what if say, weapons were around at the time that could instantly destroy any single entity instantly - something like say a powerful laser that could target through any armor and protection and hit fuel cells - but maybe had a longer charge up time. I.E. deathstar style. Wouldn't a swarm of smaller ships have a better time against this than one large ship that would be destroyed instantly?
@cypresshillmoo No, because only an idiot would have only one weapon system that took a long time to charge. And besides that, fighters still would be useless. The ranges in space combat are literally in hundreds of thousands of miles, the fighters would never get close.
@EnigmaHood if other enemies were getting larger ships, you could counter that by getting a weapon system that could destroy any ship in one shot - the technology for that might take a long time to charge as it would have to be very powerful. And who's saying the fighters would have to get close, they could sit back aswell, but there would be more of them countering the large gun initially designed to counter their large ships in the first place..
@cypresshillmoo It doesn't matter if you have a weapon that takes a long time to charge, and can kill a big ship in one shot. Such a weapon is dumb anyway, just use a casaba howitzer instead (look up what that is). The fighters are still useless. No, the fighters can't sit back like dumbasses, they have much shorter range than the big ship. The big ship can pick them off like flies.
I don't mind about this misconception anyway. Space fighter are there to make a great movie & a great sci-fi tech. And I don't have the balls to piloting one either.
It would be like an old time sea battle :/ Two great ships blasting away at each other.
However fighters could be used like scouts to cover a larger area.
Also smaller ships and fighters could be used as pirate vessels preying on unarmed or lightly armed freighters. Sort of like they do today with speed boats.
Direct combat, maybe if they can find some way to foil sensors or hamper the effectiveness of a laser. Baring that I agree with you as much as I hate to admit it.
@OspreyKnight Scouting a large area would imply that they're faster, which is true of today's fighters when compared to sea ships. That's not the case in space - the bigger you are, the more space you have for fuel, the faster you can go. The hypothetical space fighter might accelerate faster, sure, but it'll run dry very soon, while a large spacecraft could accelerate for days or weeks. And you can't mask your super-hot plasma exhaust against the near-absolute-zero of space.
I generally agree with this point of view as far as strategic warfare is concerned. However, in tactical situations (we can use our imaginations to envision scenarios that would require a 'light touch' in a colonized space), small, nimble craft show their merit.
I suppose it comes down to the right tool for the job.
By looking at things from a purely strategic point of view it can be argued that nuclear weapons render all other equipment useless. I hope you see my point.
Really though like I said, it comes down to what technology develops. We don't know what technology awaits, and what combat methods would be practical depends completely on what technology is available. If I was picturing future space combat, i'd imagine massive vessels firing lasers at one another from tremedous distances, and sending out swarms of torpedo like drones that fire off some kind of energy weapon until they run out of power and then ram the enemy ship in vital places and explode.
The main reason for fighters in space is cost/benefit. Big warships are expensive and need large crews. The loss of one may be to much. I space battle as a race to kill the others fighters first. when you have lost all your fighters the big ships run away.( see the later Honor Harrington books)
@awells4444 No, fighters don't make sense from a cost/benefit pov because they all die. Doesn't matter how cheap a useless weapon is, if it's useless then it costs too much.
I generally agree with your assessment, but I think tactics could vary greatly depending on what technology is developed in the future. If there are energy shields, bigger = more power to the shield = better. If there are no shields, even tiny ships could do severe damage to a larger ship's metallic armor. Therefore a large group of fast moving attack vessels might slip past the laser defenses of a large ship and cripple it. They wouldn't necessarily have to be fighters, they could be unmanned.
@hzuiel They won't slip past laser defenses, or any other defenses. They would die before they got even remotely close. Whatever armor the battleships have, the fighter would have even less making it much more vulnerable. And no, they are not faster nor more agile than a battleship.
@EnigmaHood It's less about speed or agility, and more about hitting a very small target that's moving quickly, while you're also moving quickly, on the fly, and there are hundreds of them closing in on your massive ship. Sure you'd hit lots of them, but even super computers would have trouble keeping up with the trajectories of a bunch of small vessels like that. Like I said, they don't have to be fighters, they could be the equivalent of a torpedo, or a swarm of tiny unmanned drones.
@hzuiel That's the point of Enigma's video though isn't it? That these sort of things needn't be fighters. In the end if you're going to use ballistic weapons then might as well piss lead at them rather than waste men and machines.
@hzuiel That sounds like something out of WW2 and wouldn't apply today, much less in space. Against modern point and short-medium range defenses. you couldn't possibly take a wing of fighter-bombers and attempt to strafe a warship, unless it was a suicide attack. That would only be even more so in space combat if you introduce directed energy weapons that don't even allow evasive maneuvers.
To add to your concept(s), with which I generally agree: The lack of medium in which to engage a battle is enough reason to not even attempt it in first place. It is the reciprocal to attempt battle in an infinite cube of tungsten carbide. The physcal dynamics of both examples are so ridiculously prohibitive in that you'd have infinite resistance or infinite lack of resistance. Most folks can't even fathom the consequences of being hit with simple bottle-rocket in a gravity-free vacuum.
While some of points of this video sound solid, like comparison of space fighter with speedboats, others are less so. For example, the assumption, that in the future, lasers will be more effective weapons. The laser beam is not very effective at long range weapon. The greater the distance, the more spread, (and thus weaker the beam becomes). Also, lasers are thermal damage weapon, which means that the same thermal coating that is used on modern day spacecraft is good anti-laser armor.
@AntKalgin In the future lasers WILL be more effective weapons. Trends in technology indicate that this is so. There is no limit to how powerful a laser can be, you could in theory have the entire energy output of a galaxy in a laser beam. That's the point, they have incredible potential. Lasers have ENORMOUS range, but yes the greater the range, the more the beam is dispersed, but they have greater range than particle beams. There are counter measures to all weapons, pointing out...
..one counter measure to one weapon, and then insinuating that the weapon is ineffective as a result, is stupid. Body armor reduces the effectiveness of bullets, does that make bullets useless? No. Don't make dumb arguments. It's always a race between whether your offensive power is greater than their defenses. All weapons, kinetic projectiles, missiles, particle beams, and lasers will be used in space warfare because they all have strengths and weaknesses.
Even if stealth doesn´t exist in space doesn´t automaticaly mean that everything that CAN be detected WILL be detected. No matter how advanced your sensors are, they´ll always have limited resolution. Which means you can´t detect everything everywhere all the time. For large distances you´ll have to focus your sensors on a small area of space. But you don´t know which direction the fighter is comming from so it has a chance you ´ll detect it when it´s too late. Small one perhaps, but still.
@dejmald No, no, no and no. First how did the fighter get to where it is in the first place? No matter where it came from, it came from something that is more detectable than it is. If it came from a planet, then its burn to escape the gravity well is easily detectable. If it came from a space station, then the space station is detectable. You know exactly where it is coming from. You then scan in that direction, and you find the fighter that can't hide anyway.
Then you presume that the fighter magically knows where the bigger ship is. If the bigger ship doesn't know where the fighter is, the fighter with its inferior sensors does not know where the bigger ship is either. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If the fighter knows where the bigger ship is, the bigger ship DEFINITELY knows where the fighter is.
@EnigmaHood It can for example come from a ship that is on the other side of a planet/sun and then use the gravity to adjust it´s course and propel it towards the ship. It can wait for a ship powered down and hidden in an asteriod field. Once again you assume that your sensors will detect everything even with their limited resolution.
@dejmald You're so fucking dumb. Gravity (like magnetism) doesn't do free work. If work is being performed, there is heat produced as well. Your dumb idea wouldn't work anyway. How does your ship know where the enemy is? You are both arguing for stealth, while at the same time knowing EXACTLY where the enemy is. Don't be an idiot. And yay, you're going to coast for several months/years/decades towards the enemy using gravity on the other side of the solar system. Brain. Use it.
@dejmald Despite limited resolution you are forgetting one other thing. Your ship is not flown by sight alone. That would be silly in space. You will likely have any form of 'landmark' to guide you at such extreme ranges. Which leads to active sensors to guide you. An active system generates a detectable signal meaning it will be registered somewhere by someone. Even now Subs and stealth planes use passive where they can to but still have to use active sensors to naviagte effectively.
I am entertain by a fantasy space battle. The application of manned rated spaceships had a lot of think tanks working out proposals during the cold war. Ballistic missiles developed faster than rocket planes... but they subscribed to a strategic doctrine of 'one mission' utility... but image the kamakazis being autonomous guidance hardware and not pilots. NASA is currently pursuing more utility for its space mission hardware; military practicality is years off the planning for such tools.
True, you can't hide a spaceship's movements (unless it's a drifting cold hulk) thus STRATEGIC surprise is impossible to achieve, however you can use lasers, EMP bursts, decoys,... and multiple attackers/angles of approach to dazzle, blind, and generally try to confuse your enemy on a TACTICAL scale. Considering distances and extreme velocities even a temporary/partial sensor degradation will make a difference. Battle is always more about tactics and counter-tactics than about technology itself.
@EtiamSiOmnesEgoNon Decoys won't work. Anything that could successfully fool your enemy into thinking it's a real ship would cost as much as a real ship anyway.
@EnigmaHood Plus it's still not stealth anyway. That kind of active jamming and general electronic warfare will alert people to your presence even if they can't directly pinpoint it they know something is on its way and will make preparations for an attack.
Personally I also think that fighters won't have a place is space warfare of reality, but I really like them in sci-fi.
Why? Because they're great story telling devices- you can have a single heroic pilot doing heroic things, a wing of fighters sacrificing themselves etc etc. So you can have characters in your story and give them something awesome to do that changes the story itself.
Sorry if this thought was brought up repeatedly, but I didn't had time to read through it all :)
@MasterGravitron This was already brought up, it won't work. The ship still has an engine that produces heat, and your cold gas thruster will produce such little thrust that you might as well not move at all. Not to mention it's still subject to adiabatic cooling, so you'll be detected anyway.
One idea has occured to me here. There is one use for fighters I can think of. Not necessarily ethical but practical. Think of the Wraith in SG Atlantis. They basically throw darts towards the city as a means of tying up the defenses in order to allow boarding parties a window to exploit. True this could be achieved with drones but why waste expensive computers and systems when throwing a meatsack in a cockpit would be likely cheaper and a lot easier to replace? Just strap a bomb to it and Boom!
