Space warfare

[Seteleechete]

What would be effective tactics for space warfare? (Feel free to make up hypothetical sci fi technologies/restrictions).

Personally I have a hard time seeing "classic" defensive capabilities(shields, armor, ect) ever matching up to offensive capabilities, in fact missile defence systems are one of the few things I see working. (Agianst drones/missiles) incidentally I believe any form of "fighter" would be useless as the key is destroying the enemy from as far away as possible. Unless you can get the figthers to fly at relativistic speeds as that's what it would take to dodge anything at "close" range.

Granted with laser/beam type weapons dissipating over space and there existing hypothetically leffective anti missle capabilities long range laser combat can be a possibility(Where shields are effective). Actually no now that I think about it lasers will probably still be bound by the speed of light making a railgun type weapon more effective(if you can make space lasers work you can probably throw "rocks" near the speed of light instead).

Of course so far I am assuming FTL radar capabilities. Without assuming that you would need to get fairly close to destroy anything. I still firmly believe things will just die in one shot if hit so speed would be the key... Randomly path adjusting relativistic missiles would probably be an ideal weapon in such an environment. Actually if you had FTL radar capabilities drones with radar and dodge capabilities would be just as effective wouldn't they?

 

[Teax]

Personally I have a hard time seeing "classic" defensive capabilities(shields, armor, ect) ever matching up to offensive capabilities, in fact missile defense systems are one of the few things I see working.

That was the first thought on my mind.

Really, the only really viable option I see outright is secrecy. If they don't know where you are, they can't hit you. A planet+sun can be self-sufficient forever.

Other than that, offense seems like a better idea than relying on defense, especially since given the planet in near proximity to the gun-turret, energy is not such a big restriction as it is for the attackers. (Laser energy transfer upwards, turret acting as a "focuser", catch, rethrow)

I might have more after I sleep on it. Love the thread.

 

[QuickTwist]

Missiles would be more expensive to make. There is no gravity in space so there could be no less sophisticated sensors to tell where the rocket is to make sure it doesn't hit something that would be yours.

I can see bullets that expand or explode on impact to be a thing though, much like we have today. Space ships are very susceptible to be destroyed by a single puncture of the outer shell of the spacecraft so they would have to have quite the exterior.

My guess is that it would be a tech war where not too many people actually die. Reason for this is that their base would be far away from where the action is and much would be remote controlled rather than fighter pilots in a spaceship like Star Wars.

 

[Pyropyro]

Long-range is for pussies. We're going to fight in close quarters with Gundams like real men.

 

[Seteleechete]

One key thing I assume about space combat is that most things would be computer controlled and therefore have pinpoint computer calculated precision.

 

[QuickTwist]

Long-range is for pussies. We're going to fight in close quarters with Gundams like real men.

You wanna 1v1 me m8? I say it'll be at a distance. Distance or bust.

 

[Kuu]

Space war would be like submarine war, but more boring. It's a sensing problem and a maneuvering problem. In short range, every signal you send would betray your location. Even probably just the heat of your engine. Everyone would see you coming from just passive sensing. So it would be very hard to have some element of surprise or sneak up close. If you're spotted at close range, you're pretty much dead. And at long distances, you're blind, since by the time you see your target it is no longer at that location, and due to inertia it would be extremely hard to redirect missiles. Good luck aiming at long distance.

Lasers make sense on a relatively short range, due to speed it might be inescapable, but at medium-long distances moving in random patterns might make it hard if not impossible to aim.

Probably a better tactic would be simply overwhelming numbers. Perhaps fragmentation rounds / drone-mine swarm. A railshotgun shooting a big supersonic round that explodes into millions of fragments on approach. As long as you shoot wide enough, the need for accuracy is greatly lessened, and if the driving energy is all expended at source it would be harder to detect the incoming attack. If no railgun then the things would need to lie in ambush like a mine field to be at a distance close enough for it to be effective.

But then if you're using swarms your enemy probably does too, so it will probably be a a matter of MAD stalemate.

Maybe if you have lots of cheaply available energy you could do a huge laser array or continuous laser sweep to achieve the same wide area destruction from a distance.

 

[Seteleechete]

I think one of the main things to note is the speed of light limitation. If you have FTL communications/sensing capability you would be long gone before any none homing weapon gets close to you(thus requiring relatively close range if you can't use missiles).

And if you don't you can just move randomly in space(particular if the enemies weapons have none relativistic speeds) avoiding most long range weaponry unless a swarm attack gets in a lucky shot(thus the need for drones capable of adapting autonomously as they closer, this type of weapon can be made unavoidable without FTL sensing capabilities). Also it would mean anything big will always die in every engagement if you have more drones(the drones intercepting each other) it will become a drone war, whoever has most wins. Of course a surprise attack would also be crushing.

A swarm type weapon is also very susceptible to anti missile defence systems. Of course much also depends on how fast ships are and how stealthy they can be.

