The Logistics Of Space Combat

[Spacescifi]

We know that good logistics win wars. Military organizations are some of the most logically rational organizations on Earth, with often clear goals in mind.

That said...war in space, whether soft or hard scifi, presents unique challenges for logistics.

Hard Scifi: Every spacecraft is a potential kinetic weapon...especially for moon bases without atmosphere and even more so for orbiting stations or weapons platform. Resupply takes a LOOONG time.

Soft Scifi: Every spacecraft has enough energy inside to become like a massive bomb explosion if the energy is suddenly released. Resupply times are much faster. All spacecraft are still potential kinetic weapons.

The Questions:

 

1. What should logistics even look like in hard scifi or soft scifi?

2. Can one side EVER win a war with poor logistics against an opponent with superior logistics?

My guess answer regarding question two is both no and...maybe? Japan tried to alpha strike piecemeal and was A-bombed for it. Russia is wise enough not to even go there but keeps a rich supply of nukes just in case, since in a conventional war they know it would be a hopeless logistics nightmare against a foe who is known for excelling in logistics. With a very, very, very thorough alpha strike, a logistically challenged foe could win against a logistically superior foe. Realistically though, obtaining sufficient data to know where to strike to neuter your opponent completely is next to impossible. One would literally need double agents all over the place in secure areas of the enemy...while still having some contact with the government that wishes to alpha strike. Doing that is next to impossible, as being found out by watchdog agencies is likely with any massive undertaking.

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Spacescifi

[Scotius]

"Military organizations are some of the most logically rational organizations on Earth, with often clear goals in mind."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!111!

HA!

In XVIII century Holland built two ships of the line. Both of them so big, there was no way for them to leave the harbor they were built in. Both ships spent next twelve years or so rotting slowly in the port they couldn't leave - while government still had to pay for their maintenance.

During WW II US Army somehow lost an entire train loaded with supplies for fighting units. All of it ended on black market, but no one could say how.

Russia builds one submarine for 20+ years. Ship is old the moment it leaves the port for the first time.

USA drowns a mountain of cash in F-35 program. It's so ridiculously overpriced it became a meme.

My own country started building a corvette. Halfway the process the cost became so inflated, it was finished as much less capable patrol vessel due to lack of money (and political will to sink even more).

China's first strategic nuclear submarine is so bad, it rarely leaves the port. Because when it does, everyone else know it, know where it is and how fast it's going. It's just so NOISY!

And those are examples just from the top of my head.

Please don't go there.

[benzman]

Not interested in space combat,  although given humanity's record up to date it is probably inevitable.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Everything is going to depend on your fictional time of flight between points.  Sci-Fi example: in Star Wars, it took Luke, Obi-Wan and the gang quite a while to travel from the hot dirt ball to the 'not a moon' place.  As in they had time to play space chess.  Later (earlier?) when Obi-Wan wanted to fly to the volcano factory to kick Darth Vader's butt it was like 'get in the ship and then you are there'.    In the latter example, no supplies are needed, no logistics necessary because planet hopping is like running to the quicky mart.  In the original Star Wars - they probably had several meals along the way (oh, and Luke had time to practice being a Jedi & learn light saber fighting; pretty sure that takes a day or two to master).

So - change it up a bit: your 'hard' sci fi guys get to fly from system to system in about a year.  That's a lot of food to haul.  What the Average American Eats in a Year (naturessunshine.com)  2,000 pounds or so per person - and, btw, combat ready troops eat more than sit at home fat guys playing video games in garrison.   Army studying special operators' nutritional needs | Article | The United States Army

Thus - once you figure out your flight times, you can start to calculate whether you need resupply points set up (FARP, anyone?) to facilitate attacks on distant places of interest

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Scotius said:

"Military organizations are some of the most logically rational organizations on Earth, with often clear goals in mind."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!111!

HA!

