Wouldnt smaller craft such as starfighters be useless in space combat?

We can discuss future technology based on what we know right now. Right now, we know that we cannot travel faster than light, thus limiting any future war to solar space. We also know that lasers, missiles, and kinetic projectiles are feasible, all three of which make armor obsolete and the first of which makes maneuverability obsolete. We know that we cannot hide thermal radiation, so cloaking devices are out of the question. We know that space is big.

Therefore, space battles must be fought at ranges bounded on the lower end by magnitudes of kilometers and on the upper end by magnitudes of an astronomical unit. You have the option of dubbing all space vehicles "space fighters", but otherwise, reality wins again.

There are multitudes of reasons to dismiss space fighters at a technical level (low engine efficiency, low weapons capability, power limitations, high fuel ratios, etc), but I will not be discussing them here. Belief in space fighters is inversely proportional to technical understanding.

If you still think that there will ever be space fighters, but you earnestly long to not be stupid, repeat after me:

There are no fighters in space.

-Dr. B

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We know that we cannot hide thermal radiation, so cloaking devices are out of the question.

I'd like to point out that this isn't exactly true. Objects release thermal energy based on their temperature. The only requirement for stifiling thermal output is to forcibly make the radiating surface VERY VERY cold. Modern technology can already push thermal energy up a gradient to varying degrees, with varying conditions. The LHC is massive, but contains the coldest space in the known universe, so the feat is not utterly impossible, just unfeasible. The only issue then, is safely storing the excess heat energy until it can be safely expelled.

By the way Dr. B, how big can you make a ship before it becomes so thermally insulative that it cooks itself from the inside out?

I also don't understand Dr. B's world where perfect weapons can kill any target. So why the hell are they making even bigger targets that die in one hit? Seems counterproductive to me.

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Quoting Bigglesworth_XIII,

reply 1

We can discuss future technology based on what we know right now.

That statement is completely devoid of logic. We can not base anything in the future on currect tech. Who knows what advances will happen. So the rest of post is instantly made void.

We can barely leave the our own atmosphere, only the moon missions have done that completely, and you think we can seriously talk about what space combat will be at least 100 years from now? Do you know how incredibly dumb that makes you sound? This debate can't not be serious as there are no facts to back it up.

You're making assumptions. This goes to anyone and everyone here. I've seen posts assuming fighters will use a fuel that needs to be replace in a short amount of time and many other things that we can't know about.

Trying to talk about this in a serious matter would be like trying to say what and intelligent life would look like on other worlds. We can assume they would be bi-pedal creatures. Do we know for sure? Nope. Do we know anything about future space travel? Nope, so how can we say what space combat will be? Oh wait we can't. We can only assume and think it will be like this.

Seems most of the problem are talking like they have facts backing them up when no one can use facts for things that don't even exist and won't for a while most likely.

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There is a great scene in Light by M John Harrison which decribes corvette sized vehicles doing battle in 16 dimmensional space, Thats 13 spatial and 3 temporal dimensions. Get your heads around that. I know it's only tenuously linked to this conversation, but it's friggin cool.

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Quoting Bobucles,

reply 2

"We know that we cannot hide thermal radiation, so cloaking devices are out of the question."

I'd like to point out that this isn't exactly true. Objects release thermal energy based on their temperature. The only requirement for stifiling thermal output is to forcibly make the radiating surface VERY VERY cold. Modern technology can already push thermal energy up a gradient to varying degrees, with varying conditions. The LHC is massive, but contains the coldest space in the known universe, so the feat is not utterly impossible, just unfeasible. The only issue then, is safely storing the excess heat energy until it can be safely expelled.
By the way Dr. B, how big can you make a ship before it becomes so thermally insulative that it cooks itself from the inside out?

I also don't understand Dr. B's world where perfect weapons can kill any target. So why the hell are they making even bigger targets that die in one hit? Seems counterproductive to me.

Point 1: It is exactly true. Perfect thermal insulation is a victim of the second law of thermodynamics. It is physically impossible to stop a spaceship from emitting thermal radiation. Not even temporarily.

Point 2: It would be safe to assume that everything in space does indeed die in one hit. I don't suppose it would be practical to make any targets whatsoever. It is high unlikely that a war will ever be fought in the actual outer space medium, regardless of where technology goes, ever. Why? It's like fighting a war in which everyone is naked and has a bazooka.

