Most Realistic space battleships in fiction?

[Alias72]

25 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

The idea is that the transport isn't involved in combat. 

Battleships wouldn't make much sense, honestly. Things more like modern navy ships are more practical. Instead of thick armor and huge guns, they're equipped with guided missiles and self defense weapons.

The issue there is directed energy weapons. It is possible to armour yourself against them and given their capabilities armour becomes necessary if only to prolong an engagement.

 

every time a discussion on real spaceship combat comes up I redirect people to attack vector tactical. Its a simulation developed to model space warfare in the "near" future.

http://www.adastragames.com/attack-vector-tactical/

Its 3d and newtonian. I feel that the best way to understand something as foreign as space war is to simulate it. In this case attack vector proposes a future in which spaceships take many forms and roles (though they are all basically spheres or cylinders).

beam armed vessels tend to circle their opponents in an attempt to stay within optimal laser range but outside effective kinetic range whilst kinetic armed vessels tend to joust with their opponent. The result is a number of complicated engagements that I found rather enlightening.

[GeneralVeers]

11 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

I think another big reason is robots can't lie, or bluff, which is a big part of warfare.  A human may be able to spot a feint.  But if a machine doesn't understand the concept of deception, then the battle is already lost.

Heheh. Robots will lie if they're programmed to.......

But yeah, that's the reason the human mind always needs to be part of the battle. I recall that ST:TNG episode where Data played his first game of poker, got bluffed by Riker, and ended up staring blankly at the table, going "whaaaaat??"

Edited January 8, 2016 by WedgeAntilles

[Just Jim]

14 minutes ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Heheh. Robots will lie if they're programmed to.......

But yeah, that's the reason the human mind always needs to be part of the battle. I recall that ST:TNG episode where Data played his first game of poker, got bluffed by Riker, and ended up staring blankly at the table, going "whaaaaat??"

That was a good one, but my all time favorite would be the Liar's Paradox, from Star trek TOS, guaranteed to fry even the most advanced computer... lol...:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMegqgGORY

[GeneralVeers]

Gotta disagree there, dude. That problem, and others, were covered in college-level CS coursework, and there's easy ways to spot them and close processes that get stuck in Liar Loops. Of course, in the 1970's it wasn't known that computers would head that way.

[sojourner]

The truth is, like in real life, there is no easy answer. 

 

You build a transport that deploys drones and your enemy will eventually learn to try and target that transport before it can deploy. Which leads you to develop a defensive system for the transport, which in turn leads the enemy to develop a counter to that and so on and so on and so on.....

 

We see it now with contemporary warfare. Someone is always coming up with a better stick.  Escalation happens.  It's the reason we no longer build castles for defense, or fight in scirmish lines.  Advances in tactics and technology keep coming.  So you can't really say "this is how war will be in the future".  You can only present a snapshot of what you think war will be like with a certain set of capabilities at a certain point in the future.  And most likely you'll be right to some degree and wrong to some degree depending on which of those technologies actually manage to mature (or not) at the same point as you predicted.

Edited January 8, 2016 by sojourner

[PB666]

On January 7, 2016 at 8:34 PM, Rakaydos said:

http://leadpeople.blogspot.com/2009/09/albedo-anthropomorphics-spacecraft.html

An old comic that spawned a passable RPG, Albedo is as hard a scifi as the author could make it with the exception of an FTL jump drive.

Weapons primarally consist of ACVs, basically expendable drones that can either mount weapons and submunitions or simply be kinetic kill vehicals.

 

Thoughts?

Seriously, this cr@p again. There are over 100 million pieces of craft kilker space junk out there; just one marginally successful space battle would increase this by a magnitude and end just about every space program. Space is not the place for GI joe, get it into your blinking noggin. 

 

[Just Jim]

10 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Gotta disagree there, dude. That problem, and others, were covered in college-level CS coursework, and there's easy ways to spot them and close processes that get stuck in Liar Loops. Of course, in the 1970's it wasn't known that computers would head that way.

I know... but ya gotta admit, it was funny! 

[Just Jim]

12 hours ago, Garibaldi2257 said:

check out babylon 5, the human and narn ships in it are pretty realistic when not dealing with hyperspace.

