Realistic Space War

[todofwar]

So, what would an actual space war look like? Would you want to deploy battleships in your own orbit knowing if there is a battle you could trigger Kessler syndrome? How hard would it be to hit another ship with torpedoes if both are in orbit? And why would you even go to war in space even assuming you have colonies on multiple planets? Would dominating a planet's orbit really grant you control of that planet?

Edited April 15, 2016 by todofwar

[insert_name]

There are several threads on this already

[Bill Phil]

Planet A shoots a planet killer asteroid at Planet B. Planet B does the same. Both lose. Unless they have good defense... But that's pretty difficult. Without defense, the only way to win is to launch first and hope they don't launch.

For any war, we need a motivation. Is it kill everyone? Destroy their industry? Destroy their weapons? Make them too scared to fight against you?

[Atlas2342]

Armor: Any breach in the hull would likely be fatal and if you try adding more armor, mass will go up, which im told is bad when you want to be maneuverable. Weaponry: any weapon you fire will, because of the rebound, make it hard to control the ship. Propulsion/control: you would need to have a lot of thrusters to move around depleting your fuel easily. Crew: microgravity is bad for moving around. Unless you have artificial gravity, like rings (takes lots of power) it would be awkward to move around. Power: you would need lots of it. Solar panels are a no. Nuclear reactors maybe but they are potentially dangerous when you are being shot at and they are heavy and bulky...

Realistic battleship verdict: bad

No, i dont think you control the planet colony when you control its planets orbit. Assuming of course that that colony is self-sufficient. (Unlikely). A colony wanting independence could start a war. (Again unlikely unless they are self-sufficient and have weapons, ships, and soldiers). Even then, they would probably face large losses that it would be useless in rhe first place to battle...

Realistic space war verdict: very unlikely

Edited April 15, 2016 by Atlas2342

[tater]

You can't say anything without a very specific set of givens. Science fiction, generally speaking, should break as few laws of physics as possible. For any space warfare scenario, you need a "universe" that it happens within. If the only "SF" is the FTL mechanism, that's one possibility. 

What's the drive like? Total dv? How small can they make that drive (i.e.: can a missile have a version of it)?

[lobe]

3 ways how it can go:

1) A robot fight, where satellites, space-based, and ground based missiles are used to destroy other satellites. In the next 20 years this is what a space battle might look like, Kessler syndrome that might lock up LEO to geostationary orbit for a few years.

2) Later on, when humanity has colonized a 100 planets and has countless space stations, it will probably be a war so bloody the death toll might make nuclear armageddon look like a small tribal conflict. There will be lots of friendly fire, lots of collateral damage, and lots of waiting. This is because Newtons Three Laws are in full effect.

3) By those same laws, it will make it easy to conduct avoidance and use defense measures (just shoot the other bullet). Just as well, dectection of spacecraft used for the purposes of a space battle is easy. I think currently we can detect objects the size of baseballs in Earth's orbit with radar. A large ship is going to be emitting a large amount of infrared as well. The war would end with 1 or 2 stations getting blown up, probably through freak accidents several years after the war (stray shot no one knew about), and a gigantic waste of money and time.

[Aethon]

Thoughts on space battles : http://josephshoer.com/blog/2009/12/thoughts-on-space-battles/

Projecting the physics of space battles: http://josephshoer.com/blog/2010/07/projecting-space-battle-physics/

An associated short story, High Orbit : http://josephshoer.com/blog/2009/12/high-orbit/

[wumpus]

Global Thermonuclear War?  I mean, the whole thing was planned out and practiced for decades.  It seems a miracle it didn't happen (hasn't happened yet).  And it certainly would largely happen in space (suborbital, but still space).  And the weapons are still there, waiting to be used.   Seems a lot easier than theoretical wars between hypothetical combatants using weapons as of yet undreamed up.

[sojourner]

A "realistic space war" would look different based on the technology levels involved.  So the question cannot be answered until you decide on what technologies are available.

[kerbiloid]

Side A bursts 40 Mt in the ionosphere. Space war is over. GPS too.

Edited April 15, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Nibb31]

Why not re-read one of the other threads on the topic and come back with any questions when you're done ? Space wars are science fiction fantasy, not science.

[p1t1o]

10 hours ago, todofwar said:

So, what would an actual space war look like? Would you want to deploy battleships in your own orbit knowing if there is a battle you could trigger Kessler syndrome? How hard would it be to hit another ship with torpedoes if both are in orbit? And why would you even go to war in space even assuming you have colonies on multiple planets? Would dominating a planet's orbit really grant you control of that planet?

No thread on realistic space war is complete without a reference to the excellent resources at project rho:

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarintro.php

Basically gives you a good, referenced lowdown on everything you need to know.

 

Some stand-out points:

Lasers are a lot of work, comparatively short-ranged and not exactly game-breaking in terms of offensive ability.

Stealth is problematic.

Armor can be a lot of things, but it boils down in the end to mass, a direct trade off.

