tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post9098027927180020409..comments2024-03-28T00:43:37.279-05:00Comments on Future War Stories: FWS Topics: Combined ArmsWilliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-69904712280396800082018-12-16T02:34:34.557-06:002018-12-16T02:34:34.557-06:00My problem with Starship Troopers is that there...My problem with Starship Troopers is that there's no tanks or apps for the infantry. The fleet is useless it failed to provide orbital bombardment before the landings on the bug homeworld.Perisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03675920599824942260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-46185195918345893112018-08-06T11:26:58.832-05:002018-08-06T11:26:58.832-05:00The tank would never be the King of Battle that ro...The tank would never be the King of Battle that role goes to the Artillery. Period. Anyone that says different has never seen the destruction of enemy forces that a well cordinated and well used unit of Artillery can do. Even back when Artillery was emerging it was the King of Battle because it Outranged everything. Even in Afghanistan Artillery is the King of BattleAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18377659886828445894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-75400366471461263412014-08-28T07:27:03.221-05:002014-08-28T07:27:03.221-05:00It has been away since I looked at this blogpost, ...It has been away since I looked at this blogpost, and I am taking this down for reediting and format change. Not up to the current standards of FWS. <br />I think you are correct on the limits of space-based artillery on the battlefield. I think most orbital artillery would be a weapon targeting a large enemy present and not a single tank. <br />Yeah, those AT-ATa look cool, but they an large target and easy to take down. It helps that the Rebels were badly armed.Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-4017863892865350762014-08-28T00:59:08.328-05:002014-08-28T00:59:08.328-05:00What limited training I have had in battlefield ta...What limited training I have had in battlefield tactics revolved around the fact that battlefield units were broken down into three categories. These categories are infantry, cavalry, and artillery.<br /> <br />Infantry’s role is to hold ground due to its ability to absorb damage. <br /><br />Cavalry’s is used to respond to changes on the battlefield. Mainly to plug breaches in friendly lines, or exploit breaches in enemy lines.<br /><br />Artillery projects firepower over a distance.<br /><br />I hope those definitions are correct. It has been a while since I had that training, and I couldn’t find any verifications. <br /><br />An individual unit function is based on its ability to fit into one of those roles. There are various “missions” on the battlefield, but those are divided up by which category could better accomplish them. <br /><br />There are two things brought up in this article I would like to address.<br /><br />First is targeting tanks from satellites. Yes satellites do have great imaging capability. They can see and identify tanks from orbit, but hitting a target from 300 miles away is much harder. It wound be a piece of cake to hit a stationary target, but a moving vehicle would be much harder. Even if the satellite were to fire a laser, it would take at least a second or two to reach its target. If the vehicle was travelling at 30 MPH, it would have gone about 60 feet from the time the beam was fired till the time of impact. If the vehicle was evading, it would be nearly impossible to hit.<br /><br />On the subject of the AT-ATs from Star Wars, their size and speed make them too easy of marks for target practice, and better suited for weapons familiarization. These weapons would only be effective against civilians and poorly equipped militias. If a poorly equipped militia like ISIS were to face The AT-ATs, they would have no choice but to with draw. On the other hand, if a well-equipped and supported force like the U.S. military were to face the Imperial Walkers, they would call in B-52s, and arc light the assault force. The big bombs may not penetrate the walkers’ shields, but the big holes that they would make in the ground would cause the walkers to stumble. The rebels on Hoth could have taken out about 60% of the Imperial assault force by kamacozing one of their transports into the Imperial flank, and triggering a domino type effect. <br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15463753036970838320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-67726814618059492082012-01-14T00:11:07.288-06:002012-01-14T00:11:07.288-06:00Thank you for the comment! I am now researching th...Thank you for the comment! I am now researching the battle for Hoth. I think you're theory may be correct, it would explain the lack of imperial air cover. The theory of the energy shielding allowing slow moving targets reminds me of DUNE's "the slow blade penetrates the shield"Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-61447294535482545982012-01-13T18:16:56.942-06:002012-01-13T18:16:56.942-06:00Hi!
