A Logic Question About the Future of (Space) Warfare

[wolveraptor]

Where in hell do you save space, mass, or ANYTHING by having this suction system? Getting a large enough pressure differential to actually suck a human being is going require quite hefty vacuum pumps and the system is shot utterly to hell once someone starts shooting very small holes into it. KISS. The is nothing wrong with us yeah good old legs or hand holds for most movement. If you really need to move quickly you just get a cart or have a conveyor belt drive the handholds.

True. I wasn't thinking. Still, I do think that those massive hallways they always have on starships are idiotic, and the fact that you walk from place to place is even worse. Some of those ships are a mile long.

If the ship has artificial gravity, one could slide to lower levels in chutes, though.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Telepresence would be even more efficient.

Relativity bites waiting hours for your commmands to be input is going to be completely impractical without sufficiently advanced AI that you don't need telepresence. If you are close enough to be telepresent in real time, you most likely are close enough to be shot at by long range missiles or somesuch.

I was referring to Wolfraptor's suction tube idea; if your ship is so big that light speed lags matter, I doubt anybody's going to shoot at you anyway.

If your going to invade a planet and are ruthless enough, kinetic attacks will kill most of the population, infrastructure and defenses before you land. If you don't like explosions, once a world's defenses are suppressed a solar powered laser or maser would be effective against anything not buried. Sure, through an atmosphere it wouldn't be very efficient, but it would have unlimited, cost-free ammo; just point it long enough at a location on the surface and it will melt/burn the target without any nasty shockwaves.

In space, stealth will be the best defense. Forget about showy fusion/antimatter drives; for a warship you want something as close to invisible as possible. If you aren't seen, you will hopefully be able to destroy your opponent before they can fire back, then change your position and vector stealthily so his buddies can't find you.

[wolveraptor]

Holy shit, you were referring to an intraship telepresence? I thought you meant telepresence from a home base.


Damn, I can't even imagine a ship even a light second in length.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Damn, I can't even imagine a ship even a light second in length.

Reminds me of a line from an old Analog short tory : "The Master's ship landed on Earth - well, it would be more accurate to say it 'docked' ".

[Neko_Oni]

My problem with trying to work out what space combat might be like is whether missiles or lasers will dominate. It all depends on how effective lasers are at tracking and killing incoming missiles. Space is very different the clear lines of sight means that you could track an incoming missile right from it's launch point no over-the-horizon, sea-skimming missile up there.

[Nephtys]

In any realistic scenario in the conceivable future, space combat WILL be submarine combat, but with acceleration being a bother. Whoever gets detected first will be fired at with a missile, probably nuclear tipped. If said ship gets hit, it's game over. Realistically armor materials are dense and heavy, meaing that's no good in space, where your mass is critical to maneuverability and all-important acceleration.

Anyway, fighters are worthless. In space, if your fighter carried a bomb, you could do it in a missile and use up four times less Delta-V, because a missile needs to go to the target, and explode. A fighter has to go to the target, fight around a little, and fly back, with some fuel to spare in a sane universe. Not very efficient at all, especially if you tack in life support, or how humans can't tolerate as many G as simple electronics could.

Soo... yep. Forget lasers and the like, the precision needed to make a hit across light-second ranges would render them useless anyway.

[Neko_Oni]

Remebering of course that any ship is going to be some 280K hotter than it's background making it impossible to hide. Also any form of acceleration will make your ship blazingly obvious. So you can't hide, you can't sneak up on anyone, there's no cover or temperature inversions to hide behind like in submarine combat. Every move you make is obvious to your opponent.

[Nephtys]

Blazingly obvious? Given a hundred meter long spacecraft, how can that even be detectable at beyond a light second or two? Unless it's got a fusion torch the size of Australia, I can't see it. Also note how any lightspeed lag will make targetting impossible for direct-fire weapons, if the range is at least a few light seconds and even slight evasive maneuvers are implemented.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Remebering of course that any ship is going to be some 280K hotter than it's background making it impossible to hide. Also any form of acceleration will make your ship blazingly obvious. So you can't hide, you can't sneak up on anyone, there's no cover or temperature inversions to hide behind like in submarine combat. Every move you make is obvious to your opponent.