In XVIII century Holland built two ships of the line. Both of them so big, there was no way for them to leave the harbor they were built in. Both ships spent next twelve years or so rotting slowly in the port they couldn't leave - while government still had to pay for their maintenance.

During WW II US Army somehow lost an entire train loaded with supplies for fighting units. All of it ended on black market, but no one could say how.

Russia builds one submarine for 20+ years. Ship is old the moment it leaves the port for the first time.

USA drowns a mountain of cash in F-35 program. It's so ridiculously overpriced it became a meme.

My own country started building a corvette. Halfway the process the cost became so inflated, it was finished as much less capable patrol vessel due to lack of money (and political will to sink even more).

China's first strategic nuclear submarine is so bad, it rarely leaves the port. Because when it does, everyone else know it, know where it is and how fast it's going. It's just so NOISY!

And those are examples just from the top of my head.

Please don't go there.

Yes its governmental programs, however unlike stuff like roads and other infrastructure who is pretty easy to predict the need for and therefore should have few issues  
Its very hard to predict the next war unless you start it, issue now is how to stop it after everybody want to join  
And yes you can hope the next war is decades away so you rater spend the budget on pork, loosing an train is pilfering here. 
Or you build an modern military who is outdated 10 year later then you get invaded. 

Now an hard sci-fi war expanse style has issues because of the long supply chains. Think it will have similarities with WW 2 in the pacific but there the movements are known so at Midway all the ships locations was known. 
Strategy is still very important and you don't know that the convoy at the launch window is carrying. it could be long range missiles or equipment to dig in and fortify the asteroid. 
 

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Military organizations are some of the most logically rational organizations on Earth, with often clear goals in mind.

They joke.

[Kerbart]

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

We know that good logistics win wars. Military organizations are some of the most logically rational organizations on Earth, with often clear goals in mind.

The approach to logistics seems more a matter of "if we throw enough money at it, it'll work." Come to think of it that seems to be the approach for anything but the troops.

[Scotius]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes its governmental programs, however unlike stuff like roads and other infrastructure who is pretty easy to predict the need for and therefore should have few issues  
Its very hard to predict the next war unless you start it, issue now is how to stop it after everybody want to join  
And yes you can hope the next war is decades away so you rater spend the budget on pork, loosing an train is pilfering here. 
Or you build an modern military who is outdated 10 year later then you get invaded. 

Now an hard sci-fi war expanse style has issues because of the long supply chains. Think it will have similarities with WW 2 in the pacific but there the movements are known so at Midway all the ships locations was known. 
Strategy is still very important and you don't know that the convoy at the launch window is carrying. it could be long range missiles or equipment to dig in and fortify the asteroid. 
 

More like Napoleonic wars in XIX century -  with travel times between theatres measured in weeks and months.

No... wait!

Early WWI naval warfare. Ships were powered by coal - with constant need to have access to either accompanying colliers, or safe bases with coal stockpiles. It also meant lower speeds, shorter range and regular pit stops to fill the bunkers. Long cruise would be long. Weeks. Months. German East Asia Squadron needed five months to sail from Marianas to Falkland Islands (August to December) Radio was still primitive and unreliable, so many times actual communication with HQ could take DAYS. If one of relay station didn't missed your message, and it never actually reached the destination.

Also, commerce raiding. As in: not only attacking cargo ships of the enemy, but also radio stations, coal stockpiles and even shore telegraph stations.

This article shows this kind of tribulations well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_von_Spee#World_War_I

Space warfare could very well look similar. With squadrons of warships either dragging their own logistical train of transports along, or having to regularly dock at friendly bases to refuel, take new missiles and do maintenance.

If warships do not have gravitation modules (which generally would be a bad thing to have in a fight), every couple of months you would have to send crew planetside to not wreck their health. It would mean needing two crews for every active vessel, or sending the ship to dockyard for repair & refit.