A very well put together article you have here...Hi!<br />A very well put together article you have here, though I feel the need to comment your view on the Empire Strikes Back.<br /><br />The rebel alliance projected a shield around their base and a good portion of the surroundings. Because of this barrier, ships or aircraft could not access rebel airspace. Instead they relied on landing barges, dropping off walkers outside the shielded area.<br />Because walkers have constant contact with the ground, they can pass through the energy field, where an aircraft would disintegrate on contact.<br /><br />With that cleared up, I thank you for a wonderful reading time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-50313054406639220752011-08-25T02:05:29.372-05:002011-08-25T02:05:29.372-05:00Star Trek was totally low tech in its approach to ...Star Trek was totally low tech in its approach to ground warfare- no body armor, no armored vehicles, and so on. The Federation did have a lot of tech that would change warfare a lot, but Star Trek never showed a Federation army. TNG phasers would be really hard to aim, but the Phasers from TOS, and especially the Assault Phaser, would be much easier to aim and use, as well as being much more powerful- an overloading phaser in TOS could nuke a starship, leading to widespread panic, as would an overloading laser pistol. Soldiers armed with phasers would be formidable indeed. Check out this link on SF firearms at Orbital Vector- Orbital Vector considers phasers to be the most advanced firearms in SF.<br />http://orbitalvector.com/Firearms/Phasers/Phasers.htm<br /><br />I theorize phasers on the disintegrate setting fire a special disruption particle that can cause atoms to break apart into neutrinos, triggering chain reaction in a target. That is why someone shot with a phaser glows green a disappears in TOS, or fades out with a lingering scream in the movies. Later on in TNG, they seem to forget that phasers are disintegration weapons- in First Contact, their rifles shoot pulses that make small explosions instead of rays that disintegrate stuff. On lower settings, phasers disrupt electrochemicals in the targets nervous system or heat objects. They are powered by an internal power pack that holds an obscene amount of energy- 1.3 Million megajoules per cubic centimeter. I want a phaser.<br /><br />I'm not sure FTL travel will be that horrible- imagine if the stars were no further away than a dive through a wormhole or the priming of a hyperdrive. You could go to another star and return in home to your friends and family, not your great-great-grandchildren. Space travel could be fun. Colonists would be able to have many starships drop in to visit. If we met aliens, we could actually have meaningful contact in an Earthly timeframe. FTL would be really awesome to have in real life.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-51132453368118276032011-08-25T01:47:15.485-05:002011-08-25T01:47:15.485-05:00The spaceship out of Avatar was based on the Valky...The spaceship out of Avatar was based on the Valkyrie antimatter starship designed by James Pellegrino and Jim Powell. Avatar crossed it with the laser lightsail for the initial boost from the Sol system and the deceleration back to Sol system on the return trip, only using the antimatter rocket to decelerate on arrival at Alpha Centauri and accelerate back on the return trip, since there weren't any laser cannons at Pandora. That part was conceivable, from a physics standpoint. <br /><br />Avatar is still unlikely to be our future, though- it assumes that A: there are habitable moons or planets at Alpha Centauri; B: those moons are full of a valuable, rare mineral Earth absolutely needs and cannon replicate; and C: Blue-skinned aliens that behave like the fairies out of Ferngully live on that moon. That is a bit unlikely.<br /><br />Without vastly more powerful propulsion systems that make the space shuttles look like bottle rockets, we aren't going anywhere. The real reason why we don't build rocket ships like in the Heinlein novels is that our rockets guzzle huge amounts of low-energy-density fuel. This fuel doesn't have the ooompphhh to power a rocket with a high exhaust velocity, so our rockets specific impulse is low. This means it consumes huge amounts of propellent, which means it must be multistage since we simply can't build single stage rocket with a mass ratio over ten. Mass ratio is the ratio of propellent to rocket ship and payload- the Apollo rockets were almost all fuel. Without more powerful fuels and engines, like nuclear rockets, fusion rockets, or antimatter drives, we are confined to Earth orbit. Chemical propulsion is just to feeble for anything beyond that. Which means your Endo/Exo atmospheric craft has to have propulsion better than a space shuttle. They will likely be SSTO vehicles and landers. I particularly like the ones I told you about- the aero and vacuum shuttles of the Explorer class starship. Those aren't helicopters, those are spacecraft, and they will get what you need on and off the planets you visit. And them we bring out the heavily armored ground rovers. I love those things. : ) I'll be using those in my SF.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-32575891078142559732011-08-25T01:26:16.484-05:002011-08-25T01:26:16.484-05:00Hello, William!!