OK, I've been thinking about his topic, and as long as you bring up Babylon 5, this the biggest issue as I see it.
Just how advanced a race, or humans, are we talking for the purpose of this discussion?
By this I mean, are we theorizing human warships in just a couple hundred years, or a couple thousand?
In B5 you had everything from not-so advanced Earth force ships all the way to unbelievably advanced Shadow and Vorlon organic ship technology.  And pretty much all points in between.  Some people didn't like B5, but I admired the scope of it's writers imagination....
So were the Earth force ships any more or less realistic than the Vorlon ships?  To me, this is where the question of how advanced we're talking comes into play.
If you were to be talking about humans in a few hundred years, then I'd say organic ships are way unrealistic... but humans in a couple thousand years, then who's knows???  It may be much more realistic...

It's early and I haven't had enough coffee yet... Does this make any sense? 
 

[Bill Phil]

12 hours ago, Just Jim said:

I agree with both your points.  But if whatever the transport is carrying gets destroyed, the transport is vulnerable, unless it has light speed capabilities and can jump somewhere safe.  If we're talking light speed capable ships, then I agree a large battlegroup becomes a moot point.  If I can make hyperspace jumps, then I want a small, fast attack ship or group.

Yeah, it'd be vulnerable unless it can stay away. Self defense arrays? A swarm of robot ships that are equipped to defend the ship. Idk....

11 hours ago, Alias72 said:

The issue there is directed energy weapons. It is possible to armour yourself against them and given their capabilities armour becomes necessary if only to prolong an engagement.

 

every time a discussion on real spaceship combat comes up I redirect people to attack vector tactical. Its a simulation developed to model space warfare in the "near" future.

http://www.adastragames.com/attack-vector-tactical/

Its 3d and newtonian. I feel that the best way to understand something as foreign as space war is to simulate it. In this case attack vector proposes a future in which spaceships take many forms and roles (though they are all basically spheres or cylinders).

beam armed vessels tend to circle their opponents in an attempt to stay within optimal laser range but outside effective kinetic range whilst kinetic armed vessels tend to joust with their opponent. The result is a number of complicated engagements that I found rather enlightening.

Some armor is always good to have, yes. But it's best if you can not get hit, and in space, there's a lot of space. As in, it's easier to miss than on earth. But that only helps a bit. Robots are really accurate, and unless something (.Minovsky particles/magic) prevents them from working, than space combat will be much more complex.

[Bill Phil]

38 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Seriously, this cr@p again. There are over 100 million pieces of craft kilker space junk out there; just one marginally successful space battle would increase this by a magnitude and end just about every space program. Space is not the place for GI joe, get it into your blinking noggin. 

 

But battles will happen eventually, if only just to see if it's even possible ( a mock battle). Probably not in LEO, of course.

[Just Jim]

5 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

 As in, it's easier to miss than on earth.

You are so right there.... Have you, by chance, ever played Freespace I or II?
Really, really good first person space shooter, and it'll definitely teach you how hard it is to actually hit something in space! 

[Kilmeister]

20 hours ago, Alias72 said:

beam armed vessels tend to circle their opponents in an attempt to stay within optimal laser range but outside effective kinetic range whilst kinetic armed vessels tend to joust with their opponent. The result is a number of complicated engagements that I found rather enlightening.

I was just about to suggest EVE Online as having a number of practical looking ships as compared to streamlined jets in other sci-fi. Alias72's statement pretty much describes the combat in EVE... A lot of circling around while trying to keep at a range which is more beneficial to you than your opponent.  The movement itself though isn't very accurate as it more resembles the traditional Hollywood flying motion than realistic movements, but it does however actually take 3 dimensions into account.

[Elukka]

12 hours ago, PB666 said:

Seriously, this cr@p again. There are over 100 million pieces of craft kilker space junk out there; just one marginally successful space battle would increase this by a magnitude and end just about every space program. Space is not the place for GI joe, get it into your blinking noggin. 

 

This depends on a variety of factors. For the only type of space combat which is actually plausible in the near future, i.e. shooting satellites with ground-launched missiles, this is certainly case. If on the other hand you assume combat with interplanetary speeds the debris might never end up near a planet. And with sufficiently high power drives, a ship might be more likely than not going faster than solar escape velocity at any given moment. Blow it up and its debris will leave the solar system.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Elukka

[mjl1966]

On 1/7/2016 at 1:14 AM, mikegarrison said:

I can only think of one actual space battleship in fiction:

I remember this! 

