Sci-fi Military Tactics and Strategy

Don't use the Honorverse as too much of a guide if you're looking for things to make sense, because there's lots of nonsensical stuff in it. (from .8c missiles with frikkin' nuclear warheads to glorified space fighters. Or my favourite: computers that are capable of altering a person's image language and accent in real-time during a video conversation but for some reason can't be relied upon for weapons control because they're "predictable".)

edited 7th Sep '13 2:08:44 PM by mckitten

Hm, I see. I'm not going for a rock hard science fiction setting, but I would like avoid people thinking I'm writing complete claptrap.

Locking you up on radar since '09

Well it does work for Weber (although that series is Space Opera, not Science Fiction) but while it'd be easy to see why the world in all hard SF works almost the same, if you're going with soft SF you should probably come up with your own bolognium ;)

I should have clarified - I'm aiming for a semi-hard setting (though that may be the same thing as a soft sci-fi setting)*

. In other words, although things might occur that'd be improbable/impossible in a true hard setting, the mechanics of the 'verse aren't as soft and squishy as, say, a space opera.

But all of that is by-the-by.

Locking you up on radar since '09

The big problem with that is the extenuating circumstance is time-to-intercept. At extreme ranges you have all day to shoot down incoming ordnance. In space that may very well be literal.

Take for instance an enemy 300,000 kilometers away. At 50 km/s you have to wait 6000 seconds before impact. That's almost two hours travel time. Plenty of time to evade the target if unguided or perform an intercept if guided.

Given that railguns and missiles with velocities measured in fractions of the speed of light are largely pure fantasy the simple slow speed of weaponry will make space battle at knife fight ranges. (Particle beams have incredibly short range and lasers aren't that effective as a weapon. Mainly owing to a million ways to mitigate the damage or disperse the energy across the ship harmlessly.)

The problem with fighting at close ranges is that you're more likely to get hit, and since, as Patton eloquently put it:

"I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country."

The best option for self-preservation is to sit as far away as you can while still being able to throw weapons at the enemy, because even if it means that you have a lower chance of hitting him, it also means he has a lower chance of hitting you.

edited 7th Sep '13 8:13:44 PM by MattII

Most "naval" battles would be taking place far away. Even with IR, it's gonna be hard to see things. Is it a freighter or a fighter? Gun ports open or closed.

Most "close range" battles in sci-fi come from the use of models, bad writing and clueless studio execs thinking that Viewers Are Morons. So most space ships are at ranges that would be close by WWII standards. Babylon Five did depict rangers at a more realistic range...once because for most viewers it's boring.

My training at the PCOFT (PATRIOT COnduct of Fire Trainer) had me watch shapes on the screen, push the "engage" switch indicator and then watch the "football" of a PATRIOT missile chase the evil SCUD shapes. Most air battles IRL are hours of waiting and a few minutes of Bring My Brown Pants.

Point defenses would do wonders against torpedo/missiles and decoys would help you close the gap. But most combat would be at ranges far outside of visual. If the shooting starts, nukes would fly to IR wouldn't be of much help.

The key reason for "close range" combat would be a Space Fighter sneaking in to raid the enemy fleet. Drones, manned fighters, a Destroyer-Fighter (with several drone "wingmen") on a mission to take out some of the bigger ships.

Babylon Five did have another good point: fighting over a planet is like an army with it's back to the sea.

If there are troops on the ground, civilians on the battlefield (and the planet is a battlefield if the defenders want to avoid a Colony Drop)...the defenders have their backs to the planet. So to speak.

The defenders want to shoot as far as possible. Destroyed enemy ships are just as much of a hazard as their missiles. The enemy might even crash a ship into the planet if they hate the defenders, or their ship is too damaged.

The attackers will try to shoot as far as possible. Why eat hot lazers and missile-y death when you can shoot as far away as you can? Fling a few asteroids at the planet. The defenders will have to shoot them down. If they miss, hey, you've flattened the planet. If they hit, they've wasted ammo.

The only reason the battles start to get into "visual range"? Attrition.

Fighters on both sides have taken out ships, rocks and both fleets need to finish this. There would be shots of burning ships, falling stuff. Lots of jump cuts (and time skips).