Pulling technology out of your a...Hello, William!!<br /><br />Pulling technology out of your ass is not a good idea, no matter how neat that tech is. There will almost certainly be UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES. Here is an example. Imagine that a method of FTL communication- an ansible- was invented tomorrow. That's just awesome, right? No more communication delays in our Solar System, and we can talk to people (or aliens) who live at Alpha Centauri or even the other end of the galaxy. A lot of SF authors might introduce such a device, explaining it had to do with entangled particles or tachyons or other such nonsense, but they might miss the social ramifications of the FTL radio. Never mind how it works. Just explore the unintended effects of this device.<br /><br />What are the consequences of the Dirac-powered FTL transmitter? For starters, a manned voyage to Mars just become much more remote. One of the big arguments for a manned Mars voyage is the communications lag. The one-way communication delay when Mars is at its closest approach is 3 minutes, but varies up to 22 minutes delay time at the largest possible superior conjunction. This obviously makes it rather difficult to teleoperate rovers. This all makes a good argument for sending people to Mars- a geologist poking around for a while will get a lot more science done than a bunch of guys waiting around for the next signal from their probe. But if we have a FTL transmitter that operates instantaneously, with no lag time, technicians could operate a remote control rover from Earth in real time, making it a lot less likely that they will take on the dangerous and expensive task of sending people to Mars.<br /><br />That is not all though.. it gets worse. The FTL transmitter will cause the stock market to crash. High-frequency trading strategies rely on speed-of-light delays. But it gets still worse. All forms of encryption will be broken. All encryption methods rely upon algorithms that are NP-hard to crack with a computer. But since instantaneous communication violates causality (the principle that cause precedes effect), it opens all sorts of interesting strategies that will allow breaking problems that are NP-hard. In one fell swoop, all bank account data, secret government information, and military information will be readable. All of a sudden, our poor SF writer has undermined a major argument for manned space flight while simultaneously destroying the economy and causing wars and depressions. Uh-oh!!<br /><br />The moral of this story is to always explore all the ramifications of any device you include in your story. Sometimes, this works in your favor- you could introduce a device that seems to have a unintended consequences when you actually intend to explore the bizarre ripple effects of your device. Frank Herbert did that in his short story "Committee of the Whole", in which Congress orders an uppity, libertarian ranch owner to testify on national television. He does, and describes (on national TV, mind you) how to construct a laser sidearm powerful enough to slice a tank in two with materials commonly found in a garage workshop. This would allow libertarian minded people to hold off whole tank battalions, rendering all governments impotent. This was the ranch owners intention, and he made sure of the result by mailing blueprints of his plan all over the world. Much to the Congressmen's outrage.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-57693653936719548892011-08-24T19:52:47.109-05:002011-08-24T19:52:47.109-05:00A great deal of this post was designed around the ...A great deal of this post was designed around the theroy of a future military that based on ideas of today...some of the more exotic tech out there, like teleportation and anti-gravity would change the face of war dirtside. <br />I think authors of Sci-Fi must make decisions that fiction authors do...like how much science should I include? Some sci-fi just pull tech out of their ass with no regard to hard reality. FTL drives is where most, if not all, sci-fi authors are forced to hand-wave. The last realistic drive I've seen was in Avatar. Designing and writting about FTL vexes me greatly...how much is too much with science or fiction...never was a fan of the Skip Drive from Old Man's War, however, the Forever War think did the best job on the horrors of real FTL...choices...<br /> <br />Star Trek, for its exotic tech, is seemingly low-tech in approach to warfare planetside. No body armor, to support vehicles, hell, no spaceborne artillery, and they were uniforms that standout...and I think one of their phasers, especially from TNG would be hard to aim. <br />The whole endo/exo vehicle came from just thinking about the space shuttle, and reading on the dropship from ALIENS from the tech manuel...but anti-gravity pods would change what I wrote. <br />I very much like you ground vehicles! I am thinking of putting them in a post later...Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-52624452265092964492011-08-22T17:19:33.302-05:002011-08-22T17:19:33.302-05:00Ground survey teams wear hard suits. I'm sta...Ground survey teams wear hard suits. I'm starting to get a Half-Life-ish feel from all this- "Welcome to the Mark 4 Hazardous Environment Planetary Exploration Protective Suit. Life support activated. Suit computer systems online. Vital signs monitoring sensors activated. High impact reactive armor activated. Suit integrity sensors activated. Power assist exoskeleton activated. Environmental sensors activated. Emergency medical systems engaged. Weapons systems interface online. Munition level monitoring online. Communication systems online. Have a very safe and productive day!!"