We can barely leave the our own atmosphere, only the moon missions have done that completely, and you think we can seriously talk about what space combat will be at least 100 years from now? Do you know how incredibly dumb that makes you sound? This debate can't not be serious as there are no facts to back it up.

You're making assumptions. This goes to anyone and everyone here. I've seen posts assuming fighters will use a fuel that needs to be replace in a short amount of time and many other things that we can't know about.

Trying to talk about this in a serious matter would be like trying to say what and intelligent life would look like on other worlds. We can assume they would be bi-pedal creatures. Do we know for sure? Nope. Do we know anything about future space travel? Nope, so how can we say what space combat will be? Oh wait we can't. We can only assume and think it will be like this.

Seems most of the problem are talking like they have facts backing them up when no one can use facts for things that don't even exist and won't for a while most likely.

My assumptions are based on scientific knowledge and practical experience. Science exists. I can make certain deductions with it. I am confident of everything I have said thus far. I will alert you if I decide to make any assumptions of a more speculative nature.

-Dr. B

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Study your law again, Biggles. The second Law of Thermodynamics states only that heat energy will seek its lowest energy state unmolested. That last part is very important. Heat gets pushed uphill as the most basic technology today. Your goddam refridgerator does this, but I guess your lab doesn't have one. Silicon can do it too, to a much lesser extent.

It doesn't matter how hot the inside is. If the energy is forcibly withdrawn from the surface, there's no exposed temperature gradient to radiate out. Your object is going to be dead cold with the rest of space. Devices already exist that can create colder temperatures than space itself, despite an unending tide of incoming heat energy. Accomplishing the same in a bone cold vaccuum isn't an up front impossibility, unless you've got a special edition of Thermodynamics that no one else knows about.

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Study your law again, Biggles. The second Law of Thermodynamics states only that heat energy will seek its lowest energy state unmolested. That last part is very important. Heat gets pushed uphill as the most basic technology today. Your goddam refridgerator does this, but I guess your lab doesn't have one. Silicon can do it too, to a much lesser extent.

It doesn't matter how hot the inside is. If the energy is forcibly withdrawn from the surface, there's no exposed temperature gradient to radiate out. Your object is going to be dead cold with the rest of space. Devices already exist that can create colder temperatures than space itself, despite an unending tide of incoming heat energy. Accomplishing the same in a bone cold vaccuum isn't an up front impossibility, unless you've got a special edition of Thermodynamics that no one else knows about.

The coefficient of performance for a Carnot refrigeration cycle cooling to absolute zero approaches 0%. And then your high temperature reservoir actually gets hotter the more you put energy into it. Not only is this cycle not steady state, it isn't even thermodynamically possible. I won't even go into power and heat transfer issues.

I understand that you don't have a technical background, but your error could have been avoided with just a little research and some time for thought.

-Dr. B

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There is no need to cool down a spaceship down to nearly 0K. Space is mind-staggering large and anything but empty. Just imagine how kompex a sensor-device must me to detect a bee in a 100m radius. May be you can detect that there is a bee at all, but where??

Lets assume we have a 30meter-Fighter in therms of only a half AU(75 000 000km). Thats like detecting the bee in a 25 000 km radius. Even if the bee would be 1000K hot, it still is nearly impossible to detect even in cold space.

Bus as there is no reason to fight in cold space, most battles would take place near someting(Asteroid field, Planets, stars). There you have to deal with background radiation and objects floating in space.
Finding a fighter in such a place is much worse than finding a Needle in a haystack. Its more like finding the straw punctured by the needle in all the hay of the world...

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Ok i think there will be all sorts of ships in space whenever we get there, fighters, bombers, cruisers, carriers, destroyers etc etc, it doesnt matter if the fighters get blown up people are expendable in military terms, but look at it this way, as much as you think you can have an answer to just build random missles if someone can out dodge and destroy you installations and turrets or disable your launchers then your pretty screwed, your also under the assumption that once you hit the ship it will be blown up, so assuming they dont have shields and you score a hit and blow a hole on a minor deck you wont even take that ship out of the fight, the best ways to deal with capital ships are to have another capital ship face off against it as they would both be fighting each other has they would both be the highest priority target and the fightings and bombers can be taking out subsystems and turrets. Detecting heat in a space at range is a bit of a problem aswell so heat detection would kind of be out of the question sensors would be based most likely on electronic signals and possibly radio signals.

