Orbital Fighting [Star wars is a good example]

[konokono]

Problem is getting close. If anything you might have to worry about would have to approach on similar orbit, you'll have many hours of advanced warning.

That seems to be one of the main questions. It seems to me that a couple questions need to be answered in the following order.

1. Is there any incentive to get close?

It seems to me the answer is yes. Without teleportation, it would be the only way to board and capture a vessel. Unless a vessel can be completely captured by hacking... but it seems to me that this wouldn't be likely when there are actual crew members aboard the target vessel.

2. Will it be feasible to get close? (Will you be shot down? Is it the risk/cost worth the reward?)

I don't know the answer to this. As has been mentioned, it is difficult to hide your approach in space, so the target will have lots of time to prepare. Will you be shot down or can the surrounding orbital space be made so risky (such as with mines) that the reward is not worthwhile? What kinds of countermeasures will an attacking ship be able to take in order to rendezvous successfully?

3. Assuming yes to the above, will close-range encounters involve small craft that engage each other, or will it be more practical for both vessels to simply attack each other with their mounted weapons?

Again, I don't know the answer to this. A key question might be whether a mounted weapon on a large vessel can be precise enough to disable a target vessel without destroying it, or whether you would need a fighter to get in close, a-la death-star trench run. Another reason you might have fighters is that they're really there to do surface operations, but can also engage in short-range orbital encounters if needed.

I'm pretty much a noob when it comes to thinking carefully about space warfare, so some of this may already be well-discussed and understood by others... if so I'd be happy to hear your thoughts. One final caveat, I am assuming two warring factions on different celestial bodies. Surface-based weapons seem like they would always be more practical when it comes to war between two factions on Earth, regardless of technology level...

[3_bit]

That's because of the safety margins. Military operations allow for a much higher risk factor. And if you throw landing into a fully automatic mode, a computer can plot a course and land a ship within at most a revolution from the target, or about 90 minutes. It can also plot intercepts that are very hard to counter. Point is, if you actually get into close combat situation, things can be interesting.

Problem is getting close. If anything you might have to worry about would have to approach on similar orbit, you'll have many hours of advanced warning.

Which is why it would be so much more interesting. You could pretend to be observing them from afar, but then waste half your fuel when you're almost on top of them and go in for an intersect. Anyone up for having one side have a 90-degree orbit, and another have a 180-degree orbit? Perhaps it would be more economical to go to jousting than dogfighting. In space, I imagine the upper hand will be given not at all by ship or technology, but by tactics, maneuvering ability, as well aselectronic and psywarfare. If you do what by there book is one thing, and actually use it to accomplish something else, you may just find yourself having said upper thruster. As far as actual dogfighting goes, I imagine there will be many holes in your ship: Prevention of having a missile's recoil damage your vessel, as well as the many thruster ports dogfighting would necessitate by the now limitless number of possible maneuvers.

[K^2]

Which is why it would be so much more interesting. You could pretend to be observing them from afar, but then waste half your fuel when you're almost on top of them and go in for an intersect. Anyone up for having one side have a 90-degree orbit, and another have a 180-degree orbit?

Yup, and then the defending side has twice as much fuel as you to maneuver, and just going to start doing things you either can't match, or you will match, but end up running of fuel and give them easy target practice.

[Warhorse]

Yup, and then the defending side has twice as much fuel as you to maneuver, and just going to start doing things you either can't match, or you will match, but end up running of fuel and give them easy target practice.

This, of course, presumes that the defender survives the attack and is able to maneuver afterwards. Which is not a given, especially since the attacker, assuming identical ships, will be more maneuverable during the interface due to lower mass ...

[K^2]

This, of course, presumes that the defender survives the attack and is able to maneuver afterwards. Which is not a given, especially since the attacker, assuming identical ships, will be more maneuverable during the interface due to lower mass ...

If the limiting factor is mass, then the defending side can make their ships much, much lighter by simply not holding the fuel necessary to do the complicated maneuvers. Defender has huge advantage in either case.

There is simply no way to organize a good attack in space, unless you have warp technology. Attack will never be worth it in terms of resources you'd have to spend on it, and we won't see any serious space battles until we have warp.

[H2O.]

I too think that space war is a non-sense with the current state of technology. I even think that space war will not occur with warp.

Even a warp ship can not know where his target is because in order to plot a trajectory, he will need informations about the ennemy localisation. Since information cannot travel faster than light, a moving target is impossible to reach at a reasonnable distance.

So whe are left with the possibility of bringing an orbital weapon station close to a planet. But there come again the vulnerability of such weaponnery.

So hurray ! No wars in space !