So if you have two large vessels engaging and they are both in range of each other and one launches fighters which do you enage first the fighters which you can take down with lasers but end up being wiped out by that vessel's own weaponry.
Or the other Vessel but indoing so leave your self open for an attack run that will destroy your laser turrets (that will have less protection than your vessel so they can track fast moving targets) while still taking fire from the other vessel.
What's interesting is that this is essentially the view (intentional or not) that Star Trek takes. The small shuttlecraft are simply used as small personal transport mostly, although they do have phasers. When you see a big fight scene it is nearly always with the big ships.
@smartroadbiker Maybe, but definitely not intentional. The only Star Trek media I've seen was the latest movie, which was geared more towards mainstream audiences rather than "trekkies". But don't let that make you believe that Star Trek battles are realistic, they are anything but realistic, but that's a different video.
There is one advantage a smaller craft would have over a larger craft in space - less heat output, and thus harder to detect. Not impossible, but harder. You could use them in a scenario such as the Death Star sequence in Star Wars - they'd be able to get in closer to a large vehicle than a similarly-large vehicle, and maybe close enough to launch a crippling attack before getting massacred. Of course, you'd have to balance firepower vs. heat signature, but that's implementation over concept.
@vicroc4 The only advantage the fighters were supposed to have had over the Death Star was that the station had been primarily designed to fight of large scale attacks from battleships and fleet strikes. The idea was that a small craft may just slip through the cracks. Not undetected but get close enough to do what they eventually did. But then what stupid flaw in something so large anyway...
Certainly television or movie depictions of space environments are often skewed for drama. Knowing all that what entertainment examples are the least offensive in terms of the physics? How does the recent Battlestar Galactica fair?
@Wertak68 2001 A Space Odyssey was pretty accurate. I never saw Battlestar Galactica before but I've seen clips of their space fighters doing some maneuvers that seemed fairly faithful to real physics...
Stealth in space a misconception? Definitely make that. There seem to be several ways to appreoach making stealth. This was my big reasoning for explaining to myself space fighters, Also, massive ships would still need to worry about inertia, right? They couldnt swing around like the fighters, say in B5 or BSG, without tossing everyone, and everything, inside. Inertial dampeners, a la Star Trek and Star Wars seem to be an answer, but then... could that be another misconception in itself?
@naponroy There are no ways to approach making stealth in space. It won't work, but yes I will make about stealth in space one day. The rest of your concerns have already been addressed.
@naponroy When a Big Battleship in space will turn, it would not toss around it's people, because a battleship generates it's own gravity, (by centrifugal rotation etc). In Essence a Space is always rotating, so it is in perpetual rotation.
Secondly any Ship in space has to be huge, to counteract the effects of Radiation, Micro gravity etc, Please note that it is thought that rotating Spaceships which are huge, is the only real possibility.
First id like to say that war as such is primitive means of solving an argument, and to my mind its absurd that advanced civilizations always wish to dstroy humans. it makes no sense. 2.nd if there would be such an incident in outer space between equal rivals, then most likely the outcome would be determined by the knowlage one side holds ower another. Anyway, if there would be an spacefighter fight then to my mind most likely the numbers would determine the outcome.
@ivarish War is not a means to solve an "argument". War is conducted to further the goals of the entity waging it. Attack/defense is a natural aspect to any lifeform. Any lifeform that doesn't have a concept of attack or defense, will be killed an entity that does, and thus go extinct. There is certainly nothing "primitive" about it. If a civilization has "outgrown" violence, they will inevitably be annihilated by a civilization or entity that hasn't.
Incredible! So you essentially propogand violence, cuz if you wouldnt use it you would be defeated by some 1 who does use it. This sounds right out of caveman, maybe dark age mentalaty at best. You see, at a certain level of knowlage comes the capability to solve problems very differently. i would love to disscuss this matter in more than 500~ characters at a time, sorry for the offtopic ive started here, m-by next video will discuss why pokemon cant be real. enjoy scify
@ivarish I am not, but you are letting your morals get in the way of reality.The fact remains that violence is used by entities to further their own interests. That is reality. So while you try to solve problems "very differently" another entity that doesn't care, and is more powerful than you will come by and destroy you. And you can whine, and call them "cavemen" right up until the point of where they will kill you. Name calling won't matter. You will be dead and they will be alive.
@EnigmaHood So maybe we should develop something that would prevent the incedent from happening. wouldnt that be the greatest weapon of all time? i have no clue why i wish to perpetuate this discusion but i will go with the flow and try to continue. ApocaliptiC2266 thats my skype add me if you would like to continue this debate. i believe it could turn out beneficial for maybe not only both of us.
@ivarish Like what? Mind control? The only way to prevent it would be to influence the mind of the other entity. And yes, that would be a weapon. War is conducted not (usually) for the simple purpose of killing, but to use violence to coerce the other entity to do what you want them to do. Sometimes this can be achieved without firing a bullet, but the mere threat of violence is enough to coerce as long as the threat is credible.
This works because the enemy is afraid of death, and believes you can administer death while taking minimal casualties of your own. However this is all contingent upon whether the enemy is actually afraid of death. If they are unafraid of death, or do not believe you can defeat them, they will not be coerced into doing what you want them to do. So if you had some device that could influence the enemy's mind and got them to do whatever you want, that WOULD be the greatest weapon of...
...all time. But it's really no different than using violence to achieve your goals. The only difference is, it's a LOT easier, works against enemies who are unafraid of death/not afraid of you, and you don't have to kill anyone. The last difference hardly matters though, because you can always kill them later if you wanted to.
Good video I agree with the points. But for some sick reason i want energy shielding to be come a reality so that space fighters can exist... I got problems i Know.
smaller spacecraft would cost less, and be more expendable than larger ones. Tacticians will require these for missions with low survival rates / high risk. Scouting and patrols are examples. If one shot from a laser can kill ANY ship, why not send in a swarm of cheap, small units instead of a capital ship?
@28crucis One shot from a laser WOULDN'T kill any ship you idiot. But if it does weapon's grade damage to a battleship, it would kill any fighter in one shot, making those fighters even more useless than they are. Even without lasers, they are useless though.
Another misconception in regards to space ships is Newtonian space flight mechanics. All too often in movies they'll turn off the forward thrusters and stop on a dime because the acceleration is 0. However, according to the Newtonian flight model, if you disable the acceleration you continue to move at the previous velocity till you counteract the motion with reverse force.
lol i liked this video just for the additional info section. This guy has done his research and i fuckin lolled reading all the trolls in the comments. haven't even gotten to the actual video yet
I advise all of you to read Star Carrier about a space carrier named "America" and its fighters. Besides the story, they deal with REAL mechanics and physics as far as turning, acceleration, deceleration, and debris. They reveal the mightiest weapon of the future to be....SAND and DEBRIS...loosed at near light speed velocity. They basically demonstrate that capital ships and fighter size space vessels with never even see each other typically and would launch attacks from outside solar systems.
Space fighters for the same reason that you still need the army ... all things said, you still need boots on the ground. That means troop transports and that certainly means escort craft, aka, space fighters. Not every fight is going to be to the death ... sometimes you may actually want something on the enemy ship, if not the enemy ship itself.
Ok you know what, I'm done. If you are going to censor which of my posts make it through you just lost all your credibility. Go ahead and censor this one to hide your true colors. You know that you couldn't debate on level terms. Gotta wonder how many other valid posts didn't make the EnigmaHood filter. This is me "losing my tolerance and spanking a dumbfuck." Out
Sure stealth is not a viable option...if all of your sensors are working correctly. With the rise of electronic and cyber warfare an craft does not even need stealth. An electronic attack aircraft can navigate a SAM infested zone without a stealthy profile/paint job. With cyber warfare your sensors can potentially be spoofed or completely offline. There goes your precise targeting system.
@ccccombobreakerrr Even if you could spoof his sensors (which you can't), how can you do it when he's hundreds of thousands of miles away and already detected you?
@EnigmaHood Who says you can't? Anyway your ship/colony WILL be connected to a network which can be hacked. Or someone can infiltrate the facility or coerce an employee to plant a program months before the craft even arrives.
@ccccombobreakerrr Lol yeah right. I'm sure in the future hacking will be as much of a problem it is now, but hacking to shut down sensors? Are you serious? Hack to shut down the rocket's thrusters and weapon systems while you are at it lol. Come on man, think a little. :)
@EnigmaHood Haven't you been keeping up with the news lately? Iran is claiming to have hacked the GPS (sensor system) in one of our drones. Although the incident is still shrouded in mystery it's not as laughable as you make it out to be.
@ccccombobreakerrr I think it's laughable that you are trying so hard to make stealth in space work. You don't need to have "hackable sensors" in the first place is what I was making light of. You don't even need to have very sophisticated sensors at all in order to detect ships.
@Both guys. Okay I just came across this thread whilst browsing the comments. Hacking a computer system is not stealth evening if you are successful in corrupting the system to display a false image on the readouts the system is still actually detecting you. Even if you were to remain hidden your data stream no doubt uses a carrier wave type beam or signal which is detectable and traceable. I am with Enigma on this one. Hack or no hack something is still pinging you regardless.
I'll not butcher with a mis-quote but a rather wise man once said something about a technology sufficiently advanced would always be indistinguishable from magic. ...i.e. get your panties out of that bunch.
@Navyboy682000 And another wise man said, "Quoting trite, meaningless statements other people made instead of formulating meaningful arguments is the mark of an idiot". And that wise man is me, and you're an idiot. ....i.e. you're blocked.
What about small engagements? The coast guard doesn't bring in a destroyer for every smuggler trying to deliver goods across borders. And we don't line our coasts with guns. If you put weapons on your colony, what happens when they are taken out by the intruders' own weapon system. You only have small vessels left while the ship travels form its patrol route to the colony.
@EnigmaHood Ok I'm confused here. What is the difference between a weaponized space ship and a space fighter? Is it the "wings"? Space fighters can be any shape you want them to be.
@ccccombobreakerrr I don't know. The size I suppose. Most space fighters are rather tiny compared to even a small space ship. But specifically, how Hollywood, video games, TV shows, etc depicts space fighters.
