Aircraft Carriers in Space.

[Rover]

Here is an interesting article on space warfare by a Navel Analyist.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/28/aircraft_carriers_in_space

R

 

[ravells]

Aircraft Carriers in Space

A very cool article in which a US Naval War College professor is asked to talk about how SF incorporates wet navy techniques:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/28/aircraft_carriers_in_space

Enjoy!

 

[Whipsnade]

Thank you for linking us to that article. It should be required reading for anyone complaining about the flaws in Traveller space combat.

I'll post a few snippets for the tl;dr ADHD crowd...

Science fiction authors and moviemakers tend to gravitate towards historical models they -- and their audience -- understand. So, sometimes you end up with "submarines in space" -- but a submarine is a vessel designed to hide under the water, which obscures your vision and forces you to use capricious sensors like sonar. Space, on the other hand, is wide open, and any ship putting out enough heat to keep its crew alive stands out from the background, if you have enough time to look. Other times we get "dreadnoughts in space," with gunnery duels like Jutland -- but again, hiding is hard, so this battle should take place at extreme range. Or you get "airplanes in space," which largely ignores that airplanes work in the real world because they take advantage of the fact that air and sea have different attributes.

All of these models are fun, and some work better than others, but they all present space combat in a way that doesn't really fit with the salient attributes of space.

Science fiction navies, however, are often a mishmash of time periods, with all of the "cool bits" mixed together. So, they don't make sense given the assumptions of the fictional universe or the non-fictional universe from which they were drawn.

FP: You seem particularly concerned about the "aircraft carrier in space" concept.

CW: I don't think "concerned" is the right word. Let's call it amused.

 

[aramis]

Interesting, but only a first-order analysis.

Completely ignores the square-cube law and its effects.
Wilfully ignores the effects of FTL drive type aside from the nBSG failure to use the surprise capabilities of the Cylons.

Traveller should be a borderline case for fighters...
Fighters make a LOT of sense under Bk2 and Bk5 - because of the rather unrealistic limits on turrets. Anything which gets you more turrets is a good thing...

The thing is, the Jump Drive isn't terribly fragile, is isn't terribly slow, and you can't effectively mount one on a fighter sized hull...

but if you use a more realistic turret limit (namely, surface area) and a similar limit for radiator space, you quickly find an optimum size for warcraft based upon the interactions of the square-cube law, armor, and weapons fit.

TNE, fighters make a limited amount of sense - and carriers don't - as local defense ships.

 

[aramis]

Merged the thread from Lone Star into this one.

 

[Whipsnade]

Completely ignores the square-cube law and its effects.

He does mention waste heat, once, and mentions the fragility of large ships too, again once.

Wilfully ignores the effects of FTL drive type aside from the nBSG failure to use the surprise capabilities of the Cylons.

He does so on purpose because, as he states several times, ...the results are very dependent on technological assumptions.. He then uses a specific example of an FTL drive known to the interviewer to illustrate how one such technological assumption can have profound effects.

He also says "My answers are necessarily approximations for this interview..." again pointing any details dependency on specific technological assumptions

Traveller should be a borderline case for fighters...

I've argued that for decades now, Wil.

Fighters make a LOT of sense under Bk2 and Bk5 - because of the rather unrealistic limits on turrets. Anything which gets you more turrets is a good thing...

Details determined by technological assumptions, just as Weuve suggested.

There's another important point Weuve makes:

FP: You have a list of factors that real navies must contend with, such as doctrine and acquisitions, that sci-fi navies don't. Can you elaborate?

CW: The full-up list is pretty long, but the different pieces group nicely into six major areas: 1) strategic assumptions, 2) strategic goals, 3) fleet missions, 4) fleet design, 5) force size, and 6) force management. These are the sorts of things one needs to think about when designing a navy. Most science fiction does not cover the whole model; at best it might cover Fleet Missions and Fleet Design in detail, with most other areas only vaguely defined.

HG2 lets us build warships and use them in a very narrow tactical situation, TCS gives us a barebones strategic system with a few operational touches, and PE and IS flesh out the strategic end of things a little more but from an even higher level.

All in all, what we know about the Traveller setting and Traveller space combat barely addresses a few of Weuve's six major areas and studiously ignores the majority of them. It should ignore them, by the way, because it's a game and not a model but many of the imponderables people fret over lay on the model side of things.

 

[madmike]

I quite favour Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series in the way it depicts starship combat.

Coordinating a fleet across the vast distances of a star system is well presented.

 

[aramis]

Bill,

I'd cut him a LOT more slack if he hadn't gone there with nBSG.

 

[Whipsnade]

Bill, I'd cut him a LOT more slack if he hadn't gone there with nBSG.

That's understandable. He does say he's a nBSG fan and he was only pointing out a plot hole as a way to illustrate his point about technological assumptions.

 

[Carlobrand]

...Traveller should be a borderline case for fighters...
Fighters make a LOT of sense under Bk2 and Bk5 - because of the rather unrealistic limits on turrets. Anything which gets you more turrets is a good thing...

Loses it at the higher techs because of the impact of computer differences, but it would be fascinating to play a tech level 9 or 10 war. Heck, I wish someone would publish stats on a First Frontier War Spinward Marches, back when men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

Merged the thread from Lone Star into this one.

Is that why we have two posters with the same link?

add: what is PE and IS?

 

[Whipsnade]

add: what is PE and IS?

Sorry about that Carlo. PE is Pocket Empires and IS is Imperial Squadrons. Both are T4 products.

PE is best described as a paper & pencil, sci-fi version of Civilization and other empire building games. It contains a high level space and planetary combat system.

IS is a paper & pencil, strategic level wargame. It's what Trillion Credit Squadrons probably should have been and is compatible with PE.

Both games use RUs, resource units, for bookkeeping. I continually forget how many MCr are in a RU.

 

[aramis]

Loses it at the higher techs because of the impact of computer differences, but it would be fascinating to play a tech level 9 or 10 war. Heck, I wish someone would publish stats on a First Frontier War Spinward Marches, back when men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

HG does, but Bk2 amplifies the value of more turrets at higher TL.

Nice HHGTTG ref there, too...

Is that why we have two posters with the same link?

When I see two threads on the same topic with the same referenced link, I usually consolidate them. It's a confusion reduction issue, just general good order. When I do, I also leave a permanent redirect.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I'll post a few snippets for the tl;dr ADHD crowd...

Hey! I resemble that remark!