 

[Rook]

Kuu explored it nicely...

The first battles(If humans decide to export their petty squabbles) will probably be suicidal, physical affairs of outright collision, and thus rare and only for the insane or desperate.

As technology progresses, the use of drones and maneuvers related to the safe boarding of other vessels may come into play. The possibly of grappling hooks or magnetic methods brings about the space pirate revolution.


After that, invention is the limit.

It would be interesting to have a chivalrous affair of close combat that in no way damages any vessels, but humans have become too sneaky for that.

 

[Seteleechete]

Hmm, actually now that I think about it you can deploy a defensive mine shield that is probably more cost effective, of course this also works versus swarm attack. Uggh, no matter how I see it eventually it becomes a game of sink the battleship with lasers or surprise attack (or overwhelming force). Just randomly firing until you hope you hit... Maybe a swarm of fighter planes become viable at this point... Actually it really does assuming they can wield sufficiently powerful lasers/weapons that can fire across at least a few light seconds distance.

A fast fighter won't ever be hit half a light minute away while an artillery ship can be escorted to that point.

Of course you can use drones against the figthers that close if it doesn't have sufficient cover, or you can clear an enemy ships defensive debris(minefield) shield agianst your drones and send one to destroy the enemy after that.

Single big attacks can be dodged, small swarm attacks can be cost efficiently countered which basically makes long range engagements debious. With a strong enough computer you can probably calculate the trajectory of every single bullet coming towards you and simply intercept with your own shots(or clear large parts of it with high yield mines)..

 

[QuickTwist]

Fighting in space would prolly be much more about movement than what it is now. With moving targets all around even intel on where the enemy is location wise is a lot harder.

I think that ships would have to be able to switch directions almost instantly, meaning up/down, left/right forward/backward which would mean a way to propel the ship from any direction.

I do think that like Kuu mentioned, that shooting a large diameter of many different projectiles like a shotgun with huge bebes (like cannon ball size) is the way to go here.

I think it will also be a challenge to even shoot anything because ships may be able to fly just as fast as the projectiles that are shot at them hypothetically. Lasers, maybe, but they would have to be affordable and be able to deal enough damage to be worth it to use them (I don't know anything about lasers).

 

[Teax]

So about trying to board the enemy ship:

I don't think most realize just how much farther you can see/sensor in space, since all the distortions from the atmosphere and noises are not present. You get a very clear picture of what's around you. Without some sort of FTL technology that allows you to basically disappear and reappear at some point in space, actively approaching the target without being noticed is not possible.

1.
This sensor-over-confidence opens up a tactical opportunity. Since most weapons will be built for longest range, smaller ships might not even carry short range defense turrets. The approach is passive, turning off the engines and letting the vessel drift in the direction of the enemy. Depending on the strategic situation, good intel, timing such an approach might be dismissed as debris or even asteroid on the enemy's sensors. Or the enemy computer might prioritize passive debris lower than active targets, and an infiltrator ship might slip by in the heat of a distraction-battle.

Anything approaching on a quiet day however will be blown out of the sky with a "just in case" auto-fire mentality.

2.
An active approach has no chance against any long range projective attacks. But if the enemy ship relies on long range lasers, it is possible to protect the attack-squad by constructing the infiltrator-ship with a rotating wheel in front, that acts as a shield by rotating and thereby dispersing the heat generated from the laser attack. Such a ship might be able to approach close enough to board. The wheel would have to be disconnected on arrival though, because the momentum it holds while rotating would otherwise waste a lot of time and energy to stop it, not to mention risk the lives of the marines. This also means that for the marines, this is a one way trip.

This sounds all good but there is one major problem, infiltrator ships are small. There is no need for a small cruiser to carry projectile weaponry just to defend against infiltration, because one strong continuous gamma burst in the direction of the aggressors renders all biological and most electronic life inert. In fact, I believe most space-warfare technology will be based on the good old 1990 technology of 1µm scale semiconductors precisely because of this. Cosmic radiation and gamma ray attacks create faults in the semiconductor crystal, and if the area of a transistor is small, the likelihood of a defect increases. Still, no matter how big you make the transistors, enough gamma radiation will scrap-metal any, even robotic infiltration squad.

 

[Cognisant]

Drones, from nano scale up to automated dreadnoughts that are too large to enter a solar system without knocking planets out of orbit.

On one hand you want to see your opponent before your opponent sees you and for this little drones are fantastic, I can see this matryoshka doll like affair with dreadnoughts (which are basically just shipyards and epic scale fire support) churning out battleships and super carriers which in turn produce cruisers and drone carriers which in turn produce and propel (like a munition) drones all over the place which in turn have an assortment of sensor probes and sub sensor probes and sub-sub sensor probes and so on until we reach the nano scale.

