# Sci-Fi/Futuristic infantry battles **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 21, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935 "2019-02-21T00:47:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/21 "2019-02-21T18:29:26Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Wow…i guess i never thought about that, but yep. Ship fires, switch to screen, ship fires. …everyone falls out of their seats 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/22 "2019-02-21T20:58:51Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > As I recall (I don’t have them to hand) the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor has some interesting space battle scenes, based on a a fairly hard science conception of how things might actually play out in an A.I.-coordinated conflict. There’s certainly none of the nonsense of daredevil human piloting skills being involved, if I recall correctly there’s no FTL and things are governed by realistic laws of physics. The books are also very funny and entertaining. All Hail The Bobs! I wholeheartedly endorse this endorsement. Since we have included book series I would also suggest the Expeditionary Force Series by Craig Alanson. They spend a lot of time on trying to figure out how to adapt 21st century military strategy with technology so advanced it might as well be magic. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/23 "2019-02-21T21:11:55Z")
> [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](#): > > For example, take a small moon, accelerate it to .95_c_, and ram it into the Death Star. Turn a sun into a nova. There have been moments of heightened creative thinking: the ramming scene from _The Last Jedi_, the Picard Maneuver from _TNG_. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/24 "2019-02-21T21:13:32Z")
Fundamentally _real_ space battle would be glacially boring on-screen. Huge distances where you can’t even see the other guy, fantastic speeds, automated targeting, etc… The Expanse does a pretty fair job, but even there, they’re usually WAY too close. I think realistic space battle would be much more like the “Hunt for Red October” scenes between the Dallas and the Red October, but without the ships even being on screen at the same time. Great suspenseful stuff, but not really stirring in the way that say… the battles in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” or “Return of the Jedi” were. I also think that infantry combat would be murderously lethal in such a high tech environment, even by today’s standards. You’d be pretty much dead meat for any automated targeting systems/drones that would have better detection systems than your eyes, and people are still only going to be able to carry so much. I think you’d have to go down the “Starship Troopers” (the book) route of having powered suits, rather than having regular old footborne infantry out there with autonomous drones, assisted targeting systems and guided ordnance, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/25 "2019-02-21T21:21:48Z")
> [@BeagleJesus](#): > > All Hail The Bobs! I wholeheartedly endorse this endorsement. I was just reading a couple of reviews, and more than one person compares the books to “The Martian”. It hadn’t occurred to me but it’s apt - an imaginative guy with a dry self-deprecating wit trying to solve highly unusual problems, fairly hard science albeit much more “out there” than just being on Mars and within current tech. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/26 "2019-02-21T21:40:35Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Fundamentally _real_ space battle would be glacially boring on-screen. Huge distances where you can’t even see the other guy, fantastic speeds, automated targeting, etc… > > The Expanse does a pretty fair job, but even there, they’re usually WAY too close. > > I think realistic space battle would be much more like the “Hunt for Red October” scenes between the Dallas and the Red October, but without the ships even being on screen at the same time… Not that Iain Banks was a model of hard sci-fi, but the way he handled a scene of ship to ship combat in _Surface Detail_ made it very clear that computers were the only entities that could possibly comprehend the scale and speed of space battles. [SPOILER]I’m thinking of the scene where either Yime or Lededje tags along with the _Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints_ as it’s about to go to battle, spends a few pages getting prepared to handle the fantastic accelerations and radiation fields involved, only to have the battle occur and finish in practically a blink of an eye. The passenger ends up watching a playback of the battle in ultra slow motion, in which FOTNMC took apart the opposing enemy fleet. It was hilariously anti-climatic, and the pace was reminiscent of _Bambi Meets Godzilla_. Don’t fuck with the Culture.