[Alias72]

6 hours ago, Kilmeister said:

I was just about to suggest EVE Online as having a number of practical looking ships as compared to streamlined jets in other sci-fi. Alias72's statement pretty much describes the combat in EVE... A lot of circling around while trying to keep at a range which is more beneficial to you than your opponent.  The movement itself though isn't very accurate as it more resembles the traditional Hollywood flying motion than realistic movements, but it does however actually take 3 dimensions into account.

The kinetic jousters are also really important. The're maneuvers interfere with the circular motion of the beam armed vessels which tends to produce helical patterns. Another cool thing about diverse ship armaments is because of the delayed impact of kinetic weapons you can confine the maneuver of your enemy.

 

most ships have a large amount of armour on their front. You can use a barrage of kinetic weapons to pin the enemies front towards them opening up their sides to beam fire. If they're a beam armed vessel they may just use point defense to fry the kinetic impactors while facing your beams but the power drain reduces their own salvoe and forces certain thermodynamic constraints.

14 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Yeah, it'd be vulnerable unless it can stay away. Self defense arrays? A swarm of robot ships that are equipped to defend the ship. Idk....

Some armor is always good to have, yes. But it's best if you can not get hit, and in space, there's a lot of space. As in, it's easier to miss than on earth. But that only helps a bit. Robots are really accurate, and unless something (.Minovsky particles/magic) prevents them from working, than space combat will be much more complex.

You are right about it being better to not get hit however that is simply not practical against a beam armed vessel. The best option against a beam armed vessel is a large amount of ablative armour, preferable over a narrow axis such as the front. The beam has the disadvantage in power. They are wasting electricity frying your armour while you can attempt to harm their vessel. The energy they use for offensive beams might impact their point defense, for example.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Alias72

[Bill Phil]

26 minutes ago, Alias72 said:

The kinetic jousters are also really important. The're maneuvers interfere with the circular motion of the beam armed vessels which tends to produce helical patterns. Another cool thing about diverse ship armaments is because of the delayed impact of kinetic weapons you can confine the maneuver of your enemy.

 

most ships have a large amount of armour on their front. You can use a barrage of kinetic weapons to pin the enemies front towards them opening up their sides to beam fire. If they're a beam armed vessel they may just use point defense to fry the kinetic impactors while facing your beams but the power drain reduces their own salvoe and forces certain thermodynamic constraints.

You are right about it being better to not get hit however that is simply not practical against a beam armed vessel. The best option against a beam armed vessel is a large amount of ablative armour, preferable over a narrow axis such as the front. The beam has the disadvantage in power. They are wasting electricity frying your armour while you can attempt to harm their vessel. The energy they use for offensive beams might impact their point defense, for example.

Yes, you want defense. But you only have to survive longer than the other ship in one on one. If the enemy has beams, they're probably smart enough to have defenses against them as well, plus other countermeasures against other weapons.

But, as of yet, beam weapons aren't very practical. In the future it's likely that this situation will improve. Currently, they generate way too much waste heat. 

[SargeRho]

I'm going to hijack this thread for my own devious endeavours for a second

I'm looking for a good justification for "short" range battles, and by short I still mean in space terms, so, over tens of thousands of kilometers. What I have so far is that some sort of plasma shields were developed, that completely absorb laser weapon fire, as well as particle beams, requiring ships to get close enough to use nuclear and kinetic weapons, without those being intercepted or evaded before reaching their target.

[Alias72]

1 hour ago, SargeRho said:

I'm going to hijack this thread for my own devious endeavours for a second

I'm looking for a good justification for "short" range battles, and by short I still mean in space terms, so, over tens of thousands of kilometers. What I have so far is that some sort of plasma shields were developed, that completely absorb laser weapon fire, as well as particle beams, requiring ships to get close enough to use nuclear and kinetic weapons, without those being intercepted or evaded before reaching their target.

You don't need fancy shields as an argument. Lasers generate a large amount of waste heat and so cannot be fired continuously.