Self propelled craft are easy to track but lets say a typical sci-fi ship fires a drone like a rather large bullet and that drone launches tennis ball sized sensor probes via coil-gun. Now imagine these drones and sensor probes look exactly like comets/asteroids because they're basically just rock/dirt/ice with little cameras, inertial wheels and laser diodes inside. So even if you see these high speed little fuckers, which is a feat in of itself, you need to look really closely to actually identify them as enemy equipment and by that time the owner has well and truly seen you, changed position several light hours away (at least) and is deploying more drones to cover the expected losses.

Annnnnd now you need to get the fuck outta town because if you're big enough that the ship that spotted you retreated then that means your position is being relayed to fire support further up the hierarchy and a destroyer can wipe out the entire system by making the star go nova.

When the dreadnought fires its because an enemy dreadnought has been located and the war is one step closer to being over.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Hmm well to put an actual realistic spin on this, space warfare at the moment is actually blowing out satellites in outter space because most of the military equipment uses both commercial and militarial satellites to relay information. This is why some Nordic countries are wealthy at the moment, because they own a lot of those satellites which militaries over the world use when there's a conflict. The amount of encryption/decryption is important too, since blowing out satellites might not be technologically or economically feasible. The US military is currently using the X, Ka, and Ku bands and could transfer data via in the range of megabytes, something a lot of militaries in the world cannot afford. I think a while back the US got a little scared because the Chinese were building a rocket that could reach some of these satellites, which is why some people want more funding for the military.

 

[Teax]

Unlike earth, where every warring party realizes that they still have to live on this planet, and so would not use weapons of mass destruction/contamination, in space there is no such deterrent.

I don't see why even small skirmishes, further from the orbit of earth, wouldn't just nuke each other with the punchiest firecracker they can build. Except of course for temporary strategic situations like on a chessboard. But those are... temporary.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Assuming:
interplanetary or galactic,
humans don't evolve too much,
standard relativistic physics and not much beyond that. Some more fancy models of physics render any kind of futuristic warfare impractical or unfathomable.

Strategic defences in space would be near pointless. There are no effective ways for defending planets from attacks aimed at them, planets are those perfect immovable objects that are the power bases and production facilities for the navies and weaponry.

So protection would require very long range observation capabilities and possibly controlling large amounts of planets to make sure there are replacements for the lost worlds.

Diplomatically, this would be a concession of MAD between two parties, if either of them chose to target planets, the other one would retaliate in kind, so such methods wouldn't appeal to the populace (assuming normal human politics and no other races) (suicidal, calculated systems of morality would have a huge advantage in such scenarios, so beware evil aliens and AI).


Tactical warfare would rely on two key aspects, mobility and observation. Practically any single attack is sufficient to take out the 'force carriers', assuming nobody would be idiotic enough to crew ships with humans.
Those force carriers would be swarms of very cheap highly energetic attack vessels typically deployed from recharge stations (assuming projectiles) and/or mobile cosmic factories (assuming self-destruct-attach) type of craft.

Humans are incapable of high-accelerations, reactions and maneuvers that give every bit of advantage in space. This would require specifically bred intelligent organisms to serve that purpose. (Slave-soldiers, or possibly bio-machines). By incapable I mean humans die in any acceleration attempt, possibly ships could be devised to envelop humans and merge with their tissue, but that's too advanced and there are simpler solutions if this would be possible.

Assuming AI exists, humans wouldn't even be capable of decision-making, it would be an unnecessary risk to have human generals and observers waste hundreds of miliseconds before processing alerts. So every 'country' would be equipped with forecasting AI's that would have pre-programmed response patterns to give humans time to make more long-term decisions based on what's happening.

Assuming AI doesn't exist and we enter some gorgeous dystopian space opera. People would be mass produced for military purpose and replacements and would die in millions just to secure peace while the diplomats are threatening each other and bargaining over territory.
Diplomacy would be key, all sorts of fleets and armies would only be used if it was possible to out produce and out-threaten the opponent.

----------------

We have advanced control programs already, so there's no doubt ships would have augmented computers to evade, navigate and react, such algorithms are sophisticated enough to replace presence of intelligence.

There is a hard limit in decision-making at which it's no longer cost-effective to employ intelligent agents. Most likely humans would only make long term decisions and maintain efficient military designs and production, while the computer controlled fleets would do the rest, such fleets don't require computer control systems any more sophisticated than what we currently have.

So ultimately, glorious human dogfights in space? Not really, more like hours of diplomacy, talking and giving a few orders from time to time while observing pitch-black storm-like swarms, statistics forecast hours and years into the future.

 

[Terran]

Hugely depends on technological capabilities, sure anti-missile defense is the most effective today, but that ain't gonna do much when your enemy is using phasers! On star trek it is just a balance of offensive vs defensive capabilities, and how long you can keep it up before running out of shield power.

 

[Seteleechete]

Hugely depends on technological capabilities, sure anti-missile defense is the most effective today, but that ain't gonna do much when your enemy is using phasers! On star trek it is just a balance of offensive vs defensive capabilities, and how long you can keep it up before running out of shield power.

