Future Warfare

[Tower75]

Don't forget, too, the sheer unimaginababble size of space. TV that shows ships NEXT TO EACH OTHER in space combat is ridiculous. Space is space, you wouldn't even see another ship, you'd pick up a radar signature from them at 5,000,000 KMs, maybe, and they wouldn't be on the same plain as you. Star Trek likes to think of space as a road, where the Enterprise always meets ships that are the right way up and within visual range.

Nah ah.

I can't see space combat as a practical thing, space is just too damn big and ships, hell, stars and just too damn small.

 

[Tower75]

Oh, and you can forget space fighters, too.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

What about warfare in space? The infantry, vehicles and equipment need to be shipped to a warzone meaning attacks on convoys would be a certainty.

I personally would predict a cross between submarine warfare and air superiority rolled into one. Beyond Visual Range weaponry being used while attempting to remain hidden from the enemy.

It may seem odd to recommend an anime in regard to this, but I suggest that you watch the first half of "Bodaceous Space Pirates" in this connection.
Now I know what you are thinking - silly kid's cartoon - not worth watching. But do. If you have only read old fashioned space opera, then the very modern-looking space engagements in this, full of electronic cyber-warfare against unseen enemies, will be a total revelation.

Another thought - space warfare, as well as turning out to be highly electronic, might be highly asymmetric, with terrorists damaging vulnerable spacecraft via internal or external means, leaving their frustrated enemies wondering who to punish, or how to put a stop to it. Sure, you could bombard a planet, or blow up a space habitat, but what good will that do you?

All-out warfare between rival planetary civilisations is possible in theory, but given the potential for MAD, how likely is it? The US and USSR could have more or less destroyed each other, but didn't. Old-fashioned all-out war between states is becoming rarer and rarer these days. It's all civil war and terrorism now.

 

[Spiegal]

Cosmic Geoff that sounds wild, I'm going to have to check that out.

I absolutely agree with the electronic warfare aspect, in my WIP I have a focus on it just as much as the big artillery! FTL Starships are so vast and expensive that it would be highly preferential to cripple, capture and refit vessels rather than obliterate them entirely giving a nice non standard feel to various faction's fleets.

I like to have my space battles slow, drawn out and tense as opposed to all guns blazing, definitely more akin to submarine warfare than broadsiding vessels with 1000 guns.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Don't forget, too, the sheer unimaginababble size of space. TV that shows ships NEXT TO EACH OTHER in space combat is ridiculous. Space is space, you wouldn't even see another ship, you'd pick up a radar signature from them at 5,000,000 KMs, maybe, and they wouldn't be on the same plain as you. Star Trek likes to think of space as a road, where the Enterprise always meets ships that are the right way up and within visual range.

Nah ah.

I can't see space combat as a practical thing, space is just too damn big and ships, hell, stars and just too damn small.

Oh, and you can forget space fighters, too.

Random deep space encounters may be unlikely, but there's also the prospect of space combat in planetary orbit, or over manned space stations. Or just generally within a given solar system.

 

[Bowler1]

How useful is radar in space? If your light minutes apart, you'd have to shoot at where you think someone is. Weapons would have to have an area ability, or spread to try and catch someone in a volume of space where they could have moved into.

I have to disagree with capturing a spaceship. Yes they would be well worth capturing, but do you really want to get close and risk your own ship, or blast the other one into dust and keep your crew safe.

The Star Trek face to face is silly.

 

[Darkchild130]

I would say that space combat would be unlike anything we can relate to now. Weapons would be so deadly, and used at such ranges it would be a case of whoever fires first wins. Ambush tactics and simply having enough weapons to destroy your target utterly would be the order of the day. The submarine analogies don't work as the speeds in play are ridiculous and the 360 nature of the warfare would inevitably lead to warships being cubed or spherical in order to bring most weaponry to bear if caught unawares.

Add to that the ability to face in any direction without affecting your direction of travel, and the possibility of being attacked from anywhere and tactics would have to totally rethought

I would envisage a battle formation as being like sphere made out of ships as opposed to the spear head type arrangements you see in lots of SF. Why battle like ships in a sea when you have all that room to manoeuvre.
And Star Trek style point blank range attacks are just ludicrous.

