Realistic Space War

[DDE]

3 hours ago, W. Kerman said:

By the time we are having space wars, we will probably have better stealth tech

By popular consensus among hard sci-fi experts, stealth in space is nigh-impossible, with some very small possibilities primarily revolving around trying to confuse the enemy rather than hide outright, or becoming invisible across a very small angle. This is because even with our measly current sensors, we can still detect the ~6 kW signature of Voyager-1's RTG and perform a general whole sky survey in 4 hours, which will reveal an anomalous signature.

You can't fully get away from the thermal signature without breaking the basic laws of thermodynamics, whereas the need to reflect its own signal from the target gravely cripples active sensors (e.g. RADAR) in comparison.

[W. Kerman]

Chaff, problems, space junk

Flares, problems, space junk

Aiming at sensors on enemy's ship with big lasers, problems, power.

Hmmmmmm, more thinking required.

[magnemoe]

13 hours ago, DDE said:

By popular consensus among hard sci-fi experts, stealth in space is nigh-impossible, with some very small possibilities primarily revolving around trying to confuse the enemy rather than hide outright, or becoming invisible across a very small angle. This is because even with our measly current sensors, we can still detect the ~6 kW signature of Voyager-1's RTG and perform a general whole sky survey in 4 hours, which will reveal an anomalous signature.

You can't fully get away from the thermal signature without breaking the basic laws of thermodynamics, whereas the need to reflect its own signal from the target gravely cripples active sensors (e.g. RADAR) in comparison.

Agree here, exception is mine like probes who deploys and goes silent and cold. Note that we know the location of voyager we would not find it if it was an ailen recon probe.

One interesting thing about an medium future space war is that it would involve superpower like actors and deep space actors switching alliances to get more freedom. An space war in 2017-2050 would be killing each other satellites who is boring. In year 4000 things has changes so much it would not make sense to us without an deep backstory. 
Now in year 2200 let have Chinese asteroid cities switch to the US for more freedom and / or US ones switch to AU(African union) to keep more profit, now let both happen at once
Note that in both settings all parts would like to win without doing much damage and leaving much indignation, an smart actor know he might loose 
The Falkland Island war might be an good template. 

[DDE]

19 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Agree here, exception is mine like probes who deploys and goes silent and cold. Note that we know the location of voyager we would not find it if it was an ailen recon probe. 

Unfortunately, "cold" means "all electronics are off". Including, quite likely, radios, and most certainly all sensors.