Anti-missile defence is meant to counter missiles, drones and other smaller weaponry that has to actually make contact with the ship to destroy it(and are fired from far away). This is because an omnidirectional weapon such as phasers would be easily dodgeable in space(unless they get really close).

So such weapons become short range weapons while anti-missile defence is meant to deal with long range weapons.

 

[Teax]

Strategic defences in space would be near pointless. There are no effective ways for defending planets from attacks aimed at them, planets are those perfect immovable objects that are the power bases and production facilities for the navies and weaponry.

So protection would require very long range observation capabilities and possibly controlling large amounts of planets to make sure there are replacements for the lost worlds.

But then again, a planet has limitless resources in terms of renewable energy. Given enough time to collect the energy of the sun, people inhabiting only one planet in a solar system can mine neighboring planets for rare metals and distribute a probe network all over the solar system. Such a probe network would work as an early-warning system for any incoming physical attack.

Given early warning, I see no way of a weapon of mass destruction getting through.

If the attack is photon-based, the probes wouldn't send a warning in time. But I see no viable way to generate a beam strong/precise enough to do any real damage. Unless the enemy's point is to be a nuisance.

Humans are incapable of high-accelerations, reactions and maneuvers that give every bit of advantage in space.

There's also another aspect to human frailty in space: Life support. This includes air tight chambers and the tube integrity of oxygen recycling systems.

Any vessel where humans can reside, can not have a long range rail gun.

Because the mechanical shock from any such "stone throwing" weapon is slightly damaging to all systems of that ship. And that is true even with suspension systems designed to dampen the shock. Engineering maintenance is not perfect, and having a rail gun on board is just unnecessary risk.

[BIMG]http://img.russianpatents.com/1117/11176822.gif[/BIMG]

Therefore human-inhabitable ships will be more like a space-station, with independent unmanned gun-ships surrounding it. These gunships can act as a last-resort metal-shield against attacks since the main station can not accelerate too quickly because of human frailty, to get out of the way of an incoming projectile.

So ultimately, glorious human dogfights in space? Not really, more like hours of diplomacy, talking and giving a few orders from time to time while observing pitch-black storm-like swarms, statistics forecast hours and years into the future.

Yeah, diplomacy "warfare". Don't accept any communications from me, I fully intend to bore you to death.

 

[Terran]

Anti-missile defence is meant to counter missiles, drones and other smaller weaponry that has to actually make contact with the ship to destroy it(and are fired from far away). This is because an omnidirectional weapon such as phasers would be easily dodgeable in space(unless they get really close).

So such weapons become short range weapons while anti-missile defence is meant to deal with long range weapons.

Your ship is gonna have to have some hefty delta-v to dodge a phaser/laser which can pivot 180 degrees in basically no time, up close maybe, but a few kms away would be basically impossible. Assuming of course the laser had that sort of range.

 

[Seteleechete]

I am not truly considering figthing in less than several lightseconds range(several million kilometers)(and that's what I see as "close range"). Railguns would destroy anything in 1 shot at those ranges or less.

Shields of any kind are by their nature far less energy efficient than the same counter force of offensive weaponry. Any response that has to do with "shields" or "armor", I can only respond with that there will be a better gun.

 

[Terran]

I am not truly considering figthing in less than several lightseconds range.

But how could you possibly maintain a lock and keep a known location on something multiple light seconds away enough to have a missile lock? Surely that would be incredibly unreliable as the ship could completely change its direction and speed in a couple of seconds.

And even if a missile lock was effective, aren't there lots of ways to prevent sensor detection? How could you distinguish between an enemy ship and a simple decoy?

 

[Terran]

Also, how fast are these missiles? Could a good ship come close to matching its velocity in the opposite direction (in the time from when it first detects the missile) and minimise the impact force?

Plus the faster the missiles travel the easier they will be to dodge once they are at close proximity.

 

[Seteleechete]

But how could you possibly maintain a lock and keep a known location on something multiple light seconds away enough to have a missile lock? Surely that would be incredibly unreliable as the ship could completely change its direction and speed in a couple of seconds.

And even if a missile lock was effective, aren't there lots of ways to prevent sensor detection? How could you distinguish between an enemy ship and a simple decoy?

"Missiles" is a bit of a misnomer, they would need both effective evasion manoeuvering and sensory systems to be the least bit effective(otherwise they will just get easily intercepted).

Now I am assuming a fairly high degree of sensory capability, not necessary through utterly unrealistic sensors but rather through ennourmous computational capability, being able to extrapolate and deduct positioning from basic reading. By the time something like space combat of this scale is a thing computers should be REALLY powerful. And I honestly believe that sensory equipment combined with such computational power will be able to ascertain positions in space(Except maybe agianst particularly stealthy ships that probably would be lacking in weaponry and maneuverability).