I find it disturbing that people defend space planes. Goes to show how incredibly unschooled the mass majority of the world is. And we go on about going to colonize the space...i am appalled by this. The great fathers of physics would die again by heart attack should they see the general state of things going on in school and beyond.
@pbz313 Um, there is no form of energy that is not on the electromagnetic spectrum. Everything from sound waves to cosmic radiation is on the spectrum, unless you manage to stash a singularity in your back pocket. And, even that is detectable in space,
Dogfighting has been dead before multiple times in history. Its even being considered dead now but it keeps popping up from equipment/weapon reliability issues and political restrictions on weapons (WMDs). They may treaty against your all powerful laser because of the chance of missing or the ship you just turned into debris can reflect the beam towards a nearby colony. Then you've got ships hiding line of sight behind or in front of colonies just like insurgents hiding behind non combatants.
@ccccombobreakerrr Out of all the weapons that can be used in the future, the laser is the last thing I would expect to be restricted (if there are any restrictions at all which there probably won't be, nor are they being considered in this video). For space warfare even a nuke is considered to be a rather meager weapon. Something as simple as throwing a stupid rock at a planet is far more devastating.
@EnigmaHood I agree that a massive object is much more devastating to a planet, however, the colony I had in mind would be something space based and easy to circle behind. Regardless of political restriction, a security force would not fire near their own multi-quadrillion dollar colony. They would need to infiltrate requiring transports and escorts for those transports.
@ccccombobreakerrr Possibly. Although I'm not really seeing how space fighters are useful in this situation, nor do I see why lasers would be restricted. It's dangerous to fire any weapon in the situation you are describing. In fact, I think lasers would be the best weapon to use since they are the most accurate, they can be mounted on missiles if needed for indirect fire. I'm not sure how the enemy got so close to your own colony in the first place either.
@ccccombobreakerrr And, if it's easy for the bad guys to circle behind, it's easy for the good guys to circle behind. Assuming, of course the "good" guys aren't the Titans from Zeta Gundam and blow the colony away as well.
@williamskidfears Haven't you ever chased someone around a table before? Works in 3D too. If I were a ship captain I wouldn't be dumb enough to stay put. D U H back at ya.
Really depends on what your objective is. If you want to completely destroy your opponent your argument holds. Say you want to steal cargo or recover hostages you still need to dock to transfer and they may not surrender even with a crippled ship. Now you're in close quarters in internal and external infantry combat. If the ship is large, you may need close in support to infantry by space fighters. May be as small as an exoskeleton or the size of an f22 depending on the payload it needs to carry
@ccccombobreakerrr Possibly. But I think keeping the ship in orbit and blasting things from above would be better. Especially if the lasers can deal weapons grade damage with pinpoint accuracy. Maybe if your space fighters could transform into a ground attack unit or some shit I could see it being useful. But I'm not sure why it needs to be able to operate in space though.
Enigma, I like your dissertation, but one minor nitpick. You fail to mention that guided missiles(and, possibly UAVs) have largely superseded carrier aviation as the primary naval weapon, as demonstrated during the Six-Day War and the Falklands conflict.
Personally, the space fighter trope has endured for the same reason as the big battleship trope; the former is a fanboy's personal dildo, and the latter as an expression of penile inadequacy.
@williamskidfears I can see something like a drone missile boat happening. It would make more sense as primarily a satellite that armed with nukes that is kept in orbit around planets.
@EnigmaHood As an orbital weapons platform for either orbital defense...or orbital bombardement, definitely. Ship-launched drones armed with lasers or submunitions(like the "missiles" from the 2300AD RPG, or the Wasps from the Night's Dawn trilogy), as a force multiplier for the launching platform, especially with AI brains, maybe.
Granted, they'd still die like fighters, but they're only drones, after all.
keep in mind that the space fighters depicted in star wars use "repulsors" which push against some sort of field to project themselves in the desired direction. now if we applied the same type of repulser action to a jet engine, or number of small jets strategically placed on the craft to push it exactly in that direction, perhaps a sort of convex jet engine (or collection of small jet engines) could do the trick. put that through an interface that a pilot can control, and that could work.
First off, SW repulsors, being antigrav technology, only work in atmosphere or in orbit, as they have to have a gravity well to push against. Once in space, they have to use ordinary thrusters and ion engines to maneuver.
Second, true, you could build your fighter with jets all around, to cancel thrust in one direction and thrust in another, though that won't leave much room for weapons, it will eat up your fuel and the battleship's already nailed you seven ways from Sunday.
Also, a small fight is more economical only in large numbers. Sure one can't do that much damage, but a few hundred (just like in WW2 and so on) can do a great deal. As smart as you are, part of science fact is to have an imagination. You base your opinion on what you know now. Which is valid. BUT, you cannot argue on the concept of the future unless you are actually there. This makes your argument the say as ours: Speculation. And you KNOW just as much as we do.
@hectoman Large numbers of fighters are useless if they all die, which they will. I can't predict the future, but one thing I can predict is that fighters will ALWAYS be useless because they is absolutely no advantage to using them. NONE. And don't say, "DURR, THEY HAVE GRATER ACCELATION THO. BURP". Yeah, I already addressed that a million times. Actually I already addressed ALL of your arguments before, I just felt like replying to yours to add another to the pile. -_-
Let's start with the basics: Yes, there is no stealth in space. That's why we can detect every asteroid collision that happens within our solar system. What, we can't do that? But doesn't a collision of THAT magnitude create energy? Not enough to be detected. Then how do we know an energy signature can be detected from Pluto? Also, here on Earth, we haven't effectively weaponized lasers. At all. We're still working on it, mind you. But in a real time combat situation: nope.
@hectoman No. Detection works on heat primarily. If you just have an asteroid in space, you can still detect it with radar, but the asteroid has no heat signature because it doesn't have a reactor. Every ship has a reactor, and produces heat, and no there is no way of masking it. And no, not producing heat is a violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. And no, you can't break it. If you can, then that means you can make waterfalls flow backwards. As for lasers, they CAN be weaponized
That's the point. You can potentially put the entire energy output of a galaxy into a laser. There's nothing in physics that makes that impossible. So their potential as weapons is very high.
@NiamOfAsuras That's like trying to keep a fire cool with ice. What happens? The ice heats up, and melts. By trying to cool something else, heat transfers from the hot environment to the cold environment and gets hot. You can not destroy heat. All you can do is transfer it. Stop trying to fight the 2nd law, it'll never work.
@EnigmaHood I thought the second law was the amount of entropy in the universe can only increase. Or are you going with numbering what used to be known as the Zeroth Law to the First Law?
@williamskidfears That's right, so that means efficiency is never 100%, which means waste heat is always produced, and it means anything cooling something hot will become hotter itself. That's why a space ship can always be detected no matter what you do to try and keep it cool.
@EnigmaHood What about BAE systems "adaptiv" combat camouflage? I'm just saying, i've seen vehicles mask their infrared, im wondering why that wouldnt work in space.
@NiamOfAsuras Space is three degrees above absolute zero(or 3K), on average. The temperature of anything designed for human habitation is 285K. None of the infared countermeasures designed to work in a planetary atmosphere will work in space.
@hectoman Yes, we can detect asteroid collisions with(at the very least) visual and radio telescopes, These, coupled with computer control, can do a deep sky survey of the entire System in an amazing amount of time.
maybe lasers could be defended against via mirrored armer- might not literally reflect the thing back at the enemy (maybe) but presumably dispurse it out enough to survive little longer- of course if laser light has no distence limet in space you could have a solar collector orbit the sun and relay energy via lasers to charge batery stores for mass use. i see docs of people used lasers to push suff so same relay sets could push stuff about the solar system (how to get it back??)
@itchytastyurr Please read the annotations. Mirror armor DOES NOT WORK IN REAL LIFE. Mirrors can reflect dispersed beams of light, but it will not work against a collimated beam of light. Lasers have range limits, the further the beam travels, the more dispersed the beam will be, and thus lose its effectiveness. Yes lasers can potentially be used to wirelessly transfer energy via the photo electric effect. And yes, what you are describing is called ablative laser propulsion.
I would point out that line of site is still applicable in space so therefore unless you wish to recon around a planet or in system with 5000 people per ship smaller recon vessels are required thus recon vessels unless escorted become vulnerable to enemy fighters
@KIA0Red There is no where to hide in space. A satellite (armed or unarmed) at most might be used to observe the far side of a planet. An escort is pointless. Just keep the big ship at a safe distance and kill anything that shows up.
I don't think there will be any specific weapons in the future. Every weapon can be countered. Especially lasers. Likely you will see a combination of lasers, kinetic weapons, missiles, and drones. You may even continue to see chemical based munitions if for no better reason than to have a redundant weapon system that can operate with minimal power requirements. I think lasers will have a role, but I do not see them as being dominant.
@renynzea I feel a lot of people missed the point I was making about lasers. I wasn't trying to imply that lasers would make other weapons obsolete. If they can make a laser that can damage a battleship, it would rip a fighter to pieces because it is not as well armored as the battleship. But even without lasers, fighters are still useless, lasers just make them even more useless (if that's possible).
@EnigmaHood That assumes no one comes up with a material that can scatter or reflect all forms of visible light. Odds are such a material will be discovered, long before we have epic space battles. I think the real fallacy is that we will use manned fighter craft at all. The future is drones. Recent wars have already proven that. Only time I can see a fighter being useful is if the enemy has some form of ECM preventing drones from being deployed.
@renynzea No. I even said in the annotations that mirror armor will NOT work. And if you want to hand wave some magic armor that can do it anyway, I can hand wave adamantium armor that is invincible. I don't disagree with robots, I think that's the future anyway. Actually I would question if humans exist at all in the future.
@renynzea Add an AI to a drone, or even a non-AI computer with a menu of options to pursue when engaging the enemy, and ECM won't be an issue. Call it fire and forget.
My best argument for space fighters is simply that people use them in combat because it's cool, in a sort of ritualized feudal combat in space. And this has happened with earth civilizations before, with Samurai and Knights doing so even to the point of being defeated by those who didn't behave in such manner. Tradition is a strong influence on some people, so I can imagine something like the Malaya campaign in space just because of traditional hubris.