A ship crewed by A.I. or a downloaded human mind wouldn't have such a heat signature, and a drive that magnetically fires iron pellets ( for example ) for thrust wouldn't show up at any distance.

[Sarevok]

Inspired by a hard scifi universe I am thinking of. I have a feeling that space combat may take place between laser armed, heavily armoured behemoths at thousands of KM ranges. There will be no fighters human piloted or AI drones. Lasers cant realisticaly be dodged so a small fighter or combat drone will quickly die. Combat will be slow as ships massing as much as possible (maybe thousands of tons range) try to slowly vaporize their opponents.

Size is a big factor here. The bigger you are the more mass you have and the longer it will take lasers to turn all that mass into vapor. Also a big ship can obviously mount bigger powerplants and lasers.

Since real world rules dont allow thosand terawatt lasers and their accompanying powerplants the lasers would be probobly be beween high megawatt (light guns) or a few hundred gigawatt (uber battleship of doom's primary gun) at best. It will be a slow combat lasting hours or maybe even days as lasers slowly burn away armour.

Acceleration will probobly be pitiful when one considers the sheer mass of these hypeothetical warships and the acceleration of proposed nuclear propulsion systems for spacecraft. I doubt if any warship will even come close to 1 gee acceleration. So gravity will rely on cetripetal force.

Internaly much of the ship is used by equipment, armour, provisions etc. Crew numbers between 10 to 30 only living in cramped quarters like a submarine. All crew members are required to be in space suits during battle.

Strategies and tactics involve concentrating fire on enemies crucial systems like taking out his lasers or if possible killing his fusion reactors leaving him crippled. Engine targeting while easy isnt a good strategy since even with ion or fusion drive knocked out a ship can still turn around using manevering thrusters. The ability to thrust forward for extended duration only matters when travelling long distances.

Missiles are not used against warships. The rules of motion in space restrict their effectiveness against a maneuvering target. Also using rocket propulsion they wont be travelling at more then a few thousand meters per second. At thousands of KM ranges a laser will have many many minutes or even hours to kill them.

However there is one missile used as a strategic weapon. As big as a small ship it uses nuclear propulsion to slowly accelerate to over 1000 KM / sec. The very high closing speed combined with heavy armour can protect the missile for the short time needed to fly through enemy weapons range and hit target.

Asteroid colonies are very difficult targets for even entire fleets as they can mount huge amount of weaponry and their sheer bulk serves as excellent armour. Major powers prefer to use the above mentioned missiles to nuke them.

Planets are hard targets as their surface contains many defensive lasers in heavily armoured bunkers. Not even the most powerful battleship equivalent of a space fleett stands a chance at a dueling a single defensive laser emplacement. Obviously a facility built on a planet can pack much more armour and weapons than a ship.

This is where asteroid attacks comes in. Asteroids are fitted with thrusters and sent on a collison course with planet but with a twist. The defenders ships can intercept the asteroid and divert it. So the asteroid is armed to teeth to defend itself and often protected by a fleet. It becomes a flying fortress on a suicide mission.

Politicaly the timeline is Solar system hundreds of years into the future. Earth has the biggest fleet of all and equivalent of todays US. The independent colonies maintain smaller fleets and mostly bicker among themselves. Total number of warships in the entire solar system is less then 1000.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Inspired by a hard scifi universe I am thinking of. I have a feeling that space combat may take place between laser armed, heavily armoured behemoths at thousands of KM ranges. There will be no fighters human piloted or AI drones. Lasers cant realisticaly be dodged so a small fighter or combat drone will quickly die. Combat will be slow as ships massing as much as possible (maybe thousands of tons range) try to slowly vaporize their opponents.

Only if they are seen. I can a scenario where your space battleships try to fry each other long distance while enormous numbers of drones try to creep into range, or scout for enemy drones. They are almost certain to get zapped when they attack, so they would definitely be drones, not fighters.

Drone weapons would probably be some variation of nukes or antimatter, in order to get enough punch into a small craft to damage a battleship. You'd want something with range, so bomb pumped lasers, shaped nuclear charges or nuclear propelled kinetic kill projectiles would be likely candidates. Some might have phase conjugate mirrors ( which reflect light back to it's origin ); since no mirror is perfect the lasers will still fry them, but the return beam might do some damage.

