Are space fighters really impossible in realistic Sci Fi?

[Nik_2213]

A couple of thoughts: These space-war lasers seem assumed to be pulsed, the optical equivalent of gun-fire, or SW mega-ships having crew feed munitions to their turrets...
'Continuous' beam weapons would be 'fire, then aim'. Technically much harder, wasteful, but difficult to dodge...

Um, having watched gamers battle the near-AIs in 'first-person shooters', I must wonder if such 'bots' would suit the 'brains' of the many missile types an attacker must throw at an AI defense...

 

[Melbourne Guy]

I'm still struggling with the definition of "realistic Sci Fi" in the OP's title, because that seems able to accommodate anything the author can throw at it, but @Nik_2213, your assumption of pulsed lasers is a common one in the space warfare genre, mostly, I find, because it loads up the narrative with more tension than a continuous beam when fighting small, nimble craft.

Um, having watched gamers battle the near-AIs in 'first-person shooters', I must wonder if such 'bots' would suit the 'brains' of the many missile types an attacker must throw at an AI defense...

Are those FPS games really 'near-AIs' though? And is my interpretation of your comment correct: you're saying humans are better than bots in these games?

 

[Drakkith]

Um, having watched gamers battle the near-AIs in 'first-person shooters', I must wonder if such 'bots' would suit the 'brains' of the many missile types an attacker must throw at an AI defense...

Virtually nothing in a video game can be applied to real life. The AI (and I use AI in the loosest possible sense of the term) is extremely limited and designed to give the player a fair challenge. So no how matter how good or bad they appear to be, they are designed for a video game and nothing else.

 

[Rive]

Virtually nothing in a video game can be applied to real life.

Exactly. To start with, the scripts of those bots are based on the objects around: in real life the starting point is, that what objects are around?
Also, the allocated resources. Those bots are just part of a game, a dozen or so (in case of space genree: maybe some dozen, up to maybe a hundred or two) running around as a background task of the game, while a combat AI would run alone on its hardware.
Very different, in every aspect.

 

[f95toli]

Note also what happened when Alphastar from Deepmind learned to play Starcraft...
This was despite the fact that the interaction time was artificially limited and -as far as I remember- it was only allowed to do one thing at a time, which obviously wouldn't be the case if the goal was just to create a system that could win with no restrictions .

Another -possibly more relevant example- would be the results from DARPA's Alphadogfight trials last year
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_AlphaDogfight
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2020-08-07

It is worth pointing out that even in this case there were restrictions in that the AI was simulating flying a F-16. The current generation of aircraft are designed for human pilot, a purpose-built AI controlled drone meant for dogfighting could be designed very differently and could also sustain high g-forces for an extended period of time.
The same obviously applies to a spacefighter.

 

[Jojomanrul3z]

Not impossible, stupid. Why would you build a fighter jet designed to maneuver in space and dogfight upclose and personal? Space is big and there is no cover in space, the enemy you are fighting whoever they may be can already see you coming before you can even take a shot and they already have a railgun slug or missile heading straight to you before you even know it and even if you get closer and survive the main weapons yoi still got to worry about their CQC/defensive weapons like Point Defenese Cannons.

Basically, space combat will take place in great distances like 100,000 km to 1,000,000 km or more because of the effective range of weapons being limited but you can still see your enemy you just got to get close to make sure your railgun slugs or missiles doesn't miss the enemy ship.

Realistic space fighters would look more like the rocinante or morrigan class patrol destroyer because they are not fighter jets they are small ships providing fire support from different directions, and not dogfight like the X-wing and colonial viper. Even if you accomplish to conduct a dogfight in space its basically suicide not just because of the weapons firing up close, but the fuel you waste maneuvering and dodging shots and then there's the G-force you got to deal with that puts so much stress on the pilot or crew. Maneuver too fast, you get lots of G-forces and too much G-forces could either knock out the crew or potentially kill them.

 

[Melbourne Guy]

Wow, tell us what you really think, @Jojomanrul3z

Seriously, you're making a lot of assertions that can be contested, we're in the sci-fi forum, after all. But I note you're advocating missiles in space, asserting that they are workable. I literally am wondering about missiles in space for my latest novel, which is a military space opera. Surely, your arguments against space fighters apply to them, too? Why would they work when fighters won't?