<br /><br />Later: "Hyper-velocity solenoid rifle acquired." "Alien life-forms detected!!" "Warning!! Hazardous radiation levels detected." "Suit power low- seek replacement power cells." "Hostile life-forms detected." "Suit MP3 player online. Epic music activated." "Armor integrity at 33%. Blood loss detected. Minor fracture detected." "Warning! Ammunition depleted." "Armor integrity at 15%. major fracture detected. Seek medical attention." "Massive blunt-force trauma detected. Internal bleeding detected. Warning!! User death imminent!!"<br />"User has died. Flatline on all vital signs."<br /><br />I always found it annoying that the landing parties in Star Trek just beamed down in stretchy black pants and miniskirts with no protective equipment at all. Obviously, astronauts on the moon and Mars will wear space suits, but if you are exploring an extrasolar planet, even if the atmosphere is breathable you want a hard suit. There could be hostile forms of life, you could be attacked, there could be dangerous substances in the environment, etc. Think of how many times a space armor suit would have saved a redshirt's life. The stupid killer flowers in "The Apple" would have not done anything to someone in a HEV suit. And every time someone died mysteriously, an HEV suit's recording devices and sensors would have provided clues. In older SF, engineers and soldiers often wore "space armor". It is likely future space explorers will have similar suits to protect them from hostile environments, hard vacuum, etc. If you are exploring an alien world, you want to be ready for any dangers you might encounter. A suit can keep you safe and comfortable in dangerous environments, and military versions will exist for space troopers.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-12714551562906668032011-08-22T17:18:06.236-05:002011-08-22T17:18:06.236-05:00What I found really interesting were the landing c...What I found really interesting were the landing craft the Explorer class starship took with it. Once it reached the destination star, the crew of the Explorer class starship gets busy exploring, building bases, and finding fuel for the return journey. The Explorer class ship has enough thrust to land on a planet, but that is not practical. She would vaporize anything beneath her when she landed. Therefore, we need some support craft to commute to planets and areas of interest.<br /><br />The vacuum shuttle is sort of like the Eagles from the TV show "Space 1999", but bigger. This craft can carry one or two eighteen wheelers, take off and land from a 1 G moon, and are modular. The vac shuttles can be reconfigured for different tasks. The vac shuttles drive system is a Bussard fusion reactor heating water as reaction mass. Very capable of taking off and landing on an earthlike planet and doing extensive cruising in a solar system.<br /><br />The aero lander is built like a huge lifting body (waverider or Aurora shaped). This craft would use engines similar to the vac shuttle, but in an atmosphere (of whatever composition) she would directly heat the atmosphere behind her in the shock wave for propulsion. That way an aero shuttle can carry more and have unlimited range in an atmosphere. This craft is used for light jobs and supply runs to ground exploration teams, as well as vacuum operations. They have 100 ton cargo capacities. Oh, and they have self protection armament- two self-targeting 30mm solenoid gun turrets.<br /><br />You'll love the ground rovers. Heavy rovers travel in packs and can act as a mobile base. Rovers are like very large APC's. They can operate in a number of environments, ranging from normal air pressure to hard vacuum. They can cover many terrains and even float and self propel on water. Self protection armament of two independent self targeting 30mm solenoid gun turrets. Take that, Colonial Marine APC!! The heavy rovers can even link up to form mobile bases.<br /><br />Here is the link to the specs of the landing craft:<br />http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/school/InterStellar/Support_Craft/SSTO_hypersonic_craft.html<br />And this the mission plan and manifest of an Explorer class starship:<br />http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/school/InterStellar/Explorer_Class/Mission_plan_and_manifest.html<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-36218134671451410692011-08-22T16:05:54.543-05:002011-08-22T16:05:54.543-05:00I found a cool website that contains a conceptual ...I found a cool website that contains a conceptual design study for an explorer class of starships. The craft resulting from this study is a large, capable, mobile research platform with enough personnel and resources to adequately explore another star system. The starship is also rather large, slow, and expensive. This ship is really a draft design that will hopefully be the basis for further debate and refinement.<br /><br />The ship was designed with the assumption that no fantastic new breakthrough technologies are available in the future. A fairly extensive space exploration and industrial infrastructure is in place, so we have the resources to build and launch a starship. The public is motivated to explore another star system, instead of just mounting an Apollo style "plant the flag" mission. Space telescopes have already taken high resolution photos of the planets in the target star systems, so the astronauts have a good idea what to expect when they get there.