Anything that goes in a straightish line is going to be mostly useless unless in swarming attacks. And if a futuristic version of a hydrogen bomb gets within 50 km(could be more or less... But the point is big) nothing will survive, there is no surviving getting hit by anything in space combat, no mitigation of "impact force" or whatnot, except for the smallest of swarming attacks or being on the very edgedes of the impact.

In space death comes without a moments notice.

 

[Teax]

About missiles / drones. I agree:

"Missiles" is a bit of a misnomer

Missiles only look/work the way they do today because of air + gravity. Like any space craft, a Missile is an unmanned vessel, an with a specialized pilot program/AI, but this one is designed to suicide into the enemy ship for maximum damage.

Missiles won't actually emit any signals while approaching the target ship, they just fly by inertia. In this visualization the orange section is the active path of the missile, while during the blue section the missile is in free-fall.

As you can see, since it's impossible to launch the missile in such a way that it precisely hits the target, the missile will have to course correct at the very end with a high energy burst. But at this point it would be too late to react, depending on the quality of the initial shot and the missile's mid-flight trajectory adjustment capabilities, the final burn will only last for a second.

It's unlikely that a missile which was shot at close range is going to reach it's target undetected. Missile defense systems can very efficiently pinpoint it's position and take it out with Xray, Lasers, flak or any thing really. And since the space between the launch point and the target is quite vast, I doubt you can give it enough fuel to do any sort of maneuvers to avoid all anti-missile measures.

This leaves only one option: stealth. A missile can be coated with a black non-reflective finish like today's stealth planes. I present:

The Single Target Stealth Missile(STSM). The first stage is just for initial acceleration and gets disconnected. This missile is most effective against an enemy concentrated in one location in space, because this missile can probably be easier detected from the side. It should be shot from a direction, where there is no galaxy/star/nebula or any other light source visible in the sky from the perspective of the target enemy ships, but this is easy to calculate. Otherwise this missile would be detectable simply by looking in the direction, as a black dot.

It should be hard to detect from the front unless the target wastes a tremendous amount of energy on a single radar-ping, because most of the radar's energy will be bounced into any direction but back. And nobody would do that without good reason, because it also announces your exact position to the entire neighborhood. So any attempt to detect this missile forces the target to waste more energy to change their position.

About drones:

An explosive device carried by a missile might not be the best option, because these tend to be big (bigger missile/easier to detect) if they are to have any impact on the course of the battle. Drone vessels can be built much smaller and programmed to do much more interesting tasks. Also, drones are pretty much useless if they come in easy-detectable swarms, which create radar signals that are hard to misinterpret. One single stealth drone on the other hand is an interesting option:

The iPhone is there for scale. Even today's technology, this is a cakewalk. Such a drone, once it floats close to the target ship, can use pressurized air and directional nozzles to smoothly navigate on an enemy ship and an AI can perform any mission.

E.g. The drone can infiltrate the ship, sabotage offensive systems, remove wire insulation and use it's own body to short circuit wires and equipment. If the drone carries explosives, sabotage of life support can render an entire ship inert with basically no fight whatsoever, like an accident.

 

[Seteleechete]

I just have more faith I sensory capability than that, even a small course correction mid flight never mind the original launch should be enough to detect something. You are right though that anti missile techniques seem to be supremely effective. I guess swarm war of defensive and offensive weapons seems to be the ideal solution, whoever runs out first dies(or more likely both die from each other's drones/mines/missiles/ect).

I still think there may be potential in escorting slightly heavier artillary platforms close, being escorted by gunboats packed with cost efficient "missile defence". If things are too stealthy(very much a possibility, I may be overestimating potential sensory capability) it's purely an information war, whoever is seen dies. Same situation if FTL transportation without major interference is possible.

Actually about missiles, I am thinking of them more like suiciding gunboats(carrying a big bomb) that are somewhat agile. A concept I still have some faith in.

 

[Teax]

^course correction is not a hot process. Pressurized air can be released from the size of the missile. Even the tiiiiiniest nudge avalanches into a huge destination change. The only detectable periods are launch and final approach, because they can not be done cold, because the energy required is far too much.

But you're right, it all comes down to information warfare whack-a-mole game.

 

[Seteleechete]

^course correction is not a hot process. Pressurized air can be released from the size of the missile. Even the tiiiiiniest nudge avalanches into a huge destination change. The only detectable periods are launch and final approach, because they can not be done cold, because the energy required is far too much.

But you're right, it all comes down to information warfare whack-a-mole game.

I am thinking more of the line of precise gravitational sensors, light distortion sensors, radiational sensors or maybe other esoteric particles. (As I said with computers doing most of the heavy lifting).

 

[Teax]

I am thinking more of the line of precise gravitational sensors, light distortion sensors, radiational sensors or maybe other esoteric particles. (As I said with computers doing most of the heavy lifting).

