Poll: Space Combat

[Kiefer13]

A combination of kinetic railguns for extreme ranges and missiles (either solid mass or fragmentation rather than high explosive) for shorter distances. Laser technology, if any is used, will most likely be restricted to point defense anti-missile systems. Also, I'm not certain on this one, but couldn't weaponry directing large amounts of gamma radiation at the target be used for killing the crew but leaving the ship intact to commandeer?

 

[DefunctTheory]

A combination of kinetic railguns for extreme ranges and missiles (either solid mass or fragmentation rather than high explosive) for shorter distances. Laser technology, if any is used, will most likely be restricted to point defense anti-missile systems. Also, I'm not certain on this one, but couldn't weaponry directing large amounts of gamma radiation at the target be used for killing the crew but leaving the ship intact to commandeer?

The power requirements would be extremely high, I'd imagine even the smallest ship would be shielded against just about any radiation known to man, and I'm pretty sure radioactive combat is prohibited as of today. When we get into space, who knows, but still.

 

[Kiefer13]

A combination of kinetic railguns for extreme ranges and missiles (either solid mass or fragmentation rather than high explosive) for shorter distances. Laser technology, if any is used, will most likely be restricted to point defense anti-missile systems. Also, I'm not certain on this one, but couldn't weaponry directing large amounts of gamma radiation at the target be used for killing the crew but leaving the ship intact to commandeer?

The power requirements would be extremely high, I'd imagine even the smallest ship would be shielded against just about any radiation known to man, and I'm pretty sure radioactive combat is prohibited as of today. When we get into space, who knows, but still.

You have a point on the power requirements issue. However, wouldn't any anti-radiation shielding mostly be on the outer hull of the ship? In which case, couldn't the basic idea still work if a missile with a radiation emitting payload was fired into the ship? Though, I could see that possibly being ineffective due to the issues of how long it would take for such a device to irridiate the entire ship. No doubt once you'd used such a weapon once or twice the enemy would wise up and keep adequate supplies of protective gear around anyway. Given further thought, the only way to make it effective would be if you could somehow irridiate every area of the ship almost simultantiously, which would, if going with the missile idea, require much more missiles targeted at different areas of the ship, therefore rendering the idea pretty counter-productive if the intent is to take the ship relatively undamaged. So yeah, on further thought, probably a pointless idea.

And yes, I am aware of the legal and ethical issues concerning radioactive weapons. I was merely talking hypothetically.

 

[ryai458]

I'll go with missiles, since... I like explosions. Both seem doable in the future, I guess.

Explosions in space? where there is no oxygen for the reaction to take place so no explosions would happen.
OT: Lasers, extremely cheap accruate easy to use and aim, very versitile allowing them to be used in multiplie situations.

 

[psivamp]

The question none of you want to talk about is propulsion. All current propulsion relies on reaction mass and Newton's third law: burn fuel in a conical nacelle the expanding gas provides a relatively small amount of thrust (rocket boosters), or propel an inert mass from the vessel to achieve thrust (attitude jets using compressed gas).

I voted for lasers, but honestly, kinetic kill weapons are currently our best bet.

For interesting fictional reading on the topic, I suggest Haldeman's The Forever War and Scott Westerfeld's Risen Empire. Both books invent means of propulsion and tech that has no current theories to support or develop, but also deal with combat at relativistic speeds largely with technology that at least has analogous existing technology already in existence.

 

[klakkat]

Kinetic weapons seems like it could work, although I do wonder how guns etc work in a vaccuum with no burnable oxygen to ignite the gunpowder or whatever... I'm sure there's a way around that though, like maybe having the firing part of the mechanism oxygenified and then just stick the barrel out... some of you Americans who actually know stuff about guns might be able to help here...

Modern firearms use a powder that has a stabilized oxidizer in it. Thus, it doesn't need air. An AK-47 would fire just fine in space, though the barrel would be prone to overheating.

The same thing with all modern explosives. Air is only used as an oxidizer for 'burning' reactions, like combustion engines and flamethrowers.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Interesting side note, the only weapon to have ever been mounted on a space station was a cannon. The space station in question was a soviet spy station, prior to the widespread use of spy satellites. It actually worked, although it was only fired once

Anyway, my understanding of physics tells me that
a) any ship equipped with radiation shielding to survive space in the first place won't have much trouble dealing with lasers. Especially since their intensity decreases with the square of the distance, so they would only be useful at a very short range.
b) missiles would have to have small thrusters around their chassis to maneuver, which makes them large and heavy. They could be very effective, but at a relatively large pay off
c) Force fields? As in magnetic or EM fields? Yeah, those don't work that way...
d) Ramming would deal as much damage to your ship as it would to the enemy's. You know, every action results in an equal reaction...
e) Boarding could work. I think the scenes in BSG are actually fairly realistic. Of course, you could only have a small team per shuttle, and going up against the crew necessary to operate an interstellar vessel does not exactly have favourable odds
f) Railguns would work nicely. They have no recoil, relatively low energy requirements, ammo weighs very little, and they can fire rapidly enough to be effective.