Even in your scenario, at close range missles might work. Some could carry clouds of reflective glitter to scatter the lasers, allowing warhead armed missles to get through. At long range the lasers would have the time to burn through the glitter, but close up some could get through if you used enough missles. Even if it doesn't, every laser firing at a missle or glitter cloud isn't a laser firing at the ship, so they could be useful even if none hit.

[Sarevok]

Only if they are seen. I can a scenario where your space battleships try to fry each other long distance while enormous numbers of drones try to creep into range, or scout for enemy drones. They are almost certain to get zapped when they attack, so they would definitely be drones, not fighters.

Of course. Hence I wrote combat drones. Drones would make very useful recon units.

Drone weapons would probably be some variation of nukes or antimatter, in order to get enough punch into a small craft to damage a battleship. You'd want something with range, so bomb pumped lasers, shaped nuclear charges or nuclear propelled kinetic kill projectiles would be likely candidates.

Since my story is going for realism even 1 kiloton nuke detonated on contact with battleship can put it out of commison. Problem is hitting it.

Your scenario could work out though. A battleship docked to a station or lazily sitting in orbit may not be very alert. It could be vulenerable to terrorists launching drones at point blank range or even flying a nuke armed suicide civilian shutte craft into them. Somewhat similar to what happened to the USS Cole.

Even in your scenario, at close range missles might work. Some could carry clouds of reflective glitter to scatter the lasers, allowing warhead armed missles to get through. At long range the lasers would have the time to burn through the glitter, but close up some could get through if you used enough missles. Even if it doesn't, every laser firing at a missle or glitter cloud isn't a laser firing at the ship, so they could be useful even if none hit.

Problem is getting close to a space warship. Acceleration maybe pitiful but a target warship could have an relative velocity of thousands of meters per second. Besides giving them an extra edge against missiles the high relative velocity also makes approaching at point blank range a very daunting task.

Also a missile would be fueled by rocket fuel which could potential explode if heated by a high energy lasers. It wont last nowhere near as long as a chunk of metal with same mass.

One could armour the missile with reflective or someother armour good against lasers. But every kg of armour added makes missile slower giving laser more time to damage it.

As for the glitter thing I have an idea for something similar called fragmentional warheads. Basicaly detonate a large cloud of sharpnel in the orbital path of a station or asteroid. The sharpnel arent guided but neither can a station or asteroid change path to avoid them. The sheer number of sharpnels makes shooting all of them down nearly impossible. And even small number of sharpnel is lethal due to high K.E of objects travelling at typical space velocities.

[wolveraptor]

One idea would be to equip missiles with sensors, thus giving you a look at the opposition. Once you've been detected, you can go slam your missile drone into the enemy ship.

Most ships would probably be operated by only a couple of humans, who would be tucked away in some unnoticeable corner of the ship in a lifeboat equipped with powerful engines and nourishment for months, even years. They'd control the rest of ship through telepresence, and would be ready to jettison and make a break for home, hopefully escaping through their small size and high speed.

On the other hand, what if the enemy wanted to capture your ship? Then you might need corp of marines in order to repel boarders. This would be especially true of pirates who wanted to raid and loot ships. However, if robotics was an advanced science by then, all soldiers might be droids, leaving humans to be tactical commanders only.

And of course, there would need to be a repair crew, perhaps something like astromech droids, though I can't see them operating on the out side of a ship while it is in combat. Still, it would be more efficient to repair a ship, even if only temporarily, while on the move, rather than having to dock for every little hull breach. Docking would only be required for massive hull refittings and engine upgrades, things that only humans could do.

Speaking of hull breaches, an entirely roboticized ship with only a bare minimum human command would probably have equalized pressure. After all, there's no sense in putting unnecessary strain on the hull by having Earth's atmosphere within the ship. Only the human lifeboat would have life-support systems.

[Mr Bean]

Fighters do have a purpose in space combat, that being in any dense/or completley devoid reagion they let you get extra angles to lobb missles in.