If the stealth missile comes from my suggested direction, where theres just a black background, theres no light to distort

Computers is the easy part, we need actual sensors that can pick up exotic particles. But ultimately it comes down to one of two things:

either there exists technology that can pick up a mini-drone approach on a black part of the sky, in which case stealth becomes a thing of the past forever,

or there's not, in which case everyone will place their bets on stealth.

 

[Seteleechete]

Pretty much yeah, which is why I have been discounting stealth entirely from my ideas.

 

[Seteleechete]

By the way about those stealth missiles. What about the light distortions/other stuff from the pressurized air?

 

[Teax]

Pretty much yeah, which is why I have been discounting stealth entirely from my ideas.

Oh I see now what you mean. It'd be boring to talk about

I find the tactical situations created by solar systems intriguing. Like hiding behind a planet, on the surface of a moon or.... Here's a good one:

Fleet is hiding behind a sun, making it undetectable. The sun gravitational light distortion creates a lens effect that might help you see behind the sun, but the massive amounts of radiation makes it impossible to actually detect anything. The fleet has surveillance drones that see the enemy and relay trajectory information back to the rail-gun ships. With this information, the fleet can fire a swarm of projectiles, before the enemy even realized that the first one was fired.

The projectiles pass the sun, get super-heated and tear apart anything in the cone of attack.

 

[Teax]

By the way about those stealth missiles. What about the light distortions/other stuff from the pressurized air?

Air disperses too quickly. It's pressurized inside the pressurized container on-board the missile, but when it's flung into space it no longer is, and since the nozzle can be hidden behind the black-radar-shield, the actual nozzle point won't be visible as well.

Since trajectory nudging is more useful at the early stages of the flight, while decompressing air cools off to almost absolute zero, I don't see any way to detect it with any measures. It's like literally trying to detect some atoms flying around light-seconds away, there's just no way.

 

[Seteleechete]

They would have to stand pretty close to the sun not to avoid that(unless the projectiles fly at light speed). And even then you would have to stand still all the time and you should never do that in space unless you have stealth ships.

 

[Seteleechete]

It's like literally trying to detect some atoms flying around light-seconds away, there's just no way.

^#BeliefInFuturisticSensors

(yes, I did consider that rationale, I mean existing atoms are easier to work with than "esoteric particles"... Maybe)

 

[Teax]

They would have to stand pretty close to the sun not to avoid that(unless the projectiles fly at light speed). And even then you would have to stand still all the time and you should never do that in space unless you have stealth ships.

Remember: All motion is relative

Standing still in space-terms literally means that you're not accelerating, because when you're not accelerating you're as easy to hit as if you were if you were just standing still relative to the coordinates of the sun or some planet.

And you can't be wasting energy all the time on evasive maneuvers when nothing is going on.

Even if you "plotted a course", that would still make you an easy target because all astronomical courses are approximated polynomials (smooth curves) which makes it easy to predict where you will be with a high degree of accuracy. Firing a barrage of projectiles into the calculated area effectively takes out an entire enemy fleet except for the AI-controlled tiny ships, which can accelerate quick enough away from the cone of destruction to survive. But no human would survive such acceleration.

The only way to survive is to get lucky and not to get hit by any of those projectiles.

 

[Seteleechete]

Correction, all none stealth ships should always be moving... Randomly.
(If there exists a stealth typy straight projectile or a light speed projectile with the absence of FTL communications. These type of attacks would always have a luck element, thus my earlier reference to sink the battleship)

And either something compensates for the acceleration or humans have no place on a warship.

Also I wonder how effective sensor decoys could be... Hard to speculate on.

 

[Teax]

Correction, all none stealth ships should always be moving... Randomly.

All the time? But where is the energy for this motion is going to come from. Also why do stealth ships have to evade anything?

And either something compensates for the acceleration or humans have no place on a warship.

Riight, sorry I got mixed up with the post #19 where Blarraun was hypothizing about more low-tech ships.

But there's still the problem of maximum engine output. The attacking fleet can choose any angle for the cone of destruction. Therefore, cause computers, the attacking fleet can always calculate how big to choose so that big ships can not be moved out of the cone of destruction, without burning out their drives.

Of course this is all assuming there's no instant FTL, otherwise not going to be talk about any lower than light tactics like that sun thing, it's all going to be about guerilla attacks of dropping in, bam bam, dropping out.

Also I wonder how effective sensor decoys could be...

What do you mean?

 

[Seteleechete]

Well, in this case a crew should be fine seeing as the ship should be light minutes(You would need enourmous cones) away from the sun. Still mobility is a big factor in this type of warfare.


As for decoys I am thinking of sending out clouds of particles and objects of mass in various directions to confuse various sensors(depending on how strong they are).(and with more complex functions than this paragraph implies including seemingly spontaneous atoms spawning and use of nano bots).