Ok an example. You have a capital ship armed with beam weapons, missle turrets, flak cannons and laser turrets. Your ship is massive you not only have to include enough power for your weapons and shields if you have them but life support and all the other systems you cant possibly have turrets to have a complete cover fire of your own vessel and still be able to have offensive capabilities. Fighters and Bombers can fly in and take out turrets and other vital systems leaving you floating in space.

Theres 6 billion people on the planet now imagine how many people there would be if there was more then one planet of us. You could cybernetically enhance the pilots. Still fighters and bombers would have strategic value simply because you cannot have 1 ship that can do everything, we cant do that now and we wont be able to in the future, that is why we have planes, tanks, subs, marines etc.

As for heat, heat cant dissapate without there being other atoms for it to transfer the heat into space isnt a perfect vacuum so the ships show up but they wouldnt generate heat as much from friction though they would travel alot faster, it would be hard work to detect heat signatures in space its just too vast.

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This thread sort of died out when it broke.

Biggles is right that MODERN sensor technology is beating out MODERN stealth technology. Where he errs is in extrapolating those trends over 1000 years. Or that a potential space war is going to be fought over vast stretches of dead space, devoid of infrastructure, people, resources, and pollution. Or that wars are going to be a maximum efficiency crater party between two indifferent and brutal superpowers vying for a complete annihilation of their foes. None of those things have ever been true in the whole of human history. It will remain false, even if every human being is genetically altered to be a clone of Biggles, as he will be simultaneously protesting the long term downfalls of a perfect war while praising its efficiency.

So it sort of ended when Biggles decided he was right, everyone else was wrong, and we all went home.

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I've seen a lot of theses debates in the past about space combat and fighters, and my feeling about it is about everyone is quite wrong about it. Many assume that because space is so vast and empty ships would be really fast and weapons incredibly long ranged, if not incredibly devastating... But i think there are a few mistakes there.

1. Ship speed.

In theory, there is no top speed in space (exept for relativity, wich i don't agree with). But in practice, the top speed you can reach depend on what kind of thrust you have and how long you can keep it before you run out of it. As long as we will be using propellant to travel, i doubt we will reach any significant speed. Right now we can reach about 40 000 km/h out of rocket engines, but we do it while slingshotting around planets to save fuel and reach "travel speed". The biggest limitation of current space ships is power, they basically run on batteries/solar energy. If we were allowed to use nuclear powerplant in space (currently treaties forbid it), we could make much bigger, more powerful ships using much more efficient engines. But even then, even with increased speed and autonomy, we are still a far cry from hours of constant manouvring/acceleration...

2. Ship manouvrability.

Lack of friction may allow much higher velocities, but it create lots of problems too. With friction, you don't need to expel any propellant, you can push against whatever you are in contact with move or turn. In space you don't have that. It's neat that we can "free fall" almost forever, but any course or speed change require to vent something into space...

3. Projectile speed.

Many assume that projectile can get to relativistic speed because space has no friction. They potentially can. But in practice, unless we can find some way to negate current laws of physics, we can't. If we throw something one way, we get pushed the other. Recoil is a major concern in space, and anything that can hurl projectile at high speed will have one to deal with. I doubt we can use railguns/coilguns/particle beams in space without some significant means to contain their massive recoil.

Missiles may not affect their launching ships the way projectile weapons do, but their top speed suffer the same problem as ship do (they would run out of reactive mass quickly). Also, unless they are large enough to hold powerplants in them, they won't have the efficiency advantage ships can have propulsion wise. Also, to reach and catch their target, missiles would need a lot of hardware, unlike Earth bound ones. In space, there are satellite guidance, and the launching ship sensors are not much help if the target is thousands of km away. Also, the faster they go, the more floating debris (something planet bound missile don't have to worry) would become an hazard for the missile, it would need to be able to avoid them of be quite easy to counter.

I think space born projectile weapons are very likely to be unguided solid fuel rockets. They don't need to contain volatile fuel that can vent into space due to poor containment. But that would seriously reduce effective range unless the target can't move out of the way...