Holy balls of fire. The more i write the more i realize how much of a logistical nightmare interplanetary war would be

Consider Earth. A bluewater sailor could be reasonably sure he would find water, food and fuel everywhere he'd go. It is not a given in space, unless every asteroid mine, orbital factory etc. is a self-sustaining habitat producing surplus of supplies, in case a squadron of warships docks there after a six-month long transfer from Earth to Jupiter system (for example).

[Kerbart]

5 minutes ago, Scotius said:

More like Napoleonic wars in XIX century -  with travel times between theatres measured in weeks and months.

(...)

Also, commerce raiding. As in: not only attacking cargo ships of the enemy, but also radio stations, coal stockpiles and even shore telegraph stations.

(...)

Holy balls of fire. The more i write the more i realize how much of a logistical nightmare interplanetary war would be

If you want a taste of that, try out VGA Planets (revived and ported over to the interwebs as Planets Nu)

When I played it in the mid-90s in it's original form, you'd get a data file every turn that would feed into the client software. Pretty much everyone reverse engineered the data file to feed it into their own software so you'd have automated projections of how many resources each planet would have, based on production and inbound freight vessels. If there's one wargame that teaches that war is logistics, it's this.

[Spacescifi]

29 minutes ago, Scotius said:

More like Napoleonic wars in XIX century -  with travel times between theatres measured in weeks and months.

No... wait!

Early WWI naval warfare. Ships were powered by coal - with constant need to have access to either accompanying colliers, or safe bases with coal stockpiles. It also meant lower speeds, shorter range and regular pit stops to fill the bunkers. Long cruise would be long. Weeks. Months. German East Asia Squadron needed five months to sail from Marianas to Falkland Islands (August to December) Radio was still primitive and unreliable, so many times actual communication with HQ could take DAYS. If one of relay station didn't missed your message, and it never actually reached the destination.

Also, commerce raiding. As in: not only attacking cargo ships of the enemy, but also radio stations, coal stockpiles and even shore telegraph stations.

This article shows this kind of tribulations well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_von_Spee#World_War_I

Space warfare could very well look similar. With squadrons of warships either dragging their own logistical train of transports along, or having to regularly dock at friendly bases to refuel, take new missiles and do maintenance.

If warships do not have gravitation modules (which generally would be a bad thing to have in a fight), every couple of months you would have to send crew planetside to not wreck their health. It would mean needing two crews for every active vessel, or sending the ship to dockyard for repair & refit.

Holy balls of fire. The more i write the more i realize how much of a logistical nightmare interplanetary war would be

Consider Earth. A bluewater sailor could be reasonably sure he would find water, food and fuel everywhere he'd go. It is not a given in space, unless every asteroid mine, orbital factory etc. is a self-sustaining habitat producing surplus of supplies, in case a squadron of warships docks there after a six-month long transfer from Earth to Jupiter system (for example).

Hmmm....not always.

Having skin in the game is non-optimal for space war when remote controlled spacecraft can fight a lot better.

Logically...assuming scifi follows logic for once instead of a need for heroic drama at the expense of logic.

Life forms involved would be like arm chair generals who watch the battle at a distance.

If the battle reaches them it is already lost.

The only real casualties would be command crew if they lose abd cannot escape, and other space assets (stations) that meet the same fate.

At worst this goes planetside.

[Scotius]

It has been done before. Again, i will direct you towards BattleTech game universe: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Operation_LIBERATION

Yes, it could be done. At an immense cost in blood and materiel for both sides.

[YNM]

I question if we'll have interplanetary wars any time soon... that time you spend trying to get hold of an "important"planet could be as easily be used to colonize a planet that no one's been in it. Took us a long time to ran out of island, a good few centuries before we have fight on who-have-what between major powers.

Given the number of planets and/or celestial bodies out there, the first few "wars" would be just like how the colonizers of ye olde had to deal with indigenous people etc. rather than between two major powers. Maybe wait few tens of millenias or something...

22 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Japan tried to alpha strike piecemeal and was A-bombed for it.