Also as far as FTL goes I am thinking more like "send FTL probe, find, send FTL bomb(if you send a ship the enemy has your position and will FTL bomb you in return)"

 

[Teax]

Hmm you're right, with inertial dampeners, cone of destruction attacks are useless. Good point.

Decoys: Inside the solar system you can just see the enemy, no-body and no-thing will fall for that. But in deep space, it's definitely an effective means, because all our technology is information based, so for every sensor there's going to be a way to fake input for that sensor.

Like e.g. I can see a probe that waits until someone radar-pings the probe, and sends an intentionally fake reply back indicating it's a dreadnought.

But I doubt missiles will fall for that, because you can install a lot of high tech equipment on a missile. It's just an unmanned ship, with the express purpose to get as close range as possible, and I doubt you can decoy at close range.

Also as far as FTL goes I am thinking more like "send FTL probe, find, send FTL bomb(if you send a ship the enemy has your position and will FTL bomb you in return)"

I've been brainwashed by the media.... You're right, this makes more sense.

 

[The Gopher]

I find your faith in future sensors... disturbing. Well not really I'm no expert on this topic. Just it seems that if weapons always would beat shields or armor much like today the future equivalent of stealth would always obscure sensors. Much like how it's relatively easy to hack into a system but hard to keep it from being hacked into.

Which brings us to actual space combat. Which probably will be more along the lines of remotely hi-jacking the other ship's systems and forcing it to crash into a planet or explode.

 

[Seteleechete]

Which brings us to actual space combat. Which probably will be more along the lines of remotely hi-jacking the other ship's systems and forcing it to crash into a planet or explode.

I really doubt this, never mind that you first have to sense it in a much more intimate matter than just finding it(actually it's mostly this since when you found it it's easier to just blow it up)... It seems fairly straightforward to just isolate a ship from outside interference. And an actual attack would be better used in a more destructive form(Like a strong ECM burst if you want to try electronic attacks).

 

[Pyropyro]

How about Rods of God (kinetic bombardment) and it's counters? I guess that would be the first stage of space warfare. After all, aerial combat started with pilots shooting others with pistols and hand dropping bombs.

 

[Seteleechete]

How about Rods of God (kinetic bombardment) and it's counters? I guess that would be the first stage of space warfare. After all, aerial combat started with pilots shooting others with pistols and hand dropping bombs.

What's the point? It would just be like a big nuclear bomb and fall under MAD. Counter: don't let it fire.

 

[Pyropyro]

What's the point? It would just be like a big nuclear bomb and fall under MAD. Counter: don't let it fire.

It's more like a bunker buster on steroids than nuclear bombs. So any ideas how not let satellites fire?

 

[Seteleechete]

Diplomacy, disable the necessary infrastructure, surrender, shot the satellite down, diplomacy, hack it, surrender.

Or more likely, deal with it until it's out of ammo, a bunker buster missile is probably cheaper than it.

 

[Terran]

(Except maybe agianst particularly stealthy ships that probably would be lacking in weaponry and maneuverability).

An assumption. What would even make a ship stealthy? We have absolutely no idea what technology could be used, if it is just radar using decoys would surely be extremely effective, even hollow metal hulls to leave around space would work. Submarines frequently kill blue whales thinking they are enemy subs.

Anything that goes in a straightish line is going to be mostly useless unless in swarming attacks. And if a futuristic version of a hydrogen bomb gets within 50 km(could be more or less... But the point is big) nothing will survive, there is no surviving getting hit by anything in space combat, no mitigation of "impact force" or whatnot, except for the smallest of swarming attacks or being on the very edgedes of the impact.

In space death comes without a moments notice.

I see what you mean, using large scale and 'artillery' style attacks would likely be very effective, if not extremely damaging collateral. I mean can you imagine debris from destroyed battleships and nuclear weaponry in orbit around the Earth? It would be a Kessler syndrome nightmare!

Unless we have advanced shielding! Now a lot of people here seem to be making the assumption that shields of any kind will be inferior to advancing weaponry and would be incredibly energy demanding. BUT what about tractor beams!? A way of reducing and changing the velocity of incoming objects, pushing missiles/projectiles away from you? It would make projectiles useless, and the only viable weapon left would be lasers/phasers. OR some-kind of energy but sensor capable projectile, like a photon torpedo! StarTrek figured it out years ago!

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

But then again, a planet has limitless resources in terms of renewable energy. Given enough time to collect the energy of the sun, people inhabiting only one planet in a solar system can mine neighboring planets for rare metals and distribute a probe network all over the solar system. Such a probe network would work as an early-warning system for any incoming physical attack.

Given early warning, I see no way of a weapon of mass destruction getting through.

Most of attacks move at light speed or near it, information moves at light speed too. If you're lucky you'll hear an alert go off before everything goes white.
I considered this method and mentioned it, but it requires interstellar distances to be reliable, with outposts light years away from the home world.

If the attack is photon-based, the probes wouldn't send a warning in time. But I see no viable way to generate a beam strong/precise enough to do any real damage. Unless the enemy's point is to be a nuisance.

