gun
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Post by gun on Oct 12, 2017 19:28:24 GMT
I’m searching for information about space “infantry” (armed men without spacecraft), such as how armour and weapons, or tactics and strategy changes in space. The experience of shooting at someone… in SPAAACE! Atomic Rocket offers information on the “Astromilitary” (unfortunately, all about organisation) and “Sidearms”, but I didn’t find anything about how a small scale armed conflict/engagement in space compares to one on Earth. Is it appropriate to discuss this here, considering infantry won’t make an appearance in COADE, or is there another forum that’s more generally spacey?
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Oct 12, 2017 20:25:44 GMT
On earth, infantry are relevant as because they are the minimum selfsufficient tactical unit. Basically, a human with a gun is the smallest, lightest and cheapest unit capable of independant and sustained tactical action. What makes a human viable as such a unit is capability of independant action to effect the current tactical situation in both cognatively and physicaly and the ability to sustain such actions for an extended period of time without needing to be resupplied. Considering that the setup needed to maintain this capability in a human in space is bassically the same as a spacecraft (you would need life support, engines, reactors, fueltanks, radiators and weapon systems) you may as well build a spacecraft. These spacecraft may be small, barely larger than a human even, but they will be spacecraft for all intents and purposes if they are to be valid combat units.
That being said, some form of suit that enables boarding would pass for space infantry, but considering the futility of boarding a ship I don't see something like that being developed.
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gun
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Post by gun on Oct 12, 2017 21:37:34 GMT
On earth, infantry are relevant as because they are the minimum selfsufficient tactical unit. Basically, a human with a gun is the smallest, lightest and cheapest unit capable of independant and sustained tactical action. What makes a human viable as such a unit is capability of independant action to effect the current tactical situation in both cognatively and physicaly and the ability to sustain such actions for an extended period of time without needing to be resupplied. Considering that the setup needed to maintain this capability in a human in space is bassically the same as a spacecraft (you would need life support, engines, reactors, fueltanks, radiators and weapon systems) you may as well build a spacecraft. These spacecraft may be small, barely larger than a human even, but they will be spacecraft for all intents and purposes if they are to be valid combat units. That being said, some form of suit that enables boarding would pass for space infantry, but considering the futility of boarding a ship I don't see something like that being developed. I disagree. I strongly believe the first armed conflicts in space will be fought by infantry, aboard colonies, stations, and ships. Maybe the first person to die in space will be shot? War between space ships won't happen without two angry, interplanetary space superpowers, while an armed conflict on the moon could originate with independence fighters or terrorists, before any space warships or "astromilitary". Imagine a colony on the moon calls for independence and starts to shoot up Earthlings, capture hostages, seize space ships and board space stations. It's much closer in space and time than any scenario in COADE. Space infantry is NOT irrelevant and will be about as important in early space warfare as ancient infantry was in early sea warfare, is what I believe anyway! I also thought space infantry (again, referring to armed men without spacecraft and not necessarily a military, but also armed civilians, civilian-polices, polices, and police-militaries) was irrelevant before I played Shattered Horizon. Shattered Horizon is a multiplayer FPS set in 2049, in which a catastrophic event cracks the moon, creating an "Arc" of asteroids around Earth. Colonists see their chance to monopolize space and attack all space objects and stations, including orbital weapons and extort Earth with the ability to drop the asteroids in the Arc onto Earth. It’s a multiplayer FPS, so there’s no in-game story, but the story outside of the game gives you a lot of food for thought.
Hopefully you can agree, because my intention was not really to discuss whether space infantry is viable in war, but the specifics of how any armed personal conflict would work in space.
I've been searching for video games that simulate this and Shattered Horizon and Star Citizen (set in 2945) are the only ones that do.
Here's a trailer for Shattered Horizon (the game plays almost exactly as shown in the trailer): And here are a few videos I found of space action in Star Citizen: (2 minutes of Assault gameplay)
(2 minutes of Sniper gameplay) I also know The Expanse features gunfights, but I haven't watched it:
I haven't played Star Citizen, but I have played Shattered Horzion for a few hours already.