Not really, Japan only pretty much tried to take most of Asia under the pretext of "liberating from western colonizers". The reason why their military looks weak once the US get it's act together and pushed in was because they never had much of one to start with - because they don't need much of it against (what was practically) 3rd world countries ! Kind of expecting the same with if you were having an empire that was just starting business.

Edited December 31, 2020 by YNM

[kerbiloid]

The near future  space combat logistics will  be a battle for funding between the lawyers of the Ceres Alliance and the Psyche Association.

[radonek]

Piece of my take on the matter:

Quote

Train
Joining cargo (usually industry standard containers) into semirigid structure. Technically, it's tensile or spined (called "Babel tower" in this case) construction depending on how propulsion is attached. However, it is considered category of it's own due to specialized "sheparding" equipment and crew. Not much used in commerce, mainly due to need of constant attention just to keep it from breaking apart (and associated insurance rates). However, militaries just love the idea of throwing logistic together as needed, and assigning a few flunkies to sheparding duty is seen as small price for flexibility thus obtained.
Most military logistic trains are tower types, built on decomissioned capital ship propulsion busses.

 

[N_Danger]

 I would think 3 D printing and ISRU would allow on site production of most items at the operational area, whether that's an asteroid or a planet, using local raw materials.

The traditional thinking of logistics being just haul everything there can then have less of an impact. 

You would want to cut out as much 'shipping' as possible because of the long travel times and the possibility of interception.

 

 

[Spacescifi]

48 minutes ago, N_Danger said:

 I would think 3 D printing and ISRU would allow on site production of most items at the operational area, whether that's an asteroid or a planet, using local raw materials.

The traditional thinking of logistics being just haul everything there can then have less of an impact. 

You would want to cut out as much 'shipping' as possible because of the long travel times and the possibility of interception.

 

 

 

ISRU with what?

To do ISRU on Earth is relatively easy becuase we have water, and water is often one of the components of of most industrial processes we have on Earth, including metallurgy.

Space is drier than the driest desert, except where you find ice.

You can make concrete with space rock and water, and metal is also possible but I reckon harder unless you find ore.

Nevermind the waste heat of blacksmithing in space....but in a soft science fiction this is easier.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Spacescifi

[magnemoe]

On 12/31/2020 at 1:42 AM, Scotius said:

More like Napoleonic wars in XIX century -  with travel times between theatres measured in weeks and months.

No... wait!

Early WWI naval warfare. Ships were powered by coal - with constant need to have access to either accompanying colliers, or safe bases with coal stockpiles. It also meant lower speeds, shorter range and regular pit stops to fill the bunkers. Long cruise would be long. Weeks. Months. German East Asia Squadron needed five months to sail from Marianas to Falkland Islands (August to December) Radio was still primitive and unreliable, so many times actual communication with HQ could take DAYS. If one of relay station didn't missed your message, and it never actually reached the destination.

Also, commerce raiding. As in: not only attacking cargo ships of the enemy, but also radio stations, coal stockpiles and even shore telegraph stations.

This article shows this kind of tribulations well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_von_Spee#World_War_I

Space warfare could very well look similar. With squadrons of warships either dragging their own logistical train of transports along, or having to regularly dock at friendly bases to refuel, take new missiles and do maintenance.

If warships do not have gravitation modules (which generally would be a bad thing to have in a fight), every couple of months you would have to send crew planetside to not wreck their health. It would mean needing two crews for every active vessel, or sending the ship to dockyard for repair & refit.

Holy balls of fire. The more i write the more i realize how much of a logistical nightmare interplanetary war would be

Consider Earth. A bluewater sailor could be reasonably sure he would find water, food and fuel everywhere he'd go. It is not a given in space, unless every asteroid mine, orbital factory etc. is a self-sustaining habitat producing surplus of supplies, in case a squadron of warships docks there after a six-month long transfer from Earth to Jupiter system (for example).