 

[Spiegal]

I would say that space combat would be unlike anything we can relate to now. Weapons would be so deadly, and used at such ranges it would be a case of whoever fires first wins. Ambush tactics and simply having enough weapons to destroy your target utterly would be the order of the day. The submarine analogies don't work as the speeds in play are ridiculous and the 360 nature of the warfare would inevitably lead to warships being cubed or spherical in order to bring most weaponry to bear if caught unawares.

Add to that the ability to face in any direction without affecting your direction of travel, and the possibility of being attacked from anywhere and tactics would have to totally rethought

I would envisage a battle formation as being like sphere made out of ships as opposed to the spear head type arrangements you see in lots of SF. Why battle like ships in a sea when you have all that room to manoeuvre.
And Star Trek style point blank range attacks are just ludicrous.

That's still under the assumption of a deep space ambush, I think the vast distances in interstellar and interplanetary space would make that kind of attack an improbability. I'm no scientist but I would assume this would mean a lower engagement speed and a change in the types of weaponry used. My guess would be swarmed nuclear warheads or other guided high yield weaponry coupled with, as mentioned before, a heavy emphasis on electronic warfare such as stealth, jamming, counter jamming and spoofing.

This is all just assumptions on my part though, like you said it will most likely be nothing we can compare to now. I don't think the submarine idea is totally out of the question, it shows some pretty interesting developments based around a completely 3D battlefield using craft crewed by many personnel and with heavy weaponry on board. Especially interesting is the fact that unless you mess up the enemy will not know where you are at any time, you are only able to guess where they might be. Sound familiar?

 

[Darkchild130]

How would stealth work in space? Any mind of emission from a vehicle of any kind would be detectable from thousands of miles. Engines, life support systems etc make the prospect of cloaking devices/stealth practically impossible. The only thing I can think of is using solar radiation/debris fields, basically anything with instrument wrecking radiation as a means of deception.

My ideas of an ambush would be probably as a fleet would move into position near a planet, this would probably be the only time you would be vulnerable to ambush, as you could use the planet itself as cover from view (assuming that it isn't entirely covered by the enemy fleet's protective sphere.)

 

[Spiegal]

How would stealth work in space? Any mind of emission from a vehicle of any kind would be detectable from thousands of miles. Engines, life support systems etc make the prospect of cloaking devices/stealth practically impossible. The only thing I can think of is using solar radiation/debris fields, basically anything with instrument wrecking radiation as a means of deception.

My ideas of an ambush would be probably as a fleet would move into position near a planet, this would probably be the only time you would be vulnerable to ambush, as you could use the planet itself as cover from view (assuming that it isn't entirely covered by the enemy fleet's protective sphere.)

I mean stealth as in... stealth. As in the current sense of limiting emissions or sensor returns of any kind not turning invisible or anything.

Combine this with ECM and Spoofing and you have an active way of giving the enemy false signals and target blindness (Think small drones or debris that give radar, magnetic and thermal returns to enemy sensors plus flares etc). I would dare say the only reliable method of identifying a target using those sorts of electronic countermeasure would be a non electronic method like transiting a sun or a planet and being able to determine the actual vessel by eye.

There are already tank armour plates that can mask a real thermal signature and deliberately create patterns of objects such as cars or even cows as a means of stealth. This same idea could likely be adapted to produce or limit signals of any variety that the enemy sensors keyed off.

My view is that electronic warfare would be a massive deal in space. Relying on luck and big guns just wouldn't cut it in such a hostile environment where the first shot turns the tide of battle.

 

[Darkchild130]

Tanks aren't fusion powered monsters, battleships would be. You can't hide stuff like that easily.

 

[Spiegal]

Tanks aren't fusion powered monsters, battleships would be. You can't hide stuff like that easily.

A confinement fusion reactor HAS to be insulated by ceramic plates and refrigerated with liquid Helium or Nitrogen or the neutron release would melt the walls of the reactor. If it is in the bowels of the ship it would be even further heat shielded to prevent it harming the crew or the structure.

Space is big, you can hide anything.

 

[Bowler1]

How would stealth work in space? Any mind of emission from a vehicle of any kind would be detectable from thousands of miles.

Yes, it would be, but in the vastness of space, what does that matter? When travelling at many k per minute, your emissions last seconds only. If your light minutes apart, what are a few seconds? A million miles? Ten million miles? A good nuclear explosion can be ten miles across, twenty, thirty miles across, who cares - you missed. It's not about hiding in any distance we measure on earth, but a million earths. A ship the size of an aircraft carrier (a good size I think) is nothing, a speck, a mote, nothing at all. Just finding your enemy will be 99% of a battle, killing them will be the very final 1%. It really is - expand your mind and then times that by a thousand.

