was made, the plastic stuff ruptures and the plasma is released to burn the ever-loving hell out of the target. If you could make them work, plasma weapons would be great for anti-infantry work, or for light vehicles. Zero penetrating power, but that kinda heat should just melt unarmored and lightly armored stuff.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I'm not a physicist, but I can't see ramming doing much damage, if any at all. It works in cars, ships and submarines because the resistance stops the vehicle moving back. That doesn't happen in space.

 

[LtWigglesworth]

Plasma could work, in theory, but its tricky. Well, for space combat plasma really isn't desirable. You could do as much or more damage with kinetic weapons or lasers in a much simpler fashion. For planetary operations, plasma guns could work. I forget where I saw it... but the plasma guns in this one setting were kind of neat. Basically, each blast of plasma was encased in this plastic-like material as it left the weapon. This kept the gasses concentrated and on target, and once contact was made, the plastic stuff ruptures and the plasma is released to burn the ever-loving hell out of the target. If you could make them work, plasma weapons would be great for anti-infantry work, or for light vehicles. Zero penetrating power, but that kinda heat should just melt unarmored and lightly armored stuff.

Plasma wont work because it's basically a hot gas, and will try to reach the same pressure as the surrounds, i.e. 0 Pa. So all your ball of plasma will do is diffuse out before it can hit anything. And encasing it will require some for of container that can handle plasma temperatures. Which will be large and heavy. So you might as well use a kinetic slug and ignore plasma.