Keep in mind if we are tossing nuclear tipped missles around we don't need that much room for Kt loadout missles on "bombers", even if they are only a few kt's in explosive power, that should be alot more then nessary to crush/destroy any other spaceship.

Manned fighters doing the above, probably not, UAV fighters prehaps.


Plus moble or at least UAV style ships loaded up with jammers.


Your "carrier" launches the UAV fighters towards the enemy ship on diffrent courses to make sure it can't avoid all of them no matter how radical the manivoring.

Then your UAV Jammers pop off short distances and make you look like your all over the place while your remote(Possibly AI controled) Drones go off and kill the enemy ship, while the try and do the same to you.

[Zero]

What kind of cloaking technologies do any of the folks reading this believe that spacecraft could actually ever use? If we were still using the propulsion engines that we currently use, wouldn't there be a significant heat signature by which to track an enemy by? How would that be improved on?

[Companion Cube]

What kind of cloaking technologies do any of the folks reading this believe that spacecraft could actually ever use? If we were still using the propulsion engines that we currently use, wouldn't there be a significant heat signature by which to track an enemy by? How would that be improved on?

Sorry to not contribute anything myself, but Atomic Rocket has a good section on space warfare; the link I've provided goes to the "detection" section.

[Lord of the Abyss]

What kind of cloaking technologies do any of the folks reading this believe that spacecraft could actually ever use? If we were still using the propulsion engines that we currently use, wouldn't there be a significant heat signature by which to track an enemy by? How would that be improved on?

Since we're trying to be realistic, the only likely "cloaking" would probably be a combination of active camouflage on the hull and ECM. As far as the engine goes, as I mentioned before, you could use a magnetic launcher that bits of iron to provide thrust; there would be little heat involved. You could also use a magnetic sail; a very large hoop of superconductor cable that lets the ship use the charged particles of the solar wind for thrust.

On the other hand, what if the enemy wanted to capture your ship? Then you might need corp of marines in order to repel boarders. This would be especially true of pirates who wanted to raid and loot ships. However, if robotics was an advanced science by then, all soldiers might be droids, leaving humans to be tactical commanders only.

Or, you could just leave a great big nuke behind, and when they board, BOOM. Remember, at the speeds and energies likely in space combat boarding is unlikely unless your ship is both disabled and more or less still in one piece. Realistically, anything that manages to defeat a ship is likely to shred it; any "space marines" would probably be in pieces long before the enemy arrived. Besides, marines would be a huge drag on the ship, given the resouces and mass they would consume.

[ClaysGhost]

As far as the engine goes, as I mentioned before, you could use a magnetic launcher that bits of iron to provide thrust; there would be little heat involved.

And what happens to the waste heat from whatever powers the magnetic launcher (ignoring the heating effect of eddy currents in the iron itself)?

[Lord of the Abyss]

And what happens to the waste heat from whatever powers the magnetic launcher (ignoring the heating effect of eddy currents in the iron itself)?

I didn't say it was perfect.

Still, it's less obvious than a fusion flare, and you could arrange for waste heat to be radiated away from the enemy. Assuming, of course that you aren't surrounded and know where they are to begin with.

The liberal use of superconducters will reduce waste heat, and some sort of ultrahigh, ultraefficient electrical storage may be possible, something that produces little or no waste heat. A heat engine type powerplant will of course produce lots of waste heat.

[Zero]

And what happens to the waste heat from whatever powers the magnetic launcher (ignoring the heating effect of eddy currents in the iron itself)?

I didn't say it was perfect.

Still, it's less obvious than a fusion flare, and you could arrange for waste heat to be radiated away from the enemy. Assuming, of course that you aren't surrounded and know where they are to begin with.

The liberal use of superconducters will reduce waste heat, and some sort of ultrahigh, ultraefficient electrical storage may be possible, something that produces little or no waste heat. A heat engine type powerplant will of course produce lots of waste heat.

Most of the time, you're not going to know where your enemy is. That's why ships would be using heat detection technology in the first place. I don't think there's probably a reasonable way to avoid detection that won't fail most of the time, so it'd probably just turn into whoever-sees-who-first-doesnt-die, which would probably end up being costly enough that it would lead back to my original position, which is that space battle isn't likely.