Kinetic weapons approach from a different vector and so a ship targeted by them has to split its focus between facing the incoming projectiles (armour towards them) facing the enemy (to shoot or protect against beams) and maneuvering.

Distances are large but so are closing velocities. The problem is that the engagements are more like a jousting tournament with a few horse archers thrown in then Trafalgar.

2 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Yes, you want defense. But you only have to survive longer than the other ship in one on one. If the enemy has beams, they're probably smart enough to have defenses against them as well, plus other countermeasures against other weapons.

But, as of yet, beam weapons aren't very practical. In the future it's likely that this situation will improve. Currently, they generate way too much waste heat. 

Actually you need to survive with enough functioning systems to make that survival worthwhile. A ship that loses its engine, for example, is dead. It cannot be recovered and will fly off (unless it was in a stable orbit however most interceptions will likely be made at the beginning or end of a transit. The reason for that is the speed is still relatively low (the setting in attack vector has fusion engines that may be used in a high ISP low thrust mode for transit to conserve fuel so they use a constant burn transfer) and the ship has committed to a maneuver (while in station above a planet the maneuvering options are plentiful as you remain in orbit for most of them. Losing life support is equally unpleasant (though you may be able to survive rotating out of functioning airlocks and using suits), still, that leaves you with limited expendables.

As for defenses against beams. The armour is the defense against beams. Actually the armour sacrifices some ballistic qualities in order to better protect against beams (its a rigid ablative armour composite). The setting I describe does project a bit into the future whilst trying to remain practical.

The waste heat problem is mitigated by the nature of the ships. They ships use a fusion torch for propulsion. These torches require power input (like most fusion devices today) which comes from a fission reactor. Once you make that leap the rest falls into place. The fission reactor requires large radiators to dissipate the heat. These are liabilities in a warship and so may be retracted. This necessitates large heat sinks for the duration of the battle. This also encourages electricity storage. The longer you can function with the reactor off the easier it is to manage the heat problem. 

The laser arrays cannot be fired continuously (they draw too much power) and so energy has to be stored. This was already encouraged by the thermodynamic problems earlier. The lasers also generate a lot of waste heat. Fortunately we already have massive heat sinks to provide combat endurance. They exist specifically to allow us to fire the lasers.

[SomeGuy123]

20 hours ago, PB666 said:

Seriously, this cr@p again. There are over 100 million pieces of craft kilker space junk out there; just one marginally successful space battle would increase this by a magnitude and end just about every space program. Space is not the place for GI joe, get it into your blinking noggin. 

 

It wouldn't be the end of spaceflight.  You would set up observatories to carefully monitor this complex debris field and find openings.  You'd launch rockets through openings on a direct path to high orbit.  In higher orbits debris would usually be rare or have low relative velocity.

You would use atmospheric drone aircraft instead of spy satellites, ground based towers instead of GPS satellites, and buried fiber optic and cellular networks and communication balloons instead of satcom.  Inconvenient in every respect but not the end of the world.

 

1 hour ago, Alias72 said:

The waste heat problem is mitigated by the nature of the ships. They ships use a fusion torch for propulsion. These torches require power input (like most fusion devices today) which comes from a fission reactor. Once you make that leap the rest falls into place. The fission reactor requires large radiators to dissipate the heat. These are liabilities in a warship and so may be retracted. This necessitates large heat sinks for the duration of the battle. This also encourages electricity storage. The longer you can function with the reactor off the easier it is to manage the heat problem. 

The laser arrays cannot be fired continuously (they draw too much power) and so energy has to be stored. This was already encouraged by the thermodynamic problems earlier. The lasers also generate a lot of waste heat. Fortunately we already have massive heat sinks to provide combat endurance. They exist specifically to allow us to fire the lasers.

Ever heard of a droplet radiator?  Pretty much negates the heat problem completely.

 

[PB666]

16 minutes ago, SomeGuy123 said:

It wouldn't be the end of spaceflight.  You would set up observatories to carefully monitor this complex debris field and find openings.  You'd launch rockets through openings on a direct path to high orbit.  In higher orbits debris would usually be rare or have low relative velocity.

You would use atmospheric drone aircraft instead of spy satellites, ground based towers instead of GPS satellites, and buried fiber optic and cellular networks and communication balloons instead of satcom.  Inconvenient in every respect but not the end of the world.