In free space, close battles should happen after lots and lots of time with huge fleets. And by close we're talking 1/4 to 1/2 the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

Not at distances where the players can toss beer cans at each other.

Character pieces where heroes jump to cripped ships can happen, but after the larger battles.

edited 7th Sep '13 9:08:27 PM by TairaMai

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

And if you never hit the enemy? What good is firing from extreme ranges in the tens to hundreds of thousands of kilometers or more if you get nothing out of it? Point defenses and their ammo/power sources are a lot cheaper and lighter than the stuff needed to kill ships. If your intercept/evasion window is so large that you can never be touched (and you can't touch your enemy), you are too far away.

Nobody ever won a war playing it safe.

Per-shot, yes, but once you add in the fact that most pojnt-defence systems carry their own radars, not so much. A Phalanx CIWS weighs 6,200 kg, while a Harpoon weighs 691 kg with a booster rocket. That comes to about 9 Harpoons per Phalanx.

And if every other shot is getting through, you're too close. You just have to find the middle ground.

And nobody every won a war charging in madly the whole time either.

Well, Space Opera vs. Sci-Fi is a question of story structure, not one of scientific hardness. You can have completely plausible Space Opera (realistic is not really the word since we're talking about speculation) and you can have very soft Sci-Fi. Twenty Thousand Leagues below the Sea can reasonably be called Sci-Fi for example.

How important scientific hardness really is for a story is directly related to how important technology is in it. (and how much technobabble there is. It is almost always better to just leave things unexplained than have explanations that sound dumb) Something that makes the blunders in the Honorverse quite bad for example is that Weber is quite heavy on the technology. For example he actually includes calculations regarding the movements of fleets and missile rangers and the like in his stories. But then it is quite glaring what calculations he doesn't make, for example that the missiles used would have a thousand times more kinetic energy than the energy of their nuclear warheads. Iain Banks on the other hand is on the comparatively soft end of the scale but it isn't very noticeably because there is almost no technobabble at all. No infodumping, no thinly veiled CSI-style exposition, rarely more than the story relevant descriptions.

But many tried. And it looks so cool

I'd say be less concerned with being realistic, and more concerned with being consistent. If your ships can travel faster than the speed of light due to their magical bullshit use of Wonderphlebotinum, just make sure that Wonderphlebotinum works in a consistent magically bullshit way.

Yep, consistency is key, because 200 years ago, nuclear power would have been considered a form of magic, as would computers.

Eh no. The "sufficiently advanced" trope is pure bullshit. (as are all of Clarke's three laws, honestly. The guy was an author, not a scientist ffs.) People 200 years ago did not reflexively attribute the unknown to magic. While a sufficiently primitve society might do that, any one that's generally familiar with the scientific method and technology as an idea is not going to.

Clarke may not have conducted research, but he was definitely not just an author.

And besides, the law is that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"; not "any sufficiently advanced technology will be considered magic".

It's pointing out that after a point, the technology becomes so advanced that it's easier call it magic than it is to explain it. Just imagine trying to explain a CRT TV to the ancient Greeks.

edited 8th Sep '13 5:20:22 AM by Majormarks

I write stuff sometimes. I also sometimes make youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/majormarks

A modern version of the concept could be the Black Box. You don't know what happens, but you know the outcome and possibly the required inputs. You may know for a fact that it is not magic that makes the outcome happen, but for all intents and purposes, it could be magic and it would make no difference to you. How does me banging on this array of little black plastic blocks on my desk result in you seeing a remarkably witty and thoughtful post on the forums? Could be electrons and microcircuits and routers and switches and horribly complex software running on numerous systems that all somehow work together, or it could be faries. Does it really matter to you if you aren't a computer specialist or an electrician?

EDIT: I'm reminded of a movie where a modern man gets sent back to the Dung Ages, and tries to gain favor by showing off his lighter to a group of Medieval Morons, passing it off as magic. The reply is an exasperated "we already have fire."

edited 8th Sep '13 5:29:55 AM by AFP

@ Flanker

"That's pretty interesting. So what implications does that have security-wise? I doubt this would happen in practice, but would a starfaring power be able to park a warship somewhere nearby to one of the system alliances and just go "Hey, it's neutral territory, I'm not doing anything wrong!"?