A few insights I had while playing it are that fighting in space isn't always counterintuitive. Yes, enemies can come from above and below, but we already have intuition for that (Earth contains elevation) and shooting someone attacking from above isn’t different from shooting someone in a tower. Also, battles will still happen along 1-dimensional axes, so the enemy is always in “one direction”. Soldiers also tend to stick to surfaces, for attachment, cover, and orientation, and if you’re sticking close to an asteroid, it’s essentially the same as walking on the ground in conventional warfare. I also expected orientation to confuse me, but it doesn’t matter if an enemy comes at you up-side down… you just shoot them anyway! However, there are a few counterintuitive insights also. Vision is incredibly important. Since you can’t hear enemies, you must stick together with your allies and constantly watch for threats in all directions. Effective communication, an effective heads-up display, and omnidirectional sensors that can help you “cover your 360”, as well as simulated sounds are also important. As I described before, enemies can come in any direction, including from above or below, but you will almost always stick to a surface for cover, which means you generally only must worry about one more direction instead of two. You must also anticipate enemies on any surface and that they can circumvent obstacles in any direction, popping out of cover above or below an object and not only to the sides. When popping out of cover, it’s important to go head-up, not upside-down, so you can shoot the enemy as soon as they see you. Another interesting thing I encountered was that some soldiers can flank you by flying very far out in a direction, which I call “far-flanking”. You can essentially see this in the Star Citizen sniper video above, where the player sits safely still in empty space with a sniper rifle and defends an objective at a distance. In Shattered Horizon, this isn’t possible with sniper rifles or light machine guns, because the recoil sends you spinning uncontrollably if you’re not attached to a surface when you shoot the gun.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Oct 12, 2017 22:38:14 GMT
Games like shattered horizon look cool and all with a bunch of "realistic" stuff, and yes star citizen has "infantry", but that is only really possible by ignoring som blatent facts. Lets summarize the point I'm going to make here: if space infantry were to be viable, such infantry should be possible in less hostile environments. Thus we should see equivallent tactical units in less hostile environments such as in atmospher or on the ocean. Considering this is not the case, it is highly unlikely that infantry like units will be seen in the more hostile space environment.
Heres why: space is the most hostile environment known to man. To be able to fill the role an infantryman actually has (not just the runy shooty bang bang stuff most video games show) a suit must be capable of sustaining the combatant and maintaining mobility for at least 10 hours (really more to be realistic) while needing to be small and form fitting enough to still be considered a suit and not a space craft. Beyond that, their combat capability must be great enough, that they can still be effective. Considering the mass needed to just sustain a human in space for that amount of time, let alone make them combat viable, it would be fairer to call the result a spacecraft than a suit.
As for your examples: Star citizen: star citizen is not a space sim in the sense that dcs is a flight sim, rather its a sim in the sense that the spore is a sim of evolution. It uses alot of tech thats more magic than science in order to achieve its expieriance.
Shattered horizon: is more authentic than realistic. Sure, alot of thought went into what running around in space with guns would feel like, but not whether or not that would be viable. The reason any of this would seem viable is due to a misunderstanding of how combat in general, not just in space works. This is because combat is more like several hours of manuevering with a few optimistic long range shots or barrages and then a few minutes of actuall combat. The combat in shattered horizon only works the way it does because of the way the map and game mechanics are set up. If you want to get more of a feel of how combat actually flows play some squad.
As far as the boat infantry and boarding is concerned: Its suicide, because if you get in (after burning past the several km/s relative velocity) the enemy will simply blow up the ship.
and finally: sure, armed police and malitia forces will still exist, but they will operate mostly the same as today. Look at american police officers: many still carry a model 1911 browning, a gun thats 100 years old. Police and malitias are only good for installation internal conflicts, and we've already invented all the weapons that would be relevant in those kinds of conflicts.
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Post by Enderminion on Oct 13, 2017 0:24:29 GMT
Boarding in the expanse (novels) is suicide because once you take either the bridge, CIC, or Engineering spaces, one of the other two will explode nukes
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Post by Enderminion on Oct 13, 2017 0:25:58 GMT
anything a man can do a drone can do better, you can then also use Atomics without fear of cooking your own units
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Post by newageofpower on Oct 13, 2017 3:11:18 GMT
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Post by The Astronomer on Oct 13, 2017 3:54:07 GMT
So, if you're going to use human infantry, why not use robots?
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Oct 13, 2017 6:25:40 GMT
Well, another problem (even with robots) is that any permanent installation or warship (and probably most civilian ships, too) is going to have a laser with at least a few megawatts of power as point defense in order to destroy any object on a collision course that's slightly larger than a pebble. So actually getting anyone near anything is going to be more of a covert action than actual military action.
