Interplanetary Warfare

[PeZook]

On one hand, the logistical support necessary for soldiers on Martian surface is going to be nightmarish, since they'll all need life support. On the other hand, Martians will either need to fight Earth armies in the field, thus taking the same disadvantage, or defend their domed colonies, in which case Earth can just threaten to breach the domes with artillery to force a surrender.

[Rossum]

Well, I would suspect that the Martians would have more advanced robotics than Earth... since they would need robots and automated systems in order to make use of the resources on their own planet. Trying to mine various metal ores and such would be absurdly more difficult for humans who need life support. I think most of their mines and factories and such would be operated by robots or automated systems while human overseers manage them from home where they have life support.

Without any native ecology, there would be no real environmental damage to be done so their mining operations would mostly be strip-mining to get the minerals. Dig huge pits, extract the valuable minerals, and dump the rest somewhere. Once they are finished extracting the valuable minerals from a pit they could build an airtight bunker in it, then cover the top. I think that partially underground structures would have an advantage due to additional protection against leaks (since micrometeorites might break through the martian atmosphere and hit buildings, and being underground would protect against temperature shifts that could result in cracking).

So, there would be plenty of underground bunkers that would be built as a matter of course. Or they could have large vehicles with long-term life support built in. Kind of like mobile homes, at the very least so that teams of workers can travel to the various automated factories to get close enough to work on them if they lose normal contact.



I'm imagining martian colonies to consist of domed airtight structures built on the surface because they are cheap to set up, underground bunker like structures that have additional protection from the uninhabitable surface, or walking cities which basically consist of a number of vehicles with built-in life support and some production capacity to act as mobile buildings, factories, and housing.

The walking cities would likely be used to set up fields of solar panels or the various stationary mines and factories. In the event of an interplanetary fight, a small percentage of the martian population would be essentially nomadic and it would be much more difficult to hit them with interplanetary missiles... if one of the walking cities was actually important enough to be targeted then the whole city could break apart into its individual vehicles/components, spread out, and then regroup once the bombing stopped.


I'm pretty sure that fielding infantry from Earth to Mars or visa versa would be highly impractical. People born and raised on Mars would be used to the lighter gravity and thus couldn't stand up in Earth gravity unless they had some serious assistance (either medical modification equivelent to making them Super Soldiers, giving them powered armor or exoskeletons, or having them all drive vehicles like Daleks). Earth infantry would have a slightly easier time but the psychological effect of leaving your nice, comfy, oxygen rich home to fight in some airless hellhole where you have to ration every breath or air and every once of water, not to mention the huge amount of time needed to travel between planets. Maritan soldiers might have a reason to go to Earth if they think they would enjoy a planet that is habitable for humans if they could handle the gravity thing.... though martians would be heavily outnumbered once they landed.

So, if you are planing to use infantry to invade another planet, then robots would sound like the way to go. They aren't weakened by exposure to microgravity and once you land on the planet you could set up a factory to build more of them. Invasions could include a few hearty humans who want to brave the trip who then command the robotic troops, some robot troops, factories and such to build replacements, and various weapons and equipment to help carve out a place for them to set up camp (most likely missiles and such to take out the numerous defenses set up to blast them out of the sky while on their trip). Cyberattacks and the like would play a significant part of the war, with one side trying to hack into and mess up the other sides computers and robots.

[RowanE]

Well, it depends what aim of the war is, or what's being fought for, as some people have said before me.

If it's total war, with the destruction of the enemy being the intent, and both sides have good antimissile laser systems, i'd use a huge assault of super-high-velocity, but smallish, mass driver rounds.
A few thousand inert 1000kg rounds, at 100km/s will have the kinetic energy of 1.2 Kt TNT, and, if not detected at the moment of launch, will be completely undetectable.
And the driver guns can almost certainly be built so that the exact trajectory and muzzle velocity can't be ascertained accurately enough, from mars-earth distance, to have any plausible countermeasures. And if there's research into antimatter, then there's probably plenty of fusion and solar power, enough that both sides can access these tremendous guns. Because of the amount of asteroid mining you're assuming has happened, they have enough materials and energy that either side can set fire to the sky of their opponents.

Given that, and the likely vast amount of other extintion-event weapons each side might have, i'd expect any war would be fought away from the planets, likely with the habitable planets being declared a kind of neutral zone, and the fighting taking place in space, and in space and asteroid colonies.

[PeZook]

Accelerating a 1000kg slug to 100 m/s will be detected, especially if done en masse. There's no hiding that sort of attack. And if they're inert, they can't make any course corrections along the way, meaning they'll get diverted and scattered by things like gravity and the solar wind (at those distances, even a 0.001 degree error means you miss the planet. Even if you hit the planet, there's no way to guarantee hitting a proper target without guidance)

At such extreme speeds, it's not guaranteed the slug won't simply splatter itself against the atmosphere, anyway.

[sirocco]

Accelerating a 1000kg slug to 100 m/s will be detected, especially if done en masse. There's no hiding that sort of attack. And if they're inert, they can't make any course corrections along the way, meaning they'll get diverted and scattered by things like gravity and the solar wind (at those distances, even a 0.001 degree error means you miss the planet. Even if you hit the planet, there's no way to guarantee hitting a proper target without guidance)

At such extreme speeds, it's not guaranteed the slug won't simply splatter itself against the atmosphere, anyway.

Which means that you have to get the closest possible to your target. Well even if they know that you are coming, they may not always have the ability to stop you right away. At least they could always use their ground and orbital defense grid (surely more powerful than your puny spaceships) but for that they need you to get closer too.

This is why I think that space battles will be nothing more than skirmishes with both opponents waiting for the little weakness that will enable them to get to the enemy's planet and start bombing it. The real battle will be where 2 zones intersect :

- defensive zone of the planet = range of anti orbital attack weapons
- offensive zone = range of your own weapons

Probably the first to do we'll be to send the Special Forces to get rid of the defense grid (like in the Iselhorn siege in Legends of the Galactic Heroes). Or destroy the enemy supply line if you are the one being assieged.