<br /><br />The heavy explorer class starship is large and has a crew of several hundred. Her drive systems allow her to reach a speed of at least 30% light speed. This is too slow to experience much time dilation, so the crew will experience a round trip of twenty-five to thirty years on a trip to even the nearest stars. This ship is not multi-generational. It will be hard to attract top personnel if they don't even get to see their destination, but many people would devote their entire life to exploring another star system. Public interest will wane if the ship won't get anywhere for 100 years- why send a slow ship now if you can send a fast one later?<br /><br />The real problem is deciding the Explorer class starships drive technology. The study concluded that an externally fueled fusion rocket is the best, and that ramjet concepts are unlikely to work. The Explorer class is not capable of high speed relativistic space flight, so stars as far away as Tau Ceti are just to far away for an explorer class ship. We will be limited to nearby stars.<br /><br />The dirty little word is "fuel". If the ship uses a fusion rocket, it will consume 10 tons of fusion fuel every second!! You'd need 100,000,000 tons to reach 1/3 light speed. I don't see where you can get that much, or how you would carry it. Obviously, propulsion is a real challenge with this ship.<br /><br />Here is the web site:<br />http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/school/InterStellar/Explorer_Class/ExplorerClass.html<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-21844442052731118502011-08-22T01:06:31.148-05:002011-08-22T01:06:31.148-05:00Now onto Endo/Ex atmospheric vehicles!! Again, I ...Now onto Endo/Ex atmospheric vehicles!! Again, I disagree with some of your assessments- but your spirit is most commendable. Just assuming that orbit to ground travel is like a helicopter ride is wrong. However, that does not mean that ground to orbit ships can't be quick and powerful. By the time we can travel in space, we will need to have the capability to launch large ships and cargo into space, and shuttles are easier than cargo lift. On the whole you are right. Troopers are much more likely to build a surface base than rely on regular, helicopter like visits from a dropship. A rocket ship is quite likely to show up at that base, however- or even a light-craft. This falls under launch technologies, and when we can travel between stars, we will have ships that won't even notice the extra delta-v of a liftoff.<br /><br />The reason why space shuttles have huge booster rockets is that chemical propulsion SUCKS!!!!! There, I said it. Chemical rockets have high thrust, but they require so much propellent to reach orbit, a single stage ship just can't do it. NASA's rockets have a low exhaust velocity, so they require large amounts of propellent. Unfortunately, that means staging, since no single stage rocket can have a mass ratio as ridiculous as a chemical rocket requires. The rocket scientists who first reached orbit invented step rockets to do this- but better things are possible. Nuclear energy can be used as for space flight. Fission is powerful but dirty. Fusion propulsion is the best. In the future, we will have rockets so powerful they won't even notice Earth's gravity when they take off. This is all rocket science, I know, but Atomic Rockets talks about this- and the bottom line is that anyone capable of reaching another star will be able to jet around their solar system and take off from Earth easily.<br /><br />I've got a good link for you here- it covers concepts for Earth to orbit travel, ranging from the quite-practical-but-not-politically-correct nuclear rockets, fusion-powered spaceplanes, and speculative concepts like antigravity and wormholes. And everything in between.<br />http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA426465&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf<br /><br />The bottom line is that much more powerful rockets will be available in the future, your ground to orbit craft may not be rockets at all, and that they are not helicopters. And getting from orbit to ground tends to be much easier than getting from the ground to orbit- especially if the body you are landing on has an atmosphere. So look before you leap, and don't land to hard.<br /><br />My next comment will show design and specs for landers that can carry an APC to an Earth sized body. This craft was designed for space exploration, but you can see the possibilities for military use. This craft uses fusion propulsion.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-73909806131799564202011-08-22T00:38:42.204-05:002011-08-22T00:38:42.204-05:00That's the thing with propulsion breakthroughs...That's the thing with propulsion breakthroughs. The idea is that we are not limited by such annoying things as light speed barriers, mass ratios, or time dilation. We can get to the stars and back as fast as in the SF movies, preferably in the short attention span of Congress and the people back home. We don't have to shave off all our body hair and leave everything at home- we can bring everything we need, including all your aunt's luggage. That is the goal of the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project- finding ways to send people the the stars in a short time frame with all their stuff.<br /><br />In a military SF novel, this means a ship with breakthrough FTL propulsion and all the cool gizmos won't hang around. Your FTL troopship carries you, all your friends, all your weapons (including your super-duper portable energy cannon), powered armor suits, APCs, dropships, laser banks and nuclear missiles, etc. out into the cosmos. You arrive at the front, fight the aliens, save the day, and come back to the Earth in time for a victory celebration.