Yes, they could, just like the drug runners whose refuge is neutral space can outrun a planetary or system patrol and stick their tongues out from across the border. Parking a warship in orbit of another star system would be a situation to be worked out by diplomats, and if that process doesn't work it would probably be considered more than a threat and an act of war.

I should add thought that there are very few interplanetary or interstellar powers, and most colonies are independent and have only limited and sometimes obsolete defenses because they're generally not important enough to go to war with anyone. There are some exceptions like planets with Cold War-type political dynamics, but generally the biggest "Space Fleet" anyone has consists of just a few task forces of large warships and auxiliary vessels, plus satellite-based and other stationary defense systems, and squads of sublight missile boat/patrol vessels. The big warships cost a lot for these small colonies to build or purchase. Then these big military ships are also very costly to run. First, you have to be able to fuel them. Then you have to recruit, train, and pay the officers. You have to invest money in building a uniform military culture by use of team-building and propaganda. It's a big job to assemble a Standard Sci-Fi Fleet, and most of my colonies never even get close. You could literally count on your fingers the number of groups in my setting that have (or had) anything like a Standard Sci-Fi Fleet.

BUT if one powerful system or planet started a war of expansion against their neighbors, they'd face resistance on multiple fronts. The political leaders of all these various (human-0there's no aliens in this setting) independent colonies would see an expansionist threat against a neighbor as a threat to themselves. Such a war is actually part of the backstory of this novel, which is my major focus right now.

Same with interplanetary disputes. If Alpha Beta I threatens Alpha Beta II, Alpha Beta IV, VII and IX hear about it and combine forces in Alpha Beta II's defense, because they don't like the idea of that planet being conquered any more than they like the idea of their planet falling to the same fate.

Most Polities (whether system wide, planetary, lunar, or national/state-based) maintain an appropriately sized but economically limited defense system of passive and active area denial measures, including missile launchers and satellite grids for sensors and communication, and a small to medium sized offensive force to deal with intruders... but in practice, most planets maintain diplomatic relations with each other.

There's even a system of universal ID cards so that embassies don't get tied up working out bar room disputes about a person from a planet with a particularly long rotation being technically under 21 "Standards" (their equiv. of a year). Again, they were informally accepted by enough people that they're as good as official, similar to the "rules" governing territorial jurisdiction of polities, because it was "just easier that way."

edited 8th Sep '13 6:11:20 AM by fulltimeD

Not necessarily. Quite a few battles many to be precise have been won because one side was reckless (or more reckless than the other) and overly aggressive.

I'll give you a few historical examples. Midway 1942. Three American carriers and a handful of cruisers and destroyers square off against virtually the entire Kido Butai fleet which heavily outnumbers them. Had the US fleet played more conservatively than they did (or the Japanese a lot more aggressively) the entire fleet stood a high chance or being annihilated leaving Japan uncontested across the entire Pacific.

Another example is Samar 1944. The US task force Taffy 3 finds itself horribly outnumbered and vastly outgunned by the Japanese. Yet they aggressively and you could say recklessly continued to engage the Japanese at often closer and closer ranges. By all rights Taffy 3 should have been destroyed or forced to retreat but they weren't. Instead their actions won against the Japanese.

History is littered with countless examples of such things.

Jumping off what Major Tom posted:

• Even the best sensors can be fooled or have limitations on resolution and range. Firing a solor system away would be foolish.

• Space Fighters or drones would try to close with the enemy. Sure they'll get cut down, but that's the point. Deplete the enemy and Zerg Rush them.

• Point defenses are effective against missiles. That's the point: Lasers, railguns, smaller missiles, it's mass and firepower.

• Some of the cliches ( See the Whites of Their Eyes, Space Is an Ocean, Old-School Dogfight) are more Rule of Cool than real tactics.

Yes IRL we have bearing only launch missiles and beyond visual range missiles. And many wargamers will plaster a neutral ship or airliner with Harpoons or AMRAAM's because of a hunch. Actions that would see a real commander court martialed.

I don't care about Star Trek or Star Wars plot powered sensors. Ranges will vary, but "short range" will still be farther than most fiction thinks it would be.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

^ But it would still be less than five digits in range. Likely less than four.

