Worlds of Design: The Problem with Space Navies, Part 2

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.
​

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.

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?

 

[payn]

Isn't any war a war for survival? And what about all the human on human wars over the ages, even pretty recently all sides had a pretty callous regard for human life. No nation will state that publicly, but the actions speak volumes... It's not as if when we hit actual space travel, we'll be an enlightened bunch. Especially not when decision makers tend to be political operators and naval command are political assignments...

Not, really no. As development of human society we have moved largely passed scorched Earth type wars. Nukes have been around for quite some time, and despite numerous conflicts, nobody is pressing the button to be done with it. A lot of it has to do with the infrastructure in place, intertwined economies, and disparate political bodies.

What @Laurefindel said.

 

[Ulfgeir]

I can see some uses for boarding-parties, and that would the use of special commando troops, on more or less suicide missions that need to attain a specific object. Such as going inside the hostile station or ship to disable something from inside like the reactor that is powering the ship, or taking over the command-central, or retrieving something or someone from the other party. Instead of blowing everything to smithereens. But it would have to be done covertly or while the enemy is occupied with something else.

So no storming of marines, unless they can do that to take over the whole enemy vessel. Assume the boarders then have both armour and breathing equipment on to make sure they can function in a hostile environmnent with either no air or dangerous gasses.. But they ain't coming in through the regular doors. instead they will breach the hull or teleport in.

 

[Laurefindel]

I can see some uses for boarding-parties, and that would the use of special commando troops, on more or less suicide missions that need to attain a specific object. Such as going inside the hostile station or ship to disable something from inside like the reactor that is powering the ship, or taking over the command-central, or retrieving something or someone from the other party. Instead of blowing everything to smithereens. But it would have to be done covertly or while the enemy is occupied with something else.

So no storming of marines, unless they can do that to take over the whole enemy vessel. Assume the boarders then have both armour and breathing equipment on to make sure they can function in a hostile environmnent with either no air or dangerous gasses.. But they ain't coming in through the regular doors. instead they will breach the hull or teleport in.

I too am in the camp of « boarding parties are still a thing ». I think there can be things important enough in a ship that warrant the risk of boarding and try to capture/rescue. Technology, backdoor access, intel, VIPs, the whole ship obviously.

Now, critical ships would a) be well defended and b) scuttled as soon as loss is imminent, but we can imagine situations/locations/time windows where boarding is not only possible but a tactically optimal option.

As always, this depends on the technologies available, which is even more of a wildcard in sci-fi than magic in fantasy.

 

[Vael]

Completely and utterly realistic, based off historical space navies ...

 

[Von Ether]

The article makes valid points, but seems to assume FTL makes it possible to just warp/drop out of anywhere. Jump gates and how fast ships are in normal space can change a lot of those points. And the jump gates themselves vs planets would be the more likely focus.

Boarding: A bit odd to chat about it only in a historical context when it happens even today, much for the same reasons. Neither ship has onboard cannons and the pirates use faster outboard water craft.

Also technology redefines things all of the time. Boarding was an action to subdue the crew and take over/hijack a ship. In the near future, nations might try to hack a ship or a missile could bring a nanobot "disease" to weaken the hull.

 

[Jeffzilla]

I'm missing the option: "Depends on the story/design..."

There are all kinds of fantasy sci-fi settings I like, for all kinds of reasons. From the Expanse to Farscape, from Renegade Legion to Warhammer 40k, from Honor Harrington to Altered Carbon. Sometimes I love the starship designs, sometimes I love the setting, sometimes I love the story that's being told. It is rare to all three converge, and especially consistently.t

This is exactly right.

The Expanse RPG is one of my favorite tabletop systems, with all of its Newtonian physics and somewhat realistic premise of combat via missiles, railguns, and belt-fed slugthrowers, each effective at a specific range and pretty much worthless outside of that range. Boarding actions pretty much require the other side to either be disabled or submit to being boarded. Fightercraft are pretty much worthless due to the speed and range at which most combats occur. Drones and missiles are essentially two different terms for the same thing, as are AI and weapons control systems. Information and communications warfare are essentially another front in any fight.

But I also love the old D6 Star Wars RPG, with all of its pew!pew!pew! and droids and trusting the force and explosions in outer space. Gravity schmavity! My enemy's technobabble makes them overconfident, while my own technobabble gives me an edge. "Stay on target! Stay... on... target!!!" And did I mention pew!pew!pew!?

 

[Jeffzilla]

As development of human society we have moved largely passed scorched Earth type wars. Nukes have been around for quite some time, and despite numerous conflicts, nobody is pressing the button to be done with it. A lot of it has to do with the infrastructure in place, intertwined economies, and disparate political bodies.