<br /><br />Of course, not all FTL ship in SF are like that- it depends on what limits you set. If only small ships can go, that means no huge battleships. If only big complex ships can have FTL, than you will have big troop carriers. If FTL requires huge amounts of energy, than you need to explain the source of this energy. Set a top speed- if the drive can only go a few times light speed, most the action will take place close to home, assuming most interstellar trips last two years. If a ship can travel 36,500,000 faster than light, the action will be galactic in scope because that ship could cross the galaxy in a day. In some works, the ships can only enter hyperspace at certain jump-points. This is good for MSF, because jump points become military choke points, ships can't escape from a battle by disappearing into hyperspace, and hyperspace bombers can't sneak on your planet and drop a planet-cracker on you. Check out the Atomic Rockets page on Faster than Light travel- it is chock full of useful info and tips. God bless Winchell Chung, where would we be without him? Nowhere!!<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-31771375527767718542011-08-22T00:15:24.624-05:002011-08-22T00:15:24.624-05:00I have a few problems with your assessment of FTL ...I have a few problems with your assessment of FTL travel. Relativistic space travel involves massive amounts of energy, accelerating to high speeds and decelerating back down, and time dilation. FTL travel, on the other hand, is a pure hand-wave on the part of the author and can take almost any form you want. Tricks of space-time geometry, hyperspatial shortcuts, warp drives, or other such star-drives find some clever way around the light-speed barrier- often avoiding time dilation to boot. A ship wouldn't have to travel at high speeds to take a trip through a wormhole.<br /><br />There are some semi-plausible concepts for a FTL drive. The Alcubierre drive warps the fabric of space and time around the spacecraft, stretching it out behind the ship and collapsing it in front, so the ship "surfs" the warp to another star. Right now, we aren't even sure if such a thing is practical or even possible- you would need a strange matter with negative mass to create such a warp. Some physicists are studying this concept right now- but it isn't that much help to a SF author. It's not like they invented FTL travel- yet.<br /><br />My point is that FTL drives in SF don't involve high speeds or time dilation- they find a clever way to avoid the light-speed barrier. We know that you can never even approach light in an accelerating space-ship- the speed of light is invariant no matter who measures it. A ship that travels near the speed of light requires huge amounts of energy and experiences time dilation effects, so the crew may spend twenty years in a round trip and return home to find that 160 years had passed. All their friends would be dead, and so would be their grand-children, unless medicine had discovered how to stop aging and extend life for hundreds of years. So, the FTL ship dodges the light speed barrier. It may use tricks of space-time geometry, project bubbles of altered space around the craft, travel through a parallel universe, convert itself into tachyons etc. The warp drive the Alcubierre suggested doesn't suffer from relativistic effects either- and neither do wormholes. <br /><br />When you design a FTL drive for SF, just make up some rules, avoid fluffy technobabble explanations, and remain consistent. To make it work, you may have to bend or break some laws of physics- just keep the fracture under control. Give your drive a top speed. Have some other interesting effects. Find the logical consequences of anything you come up with. Right now, FTL is a very speculative concept, and it is quite likely to be impossible. There are good reasons why most scientists reject the concept, and new physics will be needed to show if wormholes can be made stable or if warp drives can work. We just don't know if the laws of physics allow for warp drives- thats what Mark Millis of the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program works on.<br /><br />The real can of worms is that in Special Relativity, FTL travel leads to time travel and casualty paradoxes- I'm not an expert on this yet, so don't ask me why. That doesn't stop some of us from dreaming of a day when we can dive through a wormhole or surf a warp in space-time to travel to the stars and back in time for dinner.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-45375342239258472592011-08-21T19:24:22.488-05:002011-08-21T19:24:22.488-05:00Teleporting armies onto a battlefield- that is an ...Teleporting armies onto a battlefield- that is an exotic technology, to be sure. The army would love that- imagine teleporting into a war criminal's hideout, tapping him on the shoulder and telling him it is time to go. Imagine alien armies teleporting to Earth, confusing and decimating human populations. That is a bone-chilling thought.<br /><br />The computer game series Half-Life used the idea of aliens teleporting to our planet- and then organizing an invasion. Imagine going to work at Black Mesa one day and having head-crabs teleport into your office. Then you go outside, and a gargantua materializes and starts chasing you. It is too bad that the Mac version of Half Life wasn't released- I would have like to have played that game.