Meditations on Space Combat

[Victor Galis]

I imagine maneuvering to avoid dumb projectiles is far from impossible. The ship doesn't have to turn drastically at all to avoid incoming fire particularly when you consider the tiny size of ships compared to the range of weapons.

On the other hand rail guns and whatever would probably be effective ways of shooting down incoming missiles.

I suspect early space combat will involve shooting missiles at each other and attempting to shoot down the missiles before they hit with lighter weapons.

[GePap]

If we get to space battles, I really doubt they would be happening at any significant fraction of c. Given the size of space, I would imagine that most space battles would happen close to planets, just as the vast majorities of naval battles have occured in either closed bodies of water and/or relatively near some landmass. What would be the point of moving at very high speed once in orbit around a planet?

In terms of missiles, by the time we get to space warfare it might be relatively easy to stop a missile unless it is going fast enough, and at that point why make a complex missile when you could just shoot lumps of matter at a fast enough speed? But there might be the heavy use of drones and other self-guided smaller fighting platforms perhaps deployed from larger manned platforms.

[Dr Strangelove]

Yes, I would imagine that most space battles would take place near planets or space stations. Aince we can assume a very high degree of technical prowess we can probably assume that combatants would engage each other at very long ranges too. They would probably never see each other. I would expect anti-missle technology to progress also, so maybe missles wouldn't be a major weapon unless they could be made sufficiently stealthy or their speed increased to the point that they couldn't be detected before impact.

[Kuciwalker]

Stealth is pretty much impossible space. There's no way you could reduce your heat signature to anything remotely similar to the ambient temperature. The best way to achieve "surprise" would probably be to attack from the same direction as the sun, or something like that.

[Winston]

I don't know about you, but I have a bad feeling about all of this.

[Swissy]

E-War will figure greatly into space combat. Sensor jamming and EMP bursts to incapacitate the electronics of your opponent are technologies that we have available now. A heavy reliance on unmanned sensor platforms for detection, possibly armed with drones for self-protection/boggy elimination.

I don't see manned space combat other than planet protecton from large platforms. At least until some sort of force shield technology is developed to allow smaller craft to move about without being shredded by space schrapnel.

[Kuciwalker]

EMP doesn't work in space.

[Kuciwalker]

To elaborate: the EMP effect is the result of gamma rays ionizing large regions of the Earth's atmosphere, causing massive electric currents to flow that subsequently induce massive electric currents in electrical circuits, which tends to do bad things to transistors.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Yes, I would imagine that most space battles would take place near planets or space stations. Aince we can assume a very high degree of technical prowess we can probably assume that combatants would engage each other at very long ranges too. They would probably never see each other. I would expect anti-missle technology to progress also, so maybe missles wouldn't be a major weapon unless they could be made sufficiently stealthy or their speed increased to the point that they couldn't be detected before impact.

In Space: Above and Beyond the "Chigs" acheived stealth by pelletizing their engine exhaust, so their engine was sort of like a big rail gun.

[Kuciwalker]

That doesn't hide the fact that their ship is hundreds of Kelvin hotter than space.

[Sandman]

If you had a rough idea of where the enemy was, you could present an ambient face towards them, dumping heat in another direction.

[Unimatrix11]

One stupid question: What if you had a material, that would reflect all heat - not absorb it and not let it go through ? Could you then not build some kind of layer around the ship, with this material on the inside, and the heat would be trapped in it (e.g. a perfect greenhouse) ? Of course, that would mean, that the ship itself would costantly heat up. Couldnt do that for too long maybe...

One step further: Say, your opponent scans for heat (long-wave). Then you may wanna use this shield. And you could have a device - another layer maybe - that would turn the heat (IR) into UV. Since the opponent is scanning for heat, and not for UV at this time, you´d go undetected without building up energy within your stealth shield. Of course, then it would be vital to know what your enemy´s sensor are going after at any given time. (Though i´d assume, if they can, they´d pick all the wavelength at same time, and then you´d be screwed). Well, just rambling...

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
That doesn't hide the fact that their ship is hundreds of Kelvin hotter than space.

What kind of sensors would be picking up this heat? I think the trick to being "stealthy" in space would be to come up with a way to fool whatever sensor technology is in use.

Actually, this leads me to ask what kind of sensor would one use in a combat situation to measure the ambient temperature out in the combat area?

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
One stupid question: What if you had a material, that would reflect all heat - not absorb it and not let it go through ?

You mean, a mirror?

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
One stupid question: What if you had a material, that would reflect all heat - not absorb it and not let it go through ? Could you then not build some kind of layer around the ship, with this material on the inside, and the heat would be trapped in it (e.g. a perfect greenhouse) ? Of course, that would mean, that the ship itself would costantly heat up. Couldnt do that for too long maybe...

One step further: Say, your opponent scans for heat (long-wave). Then you may wanna use this shield. And you could have a device - another layer maybe - that would turn the heat (IR) into UV. Since the opponent is scanning for heat, and not for UV at this time, you´d go undetected without building up energy within your stealth shield. Of course, then it would be vital to know what your enemy´s sensor are going after at any given time. (Though i´d assume, if they can, they´d pick all the wavelength at same time, and then you´d be screwed). Well, just rambling...

That would be the key - PERFECTLY reflect all heat. You couldn't do that with a ship with humans on board, though, unless you had some sort of heatsink that was pretty darn good - we generate all sorts of heat, even in deep sleep (and any truly deep sleep apparatus would presumably require lots of machinery=heat to operate). Your best bet is probably some sort of battery that all the heat is pumped into, thus generating fuel for the continuation of the flight, but that's pretty far fetched at this point.

On your second point - what device exactly would turn IR into UV? And, why would anyone scan for one and not the other (not just for radiation in general - there shouldn't be much of either in space, after all).