There’s a series of books by Ian Douglas called “The Heritage Trilogy” which takes place in the mid-to-late 21st century. While the books get a little silly with actual alien “gods” visiting earth (and the government’s fighting to control the technology), they do have some pretty thought-out space battles.
At one point, marines are attempting to retake an orbital fueling station. The combatants are suited and using rifles. However, because of the zero-g, the rifles socket into the suit so that the recoil goes through the wielder’s center of gravity. This leads to only a speed reduction, no spinning (unless the rifle isn’t placed just right).
An ambush is set up around Mars orbit to stop a rescue mission to Europa. The enemy is doing “maneuvers”, and has it’s engines pointing right at Earth, which hides the launch of several missles from a railgun. A few days later, the rescue ship passes through the destination point of the missles, which use built-in propulsion to home into the target.
The “hand waving technobabble” of Star Trek and Star Wars is kept to a minimum, although the ratio is definitely higher for the alien tech, which includes a positron generator and an FTL video link to other planets. I’d recommend the series, especially if you’re a military buff.
Well most here have covered some very interesting points (and better than I could). I’ll mention a few common movie misconceptions:
I especially like when spaceships bank in a turn in outer space flicks, as if nobody knows that maneuver is only needed in an atmosphere (space shuttles don’t bank, they spin on their central axis).
Then you see their laser blasts, neat trick as a third party observer, I mean, even in a favorable medium - like smoke - it is difficult to see many lasers unless they are pointed right at you (and even then you would only “see” them for a fraction of a second before you lost your sight). Not to mention the huge amount of power (or time) they would need to “burn” through something.
And since somebody already addressed the (lack of) sound issue I’ll sit back down…
And no one has ever explained to me why, when two ships meet in (most) space movies, they are always situated in the same relative plane (like two cars driving up to each other), what a coincidence that must be!
Read the Larry Niven/Steven Barnes book The Descent of Anansi about a very-near-future space conflict involving Shuttle-type technology.
Niven and Pournelle’s “Mote” stories have already been noted.
I think that any far future space battle depends critically upon the technology. That’s pretty obvious when you think about it. Although there have been a lot of very bad stories about future space war, there’s a lot that has been thought out. Look at:
–Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke
–E.E. Smith’s “Lensman” series (very old stuff, but he obvious put some thought into his battles)
–David Weber’s “Honor Harrington” series (although I suspect strongly that he juggered his future technology to make possible the kind of battles he wrote about).
Strabgely enough, although it’s good hard SF, the Niven-based series The Man-Kzin Wars doesn’t seem to be about the wars themselves, but rather about events peripheral to them.
But would a fire fueled by this extend outside of the spacecraft? I would think it would be purged too quickly (so as to blow itself out), or be possibly dissapated to rapidly to burn effectively out of the ship. Just a thought (maybe not even a correct one).
some of the replies on this thread that talk about the difficulty chasing down another craft or rocket miss the obvious - there is no one in space except the US for the most part. All the US has to do is send a shuttle up there and pick up every one else’s satelites. Its not like anyone else has anything up there to attack. Not sure how the shuttle maneuvers but they fixed the hubble telescope so apparently it can be maneuvered.
As for attacks, it might be more valuable to use the shuttle arm to take a satelite and read its memory banks or programs. Use the arm, pick it out of space, put it in the payload, and then bring it back down to earth for the boys in the Pentagon or Langley to scrutinize. Maybe even reprogram the thing so it relays a copy to US ears, then take it back up and return it where you found it.
If you want to focus on destruction, one obstacle seems to me is that if you shoot up satelites or starships, it creates a lot of shrapenel. You certainly would not want to do that while you are moving toward the target, or vice versa. Also, one ramification of the fact that the target does not burn is that it just sits there with a bullet-hole in it waiting for you to crash into it or vice versa. For this reason, most attacks or dogfights in space will probably occur between two stationary ships. Also, a better strategy would be to use a weapon that merely incapacitates the target in a nonviolent way, such as a magnetic pulse that damages its circuits. Speaking of which, how does space affect magnetic fields? Does a magnet field need a medium to propogate it, as sound does?
Finally, one challenge in space warfare will be to assess your success. The lack of sound and fire will make it difficult to determine if you killed your target. Just imaging being on earth and shooting someone who didn’t bleed. You would have a hard time trying to figure out if they were dead or just not moving.
The problem with this novel is that Clarke insists radiation weapons are short-range only. It’s explained that all radiation is subject to inverse square law, and therefore you have to get really close to use radiation (light) as a weapon. This may be true as a limiting case as distance goes to infinity, but the novel had spaceships getting into visual range to use radiation weapons, which is ridiculous. A later preface blames the mistake on the fact that it was written before the invention of the laser, but he should have known that regardless of a light source, a 1-meter mirror can concentrate power onto a 4-inch spot 100 miles away. Which, it seems to me, is more than enough to use effectively as a a weapon.
Apart from that little problem, I agree it’s an extremely well thought out battle scene. I believe it’s the only battle scene he ever wrote.
Clarke was very much aware of the ability to concentrate power using large mirrors – in Earthlight] itself, you’ll recall that they used an astronomical telescope backwards to send a tight beam signal to a specic area in space. But such concentration requires large mirrors or high powers, and you either have the problem of maintaining and protecting the large mirrors or cooling the small ones. I suspect that a 4 inch spot, in pre-laser days, looked particularly threatening.
** most attacks or dogfights in space will probably occur between two stationary ships. **
stationary compared to what?
To be stationary compared to each other you would need to be in the same orbit-
something that could not happen unless both parties wanted it to, assuming both have fuel.
One: Yes, you obviously need two people to have a fight (re: only the US is in space).
Two: No one is saying this will be taking place next week; it might be taking place in 150 years.
Three: No one said this was taking place in Earth orbit. It could be taking place in interplanetary space.