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Post by treptoplax on Oct 13, 2017 17:41:00 GMT
I suspect there might be a place for infantry as military police or occupation troops. Drones are fine for forcing a surrender or putting down an uprising in progress (I guess, depending on your remote control technology and AI - in many ways I think this is the hardest military AI problem). Making sure that the captured shipyard is building everything according to your specifications and isn't putting together their own micro drones behind your back seems like it's likely still a job for boots on the ground.
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Post by matterbeam on Oct 13, 2017 21:14:07 GMT
Mounting any sort of attack against a warship using infantry or boarding craft is like sending soldiers to against a US Navy destroyer... swimming. They'll get wiped out.
However, there might still be a place for vacuum infantry. On low gravity surfaces, you'll have a lot of the features of orbital fights. In and around large space stations, between spaceships lined up and waiting to be docked... all require that none of the military-grade point defense systems be involved in any way.
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Post by Enderminion on Oct 13, 2017 23:07:02 GMT
Mounting any sort of attack against a warship using infantry or boarding craft is like sending soldiers to against a US Navy destroyer... swimming. They'll get wiped out. However, there might still be a place for vacuum infantry. On low gravity surfaces, you'll have a lot of the features of orbital fights. In and around large space stations, between spaceships lined up and waiting to be docked... all require that none of the military-grade point defense systems be involved in any way. if there is a fight there then there will be military grade point defense, why won't it be used?
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Post by matterbeam on Oct 13, 2017 23:38:32 GMT
Mounting any sort of attack against a warship using infantry or boarding craft is like sending soldiers to against a US Navy destroyer... swimming. They'll get wiped out. However, there might still be a place for vacuum infantry. On low gravity surfaces, you'll have a lot of the features of orbital fights. In and around large space stations, between spaceships lined up and waiting to be docked... all require that none of the military-grade point defense systems be involved in any way. if there is a fight there then there will be military grade point defense, why won't it be used? Just like in real life, there's a wide range of escalations from armed robbery to covert operations passing through gang wars and Private Military Corporation operations that don't involve shooting everything with a CIWS gun.
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Post by Enderminion on Oct 14, 2017 1:33:59 GMT
if there is a fight there then there will be military grade point defense, why won't it be used? Just like in real life, there's a wide range of escalations from armed robbery to covert operations passing through gang wars and Private Military Corporation operations that don't involve shooting everything with a CIWS gun. but you have to use all your guns or you might lose... why would you not use every weapon you can?
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gun
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Post by gun on Oct 14, 2017 10:20:26 GMT
The only time I think ground forces would be useful in a space warfare environment would be if one faction needed to attack an installation that they didn't want to damage severely via orbital bombardment, or could not be damaged by orbital bombardment (if the installation was underground or inside a large asteroid, for instance). One could use ground forces to take an installation on the surface of a celestial body without damage as much damage to it as an orbital bombardment probably would. In another potential case for ground forces, the enemy faction could possess some surface to orbit weapon that is so powerful that your fleet would not want to pass over it. For instance, a laser launch facility that is capable of launching cargo to orbit might potentially be re purposed to attack spacecraft orbiting near it, making a "zone" that would be too risky for enemy spacecraft to enter. Due to the presence of this danger zone, it could be prudent for your side to land ground troops (or very low altitude orbital weapons that more or less skim the celestial body's surface). Of course, these ground troops would land outside the danger zone, and then advance to take whatever weapon was preventing the allied space fleet from operating as planned. I highly doubt space-suit clad infantry wielding small arms would be useful in any event though. An armed rover of some kind would be much preferable to space-suit troopers. It would almost certainly move faster, it could have the capacity to be armored, and be more likely to have adequate damage control systems. Due to the fact that its carrying capacity isn't limited by what a human can carry on the given celestial body's surface due to its gravity, it can carry provisions for campaigns that last weeks or months and a much more powerful armament. When attacking some kind of orbital installation, it might make sense to use small drones similar to kinetic kill vehicles that have thrusters along the X, Y and Z axes. These would infiltrate the station at some point, and then proceed to seek out and kill the crew inside the station. If hacking is a concern, you could have point to point communications between the drones and whoever is controlling them. Each drone could have both an emitter and a receiver for a point to point communication system. The drones would position themselves such that they would create a "chain" of communication leading from the drones in combat, to drones positioned within line of sight of the nearest drones, all the way back to the command vessel. In this way, you could have drones that would have secure point to point communications, even in the twisting and bloody confines of a station under attack by your forces. I'm still only referring to armed people in space and I think there are countless scenarios. Ground soldiers is another issue and they would of course have a place in any future war, in the same way modern way isn't fought exclusively with airplanes (anything else is naive).