@Warsie But, as EnigmaHood said in his vid, the fighter and the battleship in space will be at the same "height" relative to one another, or rather both the battleship and the fighter can move almost anywhere within the three dimensions of space. Add long-range firepower to the equation, and fighters will be obliterated before they come close enough to hit their targets.
as I said, the best excuse for space fighters is 'people do it because it's cool and HONORABLE' which is what Samurai and European knights did before they were wiped out by better tech
@pbz313 .... no. It won't work. By trying to convert EM radiation into something else, you still produce waste heat in the process. When will you guys learn? Stealth in space is impossible. The harder you try to mask it, the worse it becomes.
My best argument will just be that this happens in battlefields full of 'hot' wreckage. Though that is rare enough presumably not to be a normal tactic, and littering a solar system with reactors or whatnot beforehand might be annoying to some.
@Warsie Won't work either. Drifting wreckage, hot or cold, can easily be distinguished from ships that are maneuvering, simply because their engine burns can be spotted in spite of anything else which might be radiating. Even with the telescopes we have now, and the computing equipment we have now which allows them to do deep sky surveys in relatively short periods of time.
I briefly scanned the comments because in all honesty I am not about to read all 448 in depth. If this has already been covered then apologies.
I know this is theoretical physics but would a vehicle with a system able to drop itself out of phase with this 'dimension' for a brief moment become undetectable? Admittedly its actually drop 'out' and drop 'in' may be detectable but the main purpose is served. Namely to strike your opponent before they can react. By the time you are detected boom.
@Achillesfour Well what you are suggesting is complete fiction. But it seems like your fictional device is better served defensively. Whenever a weapon is about to make contact with your ship, just phase out of reality and you're invincible. But like I said, this is just fiction.
@EnigmaHood Least until you pound the area where the phasing ship was with enough energy to overload whatever was keeping the ship out of phase and bring the ship fully back into spacetime to blow it hell and gone. And, oh yeah, since the ship is out of phase, it's not likely that it can be able to maneuver....
@williamskidfears There was a computer game called Star Control 2 (or maybe it was 3) where there was a game mode called hyper melee in which space ships duke it out and one of them was equipped with a phase shift thing, similar to what achiles was talking about. It was good vs. ships that had slow firing weapons that did a lot of damage, but sucked vs. fast shooting ships that could spam it to death.
@EnigmaHood Interesting, though I would think the rate of fire would make little difference, versus the amount of energy delivered, unless of course, the phase shift field could easily dissipate the slower shooting rounds more easily than the faster firing ones.
@williamskidfears What I also had in mind, though not the same thing as a phase shift gizmo, was the black globe from the Traveller RPG, which, when raised, would soak up anything thrown at it, but the ship employing it couldn't see, thrust or use its weapons, unless it flickered the globe on and off.
@EnigmaHood True, however if the ship is 'out of phase' it can't attack. Invincible or not your weapons are useless unless you drop back into 'normal' space. My idea is total fiction but then we are dealing with science fiction here are we not? The idea was served from the many theories of other dimensions and realities. That said even out of phase one can be vulnerable. The concept of 'phased weaponry' (PPG in B5 and the ever lovable Phaser) means I just lost my own argument!! \o/
@Achillesfour Short answer: No. Even that will create spatial and temporal distortions easily detectable by passive sensors, as you would have to warp spacetime itself to make the all the properties of matter(length, height, depth, and time)not be there.
I only have one question: What sort of "Space Combat" are we talking about here?
Do we mean "Deep Space" inter-planetary distances where the Galactica and Star Fleet roams? Or do we mean something closer, within a planet's gravity field where Orbital Mechanics have more bearing?
Great vid Enigmahood! Out of interest have you played through the Mass Effect Games? I have always considered their science to be fairly well thought out. To them a Fighter is not necessarily faster than a big ship but does accelerate quicker and turn faster (would this be correct?). This allows for swarms (they dont mention specifics but it is implied to be well over 50 at a time) of them to nip round the back of big ships and hit them in the ass with missiles if needs be!
@hatchleader1 It would be able to accelerate faster briefly, but it wouldn't be "faster". They would run out of propellant before they could do anything useful, and they would be picked off like bugs before they could get close enough anyway. And yes I've played Mass Effect 2. Something like the Normandy could be useful (assuming it was a space plane), but wouldn't stand a chance vs. a battleship. It would just be a troop transport, transferring marines from plane to planet.
Space fighters are not a staple feature in science fiction. They are a staple feature in space fantasy. Misconception number 16: Star Wars as science.
There is also the problem of mixing weapons strong enough to harm a large ships and fighters. One set would be useless against the target o f the other, so you´d have to compromise on the number of weapons capable of shooting a fighter, etc. Of course, it would be possible to simply shoot the carrier from a long distance and be done with it. Smart, agile missiles would be way better than fighters, specially if you could make them on the ship. Startrek got it right by ditching fighters.
@Pierribr >"Startrek got it right by ditching fighters."
Actually, there were Federation Attack Fighters. They were heavily used in the Dominion Wars. Each had at least 3 torpedo launchers and 2 phaser emitters.
But before the war they were civilian Federation support courier ships not used by Star Fleet :/
@RingSight91 They were used by the Maquis, though, because they were hard up for weapons, and Starfleet apparentally followed their lead, cause they were hard up for ships versus the Dominion.
@Pierribr In space, all weapons would be dual-purpose. There would be no need to build dedicated point defense weapons and dedicated ship-killing weapons, as, say, a laser, especially if it lases fast enough, would be equally effective against ships and missiles.
There is one thing you got wrong. You are assuming that our current laws of physics are right. You dont know it, and you cant say we wont find out that they are very wrong in the future. Just look at the FTL neutrino, for instance. At one point, we say nothng can travel faster than light and then BAM, that´s not true aymore (wich means it was never true to start with). The only thing we can say is that, given our current knowledge, steath in space is impossible. But we cant say it will alway be.
@EnigmaHood I apreciate your niceness. But I did read everything before commenting, and my argument is not the same as the one you adress there. In fact, it is a counter argumet to your claim that saying that the laws of physics have been broken in the past is a false assumption. What WE call "laws of physics" are a mere aproximation, and what we believed true in the past have changed. It WILL happen again, and again. That´s a true assumption.
@Pierribr No, obviously you didn't read it. You're right, they are approximations, but that doesn't mean you can violate them. And if you want to insist that you can violate them, there will be unintended consequences. There is no stealth in space, bottom line. You want to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Then that means you can make waterfalls flow backwards. Your assumptions are plain idiotic, and grounded in fantasy.
@EnigmaHood I have some ideas for misconceptions, the common misconception that starship would have deck layouts like that of boats and the space is an ocean fallacy. A real starship would have an internal layout more like that of a skyscraper. I request that you make a video about the fact that there is no stealth in space, since some childish apologists try to defend the idea of stealth in space.
@OrionIICosmos1999 Yeah, I take it you also visit Atomic Rocket as well? ;) There are plenty of misconceptions that relate to space warfare, I could do at least 10 videos on it.
@Pierribr It always will be. Sorry, nothing in the future is going to change the laws of thermodynamics, let alone repeal them. It isn't going to change what you can detect with just a telescope and the Mark I Eyeball. Even if you were to turn your ship into a singularity and broke the laws of physics that way, it would still be detectable in the form of spatial and temporal distortions as it interacted with the physical universe.
Although lasers may become more powerful in the future, the issue is not whether they're faster than a laser but whether they're faster than the targeting and tracking speed of the turret. This is governed whether the hardpoint is either manned or automated and the quality of software and construction of the turret. Additionally fighter would also use jets of air from tanks (much like astronauts when working outside) to help them maneuver.
@KyleLocke It may not even need a turret in the future. A laser can theoretically be fired from a phased array which is basically flat and requires no turret assembly at all. But even with a turret, it doesn't need to be moved much at the ranges of space combat. A few hundred miles is considered close range for space combat. Realistically, combat would take place at much greater ranges. The enemy could be moving at several miles per second, but the turret would only need to move..
what if say, weapons were around at the time that could instantly destroy any single entity instantly - something like say a powerful laser that could target through any armor and protection and hit fuel cells - but maybe had a longer charge up time. I.E. deathstar style. Wouldn't a swarm of smaller ships have a better time against this than one large ship that would be destroyed instantly?
cypresshillmoo 1 day ago
@cypresshillmoo No, because only an idiot would have only one weapon system that took a long time to charge. And besides that, fighters still would be useless. The ranges in space combat are literally in hundreds of thousands of miles, the fighters would never get close.
EnigmaHood 1 day ago
@EnigmaHood if other enemies were getting larger ships, you could counter that by getting a weapon system that could destroy any ship in one shot - the technology for that might take a long time to charge as it would have to be very powerful. And who's saying the fighters would have to get close, they could sit back aswell, but there would be more of them countering the large gun initially designed to counter their large ships in the first place..
cypresshillmoo 1 day ago
@cypresshillmoo It doesn't matter if you have a weapon that takes a long time to charge, and can kill a big ship in one shot. Such a weapon is dumb anyway, just use a casaba howitzer instead (look up what that is). The fighters are still useless. No, the fighters can't sit back like dumbasses, they have much shorter range than the big ship. The big ship can pick them off like flies.
EnigmaHood 1 day ago
I don't mind about this misconception anyway. Space fighter are there to make a great movie & a great sci-fi tech. And I don't have the balls to piloting one either.
arafat88ryu 4 days ago
It would be like an old time sea battle :/ Two great ships blasting away at each other.
However fighters could be used like scouts to cover a larger area.
Also smaller ships and fighters could be used as pirate vessels preying on unarmed or lightly armed freighters. Sort of like they do today with speed boats.
Direct combat, maybe if they can find some way to foil sensors or hamper the effectiveness of a laser. Baring that I agree with you as much as I hate to admit it.
OspreyKnight 6 days ago
@OspreyKnight Scouting a large area would imply that they're faster, which is true of today's fighters when compared to sea ships. That's not the case in space - the bigger you are, the more space you have for fuel, the faster you can go. The hypothetical space fighter might accelerate faster, sure, but it'll run dry very soon, while a large spacecraft could accelerate for days or weeks. And you can't mask your super-hot plasma exhaust against the near-absolute-zero of space.