4. Small VS big.

If you followed me to this point, i believe small combat vessels have a point in space battle. A ship capable of travelling between planets would be too vulnerable to risk in combat. Mass restriction would prevent it from having significant armor, and being larger would make it an easy target. A smaller strikecraft wich purpose is to fight would be a smaller target, have much better thrust ratio, carry more weapons for it's mass and be expendable compared to it's carrier ship. It could also sport more armor than it's carrier since autonomy isn't as much a concern...

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Quoting Bigglesworth_XIII,

reply 5

Quoting Bobucles,
reply 2

I also don't understand Dr. B's world where perfect weapons can kill any target. So why the hell are they making even bigger targets that die in one hit? Seems counterproductive to me.

Point 2: It would be safe to assume that everything in space does indeed die in one hit. I don't suppose it would be practical to make any targets whatsoever. It is high unlikely that a war will ever be fought in the actual outer space medium, regardless of where technology goes, ever. Why? It's like fighting a war in which everyone is naked and has a bazooka.

-Dr. B

First, its nice to see Bobucles and Bigglesworth_XIII have kept championing thsir causes here. Even though i haven't been able to agree with almost anything that Bigglesworth has said, I still respect that fact that he is still here.

Now, Bigglesworth, your back on your doomsday missile theory.

"Since massive amounts of missiles can easily and effectivly destroy everything, then by defualt nothing will travel in space."

This is still completly ridiculous. (Assuming the 2 parties involved are economicaly, technologicaly, and millitarily close to each other) Firing nothing but vollies of missiles will do nothing but set each side againt each other until one gets tired and then gets completly obliterated. then one side is left near exhausted and the other is left a smoldering wreck. Every one looses. But even before the war started both sides had lost. See if your only using missiles for offense and basicaly defenses too, then if side A shoots 100 missiles and side B shoots 101, side B will score hits and be the winner. So both sides will compete to see who can fire the most missiles AT ONCE. Being able to continously fire isn't important if you die in the first wave. So both sides are going to make as many launcers as possible, basicaly until every usable surface of their planet is covered with launchers. If the combined surface area of one side's planets and moons is smaller that side will loose, if they are equal then it will end with whoever has the most missiles. This is a stupid way of doing things and NO ONE WILL EVER DO IT.

The Missile doomsday theory might be the most efficent way to wage war. These ultra missiles might be the most damaging, accurate, easy to build, and cost effective weapons ever. But the missiles doomsday theory is the monst INEFFICENT way to win war, to prepare for war, to recover from war, to prevent war, to do anything BUT WAGE WAR. Thus no one will use it. Nuking everything is the most efficent way to wage war currently, but recovering after it and rebuilding is horrible. There is a reason wy america didn't nuke iraq, and iran, and North korea, and every one else that we have problems with.

Infact i have said all this on pages 2-4 of this thread.

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First and foremost, my apoligies if I offend anyone. Now one to the show. It's a game, fighters are part of the mechanic of the game, if you think they should be useless mod them out and play.

I however am a rather big fanboy of Macross/Robotech.

Now where did I put that Itano Circus?

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I'm not convinced fighters would be totally useless. Maybe to a physicist, but there's a reason physicists don't set military strategy. Since mass-related forces would still be in effect, bigger ships would necessarily be more unwieldy and increasingly less capable of gaining any sort of on-the-fly tactical advantage. And obviously the more powerful the missile technology (or other compact, one-off weapon systems), the more sense it makes to project your force as far away from your expensive big ships as possible. One of the reasons naval fighters were so successful in WW2 was both sides could afford to throw lots of them into the meatgrinder compared to surface ships. We're certainly not in lucky-torpedo-kills-death-star territory, but I think they would be a valuable support asset in the space-born equivalent of combined arms warfare.

Also, on the subject of whether it would 'make sense' to fight in space, I say it's irrelevant. It doesn't make sense to send a bunch of guys with no armor across a machinegun-strafed field to attack the other guy's trench, but it still happened in WW1. And the first half of WW2. Fact is, if its possible for humans to exist there, we will find a way to blast each other--it's what we do best.