 

Ever heard of a droplet radiator?  Pretty much negates the heat problem completely.

 

More nonsense, GEO would be killed, below geo would be killed, You would get to the point you would need a hubble telescope for earth observation and spy satellites. It all would get incredibly expensive fast. 

Imagine it like a domino effect, you blast several major something into a billion pieces, those pieces dont have flat orbits so they start slamming into pieces in higher orbit, they hit the iss, its now in several billion pieces, then you have debris slow climbing to geo, then these pieces are scatterred finally you have junkyard orbit hit eventually some of the stuff will collide with the moon. Since many of our satellites are in inclined orbit the debris field covers all latitudes. 

Instead of these repeatedly pedantic discussions of how to ruin space lets have five active threads going on how to clean the present junk out of space, much more scientific discussion. 

[AlamoVampire]

i give you the USS Saratoga SCVN 2812 from Space Above and Beyond: 

[steve_v]

49 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

i give you the USS Saratoga

Pretty, but highly impractical. Like most TV Scfi ships it falls squarely into the "rockets are not boats" category.

Space carriers don't make much sense (unless they're missile carriers), because space fighters don't make much sense. I don't recall what those big turrets fired, but if it's any kind of projectile... turreted projectile weapons don't make sense in space either. Putting the "bridge" up on top like that is also a sure-fire way to get the command staff killed.

For TV Scifi, my vote has to go to the human ships in B5:

They have centrifugal AG, fighters that are at least semi-plausible (not designed like aircraft) and the heavy weapons are generally aligned with the main axis, so as not to throw the ship around. While the CIC is often at the front (still silly) at least it's not sticking up like a giant target.
They also, as is proper, pay little heed to "up" and "down" as design considerations.
OTOH, B5 has handwavium powered engines, hyperspace, and implausible plasma weapons... 'tis rather hard to find "realistic space battleships" on TV.

Edited January 9, 2016 by steve_v
Post an image, get an image :P

[SargeRho]

14 minutes ago, steve_v said:

OTOH, B5 has handwavium powered engines, hyperspace, and implausible plasma weapons... 'tis rather hard to find "realistic space battleships" on TV.

IIRC Earth Alliance ships use some sort of Particle Accelerator engines, powered by Fusion reactors.

---

Colonial Battlestars make some level of sense, while they have gravity carpet, the CIC/Bridge is buried deep inside of the ships, and they're full of CIWSes, and use Railguns as primary armament, also, unlike most sci-fi ships, the Galactica has maneuvering thrusters.

The ships in The Expanse are fairly plausible, aside of the insane Epstein Drive.

[HebaruSan]

On 1/7/2016 at 1:45 AM, Temstar said:

Probably Michael from Footfall:

Spoiler

I rather doubt you can mount 16" and 5" battleship turrets like that, but the rest of the ship is pretty believable.

Hey I think those RCS engines on the top are actually F1 engines from Saturn V. Now that's a real man's RCS block.

Wow! I received that book as a gift decades ago and never cracked it open, but you've just bumped it to the top of my queue. That ship should have been on the cover!

Now that Larry Niven's been mentioned, if it's permissible to mention a semi-realistic battle sequence instead of a ship, one of my favorite entries in that category is the sub-lightspeed interstellar chase in Protector, with the pilots spending months and years observing each others' ships and exhaust through telescopes, slingshotting past neutron stars, throwing sabotage devices into enemy ramjet fields, etc. Yes, I know it was later established that Bussard ramjets couldn't go nearly that fast, but I still feel that book succeeded in making space combat its own unique thing distinct from naval or air combat.

[steve_v]

24 minutes ago, SargeRho said:

IIRC Earth Alliance ships use some sort of Particle Accelerator engines, powered by Fusion reactors.

I may not have worded that quite how I wanted... I was thinking more "where do they keep the reaction mass". Particle accelerators are kinda plausible I guess, but you still need a whole lot of particles to accelerate. I see radiation shields around the engines, but I don't see no tanks.

24 minutes ago, SargeRho said:

unlike most sci-fi ships, the Galactica has maneuvering thrusters

Yeah, RCS is not often seen on space battleships for some reason... I guess most of them must use KSP style reaction wheels.

Edited January 9, 2016 by steve_v