My money's on kinetic weaponry.

 

[feather240]

[spoiler = snip]

So, kinetics rape at short range, missiles at longer range, point defences are necessary to protect against missiles, and if you've got some large celestial body to act as a heatsink then lasers would be a great static defence!

I'm worried about the lasers overheating the ship. What about mass drivers that fire large balls of shrapnel? Even if only a small amount of it makes contact I'd imagine it would do significant damage.

Thing with shrapnel is that, sure, you're more likely to hit the target, you're splitting the energy of your shot between multiple smaller projectiles, the majority of which you are expecting to miss with - it's a waste of energy. You'd do more damage more reliably by having faster single-round shots, imo.

Combat in space is more like a physics puzzle than it is in our atmosphere. The distances are titanic, the speeds can be huge, and it all boils down to who can deliver the most energy the fastest with the greatest accuracy without melting. By using buckshot you need to have MUCH more powerful weapons than your opponent because you're wasting a lot of each shot's energy, whereas using larger rounds focuses the shot's power onto a single point of carnage >

[/spoiler]

I just don't think that lasers would be practical compared to a mass driver. ...

I quite agree - as I said in my first post, the only place to stick lasers would be on celestial bodies, eg moons, where you have a huge amount of mass to absorb the energy. They'd be effective defensive deterrents, but you'd need some means of protecting them from distant bombardment as orbits are pretty predictable and kinetic range in space is effectively unlimited.

Try putting them on a closed system such as a space ship and you'd either need to have huge heat sinks eating up the ship's mass, really effective radiators (that could get shot off) or have tanks of coolant to flush away, a la Mechwarrior, in which case you've just limited the ammo for your lasers, which kinda defeats the point (unless you have some sort of external dispersal/reclaim system - was that in Mass Effect? Can't remember...). Otherwise everyone would melt, and no-one wants that.

I agree with you on the point defensive laser idea. However we still have the combat space craft to worry about. How much would it cost to keep a laser cooled vs. say a mass driver? I'd prefer being able to use lasers since 6mkps is still pretty slow at the ranges we're talking about, even with wide dispersal. Is there a cost effective use of lasers and advanced cooling systems? I don't think the radiators are a bad idea because if you get shot you're screwed anyway.

 

[psivamp]

Anyway, my understanding of physics tells me that
a) any ship equipped with radiation shielding to survive space in the first place won't have much trouble dealing with lasers. Especially since their intensity decreases with the square of the distance, so they would only be useful at a very short range.
f) Railguns would work nicely. They have no recoil, relatively low energy requirements, ammo weighs very little, and they can fire rapidly enough to be effective.

These statements are almost entirely wrong. A laser is a focused stream of photons (quanta of EM radiation either in the visible spectrum of light or not) all traveling along the same vector. A diffuse light source's intensity drops off at distance squared, a laser does not.

Railguns do indeed have recoil. Railguns actually have a very significant recoil despite the relatively small mass of the projectiles. An early test of a magnetic railgun performed by the US Navy collapsed the deck of the ship it was mounted aboard.

And railguns qualify as kinetic kill weapons.

 

[Good morning blues]

I think it's pretty funny that you appear to think that "force fields" and "shields" are more scientifically credible than lasers. Sure, Star Wars-type lasers are pretty ridiculous, and they're probably quite impractical as weapons, but at least we know how they could conceivably be made.

My opinion? Battlestar Galactica was probably right. Battleships will likely be defended with flak guns, fighters will duke it out with bullets and missiles, and battleships will be destroyed with missiles. A kinetic weapon like the MAC guns in Halo is impractical because it is so hard to aim. Missiles can miss, sure, but they can also be made more complex and capable of identifying their targets and pursuing them intelligently.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

Spoiler

Plus, mirrored armour and your laser is 100% useless. Even worse, hit a mirror at a 90 degree angle and you've just shot yourself, oops.

The slightest imperfection in the mirror's surface would stress the material and likely cause it to shatter.

Spoiler

Boarding would work, the trick would be getting in without killing yourself or completely depressurising the other ship. After all it's not like the other ship is going to open their airlock for you, so you'd have to bust your way in, which would mean making a hole, which means that the oxygen escapes, which means you can't get in anyway so you might as well have just shot it with a gun from a distance or something.

Objects in space move so insanely fast that attempting to board would be suicidal. Make a sudden turn into the person trying to board you and they'll probably end up as a greasy stain on your hull.

Spoiler

Ramming could be interesting, because given how much of a prick spaceships are to navigate, you wouldn't even need to do considerable damage, all you'd really need to do is disable the engines and then bump the thing into a shitty orbit and then it might fall into a planet's atmosphere or something. Of course, to achieve that you have to put your own ship on a trajectory that could be equally dangerous. I think what would be more likely is ramming with an unmanned probe, sort of like the missile idea, but heavier, slower, and sneakier... mind you it's the missile problem all over again, if your target does something unpredictable bye bye probe if you don't have enough fuel to turn the big lug around...