Senyako 2 days ago
I generally agree with this point of view as far as strategic warfare is concerned. However, in tactical situations (we can use our imaginations to envision scenarios that would require a 'light touch' in a colonized space), small, nimble craft show their merit.
I suppose it comes down to the right tool for the job.
By looking at things from a purely strategic point of view it can be argued that nuclear weapons render all other equipment useless. I hope you see my point.
productNine 6 days ago
@productNine No actually nukes won't render all other equipment useless even from a strategic point of view.
EnigmaHood 6 days ago
Really though like I said, it comes down to what technology develops. We don't know what technology awaits, and what combat methods would be practical depends completely on what technology is available. If I was picturing future space combat, i'd imagine massive vessels firing lasers at one another from tremedous distances, and sending out swarms of torpedo like drones that fire off some kind of energy weapon until they run out of power and then ram the enemy ship in vital places and explode.
hzuiel 1 week ago
The main reason for fighters in space is cost/benefit. Big warships are expensive and need large crews. The loss of one may be to much. I space battle as a race to kill the others fighters first. when you have lost all your fighters the big ships run away.( see the later Honor Harrington books)
awells4444 1 week ago
@awells4444 No, fighters don't make sense from a cost/benefit pov because they all die. Doesn't matter how cheap a useless weapon is, if it's useless then it costs too much.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
I generally agree with your assessment, but I think tactics could vary greatly depending on what technology is developed in the future. If there are energy shields, bigger = more power to the shield = better. If there are no shields, even tiny ships could do severe damage to a larger ship's metallic armor. Therefore a large group of fast moving attack vessels might slip past the laser defenses of a large ship and cripple it. They wouldn't necessarily have to be fighters, they could be unmanned.
hzuiel 1 week ago
@hzuiel They won't slip past laser defenses, or any other defenses. They would die before they got even remotely close. Whatever armor the battleships have, the fighter would have even less making it much more vulnerable. And no, they are not faster nor more agile than a battleship.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
@EnigmaHood It's less about speed or agility, and more about hitting a very small target that's moving quickly, while you're also moving quickly, on the fly, and there are hundreds of them closing in on your massive ship. Sure you'd hit lots of them, but even super computers would have trouble keeping up with the trajectories of a bunch of small vessels like that. Like I said, they don't have to be fighters, they could be the equivalent of a torpedo, or a swarm of tiny unmanned drones.
hzuiel 1 week ago
@hzuiel That's the point of Enigma's video though isn't it? That these sort of things needn't be fighters. In the end if you're going to use ballistic weapons then might as well piss lead at them rather than waste men and machines.
Achillesfour 6 days ago
@hzuiel That sounds like something out of WW2 and wouldn't apply today, much less in space. Against modern point and short-medium range defenses. you couldn't possibly take a wing of fighter-bombers and attempt to strafe a warship, unless it was a suicide attack. That would only be even more so in space combat if you introduce directed energy weapons that don't even allow evasive maneuvers.
mewarmor990 3 days ago
To add to your concept(s), with which I generally agree: The lack of medium in which to engage a battle is enough reason to not even attempt it in first place. It is the reciprocal to attempt battle in an infinite cube of tungsten carbide. The physcal dynamics of both examples are so ridiculously prohibitive in that you'd have infinite resistance or infinite lack of resistance. Most folks can't even fathom the consequences of being hit with simple bottle-rocket in a gravity-free vacuum.
lddihud 1 week ago
While some of points of this video sound solid, like comparison of space fighter with speedboats, others are less so. For example, the assumption, that in the future, lasers will be more effective weapons. The laser beam is not very effective at long range weapon. The greater the distance, the more spread, (and thus weaker the beam becomes). Also, lasers are thermal damage weapon, which means that the same thermal coating that is used on modern day spacecraft is good anti-laser armor.
AntKalgin 1 week ago
@AntKalgin In the future lasers WILL be more effective weapons. Trends in technology indicate that this is so. There is no limit to how powerful a laser can be, you could in theory have the entire energy output of a galaxy in a laser beam. That's the point, they have incredible potential. Lasers have ENORMOUS range, but yes the greater the range, the more the beam is dispersed, but they have greater range than particle beams. There are counter measures to all weapons, pointing out...
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
..one counter measure to one weapon, and then insinuating that the weapon is ineffective as a result, is stupid. Body armor reduces the effectiveness of bullets, does that make bullets useless? No. Don't make dumb arguments. It's always a race between whether your offensive power is greater than their defenses. All weapons, kinetic projectiles, missiles, particle beams, and lasers will be used in space warfare because they all have strengths and weaknesses.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
Even if stealth doesn´t exist in space doesn´t automaticaly mean that everything that CAN be detected WILL be detected. No matter how advanced your sensors are, they´ll always have limited resolution. Which means you can´t detect everything everywhere all the time. For large distances you´ll have to focus your sensors on a small area of space. But you don´t know which direction the fighter is comming from so it has a chance you ´ll detect it when it´s too late. Small one perhaps, but still.
dejmald 1 week ago
@dejmald No, no, no and no. First how did the fighter get to where it is in the first place? No matter where it came from, it came from something that is more detectable than it is. If it came from a planet, then its burn to escape the gravity well is easily detectable. If it came from a space station, then the space station is detectable. You know exactly where it is coming from. You then scan in that direction, and you find the fighter that can't hide anyway.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
Then you presume that the fighter magically knows where the bigger ship is. If the bigger ship doesn't know where the fighter is, the fighter with its inferior sensors does not know where the bigger ship is either. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If the fighter knows where the bigger ship is, the bigger ship DEFINITELY knows where the fighter is.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
@EnigmaHood It can for example come from a ship that is on the other side of a planet/sun and then use the gravity to adjust it´s course and propel it towards the ship. It can wait for a ship powered down and hidden in an asteriod field. Once again you assume that your sensors will detect everything even with their limited resolution.
dejmald 1 week ago
@dejmald You're so fucking dumb. Gravity (like magnetism) doesn't do free work. If work is being performed, there is heat produced as well. Your dumb idea wouldn't work anyway. How does your ship know where the enemy is? You are both arguing for stealth, while at the same time knowing EXACTLY where the enemy is. Don't be an idiot. And yay, you're going to coast for several months/years/decades towards the enemy using gravity on the other side of the solar system. Brain. Use it.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
@dejmald Despite limited resolution you are forgetting one other thing. Your ship is not flown by sight alone. That would be silly in space. You will likely have any form of 'landmark' to guide you at such extreme ranges. Which leads to active sensors to guide you. An active system generates a detectable signal meaning it will be registered somewhere by someone. Even now Subs and stealth planes use passive where they can to but still have to use active sensors to naviagte effectively.
Achillesfour 6 days ago
I am entertain by a fantasy space battle. The application of manned rated spaceships had a lot of think tanks working out proposals during the cold war. Ballistic missiles developed faster than rocket planes... but they subscribed to a strategic doctrine of 'one mission' utility... but image the kamakazis being autonomous guidance hardware and not pilots. NASA is currently pursuing more utility for its space mission hardware; military practicality is years off the planning for such tools.
granddad2002 1 week ago
I learned something today. Thank you ;).
BoomBoomStockings1 1 week ago
True, you can't hide a spaceship's movements (unless it's a drifting cold hulk) thus STRATEGIC surprise is impossible to achieve, however you can use lasers, EMP bursts, decoys,... and multiple attackers/angles of approach to dazzle, blind, and generally try to confuse your enemy on a TACTICAL scale. Considering distances and extreme velocities even a temporary/partial sensor degradation will make a difference. Battle is always more about tactics and counter-tactics than about technology itself.
EtiamSiOmnesEgoNon 1 week ago
@EtiamSiOmnesEgoNon Decoys won't work. Anything that could successfully fool your enemy into thinking it's a real ship would cost as much as a real ship anyway.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
@EnigmaHood Plus it's still not stealth anyway. That kind of active jamming and general electronic warfare will alert people to your presence even if they can't directly pinpoint it they know something is on its way and will make preparations for an attack.
Achillesfour 1 week ago
Personally I also think that fighters won't have a place is space warfare of reality, but I really like them in sci-fi.
Why? Because they're great story telling devices- you can have a single heroic pilot doing heroic things, a wing of fighters sacrificing themselves etc etc. So you can have characters in your story and give them something awesome to do that changes the story itself.
Sorry if this thought was brought up repeatedly, but I didn't had time to read through it all :)
paganarh 1 week ago
The fantastic game "i-war" covered much of this.
Regarding stealth, what i the craft was using a cold gas to propel itself?
MasterGravitron 1 week ago
@MasterGravitron This was already brought up, it won't work. The ship still has an engine that produces heat, and your cold gas thruster will produce such little thrust that you might as well not move at all. Not to mention it's still subject to adiabatic cooling, so you'll be detected anyway.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
One idea has occured to me here. There is one use for fighters I can think of. Not necessarily ethical but practical. Think of the Wraith in SG Atlantis. They basically throw darts towards the city as a means of tying up the defenses in order to allow boarding parties a window to exploit. True this could be achieved with drones but why waste expensive computers and systems when throwing a meatsack in a cockpit would be likely cheaper and a lot easier to replace? Just strap a bomb to it and Boom!
Achillesfour 1 week ago
i clicked on this randomly but it was actually quite interesting.
jon123529 1 week ago
So if you have two large vessels engaging and they are both in range of each other and one launches fighters which do you enage first the fighters which you can take down with lasers but end up being wiped out by that vessel's own weaponry.
Or the other Vessel but indoing so leave your self open for an attack run that will destroy your laser turrets (that will have less protection than your vessel so they can track fast moving targets) while still taking fire from the other vessel.
ashslaa 1 week ago
@ashslaa You attack them all. Obviously the ship has multiple weapon systems.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
What's interesting is that this is essentially the view (intentional or not) that Star Trek takes. The small shuttlecraft are simply used as small personal transport mostly, although they do have phasers. When you see a big fight scene it is nearly always with the big ships.
smartroadbiker 1 week ago
@smartroadbiker Maybe, but definitely not intentional. The only Star Trek media I've seen was the latest movie, which was geared more towards mainstream audiences rather than "trekkies". But don't let that make you believe that Star Trek battles are realistic, they are anything but realistic, but that's a different video.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
There is one advantage a smaller craft would have over a larger craft in space - less heat output, and thus harder to detect. Not impossible, but harder. You could use them in a scenario such as the Death Star sequence in Star Wars - they'd be able to get in closer to a large vehicle than a similarly-large vehicle, and maybe close enough to launch a crippling attack before getting massacred. Of course, you'd have to balance firepower vs. heat signature, but that's implementation over concept.
vicroc4 2 weeks ago
@vicroc4 No. You're wrong. Read the other comments about heat to know why.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
@vicroc4 The only advantage the fighters were supposed to have had over the Death Star was that the station had been primarily designed to fight of large scale attacks from battleships and fleet strikes. The idea was that a small craft may just slip through the cracks. Not undetected but get close enough to do what they eventually did. But then what stupid flaw in something so large anyway...