Wait a second, the uselessness of a weapon has never stopped anybody to build it (stealth fighter and beyond visual range missile for instance). Well, so much for space peace...

[Seret]

1. Is there any incentive to get close?

It seems to me the answer is yes. Without teleportation, it would be the only way to board and capture a vessel.

I don't really see boarding actions in space as any more likely or necessary than boarding actions in aerial warfare. Why bother trying to capture anything? Just kill it. Unless you're talking about really massive space habitats, but that's so far off in the future that the wider strategic context is impossible to guess. As it stands, where 99% of everything in space is unmanned there's no need to try and capture an enemy's vehicles.

[konokono]

I don't really see boarding actions in space as any more likely or necessary than boarding actions in aerial warfare. Why bother trying to capture anything? Just kill it. Unless you're talking about really massive space habitats, but that's so far off in the future that the wider strategic context is impossible to guess. As it stands, where 99% of everything in space is unmanned there's no need to try and capture an enemy's vehicles.

I see boarding actions as more likely than in current aerial warfare, conditional on cost/risk, but I agree it will be far in the future and we are not close to that state of technology now. Still, it is interesting to speculate about it. To me the question is not whether there might be a reason to board, but would it be cost effective to do so?

[Scotius]

If there will be incentive in the form of valuable data\technology? Why not. During Cold War USA built specialised "oceanographic" ship Glomar Explorer, just so they could've investigate the wreckage of Soviet submarine that sank in Pacific in 60-ties.

[magnemoe]

I don't really see boarding actions in space as any more likely or necessary than boarding actions in aerial warfare. Why bother trying to capture anything? Just kill it. Unless you're talking about really massive space habitats, but that's so far off in the future that the wider strategic context is impossible to guess. As it stands, where 99% of everything in space is unmanned there's no need to try and capture an enemy's vehicles.

Boarding require that the target is either defenseless or its crew surrender to avoid being blown up, note that anything unmanned can try to ram you unless disabled. Boarding has the effect that you can gather information and that its less brutal than blowing up the target.

And yes we talk far future here, near future and it would be smarter just to damage an enemy space station if you did not want to kill the crew.

Grabbing an dead satellite is something different, in the borderland between salvage and piracy. Think most keep well track of their dead recon satellites.

[Seret]

If there will be incentive in the form of valuable data\technology? Why not.

Too difficult. It would be useful to grab technology from AEW/ELINT/Recce aircraft, but there's no practical way to do it in flight. If they can get away with it people tend to just shoot them down then pick apart the wreckage.

Boarding require that the target is either defenseless or its crew surrender to avoid being blown up, note that anything unmanned can try to ram you unless disabled.

Nothing with any military value will have a crew on it. What would they do? The military hasn't had any interest in manned spaceflight since the days of Almaz and MOL, 40 years ago. Technology very quickly moved on from the point at which humans were needed. You can't turn back the clock on that one.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Seret

[ZetaX]

The best solution is probably a high-power laser system. This could potentially be able to burn a hole in a satellite in a couple of seconds. It's easier to hit the target, because you can aim for where the target is NOW rather than where it will be in 10 minutes. You don't need the power to blow up the enemy satellite. All you need is to burn a hole big enough in its solar panels to cut the power or in its tank to make it outgas and lose control. The problem is that these lasers are big and heavy and expensive, which makes them impratical to send to orbit. It is probably more efficient to fire them from an Aegis cruiser or an airborne platform, like the (cancelled) Boeing 747 YAL-1

I think it is completely impossible to have such a laser on ground based weapons, as atmospheric diffusion would make it a) impossible to hit a target defocus the beam. But even in space, this is currently and probably forever impossible at higher distances: You would need an incredible good focus on the beam, orders of magnitude better than what we currently have; also there are some weak effects that defocus such beams by interference effects, maybe even making it physically impossible.

Altogether, it is probably far better to get your laser as close as possible first, then fire it. The question is if getting close enough is possible if the target actively tries to dodge. Last time I checked we were maybe able to pull this of from a distance of 1km, and somewhat more is definitely possible.

On a more minor note, it is also necessary to aim where the target will be in 1/10 th of a second (if killing geostationary stuff from low earth orbit/ground), but targeting with a beam of light is indeed much easier and it is impossible to detect beforehand (but dodgable with strong thrusters doing random movement if expecting it).

[zxczxczbfg]

Quite a few of the above posts are assuming space-only craft. Ideally, space "fighters" will also be able to function as aircraft as well.

EDIT: Just realized the stupidity of my own statement. More than a year late, but hey.

Edited August 20, 2014 by zxczxczbfg

[mogacreative]

working this problem