Scifi Space War... When Mission Kill Is Not Enough....

[Spacescifi]

It dawned on me just now how easy it would be... for a scifi civilization capable of making large space armadas, to make disposable ones.

What I mean is fully automated fleets, with only a few manned control vessels among them.

Imagine a fleet of a thousand flying to attack an Earth-like world.

The Earth 2 fleet has a home fleet of 1000 as well, plus orbital defense satelites.

Now Earth 2 may seem to have an advantage but that depends on how much damage they can inflict.

For example, if an enemy space fleet has put itself on a collision course with earth, simply taking out their engines or weapons is not enough, since inertia dictates ALL of them and their wreckage WILL hit Earth 2's atmosphere unless deflected or diverted somehow.

 

Even worse... a space fleet that is designed to be disposable and crash into planets can be filled with the worst radioactive materials known to man.

Meaning once they do hit the atmosphere, it's a bad day.... for everyone below.

So instead of mererly diverting or disabling enemy vessels, you would need to literally incinerate or vaporize them... something which is much harder to actually do.

 

Only then could you ensure they do not crash into the planet. Or try to ram them with your own vessels as a last resort... ramming them hard enough to knock them off course.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Spacescifi

[Shpaget]

11 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

For example, if an enemy space fleet has put itself on a collision course with earth, simply taking out their engines or weapons is not enough, since inertia dictates ALL of them and their wreckage WILL hit Earth 2's atmosphere unless deflected or diverted somehow.

Such deflection may be trivial, depending on how much time until impact.

[Bej Kerman]

6 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Such deflection may be trivial, depending on how much time until impact.

Also, regardless if the armada is doing a high-dV direct burn or a standard transfer, its trajectory will likely not be directly aimed at Earth. The scenario posed above only works if Earth is stationary and there are no other gravitational sources to worry about.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 12/2/2023 at 10:43 PM, Spacescifi said:

fully automated fleets