[/SPOILER] ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/27 "2019-02-21T22:11:25Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think realistic space battle would be much more like the “Hunt for Red October” scenes between the Dallas and the Red October, but without the ships even being on screen at the same time. It would be even less dramatic than that. Most science fiction battles use directed energy weapons or guided missiles but it really isn’t necessary to use anything that sophisticated. A railgun or Gauss gun firing a hail golf-ball sized ferrous projectiles in a pattern that is statistically unavoidable would destroy any opposing ship, so battles would be a matter of staying at the marginal edge of a pattern while sending out a fusillade of their own projectiles. There’s no hiding or cloaking in space, either; any ship of discernable size with a power system sufficient for interplanetary travel will be radiating heat and stand out against the background of space like a small star in infrared. > [@bump](#): > > I also think that infantry combat would be murderously lethal in such a high tech environment, even by today’s standards. You’d be pretty much dead meat for any automated targeting systems/drones that would have better detection systems than your eyes, and people are still only going to be able to carry so much. I think you’d have to go down the “Starship Troopers” (the book) route of having powered suits, rather than having regular old footborne infantry out there with autonomous drones, assisted targeting systems and guided ordnance, etc… It is unlikely that infrantry combat as we think of it will even exist in a future where autonomous drones and robots are on the battlefield. Powered armor suits are great visuals for anime and film but even enhanced and protected in a suit people are just too delicate and easily disabled or distracted, and of course will become fatigued. There will always be a need for people making decisions (hopefully) and special operations will necessitate people making real time tactical decisions on scene. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/28 "2019-02-21T22:19:07Z")
My opinion? Drones are very much an of-the-moment issue, and thus bad science fiction. Fifty years from now, who’s to say that people won’t be going, “Ugh, what was up with people in the 2010s and their drone obsession?” It’ll be like Asimov having microfilm in _Foundation_. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/29 "2019-02-22T12:43:12Z")
The thing is, space combat with the technology we can foresee is ludicrous and wouldn’t happen because of the unfeasibility of it. People would launch missiles and drones at each other or use mass drivers to delivery kinetic kill projectiles from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away and what would the final benefit be? To even HAVE space combat, you have to assume an advance in propulsion, weapons and shielding technology, so why not make it interesting by making the assumption your story takes place in one of the swings of the pendulum has gone to defense and ECM and other defensive techniques such as powerful electromagnetic shielding that can deflect incoming kinetic kill projectiles make long-range attacks impractical. Then you can give a plausible reason why you have to be within a range that makes beam weapons feasible. Same thing for infantry. Sure, armed drones will be a big thing in the next few decades, but at some point, remotely piloted vehicles will be too susceptible to hacking and signal intercept and jamming to be effective and we’ll be left with the choice of putting human boots directly on the battlefield or trusting lethal weapons to autonomous computer control, which we might hesitate to do. ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/30 "2019-02-22T13:15:21Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I was just reading a couple of reviews, and more than one person compares the books to “The Martian”. It hadn’t occurred to me but it’s apt - an imaginative guy with a dry self-deprecating wit trying to solve highly unusual problems, fairly hard science albeit much more “out there” than just being on Mars and within current tech. It’s a bit of a stretch but I can see how a comparison can be made. ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/31 "2019-02-22T13:20:55Z")
I imagine the ultimate form of space combat will be something along the lines of: Step 1 - Find big ass rock Step 2 - Throw big ass rock at planet Step 3 - Hope people on planet cannot stop big ass rock from hitting planet Step 4 - Run like hell Step 5 - Profit(?) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/32 "2019-02-22T13:34:45Z")
I wonder if this question is like asking, “Are there any modern movies in which armies engage in realistic swordfights?” Well, no, there aren’t, because technological innovations have rendered swords obsolete. In the same way, I suspect that technological innovations including drones (or whatever name you want to give to mobile weapons platforms with semi- or fully-autonomous AIs) will render infantry obsolete. Why put soft slow squishy nearsighted humans on the front line, when you could have a killer robot there instead? ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/33 "2019-02-22T14:02:13Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Fundamentally _real_ space battle would be glacially boring on-screen. Huge distances where you can’t even see the other guy, fantastic speeds, automated targeting, etc… > > The Expanse does a pretty fair job, but even there, they’re usually WAY too close. > > I think realistic space battle would be much more like the “Hunt for Red October” scenes between the Dallas and the Red October, but without the ships even being on screen at the same time. > > Great suspenseful stuff, but not really stirring in the way that say… the battles in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” or “Return of the Jedi” were. > > I also think that infantry combat would be murderously lethal in such a high tech environment, even by today’s standards. You’d be pretty much dead meat for any automated targeting systems/drones that would have better detection systems than your eyes, and people are still only going to be able to carry so much. I think you’d have to go down the “Starship Troopers” (the book) route of having powered suits, rather than having regular old footborne infantry out there with autonomous drones, assisted targeting systems and guided ordnance, etc… You got me thinking how anytime people beam in to a situation or try and breach a choke point they should be murderously mowed down. The first scene of Star Wars? That doorway should be piled high with stormtroopers…UNLESS…you have a Sith Lord leading the charge. ---
**Author:** ![Kelevra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/97f17d/32.png) [@Kelevra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kelevra)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/34 "2019-02-22T16:41:21Z")
The Lost Fleet books by Jack Campbell do a pretty good job of it. They have FTL to get between systems but that’s it. A fleet shows up at the edge of a system, launches solid projectiles at stationary targets and starts driving inwards. 6 hours later they are detected by in-system sensors which rely on the speed of light and the defenders start maneuvering. Ship to ship combat is computer controlled as the fleets pass each other at 0.2c. Afterwards they see who survived and start at each other again. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/35 "2019-02-22T21:00:14Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Not that Iain Banks was a model of hard sci-fi, but the way he handled a scene of ship to ship combat in _Surface Detail_ made it very clear that computers were the only entities that could possibly comprehend the scale and speed of space battles… Joe Haldeman in _The Forever War_, and John Scalzi in his _Old Man’s War_ series, both take the same approach. The crews of military starships are basically just along for the ride once the shooting starts. Unfortunately, none of those books have been made into movies yet. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/36 "2019-02-22T21:58:08Z")
> [@BeagleJesus](#): > > I imagine the ultimate form of space combat will be something along the lines of: > Step 1 - Find big ass rock > Step 2 - Throw big ass rock at planet > Step 3 - Hope people on planet cannot stop big ass rock from hitting planet > Step 4 - Run like hell > Step 5 - Profit(?) The Dark Forest Deterrent. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/37 "2019-02-22T22:46:05Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I wonder if this question is like asking, “Are there any modern movies in which armies engage in realistic swordfights?” > > Well, no, there aren’t, because technological innovations have rendered swords obsolete. > > In the same way, I suspect that technological innovations including drones (or whatever name you want to give to mobile weapons platforms with semi- or fully-autonomous AIs) will render infantry obsolete. Why put soft slow squishy nearsighted humans on the front line, when you could have a killer robot there instead? Already answered. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/38 "2019-02-22T23:10:41Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Already answered. I read that, but find it pretty unpersuasive. When the choice is between having autonomous robotic systems, or having humans, we’re eventually gonna go with the former, because the folks who don’t are gonna die. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2019, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/39 "2019-02-23T00:11:44Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I read that, but find it pretty unpersuasive. When the choice is between having autonomous robotic systems, or having humans, we’re eventually gonna go with the former, because the folks who don’t are gonna die. You say that, but what happens when (not if) the computer systems get hacked or have some sort of fault and they kill their own people, or innocent civilians? Hell, there is a LOT of flack right now about armed military drones and those aren’t even autonomous, just remotely piloted. I think you’re being unrealistic about the human reaction to what is effectively a Terminator. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2019, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935/40 "2019-02-23T02:31:26Z")
In transcendence, there is a military battle near the end that struck me as using interesting tactics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-futuristic-infantry-battles/829935.md?page=3)