"Realistic" sf space battel

[Phyrox]

Oh god come off of it. You haven't watched the show and yet you're taking wild stabs at the air against it, just because you have an education in the field.

I think you have misunderstood me.

I am not saying anything "against" the show. I have only ever heard good things about it, and I have no doubt that it is indeed a top-notch sci-fi epic. I didn't imply that the lack of realism that I noted made the show bad, just that it was, well, unrealistic. I enjoy many shows and movies that have far larger flaws.

No need to get hot under the collar.

And about WWI, there were certainly units which took unbelivably high casualty rates, but I can't think of a battle in which 70% casualties was experianced. The first day of the Somme, and many other offensives, were bloodlettings of unheard of proportions but as was pointed out, those were unsustainable. The French army simply broke down due to the stresses of loss rates much lower than 70% (among other things).

But Noy, I don't think I have to "come off" anything. I am a pretty humble guy, and don't think I have said anything here which implies otherwise, nor have I made an attempt to use whatever education I have to beat anyone over the head. I tried to make a few small points, backed up with some details, then mentioned my training in passing in regards to something else.

If you or anyone else thinks I have acted highhanded that has not been my intent.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

We know how physics work, so that gives us a fairly good idea.

Ah but but for all the ones with aliens in them, all kinds of new futuristic tech means different strategies to win from the ones in the real world. They may use strats that don't even exist yet. Which means there is a lot of made-up science - eg minovsky particles in mobile suit gundam are made up, so the gundam UC stories are only realistic for thier universe that plays by its own rules. So in order for the average joe to think it is truly realistic, it would need to scrap all the made up stuff.

A bit like how some of the characters can't except the floating alien in macross zero. It's too unscientific to the scientists in macross to understand to be able to really happen. (except for a select few) But if the tech were understood, it would mean you could fight against that type of creature more effectively and use the new weapons to change how people fight in future. The strategy might be basically the same, but with new technology some old strategies are superceded by better ones based on the level of "fictional alien tech" the humans have access to. IF the SDF-1 were real and we could wipe out whole fleet of alien ships, people would look back at old history books and say: "well those were strategies that worked well back when people didn't have these new weapons.." "the battle formations we have has to change if we are to better survive" ..so it's not easy for me to understand what people usually mean by "realism" in science"fiction". If it is grounded in current tech and near future tech then that's usually how I interpret it when they say "real". But anything with ficitional races or fictional tech with made up rules is harder for me to accept as realistic since many times you will have them doing stuff that isn't even possible yet. (antigravity for eg. Where are our real life flying cars and floating cities?)

Edited February 11, 2007 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

double post..been experiencing problems with the internet connection all day

Edited February 11, 2007 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Max Jenius]

Well by definition, no space battle can be "realistic." Outside of hard physics.

[Gaijin]

There has never been a realistic space battle in real life has there? So I doubt any of them are realistic because how would we know if they are truly realistic, unless there was something in real life like a space war to compare the fictional show against? (macross 7 might be seen as realistic if in the future we have the tech to spacefold if that is invented for all to use. Ah yes, spacefold some bombs onto people's ships at the moment they are about to blow up, rather than shooting them from a close distance. Brilliant strategy, Protodevlin!)

Someone mentioned no sounds in space for example. Not many sci fi takes that into account. Probably because it also has to be entertaining too.

True, but Firefly/Serenity pulled it off. And Battlestar Galactica TNS tends to "muffle" the sounds a bit so at least it's not like Star Wars.

[rehnvall]

The most basic precepts of military strategy are pretty universal. Sustained 70% casualty rate is unsustainable and unrealistic in ANY setting.

Pity that real life history do not agread, the german Ubot fleet did have about 75%! casualty rate in ww2.

[F-ZeroOne]

Pity that real life history do not agread, the german Ubot fleet did have about 75%! casualty rate in ww2.

Not in one go, though - over about 6 years of increasingly difficult-to-survive warfare. 75% was the overall casualty rate for the conflict as a whole.

Edited February 14, 2007 by F-ZeroOne

[Akilae]

Not to mention the 75% is limited to the Ubootflotten, which in and of itself was a VERY small part of the German army as a whole. Doenitz at any given time was very lucky to have more than ten boats out at sea...

Now if we expanded 75% to the entirety of Germany's military power in ONE battle... yep, two or three or those and the Allies wouldn't even need to land in Normandy.

Keep in mind how military drafts go: First the young men, then the older men, then the much older men, before long you'll be drafting your kids, which is what Germany ended up doing. It only took about 6 years for them to get there...

Does anybody have the numbers for WWI? What with the "Lost Generation" and all that...

Back on topic.

One of my pet peaves regarding space combat: Whenever you use kinetic weapons (e.g. BSG), you always operate under the assumption that the projectile will hit something. Now on earth all projectiles eventually hit the ground due to gravity and air resistance. What happens in space? Does the projectile keep on shooting out, until it hits some unfortunate freighter that crosses its path? Just taking "realism" to the extreme, but makes for some interesting scenarios.

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

One of my pet peaves regarding space combat: Whenever you use kinetic weapons (e.g. BSG), you always operate under the assumption that the projectile will hit something. Now on earth all projectiles eventually hit the ground due to gravity and air resistance. What happens in space? Does the projectile keep on shooting out, until it hits some unfortunate freighter that crosses its path? Just taking "realism" to the extreme, but makes for some interesting scenarios.

All kinetic projectiles I have seen on fictional space battles don't show them slowing down, which is realistic. There is also no need to account for it to hit some target in the background as the chance of it hitting anything in the great big expanse of space is negligible.

[Knight26]

I actually wrote a short story about that once a long time ago, need to dig it up. Basically a freighter is just cruising along and gets hit by a projectile launched like 200 yrs before, or some other absurdly long time ago. I wrote it for a creative writing class in college, the teacher hated it, but my physics professor gave me extra credit for it because of how realistically it portrayed the incident.

[Morpheus]

Reading this thread reminds me of one of the most interesting space combat anime "GINGA SENGOKU GUN YUUDEN RAI". Its really cool since you got shogun and samurai warrior, riding a battleship with a huge guns and some of the craziest boarding action. Damn I miss this anime I only to manage to collect some of the original manga.

back to topic:

LoGH is probably the best space military depiction in anime in terms of strategy and troops deployment.

[Uxi]

What happens in space? Does the projectile keep on shooting out, until it hits some unfortunate freighter that crosses its path? Just taking "realism" to the extreme, but makes for some interesting scenarios.

Space is so big that once out of the initial combat zone, the odds are EXTREMELY unlikely of someone running into it. But then if it was "realistic" given some other things we've seen of BSG (for example), most combat would probably take place outside of visible range with missiles, etc. Especially the capital ships, but likely even with the fighters (which are themselves something of an anamoly in a "hard" sci fi setting.

[Kin]

There has never been a realistic space battle in real life has there? So I doubt any of them are realistic because how would we know if they are truly realistic, unless there was something in real life like a space war to compare the fictional show against? (macross 7 might be seen as realistic if in the future we have the tech to spacefold if that is invented for all to use. Ah yes, spacefold some bombs onto people's ships at the moment they are about to blow up, rather than shooting them from a close distance. Brilliant strategy, Protodevlin!)

Someone mentioned no sounds in space for example. Not many sci fi takes that into account. Probably because it also has to be entertaining too.

Ah well... maybe they will design a hit indicator (using exploding/laser sounds) in the future...