 

[Darkchild130]

Yeah and it's not about tracking one emission,it's about detecting them in sequence in order to plot firing trajectories and compute firing solutions. You only need to detect 3 in a sequence to determine all manner of things and be able to triangulate a position, follow a target which leads to an attack.

Narrow your mind and think like a soldier.

If you're talking about those distances without functioning FTL,then nobody will bother to fight at that range anyway. But, you still will not be able to hide your output,which will mean you can be tracked.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Good points being made by Bowler et. al.
However, be aware that the whole idea of space warfare with purpose-built ships might be a 20th century idea applied to a 22nd century situation.
Traditional wars in which two nation states declare war and go at each other all-out are becoming rare. Instead, as I remarked earlier, it's all civil wars and terrorism.
In the 20th century, the nation with the best arms manufacturing industry usually won. In the 21st century, it's the group with the best PR who wins.

And in the 22nd century?

 

[Darkchild130]

Tailor made vacuum capable self aware nanoscopic bio weapons.

 

[Toby Frost]

It may be worth pointing out that any place worth fighting over will probably have a sun and radiation. That might be of use for disguising emissions. Also, with the lack of air resistance, one small push would be enough to send a ship moving forward. That could look like solar flare etc, rather than a constant exhaust. It would be rather like the old WW1 tactic of attacking from the sun (although the distances would still be vast). There would still be the problem of slowing down to a manageable speed in order to attack and not just zip straight past the target. That could be tricky.

The other option would be to carry a huge amount of decoys and chaff. A ship might arrive not in total stealth, but surrounded by a cloud of countermeasures. Given that most missiles would have computers to direct them, I could see a use for hacking equipment.

Anyhow, for a novel, it only has to sound convincing. Geoff's point is extremely good: why have two whopping great battleships slugging it out like something out of the Battle of Jutland? Polyp-based nanite clouds, that's where it's at.

 

[Darkchild130]

I already pointed out the sun/radiation thing earlier but yeah, I agree. I personally feel that ambush tactics will be the only way warfare in space would even happen, let alone work, as ships will just avoid each other. Weapons range will be nowhere near as far as sensor range, so ships will never have to come into conflict unless both sides want a fight.

Then it's an "all in" approach, mixing ECM, missiles, solid projectiles, drones of multiple types, conventional counter measures etc maxing out everything to overhwhelm the enemy.
Because space might be big, but it's also comparatively completely bloody empty, and when you have no cover you need superior firepower to win a fight.

I don't believe in energy shields and all that nonsense for hundreds of years yet, so straight up physical armour is going to be obliterated in seconds.

 

[Mirannan]

A confinement fusion reactor HAS to be insulated by ceramic plates and refrigerated with liquid Helium or Nitrogen or the neutron release would melt the walls of the reactor. If it is in the bowels of the ship it would be even further heat shielded to prevent it harming the crew or the structure.

Space is big, you can hide anything.

I hate to contradict, but fusion reactions don't have to involve neutron release and don't have to involve immense magnetic fields and electric currents that require cryogens to make them work. The proton/B11 reaction produces no neutrons worth talking about and most of the energy comes out in charged particles (He4 nuclei to be precise) which could be extracted quite efficiently.

There's a group working on this now. Google "focus fusion". Incidentally, it's quite likely this could work in units small enough for large vehicles.

 

[Spiegal]

I hate to contradict, but fusion reactions don't have to involve neutron release and don't have to involve immense magnetic fields and electric currents that require cryogens to make them work. The proton/B11 reaction produces no neutrons worth talking about and most of the energy comes out in charged particles (He4 nuclei to be precise) which could be extracted quite efficiently.

There's a group working on this now. Google "focus fusion". Incidentally, it's quite likely this could work in units small enough for large vehicles.

Cheers Mirranan I'll have a look at that now, I could use a nice, simple to maintain reactor like that in my Novel!

I was talking more specifically about the Tokamak toroid Reactor design. As I understand the neutrons released from the reaction would melt the reactor vessel on contact. The plasma is magnetically confined and the walls are cryogenically cooled to prevent them being damaged while heat energy can be siphoned out by a controlled collection of the Neutrons.

Nevertheless you have given more reasons a Fusion reactor doesn't necessarily give off extremes of heat!