 

[Jojomanrul3z]

Wow, tell us what you really think, @Jojomanrul3z

Seriously, you're making a lot of assertions that can be contested, we're in the sci-fi forum, after all. But I note you're advocating missiles in space, asserting that they are workable. I literally am wondering about missiles in space for my latest novel, which is a military space opera. Surely, your arguments against space fighters apply to them, too? Why would they work when fighters won't?

Missiles work because they have no pilots. When a ship has a pilot the ship is limited to how much G-force their crew or pilot can take. Missiles don't have that limitation meaning they can maneuver and accelerate faster without turning the crew into paste.

Plus the question being asked is are fighters impossible in a realistic sci-fi so that's my answer.

 

[Drakkith]

Missiles work because they have no pilots. When a ship has a pilot the ship is limited to how much G-force their crew or pilot can take. Missiles don't have that limitation meaning they can maneuver and accelerate faster without turning the crew into paste.

While this is all correct, we already use missiles and piloted fighters, so it's not nearly as simple as you're implying. One major, major limitation to both fighters and missiles in space combat is fuel. Unlike missiles used in the atmosphere that burn all their fuel very quickly after launch and then use the air to maneuver, missiles in space MUST use fuel for any maneuvering. This puts a pretty strict limitation on them in terms of effective range. Put simply, the longer the range is, the less fuel the target has to burn to force a large burn of the missile. And the faster the closing velocity the more this is exacerbated.

Fighters have similar problems in addition to requiring enough fuel to make it back to their mothership/carrier/base and having more mass in the first place.

I'm not convinced either are 'impossible' in space combat, but both have serious limitations at this time.

 

[BWV]

While this is all correct, we already use missiles and piloted fighters, so it's not nearly as simple as you're implying. One major, major limitation to both fighters and missiles in space combat is fuel. Unlike missiles used in the atmosphere that burn all their fuel very quickly after launch and then use the air to maneuver, missiles in space MUST use fuel for any maneuvering. This puts a pretty strict limitation on them in terms of effective range. Put simply, the longer the range is, the less fuel the target has to burn to force a large burn of the missile. And the faster the closing velocity the more this is exacerbated.

Fighters have similar problems in addition to requiring enough fuel to make it back to their mothership/carrier/base and having more mass in the first place.

I'm not convinced either are 'impossible' in space combat, but both have serious limitations at this time.

Interesting point - one option you never see in space operas is the initial acceleration utilizing energy from the launch vessel - rail gun or whatever. If you accelerate the missile with a shipboard rail gun then you only need fuel for maneuver - same with a fighter (but the g-forces for a human pilot would place a constraint - so an other argument for drone / AI fighters)

 

[Jojomanrul3z]

While this is all correct, we already use missiles and piloted fighters, so it's not nearly as simple as you're implying. One major, major limitation to both fighters and missiles in space combat is fuel. Unlike missiles used in the atmosphere that burn all their fuel very quickly after launch and then use the air to maneuver, missiles in space MUST use fuel for any maneuvering. This puts a pretty strict limitation on them in terms of effective range. Put simply, the longer the range is, the less fuel the target has to burn to force a large burn of the missile. And the faster the closing velocity the more this is exacerbated.

Fighters have similar problems in addition to requiring enough fuel to make it back to their mothership/carrier/base and having more mass in the first place.

I'm not convinced either are 'impossible' in space combat, but both have serious limitations at

Of course fuel is a limitation for missiles, that's why ships have to get close 'enough' to make sure their weapons, which in this case are missiles, actually hit their target or else they'll just dodge it in the next few minutes or seconds and the missiles run out of fuel because the target is too far away.

Distance is the greatest friend and enemy you can have in any space battle because you can stay away from the effective firing range of your enemy, but could also limit YOUR effective range of your weapons so if you or the enemy vessel gets too close, you're fighting in point blank range. So if all you have to do is keep your distance and have advanced weapons that have more effective range than your enemy does, why have one or two man fighters get even closer? Its suicidal, stupid, and makes no sense in a strategic or tactical perspective. Your enemy's PDC, CIWS, any weapon specifically designed for close combat and point defense will rip a small fighter to shreds unless your objective is to board the enemy vessel that you have crippled earlier and the said fighter is just a space tug with guns carrying a container with troops inside.

Fighters are impossible in space not because we can't build them, but because we will never be using them because of strategic and tactical reasons. And why have a fighter when you can have more missiles at the same cost of a fighter?