Achillesfour 1 week ago
Certainly television or movie depictions of space environments are often skewed for drama. Knowing all that what entertainment examples are the least offensive in terms of the physics? How does the recent Battlestar Galactica fair?
Wertak68 2 weeks ago
@Wertak68 2001 A Space Odyssey was pretty accurate. I never saw Battlestar Galactica before but I've seen clips of their space fighters doing some maneuvers that seemed fairly faithful to real physics...
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
Stealth in space a misconception? Definitely make that. There seem to be several ways to appreoach making stealth. This was my big reasoning for explaining to myself space fighters, Also, massive ships would still need to worry about inertia, right? They couldnt swing around like the fighters, say in B5 or BSG, without tossing everyone, and everything, inside. Inertial dampeners, a la Star Trek and Star Wars seem to be an answer, but then... could that be another misconception in itself?
naponroy 2 weeks ago
@naponroy There are no ways to approach making stealth in space. It won't work, but yes I will make about stealth in space one day. The rest of your concerns have already been addressed.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
@naponroy When a Big Battleship in space will turn, it would not toss around it's people, because a battleship generates it's own gravity, (by centrifugal rotation etc). In Essence a Space is always rotating, so it is in perpetual rotation.
Secondly any Ship in space has to be huge, to counteract the effects of Radiation, Micro gravity etc, Please note that it is thought that rotating Spaceships which are huge, is the only real possibility.
soumen1082 2 weeks ago
First id like to say that war as such is primitive means of solving an argument, and to my mind its absurd that advanced civilizations always wish to dstroy humans. it makes no sense. 2.nd if there would be such an incident in outer space between equal rivals, then most likely the outcome would be determined by the knowlage one side holds ower another. Anyway, if there would be an spacefighter fight then to my mind most likely the numbers would determine the outcome.
ivarish 2 weeks ago
@ivarish War is not a means to solve an "argument". War is conducted to further the goals of the entity waging it. Attack/defense is a natural aspect to any lifeform. Any lifeform that doesn't have a concept of attack or defense, will be killed an entity that does, and thus go extinct. There is certainly nothing "primitive" about it. If a civilization has "outgrown" violence, they will inevitably be annihilated by a civilization or entity that hasn't.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood
Incredible! So you essentially propogand violence, cuz if you wouldnt use it you would be defeated by some 1 who does use it. This sounds right out of caveman, maybe dark age mentalaty at best. You see, at a certain level of knowlage comes the capability to solve problems very differently. i would love to disscuss this matter in more than 500~ characters at a time, sorry for the offtopic ive started here, m-by next video will discuss why pokemon cant be real. enjoy scify
ivarish 2 weeks ago
@ivarish I am not, but you are letting your morals get in the way of reality.The fact remains that violence is used by entities to further their own interests. That is reality. So while you try to solve problems "very differently" another entity that doesn't care, and is more powerful than you will come by and destroy you. And you can whine, and call them "cavemen" right up until the point of where they will kill you. Name calling won't matter. You will be dead and they will be alive.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood So maybe we should develop something that would prevent the incedent from happening. wouldnt that be the greatest weapon of all time? i have no clue why i wish to perpetuate this discusion but i will go with the flow and try to continue. ApocaliptiC2266 thats my skype add me if you would like to continue this debate. i believe it could turn out beneficial for maybe not only both of us.
ivarish 2 weeks ago
@ivarish Like what? Mind control? The only way to prevent it would be to influence the mind of the other entity. And yes, that would be a weapon. War is conducted not (usually) for the simple purpose of killing, but to use violence to coerce the other entity to do what you want them to do. Sometimes this can be achieved without firing a bullet, but the mere threat of violence is enough to coerce as long as the threat is credible.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
This works because the enemy is afraid of death, and believes you can administer death while taking minimal casualties of your own. However this is all contingent upon whether the enemy is actually afraid of death. If they are unafraid of death, or do not believe you can defeat them, they will not be coerced into doing what you want them to do. So if you had some device that could influence the enemy's mind and got them to do whatever you want, that WOULD be the greatest weapon of...
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
...all time. But it's really no different than using violence to achieve your goals. The only difference is, it's a LOT easier, works against enemies who are unafraid of death/not afraid of you, and you don't have to kill anyone. The last difference hardly matters though, because you can always kill them later if you wanted to.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
I don't have skype. Either respond here, or pm me if you want.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
Good video I agree with the points. But for some sick reason i want energy shielding to be come a reality so that space fighters can exist... I got problems i Know.
Too much Freespace2 is in my blood :D
willd3rbeast 2 weeks ago
smaller spacecraft would cost less, and be more expendable than larger ones. Tacticians will require these for missions with low survival rates / high risk. Scouting and patrols are examples. If one shot from a laser can kill ANY ship, why not send in a swarm of cheap, small units instead of a capital ship?
28crucis 2 weeks ago
@28crucis One shot from a laser WOULDN'T kill any ship you idiot. But if it does weapon's grade damage to a battleship, it would kill any fighter in one shot, making those fighters even more useless than they are. Even without lasers, they are useless though.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
Another misconception in regards to space ships is Newtonian space flight mechanics. All too often in movies they'll turn off the forward thrusters and stop on a dime because the acceleration is 0. However, according to the Newtonian flight model, if you disable the acceleration you continue to move at the previous velocity till you counteract the motion with reverse force.
kaikarden 2 weeks ago
lol i liked this video just for the additional info section. This guy has done his research and i fuckin lolled reading all the trolls in the comments. haven't even gotten to the actual video yet
kaikarden 2 weeks ago
I advise all of you to read Star Carrier about a space carrier named "America" and its fighters. Besides the story, they deal with REAL mechanics and physics as far as turning, acceleration, deceleration, and debris. They reveal the mightiest weapon of the future to be....SAND and DEBRIS...loosed at near light speed velocity. They basically demonstrate that capital ships and fighter size space vessels with never even see each other typically and would launch attacks from outside solar systems.
krashly71 2 weeks ago
Wow...that wasn't what I expected. I feel like I learned something...lol
Jimdlux 2 weeks ago
Space fighters for the same reason that you still need the army ... all things said, you still need boots on the ground. That means troop transports and that certainly means escort craft, aka, space fighters. Not every fight is going to be to the death ... sometimes you may actually want something on the enemy ship, if not the enemy ship itself.
TaldrenDR 2 weeks ago
@TaldrenDR We already talked about this.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
my concept from this is, whoever has a bigger mirror will win
biscuit147 3 weeks ago
@biscuit147 No you dumb fucking idiot, mirrors won't work against lasers. Grow a brain.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
Ok you know what, I'm done. If you are going to censor which of my posts make it through you just lost all your credibility. Go ahead and censor this one to hide your true colors. You know that you couldn't debate on level terms. Gotta wonder how many other valid posts didn't make the EnigmaHood filter. This is me "losing my tolerance and spanking a dumbfuck." Out
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr I was sleeping when you posted that you dumbfuck. But now I will censor you. Blocked. Have a nice day.
EnigmaHood 2 weeks ago
Sure stealth is not a viable option...if all of your sensors are working correctly. With the rise of electronic and cyber warfare an craft does not even need stealth. An electronic attack aircraft can navigate a SAM infested zone without a stealthy profile/paint job. With cyber warfare your sensors can potentially be spoofed or completely offline. There goes your precise targeting system.
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr Even if you could spoof his sensors (which you can't), how can you do it when he's hundreds of thousands of miles away and already detected you?
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood Who says you can't? Anyway your ship/colony WILL be connected to a network which can be hacked. Or someone can infiltrate the facility or coerce an employee to plant a program months before the craft even arrives.
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr Lol yeah right. I'm sure in the future hacking will be as much of a problem it is now, but hacking to shut down sensors? Are you serious? Hack to shut down the rocket's thrusters and weapon systems while you are at it lol. Come on man, think a little. :)
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood Haven't you been keeping up with the news lately? Iran is claiming to have hacked the GPS (sensor system) in one of our drones. Although the incident is still shrouded in mystery it's not as laughable as you make it out to be.
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr I think it's laughable that you are trying so hard to make stealth in space work. You don't need to have "hackable sensors" in the first place is what I was making light of. You don't even need to have very sophisticated sensors at all in order to detect ships.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@Both guys. Okay I just came across this thread whilst browsing the comments. Hacking a computer system is not stealth evening if you are successful in corrupting the system to display a false image on the readouts the system is still actually detecting you. Even if you were to remain hidden your data stream no doubt uses a carrier wave type beam or signal which is detectable and traceable. I am with Enigma on this one. Hack or no hack something is still pinging you regardless.
Achillesfour 1 week ago
I'll not butcher with a mis-quote but a rather wise man once said something about a technology sufficiently advanced would always be indistinguishable from magic. ...i.e. get your panties out of that bunch.
Navyboy682000 3 weeks ago
@Navyboy682000 And another wise man said, "Quoting trite, meaningless statements other people made instead of formulating meaningful arguments is the mark of an idiot". And that wise man is me, and you're an idiot. ....i.e. you're blocked.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
What about small engagements? The coast guard doesn't bring in a destroyer for every smuggler trying to deliver goods across borders. And we don't line our coasts with guns. If you put weapons on your colony, what happens when they are taken out by the intruders' own weapon system. You only have small vessels left while the ship travels form its patrol route to the colony.
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr Smaller, cheaper space ships make sense for that purpose, but not space fighters.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood Ok I'm confused here. What is the difference between a weaponized space ship and a space fighter? Is it the "wings"? Space fighters can be any shape you want them to be.