About rovers... maybe? Since there probably wouldn't be any anti-armour explosives, grenades, grenade launchers, or rockets launchers in space, some kind of Robocop (the Enforcement Droid Series 209) or Terminator (the early "T1" Skynet robots) style robot that's heavily armoured, armed and controlled remotely may work very well.
Games like shattered horizon look cool and all with a bunch of "realistic" stuff, and yes star citizen has "infantry", but that is only really possible by ignoring som blatent facts. Lets summarize the point I'm going to make here: if space infantry were to be viable, such infantry should be possible in less hostile environments. Thus we should see equivallent tactical units in less hostile environments such as in atmospher or on the ocean. Considering this is not the case, it is highly unlikely that infantry like units will be seen in the more hostile space environment. Heres why: space is the most hostile environment known to man. To be able to fill the role an infantryman actually has (not just the runy shooty bang bang stuff most video games show) a suit must be capable of sustaining the combatant and maintaining mobility for at least 10 hours (really more to be realistic) while needing to be small and form fitting enough to still be considered a suit and not a space craft. Beyond that, their combat capability must be great enough, that they can still be effective. Considering the mass needed to just sustain a human in space for that amount of time, let alone make them combat viable, it would be fairer to call the result a spacecraft than a suit. As for your examples: Star citizen: star citizen is not a space sim in the sense that dcs is a flight sim, rather its a sim in the sense that the spore is a sim of evolution. It uses alot of tech thats more magic than science in order to achieve its expieriance. Shattered horizon: is more authentic than realistic. Sure, alot of thought went into what running around in space with guns would feel like, but not whether or not that would be viable. The reason any of this would seem viable is due to a misunderstanding of how combat in general, not just in space works. This is because combat is more like several hours of manuevering with a few optimistic long range shots or barrages and then a few minutes of actuall combat. The combat in shattered horizon only works the way it does because of the way the map and game mechanics are set up. If you want to get more of a feel of how combat actually flows play some squad. As far as the boat infantry and boarding is concerned: Its suicide, because if you get in (after burning past the several km/s relative velocity) the enemy will simply blow up the ship. and finally: sure, armed police and malitia forces will still exist, but they will operate mostly the same as today. Look at american police officers: many still carry a model 1911 browning, a gun thats 100 years old. Police and malitias are only good for installation internal conflicts, and we've already invented all the weapons that would be relevant in those kinds of conflicts. Your first argument is iffy. There are soldiers aboard sea-ships. That's the correct analogy. Air is not a correct analogy, since gravity stops stuff from being in the air, while the surface of the sea is more like 2D space. As I wrote, I think infantry will only fight in the first space conflicts and when we get to developed interplanetary war, they will not be as relevant, except for in boarding action and such. But also, in non-war conflicts. Whether gunfighters in space will inhabit space suits or something closer to a spacecraft is what I want to know! As for SC, it simulates space combat realistically for the purposes on this discussion, I think. As for SH, Counter Strike style non-respawns would be more realistic, but matches don't play significantly different with infinite respawns. They simply play like engagements where people come to the front few at a time and it's no big deal. The games are not based on actual calculations of the space suit materials, weights, or actual physical simulations of the weapons and N-body orbital mechnics, but no video game in the world does anything like that and the only games that come close are flying and racing simulations. As for all weapons already having been invented, you think Earth-weapons will be used in space without modification, then? I think they may not be, which I'll get into after I've answering a few other posts.
anything a man can do a drone can do better, you can then also use Atomics without fear of cooking your own units In answer to this and any other post about drones or robots, one reason not to use them is because they aren't available ) Today, if it turned out someone aboard the ISS smuggled an M1911 up their ass and started shooting people and taking hostages, we couldn't just send a drone up there with an M16 in it's claw and shoot up the station... right?
Mounting any sort of attack against a warship using infantry or boarding craft is like sending soldiers to against a US Navy destroyer... swimming. They'll get wiped out. However, there might still be a place for vacuum infantry. On low gravity surfaces, you'll have a lot of the features of orbital fights. In and around large space stations, between spaceships lined up and waiting to be docked... all require that none of the military-grade point defense systems be involved in any way. Wiped out... by what? The ship being boarded would obviously be disabled or unarmed to begin with, say a space station, or a mining or research installation on an asteroid or moon.
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