Nukes work differently in space, very differently.

Kinetic weapons are good.

Space fighters/carriers are non existent.

Jiu-jitsu is good in zero-G

[KAL 9000]

Let's just say they have railguns, fusion power, and Alcubierrie drives. The Alcubierrie drive is several hundred feet in every direction, so only really big ships can have them.

[radonek]

28 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Let's just say they have railguns, fusion power, and Alcubierrie drives. The Alcubierrie drive is several hundred feet in every direction, so only really big ships can have them.

If you have technology level and energy sources to construct Alcubierre drives you could as well construct relativistic kill vehicles, exotic matter detonators and similar unfunny stuff, essentialy turning a "war" into series of bloody planetwide  xenocides. If you fancy majestic battleships spewing lasers and projectiles at each other naval-style, no, that's a thick line of Hollywood  B.S.

4 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Some stand-out points:

Lasers are a lot of work, comparatively short-ranged and not exactly game-breaking in terms of offensive ability.

Stealth is problematic.

Armor can be a lot of things, but it boils down in the end to mass, a direct trade off.

Nukes work differently in space, very differently.

Kinetic weapons are good.

Space fighters/carriers are non existent.

Jiu-jitsu is good in zero-G

I miss a few ones:

• Any usefull spaceship is by definition equaly powerfull weapon by itself.
• Light lag is a thing.
• No squishy crew involved.
• Largest part of spaceship packing any kind significant punch is gonna be a heat sink.
• Planets are overrated. If you are truly spacefaring civilization, you don't bother with, much less wage a war for privilege of hauling stuff up and down a gravity well.

[tater]

To be fair, there is the the issue of necro-bumping. The mods say not to do that, which sort of forces starting a new thread (which never made sense to me).

Edited April 15, 2016 by tater

[p1t1o]

Personally I do not think we are obligated to do a patent search to make sure our topic is unique...

Check the first page. Post what you want. The rest can vote with their feet.

Chiming in to post "you shouldn't have posted this" only increases the lifetime of the thread!

/srsly

 

Anyone ever read The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton? Its space opera (you don't get any points for pointing out scientific inaccuracies), but the space battles - whilst not exactly realistic - are done quite well.

Basically, in-universe, they have boiled down to a numbers game. Battleships have so many launch tube and a certain munition capacity. The tubes launch munitions that have become fairly standardised ("combat wasps") across all parties. They come in different flavours like "nuke", "anit-nuke nuke", Electronic countermeasure (nuclear, one shot), gamma ray laser (nuclear, one shot) etc etc. They come with a certain degree of programmed intelligence, ie: they can sense and evade countermeasures, pick and choose their own targets and decide their own approach and method of attack.

On-board weapons (lasers, kinetics) are generally relatively low-powered and are relegated to point defence of varying degrees of effectiveness.

Battles are decided essentially by who has the most munitions (more ships = more munitions), and slightly less by what munitions you have and when/where you choose to use them. Pitched battles resemble two groups with a holy nuclear hell formed in the middle by colliding munitions, once you are out, the enemy's are then able to make it to your ships.

Nukes-in-space are treated quite well in the writing.

[Frozen_Heart]

A realistic space war would be spy satellites being shot down by ASAT weapons. That is as far as we've got so we can't really guess any further.

[Bill Phil]

16 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Side A bursts 40 Mt in the ionosphere. Space war is over. GPS too.

Most military equipment is very hardened...

[PB666]

20 hours ago, insert_name said:

There are several threads on this already

Right, many threads.

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Most military equipment is very hardened...

Most satellites are less hardened than military equipment.

[YNM]

6 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Most military equipment is very hardened...

Maybe some CMEs can help reduce them to free-falling junk.

Really, the biggest weapon in a space war would be some targeted CMEs, maybe by provoking the parent star. We've hit by one and people were recording it.

[todofwar]

If a new colony, like Mars, was trying to gain independence I wonder if their best move would be to trigger Kessler syndrome and lock up the earth for a while 

[Atlas2342]

1 hour ago, todofwar said:

If a new colony, like Mars, was trying to gain independence I wonder if their best move would be to trigger Kessler syndrome and lock up the earth for a while 

But then why would they? A new fully self-sufficient Martian colony is unlikely...They would probably still rely on *some* imports/ materials from Earth...

[todofwar]

Just now, Atlas2342 said:

But then why would they? A new fully self-sufficient Martian colony is unlikely...They would probably still rely on *some* imports/ materials from Earth...

Ok, let's say established and fully self sustaining colony that has no more need of earth. They may lose out on some features like high end computers, but can be free of any further interference. 

[Atlas2342]

5 minutes ago, todofwar said:

Ok, let's say established and fully self sustaining colony that has no more need of earth. They may lose out on some features like high end computers, but can be free of any further interference. 

Interference from what exactly? A war would result in lots of casualties and would possibly have an effect on the colony

Edited April 16, 2016 by Atlas2342