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr I don't know. The size I suppose. Most space fighters are rather tiny compared to even a small space ship. But specifically, how Hollywood, video games, TV shows, etc depicts space fighters.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
I find it disturbing that people defend space planes. Goes to show how incredibly unschooled the mass majority of the world is. And we go on about going to colonize the space...i am appalled by this. The great fathers of physics would die again by heart attack should they see the general state of things going on in school and beyond.
aserta 3 weeks ago
@pbz313 Um, there is no form of energy that is not on the electromagnetic spectrum. Everything from sound waves to cosmic radiation is on the spectrum, unless you manage to stash a singularity in your back pocket. And, even that is detectable in space,
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
Dogfighting has been dead before multiple times in history. Its even being considered dead now but it keeps popping up from equipment/weapon reliability issues and political restrictions on weapons (WMDs). They may treaty against your all powerful laser because of the chance of missing or the ship you just turned into debris can reflect the beam towards a nearby colony. Then you've got ships hiding line of sight behind or in front of colonies just like insurgents hiding behind non combatants.
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr Out of all the weapons that can be used in the future, the laser is the last thing I would expect to be restricted (if there are any restrictions at all which there probably won't be, nor are they being considered in this video). For space warfare even a nuke is considered to be a rather meager weapon. Something as simple as throwing a stupid rock at a planet is far more devastating.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood I agree that a massive object is much more devastating to a planet, however, the colony I had in mind would be something space based and easy to circle behind. Regardless of political restriction, a security force would not fire near their own multi-quadrillion dollar colony. They would need to infiltrate requiring transports and escorts for those transports.
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr Possibly. Although I'm not really seeing how space fighters are useful in this situation, nor do I see why lasers would be restricted. It's dangerous to fire any weapon in the situation you are describing. In fact, I think lasers would be the best weapon to use since they are the most accurate, they can be mounted on missiles if needed for indirect fire. I'm not sure how the enemy got so close to your own colony in the first place either.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr And, if it's easy for the bad guys to circle behind, it's easy for the good guys to circle behind. Assuming, of course the "good" guys aren't the Titans from Zeta Gundam and blow the colony away as well.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr Then, the firing ship can alter its vector to come up behind the ships hiding behind the colony.
Space. No horizon, remember?
Brought to you by the letters D, U, and H.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@williamskidfears Haven't you ever chased someone around a table before? Works in 3D too. If I were a ship captain I wouldn't be dumb enough to stay put. D U H back at ya.
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
Really depends on what your objective is. If you want to completely destroy your opponent your argument holds. Say you want to steal cargo or recover hostages you still need to dock to transfer and they may not surrender even with a crippled ship. Now you're in close quarters in internal and external infantry combat. If the ship is large, you may need close in support to infantry by space fighters. May be as small as an exoskeleton or the size of an f22 depending on the payload it needs to carry
ccccombobreakerrr 3 weeks ago
@ccccombobreakerrr Possibly. But I think keeping the ship in orbit and blasting things from above would be better. Especially if the lasers can deal weapons grade damage with pinpoint accuracy. Maybe if your space fighters could transform into a ground attack unit or some shit I could see it being useful. But I'm not sure why it needs to be able to operate in space though.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
Enigma, I like your dissertation, but one minor nitpick. You fail to mention that guided missiles(and, possibly UAVs) have largely superseded carrier aviation as the primary naval weapon, as demonstrated during the Six-Day War and the Falklands conflict.
Personally, the space fighter trope has endured for the same reason as the big battleship trope; the former is a fanboy's personal dildo, and the latter as an expression of penile inadequacy.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@williamskidfears I can see something like a drone missile boat happening. It would make more sense as primarily a satellite that armed with nukes that is kept in orbit around planets.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood As an orbital weapons platform for either orbital defense...or orbital bombardement, definitely. Ship-launched drones armed with lasers or submunitions(like the "missiles" from the 2300AD RPG, or the Wasps from the Night's Dawn trilogy), as a force multiplier for the launching platform, especially with AI brains, maybe.
Granted, they'd still die like fighters, but they're only drones, after all.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
keep in mind that the space fighters depicted in star wars use "repulsors" which push against some sort of field to project themselves in the desired direction. now if we applied the same type of repulser action to a jet engine, or number of small jets strategically placed on the craft to push it exactly in that direction, perhaps a sort of convex jet engine (or collection of small jet engines) could do the trick. put that through an interface that a pilot can control, and that could work.
eBell05 3 weeks ago
@eBell05 ... Are you serious?
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@eBell05 Huh?!
First off, SW repulsors, being antigrav technology, only work in atmosphere or in orbit, as they have to have a gravity well to push against. Once in space, they have to use ordinary thrusters and ion engines to maneuver.
Second, true, you could build your fighter with jets all around, to cancel thrust in one direction and thrust in another, though that won't leave much room for weapons, it will eat up your fuel and the battleship's already nailed you seven ways from Sunday.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
Also, a small fight is more economical only in large numbers. Sure one can't do that much damage, but a few hundred (just like in WW2 and so on) can do a great deal. As smart as you are, part of science fact is to have an imagination. You base your opinion on what you know now. Which is valid. BUT, you cannot argue on the concept of the future unless you are actually there. This makes your argument the say as ours: Speculation. And you KNOW just as much as we do.
hectoman 3 weeks ago
@hectoman Large numbers of fighters are useless if they all die, which they will. I can't predict the future, but one thing I can predict is that fighters will ALWAYS be useless because they is absolutely no advantage to using them. NONE. And don't say, "DURR, THEY HAVE GRATER ACCELATION THO. BURP". Yeah, I already addressed that a million times. Actually I already addressed ALL of your arguments before, I just felt like replying to yours to add another to the pile. -_-
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
Let's start with the basics: Yes, there is no stealth in space. That's why we can detect every asteroid collision that happens within our solar system. What, we can't do that? But doesn't a collision of THAT magnitude create energy? Not enough to be detected. Then how do we know an energy signature can be detected from Pluto? Also, here on Earth, we haven't effectively weaponized lasers. At all. We're still working on it, mind you. But in a real time combat situation: nope.
hectoman 3 weeks ago
@hectoman No. Detection works on heat primarily. If you just have an asteroid in space, you can still detect it with radar, but the asteroid has no heat signature because it doesn't have a reactor. Every ship has a reactor, and produces heat, and no there is no way of masking it. And no, not producing heat is a violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. And no, you can't break it. If you can, then that means you can make waterfalls flow backwards. As for lasers, they CAN be weaponized
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
That's the point. You can potentially put the entire energy output of a galaxy into a laser. There's nothing in physics that makes that impossible. So their potential as weapons is very high.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood Isn't it possible to make the ship appear cold through the use of some supercooled materials?
NiamOfAsuras 3 weeks ago
@NiamOfAsuras That's like trying to keep a fire cool with ice. What happens? The ice heats up, and melts. By trying to cool something else, heat transfers from the hot environment to the cold environment and gets hot. You can not destroy heat. All you can do is transfer it. Stop trying to fight the 2nd law, it'll never work.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood First Law, I believe.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@williamskidfears No, second law. Although violating the 2nd law can eventually lead to violating the 1st law.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood I thought the second law was the amount of entropy in the universe can only increase. Or are you going with numbering what used to be known as the Zeroth Law to the First Law?
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@williamskidfears That's right, so that means efficiency is never 100%, which means waste heat is always produced, and it means anything cooling something hot will become hotter itself. That's why a space ship can always be detected no matter what you do to try and keep it cool.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood What about BAE systems "adaptiv" combat camouflage? I'm just saying, i've seen vehicles mask their infrared, im wondering why that wouldnt work in space.
NiamOfAsuras 3 weeks ago
@NiamOfAsuras Because space is fucking cold and even a little heat makes you glow like a lightbulb maybe? Geeze, think people.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@NiamOfAsuras Space is three degrees above absolute zero(or 3K), on average. The temperature of anything designed for human habitation is 285K. None of the infared countermeasures designed to work in a planetary atmosphere will work in space.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@hectoman Yes, we can detect asteroid collisions with(at the very least) visual and radio telescopes, These, coupled with computer control, can do a deep sky survey of the entire System in an amazing amount of time.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
maybe lasers could be defended against via mirrored armer- might not literally reflect the thing back at the enemy (maybe) but presumably dispurse it out enough to survive little longer- of course if laser light has no distence limet in space you could have a solar collector orbit the sun and relay energy via lasers to charge batery stores for mass use. i see docs of people used lasers to push suff so same relay sets could push stuff about the solar system (how to get it back??)
itchytastyurr 3 weeks ago
@itchytastyurr Please read the annotations. Mirror armor DOES NOT WORK IN REAL LIFE. Mirrors can reflect dispersed beams of light, but it will not work against a collimated beam of light. Lasers have range limits, the further the beam travels, the more dispersed the beam will be, and thus lose its effectiveness. Yes lasers can potentially be used to wirelessly transfer energy via the photo electric effect. And yes, what you are describing is called ablative laser propulsion.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
I would point out that line of site is still applicable in space so therefore unless you wish to recon around a planet or in system with 5000 people per ship smaller recon vessels are required thus recon vessels unless escorted become vulnerable to enemy fighters
KIA0Red 3 weeks ago
@KIA0Red There is no where to hide in space. A satellite (armed or unarmed) at most might be used to observe the far side of a planet. An escort is pointless. Just keep the big ship at a safe distance and kill anything that shows up.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
I don't think there will be any specific weapons in the future. Every weapon can be countered. Especially lasers. Likely you will see a combination of lasers, kinetic weapons, missiles, and drones. You may even continue to see chemical based munitions if for no better reason than to have a redundant weapon system that can operate with minimal power requirements. I think lasers will have a role, but I do not see them as being dominant.
renynzea 3 weeks ago
@renynzea I feel a lot of people missed the point I was making about lasers. I wasn't trying to imply that lasers would make other weapons obsolete. If they can make a laser that can damage a battleship, it would rip a fighter to pieces because it is not as well armored as the battleship. But even without lasers, fighters are still useless, lasers just make them even more useless (if that's possible).