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This is still completly ridiculous. (Assuming the 2 parties involved are economicaly, technologicaly, and millitarily close to each other) Firing nothing but vollies of missiles will do nothing but set each side againt each other until one gets tired and then gets completly obliterated. then one side is left near exhausted and the other is left a smoldering wreck. Every one looses. But even before the war started both sides had lost. See if your only using missiles for offense and basicaly defenses too, then if side A shoots 100 missiles and side B shoots 101, side B will score hits and be the winner. So both sides will compete to see who can fire the most missiles AT ONCE. Being able to continously fire isn't important if you die in the first wave. So both sides are going to make as many launcers as possible, basicaly until every usable surface of their planet is covered with launchers. If the combined surface area of one side's planets and moons is smaller that side will loose, if they are equal then it will end with whoever has the most missiles. This is a stupid way of doing things and NO ONE WILL EVER DO IT.

Yes its stupid but you do realize that you just summed up the cold war between USA and Soviet Union? IT HAS ALREADY BE DONE. Only Difference is that noone fired a missle because there were not that stupid after all.

And it isnt even about whether such a war would be stupid but if a ship focused milititary would win against a missle based military.

The Missile doomsday theory might be the most efficent way to wage war. These ultra missiles might be the most damaging, accurate, easy to build, and cost effective weapons ever. But the missiles doomsday theory is the monst INEFFICENT way to win war, to prepare for war, to recover from war, to prevent war, to do anything BUT WAGE WAR. Thus no one will use it. Nuking everything is the most efficent way to wage war currently, but recovering after it and rebuilding is horrible. There is a reason wy america didn't nuke iraq, and iran, and North korea, and every one else that we have problems with.

You dont need to nuke the entire planet. Just destroy their ships with nukes and planetary weapons with precision strikes and then you are free to conquer the planet in the usual fashion. No need for space fighters or any kind for ship to ship combat.

Since mass-related forces would still be in effect, bigger ships would necessarily be more unwieldy and increasingly less capable of gaining any sort of on-the-fly tactical advantage.

Well Gravitiy is a mass related force and its has almost no effect in space. Also you are assuming that there is a tactical advantage to gain since that enirely depends on the weapons you face. You cannot dodge a laser at close range. (thx star wars for introducing slower than light light lasers)

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Durring the cold war no one actualy fired any nukes, but the vietnam and korean wars still happened, and the USSR invaded afganistan. Granted those were not wars directly between the USA and USSR, but we helped afganistan and they helped vietnam and korea. Also note that while the cold war was going on, other military hardware was being produced besides the nukes.

Both the USSR and USA could have enacted the modern vesion of doomsday missile theory, but they both relized that that would suck, and turned towards other forms of military. From a strictly millitary stand point, nuking all of north korea, and north vietnam was the easest way to beat the enemies in those wars. Any one who wasn't killed in the nukes would be more occupied with other things than continuing fighting, but we didn't nuke those countries becuase the aftermath was so terrrible.

Also we debated whether or not a ship based millitary would win. Bigglesworth uses giant missiles thare are almost the same size as ships. Since they lack weapons, life support, and armor they cost less than an actual ship, which is true. The discrepencey comes up when we try to determin exactly howmany missiles you would need per ship and such.

And if both sides were using the missile theory then the first casualty would be the ships that both sides are using, since as bigglesworth pointed out, if i send 10 ship sized missiles at each of your ships they are going to die. LEaving you with only missiles and no ships. if you try to send ground forces i am going to blast them away with missiles. To land something on your planet i am going to have to take out your ground based launchers, of which your going to have tons/ Even if i use pinpoint strikes, if i hit you planet 1000 times with aircraft carrier sized missiles, you planet is going to be mostly useless.

Also i wont be able to accuratly tell howmany launchers are on your planet, so after i hit you once, you could easily play dead and wait for me to send ships out and then shoot them again.

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Quoting Exterminator451,

reply 18

Of course, in theory, it would be better to remove the pilot from the fighter. But where's the fun in that?

Actually, the Advent strike craft use telepathically controlled robotic drones as pilots. The advantages of being a psionic empire.

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I think some people need to remember that we are theorizing what we think will happen. We can know what it might be like 50, or even 100 years from now, if technological development follows the path we think it will. But say, 200 years from now, or 300? It's impossible to go faster then light now, but a relatively short time ago, going faster then the speed of sound was considered impossible. Who says we won't have Starfire-like inetria-cancelling drives, or Honorverse style gravity drives.

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