Agree with WW1 naval warfare, outside the main theater and small forces and you had to do with that you had, attack on tiny bases was important. 
However little stealth and easy communication. At least on larger ships you could easy have spin gravity, you can always pull in the spin gravity modules on an large ship. 
You would want to rotate crews anyway then you can. 

And yes it will be lots of missiles and probes, you still want manned ships for lots of operations most basic is command and control. 

[N_Danger]

5 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

ISRU with what?

To do ISRU on Earth is relatively easy becuase we have water, and water is often one of the components of of most industrial processes we have on Earth, including metallurgy.

Space is drier than the driest desert, except where you find ice.

You can make concrete with space rock and water, and metal is also possible but I reckon harder unless you find ore.

Nevermind the waste heat of blacksmithing in space....but in a soft science fiction this is easier.

There maybe more water than we think. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190501141056.htm

"In two of the five particles, the team identified the mineral pyroxene. In terrestrial samples, pyroxenes have water in their crystal structure. Bose and Jin suspected that the Itokawa particles might also have traces of water, but they wanted to know exactly how much. Itokawa has had a rough history involving heating, multiple impacts, shocks, and fragmentation. These would raise the temperature of the minerals and drive off water.

To study the samples, each about half the thickness of a human hair, the team used ASU's Nanoscale Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (NanoSIMS), which can measure such tiny mineral grains with great sensitivity.

The NanoSIMS measurements revealed the samples were unexpectedly rich in water. They also suggest that even nominally dry asteroids such as Itokawa may in fact harbor more water than scientists have assumed."

As for heat, how does a warship take care of it? If you are able to take care of waste heat in a warship, you can do the same with your manufacturing processes.

[Spacescifi]

14 hours ago, N_Danger said:

There maybe more water than we think. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190501141056.htm

"In two of the five particles, the team identified the mineral pyroxene. In terrestrial samples, pyroxenes have water in their crystal structure. Bose and Jin suspected that the Itokawa particles might also have traces of water, but they wanted to know exactly how much. Itokawa has had a rough history involving heating, multiple impacts, shocks, and fragmentation. These would raise the temperature of the minerals and drive off water.

To study the samples, each about half the thickness of a human hair, the team used ASU's Nanoscale Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (NanoSIMS), which can measure such tiny mineral grains with great sensitivity.

The NanoSIMS measurements revealed the samples were unexpectedly rich in water. They also suggest that even nominally dry asteroids such as Itokawa may in fact harbor more water than scientists have assumed."

As for heat, how does a warship take care of it? If you are able to take care of waste heat in a warship, you can do the same with your manufacturing processes.

 

On heat I agree with you.

Regarding asteroid mining, even if such 'water' rocks are common enough the environment of space combat still makes logistics hard...especially the more hard science we go.

For example, how do you protect it?

If a war is fought in the same solar system a homeworld could put hundreds of missiles into space on a trajectory for that rock to deprive the opposing factiom that has it of resources.

The attack would take months of inertial drifting, but there is no way the asteroid could stop it, they don't have the reources to get out the way...unless they used their own rock as rocket propellant to get away, 

Which also dries up the ISRU resource.

And laser zapping hundreds of orbital velocity missiles with limited effective laser range is easier said than done in a window of limited time.

Long story short, homeworlds will drown lower resource equipped foes with their virtually unlimited resources to win everytime they want to win.

So the only way to beat them is to convince the powers that be that you are not worth fighting.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

They should redirect one big asteoid to make them spend all anti-asteroid rockets.

[Spacescifi]

38 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They should redirect one big asteoid to make them spend all anti-asteroid rockets.

 

Might take longer depending on it's location than the Earth rockets getting there. Asteroids are notorious for being far apart.

about 600,000 miles

 

Astronomers estimate that the average distance between two asteroids in the asteroid belt is about 600,000 miles (966,000 km). This is about 2.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. That is a lot of space between two neighboring asteroids!

 

Plus Earth rockers can dodge a lot better than the asteroid.