<br /><br />I think the scariest experience a civilian might have in the Half Life universe would be being awoken at night during a portal storm to find that headcrabs had teleported into your room- and that they are destroying the neighborhood. Not many people keep crowbars in their room... and those headcrab zombies would love to rip your guts out and play jump rope with your intestines. If a headcrab doesn't latch on to your head first. Lets hope you have Glock 17 and a shotgun handy if this scenario plays out.<br /><br />On the other hand, super-technology like transporters, replicators, and disintegration weapons (phasers) out of Star Trek would make a Federation army almost invincible. Whole armies of Federation troops could just materialize on a battlefield. They wouldn't have any problem supplying weapons, tools, and supplies with their replicators- all they need is feedstock. it is too bad that they never explored a Federation army in Star Trek- those puny Star Wars stormtroopers could never withstand an army with the technology of Star Trek. The tech level of Star Trek is just too high. By the way, I like Star Trek TOS and movie era- nothing else. I haven't even seen the spinoffs, and only a little of TNG.<br /><br />Maybe you should explore teleportation and replicators in some of your fiction. That stuff is well beyond the "plausible midfuture" the Rocketpunk Manifesto blog talks about, but that sort of tech would make colonizing the universe a whole lot easier. Warp drives allow access to the distant stars. Replicators allow a whole colony to be made from just raw materials in days. Phasers blast a target into neutrinos, causing it to disintegrate into nothingness. Pretty neat stuff. I always liked the Trek universe too.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-23970719709138020942011-08-21T18:59:31.962-05:002011-08-21T18:59:31.962-05:00Hi William!! Tanks will likely become obsolete wh...Hi William!! Tanks will likely become obsolete when spaceships can attack targets on the ground with kinetic bombardment, like Project Thor. Tanks work best in open spaces like the desert, but that is where they will stand out and be easy to target from orbit. Soldiers, on the other hand, can hide in jungles, cities, forests... Those people in the 1980's should have though of that. Not only that, but tanks need infantry support so they aren't taken out by infantry with anti-tank weapons.<br /><br />When powered armor comes along, there will be anti-powered armor weapons. If aliens in powered armor and fighting machines invaded and conquered the Earth, human resistance fighters could hide in jungles and urban areas where the alien machines had a hard time maneuvering. Then the humans could wage a guerilla war agains the aliens, making sneak attacks and destroying patrols and outposts until the losses became to severe the aliens were forced to retreat. Sometimes bigger is not better. This would be a good plot for a SF novel- showing how the aliens managed to take over, but they didn't count on continued resistance from individual fighters in complex environments.<br /><br />The link "Tips on Writing Military Sci-Fi" first showed me how important- and irreplaceable- infantry is. Even in an age of starships, orbital weapons, and powered armor, infantry will be the core of the military. You can't control a location with air support or space support alone. You need soldiers to fight for, secure, and defend a location. Even if you target enemy units from orbit, you need soldiers to go in and make sure the enemy is gone. Massive fighting machines can destroy a city, but they can't capture it. They can't go from house to house and flush out resistance. <br /><br />Warbots have their own vulnerabilities as well. Robots just bring their own problems- you can't modify perfection, we are the best. Robots can't make moral decisions. They are vulnerable to EMP, HERF, etc. Infantry is the spine of a military. Everything else is support. Pinpoint orbital weapons won't change this.<br /><br />To me, it looks as though most large vulnerable targets like tanks are going to become obsolete in the future. In an age when satellites can count eggs in a basket, pinpoint orbital weapons- such as kinetic bombardment, cruise missiles, or even lasers can find and destroy tanks and armored vehicles with ease. Future warfighters will have to become good at evading attention or they will be killed. Big machines can't hind nearly as easily as a soldier- or resistance fighter- can.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-73062895544398945832011-08-21T17:35:18.296-05:002011-08-21T17:35:18.296-05:00It was amazing to me, when I wrote this blogpost o...It was amazing to me, when I wrote this blogpost on just how important infantry still are to the art of war, despite the advances in technology. The conflict in Afghanistan as proven that. I can remember when people thought the tank would be the king of battlefield in the 1980's, especially with books like Team Yankee. <br />The ability to teleport entire armies to a enemy planet was best explored, I think, with the Iconians from ST:TNG and ST:DS9. I thought the concept of Demons of air and darkness was much cooler than the Stargate shows. The idea of entire armies onto a planet is bone chilling...Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-32334650143046265122011-08-21T16:00:03.814-05:002011-08-21T16:00:03.814-05:00Starlift capability. Without breakthroughs in pro...Starlift capability. Without breakthroughs in propulsion physics- like thrusting without propellent, wormholes, or warp drive, we are unlikely to ever have this capability. Interstellar travel is really tough. For one thing, the stars are very far away. If the sun were the size of a typical, 1/2 inch diameter marble, the distance from the sun to the Earth, called an "Astronomical Unit (AU)" would be about 4 feet, the Earth would be barely thicker than a sheet of paper, and the orbit of the Moon would be about a 1/4 inch in diameter. On this scale, the closest neighboring star is about 210 miles away. That’s about the distance from Cleveland to Cincinnati.<br /><br />I won't try to explain all the difficulties with interstellar travel right here, since Nasa has already done it for me. Check out this link, it is a great resource for anyone interested in interstellar travel. Go check it out, I'll wait.<br />http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/scales.html<br />And the main site:<br />http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warp.html<br />And the obligatory Tau Zero link that also explains the difficulties with interstellar travel.<br />http://www.tauzero.aero/site/html/getting_there.html<br /><br />Bottom line is, rockets are not going to cut it for interstellar troop transport. And a civilization with antimatter engines that can propel ships to near-light-speed will fight wars with relativistic impactors- using the starship as a weapon. Why bother sending troops when the ship will terminate the offending civilization's existence with extreme prejudice? Except to mop up any survivors, that is.<br /><br />We will need either FTL drives or constant acceleration drives with space drive technology, so the ships don't have to carry propellent. That could provide star lift- as well as opening up the whole cosmos to future space farers.<br /><br />Another SF option is teleportation. Some SF works feature interstellar teleporters to transport astronauts, colonists, and soldiers to faraway planets. Star Trek used transporters for quick ground to orbit travel, but that series was unique it its use of teleportation. Sometimes the traveller might be dematerialized and re-assembled at his destination. Other works feature dimensional gateways that can move the traveller through parallel universes or exotic spaces to reach faraway places. Wormholes are a real-life concept for star travel, though we don't know if we will ever be able to create one. <br /><br />Robert H. Heinlein wrote a book in which transporters are used to colonize the universe. He realized that rockets couldn't transport the vast numbers of people he needed to move in his book, so he invented a form of teleportation to do it. A MSF book could used teleportation for star lift- and teleportation could give an element of surprise.<br /><br />Here is a link on a teleportation physics study done by the Air Force, to research possible military uses of teleportation technology:<br />http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/teleport.pdf<br />Could give you some ideas.<br /><br />To be continued...<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-7176818200015919872011-08-21T15:28:33.921-05:002011-08-21T15:28:33.921-05:00Hi William!! Combined arms is sadly overlooked by...Hi William!! Combined arms is sadly overlooked by most SF books and series. Our military relies heavily on infantry, air support, artillery, and tanks working together to smash enemy forces, not soldiers running around with no support in hostile territory. Future soldiers will still use the concept of combined arms- but not in most SF books and movies. Hopefully that is changing- this blog is doing its bit toward improving military SF- and any SF that has soldiers in it.<br /><br />I was surprised to find out that the infantry is the core of any army, and that tanks, artillery, and aircraft exist to support infantry. It makes sense if you think about it. Tanks can't go in jungles, mecha can't kick down doors and search buildings (they will fall through the floor due to their weight, assuming they can fit through the front door to begin with), orbital cannons can't rescue hostages. Orbital laser cannons might make desert wars suicidal and tanks obsolete- but infantry can hind in jungles, cities, or mountains. Even powered armor suits can't go places soldiers go, so the trooper on the ground won't go obsolete anytime soon. Even in settings with massive starships that battle it out with heavy weapons in the depths of space, you still need ground units to capture and hold territory or defend planetary populations. Even the Death Star can't capture territory without troops- only destroy or intimidate planets.<br /><br />That means than in future war, infantry will play a key role- even beyond the confines of Earth's atmosphere. Even orbital bombardment or planet killing weapons won't obsolete infantry- any more than arial combat or nuclear weapons did. Such powerful weapons will change tactics, but they won't obsolete the foot soldier on the ground. It doesn't matter if the soldier is fighting a modern war with an ordinary rifle or combating alien invaders with a Mars Gallant particle beam gun- infantry will always be important. It is unlikely killer robots will replace infantry, unless Skynet is involved. Even then, Skynet had to copy human infantry.<br /><br />To be continued...<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com