I confess that I am a big fan of naval history (the topic of my long ago doctoral dissertation is “Aircraft and the Royal Navy 1908 to 1919”), so I have some bias. Certainly if you work at it, you can deliberately make up science-fiction settings where ground forces and space fighters make sense. Glen Cook (known especially for the Black Company books) wrote a science fiction series (The Starfishers Trilogy) where he crafted the setting to enable spaceships to operate analogously to WW II submarines! You can do that kind of thing for fighters and aircraft carriers, if you really try.
Picking up where we left off, here’s three more issues to consider when launching your space armada.
Jack Campbell in his novels of the “Lost Fleet” presents a scenario of an automated fleet going rogue that represents the fear anyone ought to have of providing broad autonomy to artificial intelligence (think Terminator movies). Yet where automation can be used at less-than-human-intelligence, it will be. You won’t have giant warships with tens of thousands of crew because so much will be automated.
Historically, boarding action depended on the efficacy of whatever counted as “guns” on warships. When rowed ancient galleys had no “guns” but arrows or the occasional ballista/catapult, ramming was often preferred. But most of the time battles came down to boarding, a sort of land battle at sea. When artillery became more destructive in the Age of Sail, boarding was an activity after the enemy had surrendered, owing to artillery damage. Pirates relied on boarding because they didn’t have much artillery, but neither did their victims – and the pirates made sure to have a lot more men in their typically small, fast, shallow-draft ships.
Ramming was necessary when it was virtually the only way that a ship could damage another. But in outer space why would you ram the enemy when you can nail them with a big missile and avoid damage to your ship? Quite apart from the difficulty of hitting an enemy ship (again, space is BIG). Ramming scored hits at sea because water ships are hard to maneuver at the best of times, and all actions were at close quarters. Spaceships will be more maneuverable and combat ranges will likely be very far.
Any mobile platform like a tank or plane or (space)ship is a compromise amongst mobility, offensive capability, and defensibility/survivability. At some point ships that are too big (or too small) won’t compromise well. Ships should be large enough to serve their missions, and no larger.
Games these days are a compromise between realism and what looks cool (on screen and in other media). Game designers and world builders do well to consider both.
Your Turn: How realistic are your space navies?
Picking up where we left off, here’s three more issues to consider when launching your space armada.
Automation
Automated aerial adjuncts to modern fighters are part of all plans for real-world sixth generation fighters. How well this will work out is unknown, but in the long run we may have fighters that have no crew, unlike the starfighters of science fiction. In effect, a starfighter is just a big, guided missile with good onboard intelligence.Jack Campbell in his novels of the “Lost Fleet” presents a scenario of an automated fleet going rogue that represents the fear anyone ought to have of providing broad autonomy to artificial intelligence (think Terminator movies). Yet where automation can be used at less-than-human-intelligence, it will be. You won’t have giant warships with tens of thousands of crew because so much will be automated.
Boarding and Ramming
Given that space is BIG, and that weapons tend to become more destructive over time, boarding is pretty unlikely. You can arrange a setting specifically to enable this (perhaps through Star-Trek like “transporters”). But in any likely situation, no boarding.Historically, boarding action depended on the efficacy of whatever counted as “guns” on warships. When rowed ancient galleys had no “guns” but arrows or the occasional ballista/catapult, ramming was often preferred. But most of the time battles came down to boarding, a sort of land battle at sea. When artillery became more destructive in the Age of Sail, boarding was an activity after the enemy had surrendered, owing to artillery damage. Pirates relied on boarding because they didn’t have much artillery, but neither did their victims – and the pirates made sure to have a lot more men in their typically small, fast, shallow-draft ships.
Ramming was necessary when it was virtually the only way that a ship could damage another. But in outer space why would you ram the enemy when you can nail them with a big missile and avoid damage to your ship? Quite apart from the difficulty of hitting an enemy ship (again, space is BIG). Ramming scored hits at sea because water ships are hard to maneuver at the best of times, and all actions were at close quarters. Spaceships will be more maneuverable and combat ranges will likely be very far.
Bigger is Not Better
Science fiction is littered with “10 mile long spaceships” and other monstrosities. Yes, bigger can be better up to a point - the point at which you’re putting too many of your eggs in one basket and too much of your effort into defending your very large ships. Moreover, very large ships would normally cost more to move around in terms of energy and other supplies. And if you have too few ships, you cannot cover all your responsibilities. If starfighters are a viable danger for large ships, then having a few large ships is less wise than having more but smaller ships. It’s another case where the “rule of cool” may take precedence, that is, super large ships are cool. (Let’s not even talk about the Death Stars.)Any mobile platform like a tank or plane or (space)ship is a compromise amongst mobility, offensive capability, and defensibility/survivability. At some point ships that are too big (or too small) won’t compromise well. Ships should be large enough to serve their missions, and no larger.
Games these days are a compromise between realism and what looks cool (on screen and in other media). Game designers and world builders do well to consider both.
Your Turn: How realistic are your space navies?