Not really, suppose an attack moves at 95% c and you notice it at the fringes of the solar system. 50 000 AU = 7.48*10^15, c= 3*10^8/s which gives you less than 303-289 days to prepare (15 days rounding up). So the attacking force just needs to have more than 15 days worth of your total energy output to succeed and there are few more efficient ways to store energy than accelerating massive objects to near light speed. To defend a planet you would have to spend an equal amount of energy to stop those objects.

15 days might be enough to evacuate the population and I guess that's it.

To effectively defend a planet like this you would always have to keep a surplus and this would slow down your production and resources available and wouldn't make your planet secure. It is quite worthwhile for your opponent to spend even excessive amounts of energy as long as they succeed, because a planet isn't just the energy it currently has, but also what it produces over time.

Storing days worth of energy from the sun is an unbelievable technological challenge, it will certainly be less efficient than spending it instantly. Storing energy requires energy or in other words, involves some energy loss over time. So there's no feasible way to 'prepare' for such attacks without constantly losing energy on some 'insurance' that doesn't give any real benefit unless the attack comes and still the attack will be vastly more effective.

This could work for the most important planets that have to be secured at all costs and the wasted energy to achieve that would be worth it, but this method is completely unsustainable when there are more than a few planets to protect and assuming energy is required to retaliate or produce the fleet as well.

 

[Teax]

Unless we have advanced shielding! Now a lot of people here seem to be making the assumption that shields of any kind will be inferior to advancing weaponry and would be incredibly energy demanding.

Physics dictates, the energy demand the shield must use up to stop a projectile is about the same as the energy demand a rail gun invests to accelerate it.

But the power output of a rail-gun is stretched over the entire period of time, while the projectile is being accelerated. The length of sniper gunships could be many kilometers, while a shield has to stop the same projectile in only a tiny fraction of the time and space.

(power output = energy flow = energy per second.)

Therefore the power output of any effective shield is magnitudes higher than that of the the entire attacking rail-gun ship!!!! There's just no way....

Shields can only protect against energy attacks.

BUT what about tractor beams!? A way of reducing and changing the velocity of incoming objects, pushing missiles/projectiles away from you? It would make projectiles useless, and the only viable weapon left would be lasers/phasers.

Assuming the attacker are an equally technologically progressed race, then they also would have tractor beam technology. Instead of rail-gun-ships, we would have tractor-gun-ships which would be able to accelerate a projectile to a much higher velocity, to counter any trajectory change along the way.

Now I see a whole new tactical situation. Since, nudging the projectile even a tiiiny bit in it's early path will make it miss the target by hundreds of kilometers, I can see defense and offense use aim-drones. In this visualization, the path of the projectile is red and yellow when it's off course, and wouldn't hit the enemy, and green when it's on collision course.

Offense aim drones can even adjust the trajectory of the projectile last-minute so that even if the enemy can performs evasive maneuvers, the projectile still hits. Defensive drones do the exact opposite.

This means, any battle between capital ships or fleets will stretch the vastness of space between the two fleets, and it will be all about how much "space-ownership" you can win in order for your projectiles to actually hit your targets. A interesting scenario, worthy of a block-buster movie I believe.

This is kind of like two-sided Curling with fist-fights along the way.

So the attacking force just needs to have more than 15 days worth of your total energy output to succeed and there are few more efficient ways to store energy than accelerating massive objects to near light speed. To defend a planet you would have to spend an equal amount of energy to stop those objects.

There are more efficient ways to store energy than batteries: chemical energy. You can build solar plants all around the globe that just sit there and generate fuel out of air. It's extremely energy-consuming but it's not impossible, and the enemy has to get the energy somewhere too. Such fuel can be stored over generations. (like e.g. diesel fuel, or some non-carbon alternative)

But you're right in that over longer periods of time, it comes down to an energy war. If we abstract away the physical side of this scenario, all we're left with is 2 energy bars for the "home-world" and the attackers, and every shot neutralizes an equal amount of energy for both parties. Whoever has more energy + energy output over time wins. A world certainly can not sustain continuous bombardment over years from the outside.

And even mounting a counter-offense would not guarantee that the bombardment stops in time, because of the projectiles that are already mid-flight. There's no way to defend a planet until we have some sort of tractor beam/gravity manipulation technology to adjust the course of a fly-by projectile. Which brings me back to my first post in this thread, "secrecy". (disappointed, back to square 1)

 

[Terran]

Some very interesting ideas Teax.

Although we are discussing a kinda medieval era of space warfare.

What about warp travel? The ability to effectively travel faster than the speed of light in an instant. I know that is very far fetched, but if we could do it, well I bet it would make space warfare even more complicated.

Also what about infinite energy and the ability to deliver it in an extremely low amount of time?

But I suppose with those kinda resources you wouldn't need to fight each other for planets or whatever anyway.