Yeah, no "I can see into the windows or jump into the enemy ships" range. The one scene ROTJ got right: the view from the throne room: points of light around the large ships.

The Rebel Ship giving a broadside to the Star Destroyer was Rule of Cool but very unrealistic.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

^ In that movie it was justified. Staying at standoff ranges was getting them slaughtered by the Death Star's superlaser. It was intended to prevent its deployment. Admiral Ackbar even argued at point blank range they wouldn't last long against the Imperial armada. (Though they lasted longer than if they stayed as was.)

I forgot that, but still Star Wars is more Fantasy with Sci-Fi elements than Star Trek.

I used to rib a friend by saying "Star Trek, isn't that the one with Luke Skywalker fighting Gort?" whenever he got into Enterprise vs. the Death Star.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Wow, I didn't expect to accidentally spawn a major discussion.

Anyway, thank you for the advice, everyone - consistency, logic*

and such is something I'm aiming for. Since it appears the "hard/soft" divide is something of a binary one (in my experience at least, I've never heard a setting described as, say, "somewhat hard/soft" or "quasi-[hard/soft]") I guess mine would fall in the latter category.

@Boldness:

Bold, decisive action can win battles, but it can also go horrifically wrong and result in Bad Times^TM all round for the side that miscalculated. It all comes down to the situation and the relative merits of taking one course of action or the other.

Also, hi, majormarks and mckitten*

!

@Range:

I think Taira's got roughly the right idea - fleets will naturally want to put as much distance between themselves and their targets as possible, but attrition or other factors (such as a severe electronic warfare environment) might draw them closer. Even so, they're not going to be in spitting distance of each other, and I imagine that one side or the other might decide discretion is the better part of valour and flee rather than lock themselves into a struggle of annihilation.

@fulltime D:

Again, you seem to have thought it out well. I don't think there's any setting I can recall off the top of my head that has such small "fleets", so that's a breath of fresh air!

So, how does having small task forces affect the way they conduct battles? I imagine that the loss of even one ship would have a disproportionate effect on the task force's capability to continue fighting, so do they just try for opportunistic attacks while limiting their own vulnerability?

Anyway, I'm attempting to figure out the finer details of the Confederacy's tactics and just trying to figure something out for the Sirians period.

Locking you up on radar since '09

Okay, 2 points here:

• The Japanese had 248 carrier aircraft to the American 233, so they 'outnumbered' them only by about 6%, and that's before you count the 127 aircraft from Midway, which means that the Japanese were actually the ones who got outnumbered.
• The Americans got lucky, the Japanese CAP hared off after VT-3 instead of sending just enough aircraft to do what it needed and kept the rest on watch.

The destroyers acted aggressively, but the carriers pulled away at top speed. A lot of the damage too was done by aircraft from Taffys 1 and 2, and again, the Americans got lucky, because the Japanese initially started out firing AP shells, which did crap-all damage to the destroyers. Also, the whole thing only happened because Halsey went haring off blindly after the part of the Japanese fleet that was spotted.

Yeah, now let's look at some battles where charging in didn't work:

• The Battle of Alesia, 50 BC
• The Battle of Watling Street, 60/61
• The Battle of Crecy, 1346
• The battle of Agincourt, 1415
• Napoleon's side of the Battle of Waterloo, 1815
• The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1854
• The Gallipoli Campaign, 1915
• The Siege of Tobruk, 1941 (along with Operations Brevity and Battleaxe)
• The Battle of Stalingrad, 1942
• The Kokoda Track/Trail campaign, 1942
• The Battle of Kursk, 1943
• The Battle of the Bulge, 1944

And those are just some I can name off the top of my head.

The Battle of the Bludge scarred the allies, but the Nazis were on their way out. OIF, the insurgents got very close to US tanks and IFV's planting bombs. There was an article in Armor Magazine where it was predicted that limpet mines would be used against the M-1A1/A2, specificly targeting the tracks. Harsher in Hindsight because that's what the insurgets and AQI did.

For all the talk and tropes of zapping people light years away with "psuh button warfare" sometimes you end up in the clincher.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48