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood That assumes no one comes up with a material that can scatter or reflect all forms of visible light. Odds are such a material will be discovered, long before we have epic space battles. I think the real fallacy is that we will use manned fighter craft at all. The future is drones. Recent wars have already proven that. Only time I can see a fighter being useful is if the enemy has some form of ECM preventing drones from being deployed.
renynzea 3 weeks ago
@renynzea No. I even said in the annotations that mirror armor will NOT work. And if you want to hand wave some magic armor that can do it anyway, I can hand wave adamantium armor that is invincible. I don't disagree with robots, I think that's the future anyway. Actually I would question if humans exist at all in the future.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@renynzea Add an AI to a drone, or even a non-AI computer with a menu of options to pursue when engaging the enemy, and ECM won't be an issue. Call it fire and forget.
Harpoon missiles do. Tomahawk missiles do. Exocet missiles do. SS-22s do....
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood
My best argument for space fighters is simply that people use them in combat because it's cool, in a sort of ritualized feudal combat in space. And this has happened with earth civilizations before, with Samurai and Knights doing so even to the point of being defeated by those who didn't behave in such manner. Tradition is a strong influence on some people, so I can imagine something like the Malaya campaign in space just because of traditional hubris.
Warsie 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood
Malays campaign = where Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese fighters without air cover
Warsie 3 weeks ago
@Warsie But, as EnigmaHood said in his vid, the fighter and the battleship in space will be at the same "height" relative to one another, or rather both the battleship and the fighter can move almost anywhere within the three dimensions of space. Add long-range firepower to the equation, and fighters will be obliterated before they come close enough to hit their targets.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@williamskidfears
as I said, the best excuse for space fighters is 'people do it because it's cool and HONORABLE' which is what Samurai and European knights did before they were wiped out by better tech
Warsie 3 weeks ago
@pbz313 .... no. It won't work. By trying to convert EM radiation into something else, you still produce waste heat in the process. When will you guys learn? Stealth in space is impossible. The harder you try to mask it, the worse it becomes.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood
My best argument will just be that this happens in battlefields full of 'hot' wreckage. Though that is rare enough presumably not to be a normal tactic, and littering a solar system with reactors or whatnot beforehand might be annoying to some.
Warsie 3 weeks ago
@Warsie I don't understand what you are trying to say.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@Warsie Won't work either. Drifting wreckage, hot or cold, can easily be distinguished from ships that are maneuvering, simply because their engine burns can be spotted in spite of anything else which might be radiating. Even with the telescopes we have now, and the computing equipment we have now which allows them to do deep sky surveys in relatively short periods of time.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
I briefly scanned the comments because in all honesty I am not about to read all 448 in depth. If this has already been covered then apologies.
I know this is theoretical physics but would a vehicle with a system able to drop itself out of phase with this 'dimension' for a brief moment become undetectable? Admittedly its actually drop 'out' and drop 'in' may be detectable but the main purpose is served. Namely to strike your opponent before they can react. By the time you are detected boom.
Achillesfour 3 weeks ago
@Achillesfour Well what you are suggesting is complete fiction. But it seems like your fictional device is better served defensively. Whenever a weapon is about to make contact with your ship, just phase out of reality and you're invincible. But like I said, this is just fiction.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood Least until you pound the area where the phasing ship was with enough energy to overload whatever was keeping the ship out of phase and bring the ship fully back into spacetime to blow it hell and gone. And, oh yeah, since the ship is out of phase, it's not likely that it can be able to maneuver....
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@williamskidfears There was a computer game called Star Control 2 (or maybe it was 3) where there was a game mode called hyper melee in which space ships duke it out and one of them was equipped with a phase shift thing, similar to what achiles was talking about. It was good vs. ships that had slow firing weapons that did a lot of damage, but sucked vs. fast shooting ships that could spam it to death.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood Interesting, though I would think the rate of fire would make little difference, versus the amount of energy delivered, unless of course, the phase shift field could easily dissipate the slower shooting rounds more easily than the faster firing ones.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@williamskidfears What I also had in mind, though not the same thing as a phase shift gizmo, was the black globe from the Traveller RPG, which, when raised, would soak up anything thrown at it, but the ship employing it couldn't see, thrust or use its weapons, unless it flickered the globe on and off.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@EnigmaHood True, however if the ship is 'out of phase' it can't attack. Invincible or not your weapons are useless unless you drop back into 'normal' space. My idea is total fiction but then we are dealing with science fiction here are we not? The idea was served from the many theories of other dimensions and realities. That said even out of phase one can be vulnerable. The concept of 'phased weaponry' (PPG in B5 and the ever lovable Phaser) means I just lost my own argument!! \o/
Achillesfour 1 week ago
@Achillesfour No we're not dealing with science fiction here. We are talking about how space combat would work in reality.
EnigmaHood 1 week ago
@Achillesfour Short answer: No. Even that will create spatial and temporal distortions easily detectable by passive sensors, as you would have to warp spacetime itself to make the all the properties of matter(length, height, depth, and time)not be there.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
I only have one question: What sort of "Space Combat" are we talking about here?
Do we mean "Deep Space" inter-planetary distances where the Galactica and Star Fleet roams? Or do we mean something closer, within a planet's gravity field where Orbital Mechanics have more bearing?
RingSight91 3 weeks ago
@RingSight91 Presumably something that takes place within a solar system at most. No interstellar stuff.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
This is great
TheMarcSound 3 weeks ago
Great vid Enigmahood! Out of interest have you played through the Mass Effect Games? I have always considered their science to be fairly well thought out. To them a Fighter is not necessarily faster than a big ship but does accelerate quicker and turn faster (would this be correct?). This allows for swarms (they dont mention specifics but it is implied to be well over 50 at a time) of them to nip round the back of big ships and hit them in the ass with missiles if needs be!
hatchleader1 3 weeks ago
@hatchleader1 It would be able to accelerate faster briefly, but it wouldn't be "faster". They would run out of propellant before they could do anything useful, and they would be picked off like bugs before they could get close enough anyway. And yes I've played Mass Effect 2. Something like the Normandy could be useful (assuming it was a space plane), but wouldn't stand a chance vs. a battleship. It would just be a troop transport, transferring marines from plane to planet.
EnigmaHood 3 weeks ago
Space fighters are not a staple feature in science fiction. They are a staple feature in space fantasy. Misconception number 16: Star Wars as science.
zigertube 4 weeks ago
There is also the problem of mixing weapons strong enough to harm a large ships and fighters. One set would be useless against the target o f the other, so you´d have to compromise on the number of weapons capable of shooting a fighter, etc. Of course, it would be possible to simply shoot the carrier from a long distance and be done with it. Smart, agile missiles would be way better than fighters, specially if you could make them on the ship. Startrek got it right by ditching fighters.
Pierribr 1 month ago
@Pierribr >"Startrek got it right by ditching fighters."
Actually, there were Federation Attack Fighters. They were heavily used in the Dominion Wars. Each had at least 3 torpedo launchers and 2 phaser emitters.
But before the war they were civilian Federation support courier ships not used by Star Fleet :/
RingSight91 3 weeks ago
@RingSight91 They were used by the Maquis, though, because they were hard up for weapons, and Starfleet apparentally followed their lead, cause they were hard up for ships versus the Dominion.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
@Pierribr In space, all weapons would be dual-purpose. There would be no need to build dedicated point defense weapons and dedicated ship-killing weapons, as, say, a laser, especially if it lases fast enough, would be equally effective against ships and missiles.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
There is one thing you got wrong. You are assuming that our current laws of physics are right. You dont know it, and you cant say we wont find out that they are very wrong in the future. Just look at the FTL neutrino, for instance. At one point, we say nothng can travel faster than light and then BAM, that´s not true aymore (wich means it was never true to start with). The only thing we can say is that, given our current knowledge, steath in space is impossible. But we cant say it will alway be.
Pierribr 1 month ago
@Pierribr I'll be nice to you since you seem earnest. Read the video description. ALL OF IT.
EnigmaHood 1 month ago
@EnigmaHood I apreciate your niceness. But I did read everything before commenting, and my argument is not the same as the one you adress there. In fact, it is a counter argumet to your claim that saying that the laws of physics have been broken in the past is a false assumption. What WE call "laws of physics" are a mere aproximation, and what we believed true in the past have changed. It WILL happen again, and again. That´s a true assumption.
Pierribr 1 month ago
@Pierribr No, obviously you didn't read it. You're right, they are approximations, but that doesn't mean you can violate them. And if you want to insist that you can violate them, there will be unintended consequences. There is no stealth in space, bottom line. You want to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Then that means you can make waterfalls flow backwards. Your assumptions are plain idiotic, and grounded in fantasy.
EnigmaHood 1 month ago
@EnigmaHood I have some ideas for misconceptions, the common misconception that starship would have deck layouts like that of boats and the space is an ocean fallacy. A real starship would have an internal layout more like that of a skyscraper. I request that you make a video about the fact that there is no stealth in space, since some childish apologists try to defend the idea of stealth in space.
OrionIICosmos1999 4 weeks ago
@OrionIICosmos1999 Yeah, I take it you also visit Atomic Rocket as well? ;) There are plenty of misconceptions that relate to space warfare, I could do at least 10 videos on it.
EnigmaHood 4 weeks ago
@Pierribr It always will be. Sorry, nothing in the future is going to change the laws of thermodynamics, let alone repeal them. It isn't going to change what you can detect with just a telescope and the Mark I Eyeball. Even if you were to turn your ship into a singularity and broke the laws of physics that way, it would still be detectable in the form of spatial and temporal distortions as it interacted with the physical universe.
williamskidfears 3 weeks ago
Although lasers may become more powerful in the future, the issue is not whether they're faster than a laser but whether they're faster than the targeting and tracking speed of the turret. This is governed whether the hardpoint is either manned or automated and the quality of software and construction of the turret. Additionally fighter would also use jets of air from tanks (much like astronauts when working outside) to help them maneuver.
KyleLocke 1 month ago
@KyleLocke It may not even need a turret in the future. A laser can theoretically be fired from a phased array which is basically flat and requires no turret assembly at all. But even with a turret, it doesn't need to be moved much at the ranges of space combat. A few hundred miles is considered close range for space combat. Realistically, combat would take place at much greater ranges. The enemy could be moving at several miles per second, but the turret would only need to move..
EnigmaHood 1 month ago