BTW I am using the expanse and choldren of a dead Earth as my reference here being one of the only shows and games that uses real world physics and plausible technologies. The only ships the equivalent of a fighter would be the, morrigan class patrol destroyer and corvette class frigate/rocinante. They can be carried by a Donnager class battleship to trick the enemy that only one ship is sent to destroy them when in truth there are 7 or 13 ships and they don't go in closer they keep their distance. Get in too close to the enemy their dead.

 

[Drakkith]

Fighters are impossible in space not because we can't build them, but because we will never be using them because of strategic and tactical reasons.

A strong position to take for a battlefield which has yet to be fought on.

 

[Melbourne Guy]

and plausible technologies.

I'm grinning at that assumption, @Jojomanrul3z.

The Expanse has a handwavium breakthrough for ship thrust (not to mention the whole alien protomolecule aspect), and Children of a Dead Earth is no better:

Every technology, from the Nuclear Thermal Rockets to the Magnetoplasmadynamic Thrusters to the Railguns, was implemented using actual equations from Engineering and Physics textbooks and white papers

They can include an Alcubierre warp drive in that, no worries, it's "plausible" by your definition.

But with fighters, you're assuming we haven't geneered humans to withstand extreme gees, it's about as likely as the space battles you can create in Children of a Dead Earth. Or uploaded fighter pilot minds to their ships!

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," it's science fiction, 'realistic' depends on when and where you're setting your story!

 

[Jojomanrul3z]

I'm grinning at that assumption, @Jojomanrul3z.

The Expanse has a handwavium breakthrough for ship thrust (not to mention the whole alien protomolecule aspect), and Children of a Dead Earth is no better:

They can include an Alcubierre warp drive in that, no worries, it's "plausible" by your definition.

But with fighters, you're assuming we haven't geneered humans to withstand extreme gees, it's about as likely as the space battles you can create in Children of a Dead Earth. Or uploaded fighter pilot minds to their ships!

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," it's science fiction, 'realistic' depends on when and where you're setting your story!

Okay then what is the question actually implying then? Realistic sci-fi set in modern times or set in a time where we have already colonized the whole solar system? Is it a hard sci-fi that uses real world physics and plausible technologies today? Can they jam all types of wavelengths? Any conditions we need to take into consideration?

Yes we have geneered humans to withstand extreme gees but only for a limited time. Too much of it they are either going to get knocked out or just die.

Im only using The Expanse and Children of a Dead Earth as a 'reference'. Mainly how they fight in the void. And also handwavium is literally nothing new. Every sci-fi story does that. Why do they do that? Simple. Its just another genre of entertainment. People don't care about the physics, the science, they just want a story to like and feel relatable.

But if were trying to go realistic and just ignore real world physics and science and make up our own tech and theories that doesn't even look like it is plausible at all and is not in accordance to real world physics then what's the point of calling it realistic/hard-sci-fi then?

"Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic."

Since the question has the word realistic. I am assuming it is hard sci-fi set decades or hundreds of years into the future that has tech and plausible tech still in bounds with actual physics and science. Hence my answer.

 

[valenumr]

Of course fuel is a limitation for missiles, that's why ships have to get close 'enough' to make sure their weapons, which in this case are missiles, actually hit their target or else they'll just dodge it in the next few minutes or seconds and the missiles run out of fuel because the target is too far away.

Distance is the greatest friend and enemy you can have in any space battle because you can stay away from the effective firing range of your enemy, but could also limit YOUR effective range of your weapons so if you or the enemy vessel gets too close, you're fighting in point blank range. So if all you have to do is keep your distance and have advanced weapons that have more effective range than your enemy does, why have one or two man fighters get even closer? Its suicidal, stupid, and makes no sense in a strategic or tactical perspective. Your enemy's PDC, CIWS, any weapon specifically designed for close combat and point defense will rip a small fighter to shreds unless your objective is to board the enemy vessel that you have crippled earlier and the said fighter is just a space tug with guns carrying a container with troops inside.

Fighters are impossible in space not because we can't build them, but because we will never be using them because of strategic and tactical reasons. And why have a fighter when you can have more missiles at the same cost of a fighter?

BTW I am using the expanse and choldren of a dead Earth as my reference here being one of the only shows and games that uses real world physics and plausible technologies. The only ships the equivalent of a fighter would be the, morrigan class patrol destroyer and corvette class frigate/rocinante. They can be carried by a Donnager class battleship to trick the enemy that only one ship is sent to destroy them when in truth there are 7 or 13 ships and they don't go in closer they keep their distance. Get in too close to the enemy their dead.