Even in gaming I do this kind of thing. If I have a big slow ship, I invest in like 40 small fighters and let them rip against anything I want to blow up. The times I lose are when spaceships get past my fighter screen because fighter damage is weak ingame.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Spacescifi

[Terwin]

2 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

The attack would take months of inertial drifting, but there is no way the asteroid could stop it, they don't have the reources to get out the way...unless they used their own rock as rocket propellant to get away, 

Which also dries up the ISRU resource.

Raw materials are rarely at exactly the right proportions to make use of 100% of the materials, so you have the excess of the common materials/waste products that you can use for either reaction mass or projectiles to start throwing at the rockets.  You could even just throw up a bunch of material in the path of the rockets and let them blow up against your waste materials as opposed to your asteroid.   (and if surface gravity is high enough to bring the material back down in a timely manner, just create a thick orbital ring to make any approach not using the (well defended) approach vector unlikely to get through.

 

Actually, asteroid mining seems likely to create such interposing clouds/rings as a by-product if you are not careful to prevent it...

 

edit:

A 105.8 mph fast-ball(world record, I believe) would take ~16 minutes to stop and fall back down if it were acted upon by a constant 0.1 m/s/s gravity field. 

A modern steam catapult launches an airplane at ~165 mph (~ 25 minutes at 0.1g)

Note: Ceres has 0.27 m/s/s surface gravity and an escape velocity of ~510m/s so there is plenty of room for throwing things up to stay there for a while(> 30 minutes at 500m/s)

And this is ignoring the fact that gravity falls off as you get further away, potentially giving much longer 'hang-times' for your defensive debris fields.

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Terwin

[Spacescifi]

15 hours ago, Terwin said:

Raw materials are rarely at exactly the right proportions to make use of 100% of the materials, so you have the excess of the common materials/waste products that you can use for either reaction mass or projectiles to start throwing at the rockets.  You could even just throw up a bunch of material in the path of the rockets and let them blow up against your waste materials as opposed to your asteroid.   (and if surface gravity is high enough to bring the material back down in a timely manner, just create a thick orbital ring to make any approach not using the (well defended) approach vector unlikely to get through.

 

Actually, asteroid mining seems likely to create such interposing clouds/rings as a by-product if you are not careful to prevent it...

 

edit:

A 105.8 mph fast-ball(world record, I believe) would take ~16 minutes to stop and fall back down if it were acted upon by a constant 0.1 m/s/s gravity field. 

A modern steam catapult launches an airplane at ~165 mph (~ 25 minutes at 0.1g)

Note: Ceres has 0.27 m/s/s surface gravity and an escape velocity of ~510m/s so there is plenty of room for throwing things up to stay there for a while(> 30 minutes at 500m/s)

And this is ignoring the fact that gravity falls off as you get further away, potentially giving much longer 'hang-times' for your defensive debris fields.

 

 

Not bad as far as plans go.

My response?

Column missile formations for intercept.

Sure, the debris ring shoud wreck the first, and perhaps the second, but a column of missiles will be denser than the debris field and fly right on through to Ceres.

Ceres is a big rock, so you chose wisely.

Yet trajectories will make a big difference too. If the missiles are fired so that Ceres is flying toward them, the kinetic energies involved upon collision will be worse than if the missiles were only chasing slow Ceres to smack into her.

 

[kerbiloid]

Isn't the logistics about pizza delivery, not about tactics and strategy?

[Serenity]

Sometimes i think ship to ship space combat will never be a thing until we discover a way to have those sci-fi shields that can take some damage.

Imagine spending so many resources just to get destroyed by a small rock, i loved Expanse, but seeing all these trillions of resources vanishing in seconds...so unrealistic.

It doesn't make any sense, realistically i think space will be used only for intelligence espionage and sabotage for many many years.

Also if not already, it will be used to store weapons, the dangerous ones, makes perfect sense, you can move them around in an instant with small DV, protect better than anything in earth and keep the population ''safe''.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Boyster