Strategy and tactics are highly situational. If the stakes were high enough; if the strategic objective didn't involve capture, conquest, or occupation; if alternatives were deemed too costly, too difficult, or too impractical; and if consequences didn't seem to outweight benefits, I could very easily envision an autocratic ruler making the decision to nuke a planet to cinders from orbit. I can also envision that decision being made by less dictatorial leaders at a lower threshold, say, because it's the most convenient course of action. No matter how we flatter ourselves, we haven't really evolved so far beyond Rome salting the fields of Carthage just because it feels it can't endure another generational war against an age-old rival. We're fortunate that throughout most of the atomic age there's been a consensus among the world's great powers that they themselves are the primary beneficiaries of a world order where nukes don't fly every time human conflict breaks out. Hopefully that consensus will persist, but it isn't a certainty-- and neither is the continued existence of a world order capable of enforcing it.

 

[payn]

Strategy and tactics are highly situational. If the stakes were high enough; if the strategic objective didn't involve capture, conquest, or occupation; if alternatives were deemed too costly, too difficult, or too impractical; and if consequences didn't seem to outweight benefits, I could very easily envision an autocratic ruler making the decision to nuke a planet to cinders from orbit. I can also envision that decision being made by less dictatorial leaders at a lesser threshold, say, because it's the most convenient course of action. No matter how we flatter ourselves, we haven't really evolved so far beyond Rome salting the fields of Carthage just because it feels it can't endure another great generational war against an age-old rival. We're fortunate that throughout most of the atomic age there's been a consensus among the world's great powers that they themselves are the primary beneficiaries of a world order where nukes don't fly every time human conflict breaks out. Hopefully that consensus will persist, but it isn't a certainty.

Situational indeed. A number of questions make it more or less likely. Are spaceships common enough that you could scuttle one without any impact? Are planets plentiful enough and within reach you could render one inhospitable to human life? Hard to imagine now as I suppose it would have been hard to image plentiful planes 130 years ago.

There there is wiping out an entire culture planet. I cant imagine it would go over any better than it would today (without getting into politics) for the perpetrator.

 

[Jeffzilla]

Situational indeed. A number of questions make it more or less likely. Are spaceships common enough that you could scuttle one without any impact? Are planets plentiful enough and within reach you could render one inhospitable to human life? Hard to imagine now as I suppose it would have been hard to image plentiful planes 130 years ago.

There there is wiping out an entire culture planet. I cant imagine it would go over any better than it would today (without getting into politics) for the perpetrator.

We're really juggling two contradictory ideas in this thread-- how 'real' is our fiction? Science fiction asks a lot of what ifs. It asks us to conjecture, to speculate. Those conjectures may be informed by what we know to be true-- by what is-- but the very concept of science fiction also requires that elements of the story be... well... fictional.

You're quite right in suggesting that there are potential futures where human or alien societies might realistically be constrained from all-out genocidal attacks on major population centers-- restrained by the limits of technology, restrained by notions of morality, restrained by fear of lost intergalactic standing, and so forth-- and it's easy to extrapolate such a future from humanity's past and present.

But there are also potential futures where human or alien societies might realistically be pushed towards all-out genocidal attacks on major population centers-- because the limits of technology push them into such a thing, or because notions of morality force them to make a choice, or because one's intergalactic standing depends upon it-- and it's equally easy to extrapolate such futures from humanity's past and present.

So, yeah, I can see a fictional world where such things could happen. That's how fiction works. And how 'real' those fictional events might turn out to be depends upon how a whole lot of unpredictable and unguessable unknowns unfold between now and then.

I can remember wondering how my deceased grandparent would have responded to 9/11. The truth is that she never could have imagined such a thing. I was alive and well on that day, and I couldn't imagine it either-- and then it happened. So is orbital bombardment impossible? Unlikely? Have we evolved beyond such a thing?

You tell me-- my crystal ball is in the shop.

 

[Laurefindel]

I can remember wondering how my deceased grandparent would have responded to 9/11. The truth is that she never could have imagined such a thing. I was alive and well on that day, and I couldn't imagine it either-- and then it happened. So is orbital bombardment impossible? Unlikely? Have we evolved beyond such a thing?

I think the point is that no; we have not evolved beyond these things and yet, we use our ability to destroy our neighbours with relative restraints. In the future, we shouldn’t expect our instincts of violence to diminish, but it is sensible to think that we’d show the same restraints as we do now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that humans weren’t horrible in the past and aren’t horrible now. I’m only saying while war is really really horrendous, it could be worse.

So to tie in with the premise of the thread, I think that even in a futuristic sci-fi setting, people would still not use the full destructive power at their disposal, and that « lesser » conflicts and battles would still exist despite the ability to mass-drive a planet or nuke it from orbit.