[Sarevok]

Mr Bean : Why not just program the missile to follow the same flight path as the UAV and when launch point is reached just begin lock on and home in to target ?

Lord of the Abyss : Best way to hide would be to run silent with powerplant, propulsions, weapons, sensors and anything besides lifesupport shut down. Besides there is no need to constantly thrust in space anyway.

The magnetic propulsion idea seems dumb. Your ship would run out of propellant pretty fast.[/quote]

[Nephtys]

Let's see. General reactions to posts above.
1. Lasers are very dodgable. They move at lightspeed, and if you know your opponent is shooting at you, even basic maneuvers will make any shot impossible at a few lightseconds range.
2. Whatever a fighter can do, a missile/UAV can do better. Period.
3. Hiding in space is very possible. You'll just need to shut down whatever'll give any reasonable signature, and rely on radar-absorbant coating. And range. And praying that you aren't overheating. Any thermal scanning system will be pretty useless outside of the equivilent of point blank range anyway. Directed Radar/radiotelescope kinda sensors can be defeated conventionally.

The magnetic pellet launcher is pointless. The propellant mass needed is hideous in mass/thrust ratio. Orion drive would be more fun, anyway.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Most of the time, you're not going to know where your enemy is. That's why ships would be using heat detection technology in the first place. I don't think there's probably a reasonable way to avoid detection that won't fail most of the time, so it'd probably just turn into whoever-sees-who-first-doesnt-die, which would probably end up being costly enough that it would lead back to my original position, which is that space battle isn't likely.

If people thought like that, war would never happen; it's always wasteful and destructive. WW II was hard on Europe, and certainly a net loss; that didn't stop it from happening. Also, the OP postulates that it does happen.

Lord of the Abyss : Best way to hide would be to run silent with powerplant, propulsions, weapons, sensors and anything besides lifesupport shut down. Besides there is no need to constantly thrust in space anyway.

The magnetic propulsion idea seems dumb. Your ship would run out of propellant pretty fast.

I know there is no need to constantly thrust, that's why I postulated a high thrust, relatively low endurance system, so you can move fast when you need it; a virtue in a warship. Any high accel system is going to run out of fuel fast, unless it uses an external source of power like a laser-pushed solar sail - which is hardly stealthy.

The magnetic pellet launcher is pointless. The propellant mass needed is hideous in mass/thrust ratio. Orion drive would be more fun, anyway.

The pellet launcher was just to make the point that low-heat space drives are possible; I don't insist on it. The Orion launcher would only make sense for a huge battleship you expect everybody to see and don't care if they don't; setting off a string of nukes lacks a certain something when it comes to stealth.

[Zero]

If people thought like that, war would never happen; it's always wasteful and destructive. WW II was hard on Europe, and certainly a net loss; that didn't stop it from happening. Also, the OP postulates that it does happen.

The obvious difference to me is that monetary costs of a soldier taking a bullet to the head are a lot lower then monetary costs of, say, losing an entire fleet of spaceships in an hour. Of course, I pulled most of that out of my ass, and either way, this isn't the thread for it. It is true that war is usually costly and wastefull, so, point conceded...

[Lord of the Abyss]

The obvious difference to me is that monetary costs of a soldier taking a bullet to the head are a lot lower then monetary costs of, say, losing an entire fleet of spaceships in an hour. Of course, I pulled most of that out of my ass, and either way, this isn't the thread for it. It is true that war is usually costly and wastefull, so, point conceded...

Cost does have military relevance, so I'll talk about it. When you combine Von Neumann machines, A.I., and the kind of resources asteroids and moons represent, hardware is cheap. Humans take decades to properly mature, and are not expendable munitions.

Look at what we do today, with our relatively primitive technology. We expend a huge amount of hardware and munitions per soldier, because it's easier to replace a cruise missle or artillery shell than it is a soldier. Plus, hardware doesn't involve problems like morale or morals; you can sacrifice an unlimited amount without feeling guilty ( oh, my poor bullets; how they must have suffered ! ) or worry about your missles panicking and flying away.