Suicide. Even if shields could save the two ships from crumpling like soda cans, imagine what kind of effects that sudden deceleration would have on the crews inside.

Spoiler

I imagine it would be like two submarines going at it.

I picture Das Boot with combats lasting hours and hours and hours. It would be really boring.

Spoiler

How bout we don't kill each other in space?

Frankly... i don't want my blood to boil and explode. That would totally suck. Especially after i JUST GOT TO HOLY FUCKING SPACE.

Blood doesn't [quite] boil in space and bodies don't explode. You would swell like crazy and nitrogen bubbles in your blood would give you the bends, though.

Spoiler

Thing with shrapnel is that, sure, you're more likely to hit the target, you're splitting the energy of your shot between multiple smaller projectiles, the majority of which you are expecting to miss with - it's a waste of energy. You'd do more damage more reliably by having faster single-round shots, imo.

Making the shot connect is the most important thing. The single projectile is not more efficient if it never hits.

Spoiler

In which case, couldn't the basic idea still work if a missile with a radiation emitting payload was fired into the ship?

If the hull is breached, radiation is probably the least of your concerns. The impact of that projectile would generate a huge pressure wave inside the ship that would wreck the shit out of its structural integrity and liquefy all the people caught in it.

To be honest, I see the idea of space combat as being ridiculously impractical.

 

[DividedUnity]

I think it's pretty funny that you appear to think that "force fields" and "shields" are more scientifically credible than lasers. Sure, Star Wars-type lasers are pretty ridiculous, and they're probably quite impractical as weapons, but at least we know how they could conceivably be made.

My opinion? Battlestar Galactica was probably right. Battleships will likely be defended with flak guns, fighters will duke it out with bullets and missiles, and battleships will be destroyed with missiles. A kinetic weapon like the MAC guns in Halo is impractical because it is so hard to aim. Missiles can miss, sure, but they can also be made more complex and capable of identifying their targets and pursuing them intelligently.

This is my view as well


Out of all the options in the poll id say missiles and KEWs are the most likely.

 

[Catalyst6]

Definately kinetic-based things, as it stands missiles will be ineffective compared to kinetic-based stuff and lasers will always be inefficient.

As for ramming and boarding parties, ramming is kind of like a knife fight, no one ever wins. Also, by the time you get close enough to deploy parties the enemy ship will probably just have shot holes in your hull, killing everyone on board.

 

[direkiller]

we do it Outlaw Star style...

i was scrolling down to the bottom to say that when i saw this pic

grapler ships and magic spells using the parse "pago wa san fa" ftw

 

[Marter]

I'd use lasers, just because they are so fun.

They also go pew, pew.

What if they made some completely arbitrary sound effect instead?

Then I may have to reconsider my choice. They'd still look cool though.

 

[Marter]

I'd use lasers, just because they are so fun.

They also go pew, pew.

What if they made some completely arbitrary sound effect instead?

Then I may have to reconsider my choice. They'd still look cool though.

Aha!

Ok then, just wanted to see why you really picked lasers, thats all.

I must be missing something, as it doesn't seem like a big thing to question.

What're you up to?

 

[BonsaiK]

Spoiler

Plus, mirrored armour and your laser is 100% useless. Even worse, hit a mirror at a 90 degree angle and you've just shot yourself, oops.

The slightest imperfection in the mirror's surface would stress the material and likely cause it to shatter.

Spoiler

Boarding would work, the trick would be getting in without killing yourself or completely depressurising the other ship. After all it's not like the other ship is going to open their airlock for you, so you'd have to bust your way in, which would mean making a hole, which means that the oxygen escapes, which means you can't get in anyway so you might as well have just shot it with a gun from a distance or something.

Objects in space move so insanely fast that attempting to board would be suicidal. Make a sudden turn into the person trying to board you and they'll probably end up as a greasy stain on your hull.

Spoiler

Ramming could be interesting, because given how much of a prick spaceships are to navigate, you wouldn't even need to do considerable damage, all you'd really need to do is disable the engines and then bump the thing into a shitty orbit and then it might fall into a planet's atmosphere or something. Of course, to achieve that you have to put your own ship on a trajectory that could be equally dangerous. I think what would be more likely is ramming with an unmanned probe, sort of like the missile idea, but heavier, slower, and sneakier... mind you it's the missile problem all over again, if your target does something unpredictable bye bye probe if you don't have enough fuel to turn the big lug around...

Suicide. Even if shields could save the two ships from crumpling like soda cans, imagine what kind of effects that sudden deceleration would have on the crews inside.

Lasers: Well, then you use a mirror without imperfections. If we can create combat spaceships I'm sure we can also create a mirror that works the way a mirror has been meant to work for thousands of years.

Boarding: But you can't make a "sudden turn" in space. What matters is relative speed between the two ships, not absolute speed. Two ships whizzing alongside each other at exactly the same speed would in fact appear completely still to each other and boarding would be a piece of piss (that's how boardings happen nowadays). It's the "hostile" thing that would make boardings hard, not the actual speed of the ships themselves.

Ramming: well, yes, that's why I suggested an unmanned probe.