Well, technically there isn't any gravity or air resistance, so once up to speed they just need enough fuel to maneuver.

 

[Rive]

But with fighters, you're assuming we haven't geneered humans to withstand extreme gees

You don't even need that kind of magic for writing about high accelerations. The acceleration shells from Forever War are already classics.
The reaction speed of humans is likely a more important issue.

strict limitation on them in terms of effective range.

The point about space is, that it's not the range what's limited but ΔV.

Put simply, the longer the range is, the less fuel the target has to burn to force a large burn of the missile. And the faster the closing velocity the more this is exacerbated.

Another point about space is, that a simple 5 gram foil balloon with a bit of gas in it is just as fast and 'big' on radar as a missile.

There are far more into 'space warfare' than just these simple assumptions.

Why would you build a fighter jet designed to maneuver in space and dogfight upclose and personal?

Just to mind you, the 'up close and personal' is not the main functionality even for actual fighter jets.
Cannons are mostly present only because the lesson from F-4 is not forgotten. Actual engagement is expected to happen mainly at missile range.

 

[Jojomanrul3z]

You don't even need that kind of magic for writing about high accelerations. The acceleration shells from Forever War are already classics.
The reaction speed of humans is likely a more important issue.The point about space is, that it's not the range what's limited but ΔV.Another point about space is, that a simple 5 gram foil balloon with a bit of gas in it is just as fast and 'big' on radar as a missile.

There are far more into 'space warfare' than just these simple assumptions.Just to mind you, the 'up close and personal' is not the main functionality even for actual fighter jets.
Cannons are mostly present only because the lesson from F-4 is not forgotten. Actual engagement is expected to happen mainly at missile range.

I only said that because most sci-fi shows with fighters do ww2 dogfighting like starwars, battlestar galactica and space battleship yamato.

 

[Jojomanrul3z]

Well, technically there isn't any gravity or air resistance, so once up to speed they just need enough fuel to maneuver.

The problem is that fuel isn't the only thing you have to worry about you also need to take into account the ammunition supply, life support systems, water supply, oxygen supply, food supply, radiation, maintenance of your comms, radar and navigation system, heat management, and most importantly the health, morale and sanity of the crew.

 

[f95toli]

A strong position to take for a battlefield which has yet to be fought on.

That is only partly true. While there has obviously never been a battle in space, the question was about manned fighters and there we can probably with some confidence extrapolate from what is already happening with fighter aircraft on earth. If we assume that the current generation of manned specialist fighter aircraft will be the last (which many people seems to believe) and that we essentially already have the technology needed to build autonomous fighter aircraft (which the fact that the technology is already being tested and is in part already in use would suggest) ; it then follows that it is extremely unlikely that we would in the future go from using unmanned aircraft/drones on Earth to using manned fighters in space; to carry out very similar tactical roles.

Humans are pretty useless in most cases; and I can't see any military reason for why you would ever want (or need) a human piloting a fighter. There might be political/humanitarian reasons (which is why there is already a campaign to ban autonomous drones); but if it gets so bad that we are actually having dogfights in space I suspect no one would care very much about that.

 

[Melbourne Guy]

The problem is that fuel isn't the only thing you have to worry about you also need to take into account the ammunition supply, life support systems, water supply, oxygen supply, food supply, radiation, maintenance of your comms, radar and navigation system, heat management, and most importantly the health, morale and sanity of the crew.

All good points, @Jojomanrul3z, and often for the basis of the best narratives because we do like to read about ourselves, after all. Even engaging AI stories typically anthropomorphise the machines!

 

[Jojomanrul3z]

All good points, @Jojomanrul3z, and often for the basis of the best narratives because we do like to read about ourselves, after all. Even engaging AI stories typically anthropomorphise the machines!

If youre going to make youre military spaceopera novel, try to atleast do some research in todays military combat tactics and BVR. And also try to implement Newtons 3 law of inertia, orbital mechanics and how to get your crew to survive not just a battle but also their journey through the void. And also age of sail combat and how to keep your crew's morale intact. It'll make you're story maybe at most believable.

Unless your just going to go for star wars or star trek style story nevermind what I said.

 

[Melbourne Guy]

If youre going to make youre military spaceopera novel, try to atleast do some research in todays military combat tactics and BVR.

Well, my novel is set in the 2670s, so I'm well past today's military tactics, @Jojomanrul3z, but Newton still applies (mostly, I've had to invent new physics for FTL travel) and I haven't planned for space fighter craft in any event. Battle tactics are mostly kinetic weapons at a distance and beam weapons up close to punch through planetary defences and get to the ground to land troops. And crew morale is part of the story, this is not my first rodeo

 

[Lren Zvsm]

TL;DR at bottomIt's a somewhat accepted convention that in realistic scifi space fighters should be impossible to use effectively. In general they are regarded as being easy targets that, at interstellar ranges would be unable to survive in a battlefield that employs current plausible scifi weaponry such as laser and railguns. At a glance this would seem like a reasonable assumption. Lasers travel at light speed and would only have to point at the target and at shorter distances rail projectiles move fast enough that dodging becomes impossible. But is that all there is to it? I'd take the unpopular opinion that the picture of warfare for a fighter/drone wouldn't be as bleak and clear cut as the raw science makes it seem once you start considering the realities of how those kinds of weapons might perform in real world conditions. I'd even go so far as to say that fighters/drones might actually be vital in scifi settings that are trying to accurately portray space warfare. Here's my reasoning.

The target is very small. Your gun is very big.
In Future War Stories, the author cites that a fighter craft at a range of ~239,000mi would have about 2.5 seconds to dodge an incoming laser. As such it wouldn't have enough time to evade enough shots to make it closer to a target. I think there's two problems with this suggestion. Firstly, the laser that's firing can only determine a shot based on trajectories that are 2.5 seconds old. If the fighter is always altering it's course this estimate will always be wrong and it will take 5 seconds for the firing computer to even confirm whether or not it made a hit to update it's firing solutions and try again.

Secondly, even if the fighter were traveling is a predictable straight line, would the computer be able to hit it anyways? That might seem like a simple yes, but it really isn't once you consider how far away such a small target actually is. So a laser fires at a fighter 3 yards tall 239,000mi away. Let's make it easy and say the fighter is traveling upwards at 90 degrees to the laser so the computer can use really simple trig. The fighter is also moving really slow, only 1.2m/s relative to the laser. The laser is In order for that laser to hit the target, it needs to adjust the firing mechanism on it's laser by 4X10^-7 degrees or 4 ten millionths of one degree. If the laser were 10 meters long, it would have to raise it's barrel by 4.5 x 10^-11 or 4.5 hundred trillionths of a mile, which I'm not going to covert, but it's smaller than a picometer adjustment. And that's only for adjust aim up/down.

And that's the main problem. At those ranges, the projectile isn't the limiting factor, it's the weapon firing it. At a certain point you can't make the weapon anymore precise. Even if it can adjust it's aim to ten thousandths of a degree couldn't be expected to hit a target at those ranges, even if the target was standing still relative to the gun. It doesn't matter how precise the targeting computer is at calculating since the gun will be limited by physics.

So then we have to ask, at what ranges could a large laser be expected to hit a target reliably. So let's assume it's 10 meters long, and can adjust by as little as 1/10,000 of a degree/second. At 20,000 miles which Future War Stories cited as a realistic engagement range for fighters, the gun needs to adjust by 5 millionths of one degree. Still too inaccurate.

Let's try 5,000 miles. You need to adjust by 2 hundred-thousandth of a degree.

500 miles. You're right about there at 2 ten-thousandths of a degree.

TL:DR With an incredibly ridiculously precise laser gun, firing at the easiest moving target imaginable without account for other issues, like ship vibrations, thermal expansion of the the weapon, the presence of a gravity well, and no third dimension you'd only have an effective range of ~5,000 miles. This would give fighter/drones armed with missiles a very distinct advantage as they could close distances with a larger ship from a variety of angles and fire a very large number of missiles that the targeting computer would have to deal with in addition to the fighters themselves.

And to be frank I wouldn't really expect any weapon large enough to shoot down a fighter to be reasonably expected to have more than 1/100th a degree of precision at the very most, which is just 9 miles effective range. If you can only get one-tenth a degree of precision for the weapon, you'll be able to see Luke Skywalker in his cockpit at less than a mile. At one degree of precision, an A-Wing may crash into your bridge, since your effective range is now 4700 feet.

Wouldn't it be more realistic, and possibly more compelling, if the projectile were self-propelled and guided, like a cruise missile?