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[forsaken1111]

"What is the verification code?"
"Verification code?"
"Yes, the code you say to verify that this is a secure signal."
"Uhh..."
"Shut off the coms, it's useless now."

 Because the military has already thought of these.

Indeed. People try to do this NOW, and its why we have codebooks and verification of orders. Imagine the shitstorm if someone got a sub to launch its nuclear missiles on a false order.

But in the end it would pay off. Would rather fight the enemy in extremely dangerous space combat where you (And many others) could die in a instant, or would you rather sit back and watch the enemy kill each other off?

Just realize that this 'hacking' you're doing would require an active signal source powerful enough to interact with the target, which means its powerful enough to be traced. A single ARM (anti-radiation missile) type ordinance would kill whatever is broadcasting as soon as they realize what was happening. (ARM are designed to detect and home in on an enemy radio emission source. We use em today to take out radar sites and other broadcast sources. Unless the broadcast is switched off, its an almost guaranteed hit)

Really I think you've watched way too many movies. I respect the tenacity with which you cling to these ideas, and they make outstanding and dramatic fiction, but they have no place in a real war.

[Johnfalcon99977]

But in the end it would pay off. Would rather fight the enemy in extremely dangerous space combat where you (And many others) could die in a instant, or would you rather sit back and watch the enemy kill each other off?

Just realize that this 'hacking' you're doing would require an active signal source powerful enough to interact with the target, which means its powerful enough to be traced. A single ARM (anti-radiation missile) type ordinance would kill whatever is broadcasting as soon as they realize what was happening. (ARM are designed to detect and home in on an enemy radio emission source. We use em today to take out radar sites and other broadcast sources. Unless the broadcast is switched off, its an almost guaranteed hit)

Really I think you've watched way too many movies. I respect the tenacity with which you cling to these ideas, and they make outstanding and dramatic fiction, but they have no place in a real war.

We all argee that this is say... 300 - 500 years in the future? I think we may have created much more powerful radios by then.

Also, when the damage is done, you could just retact the radio signal. Were most likely not going to be fighting with fleets over 5000 strong the second we get into space war. It would be most effective in smaller skrimishes of say, 7 to 54 ships? More then that and it will start to lose it effectiveness. If you gain their military information, would you rather use it to shoot a Railgun in just the right place or use it to cause your enemies to fight each other.

I do not take my ideas from movies but from my common sense. n fact, the movies often have it all wrong in my opinon.

[Shade-o]

It would seem that with the conditions of space combat, the most effective means of combat would involve capital ships bristling with point-defence weapons, and swarms of drones or fighters.

Given that long-range combat is impossible due to light-lag and energy dispersal, the weapons would have to be applied at short-range. Self-guided missiles would be viable, but the conventional concept would be highly vulnerable to lasers and similar measures unless they had mitigating circumstances such as ECM or massively overwhelming numbers.

Small, mobile weapons platforms designed for unloading on the enemy at minimal cost would be most effective. Being small and nimble enough to have a chance at avoiding being obliterated instantly would be the main bonus, and the larger carrier-support ships would be far easier targets. Human pilots would be highly unlikely, so autonomous or semi-autonomous drones would be necessary. In order to avoid light-lag and jamming, they would have to be able to continue combat without direct input from controllers.

In that case, the crewed spaceship would be in a command, supply and support role. It would house drones and missiles, using as many as possible to overwhelm the defences of the enemy. Electronic and cyber warfare would also be crucial to disrupting and limiting the effectiveness of the enemy.

This is of course assuming that things such as FTL, wormholes and energy shields do not exist.

[forsaken1111]

Also, when the damage is done, you could just retact the radio signal. Were most likely not going to be fighting with fleets over 5000 strong the second we get into space war. It would be most effective in smaller skrimishes of say, 7 to 54 ships? More then that and it will start to lose it effectiveness. If you gain their military information, would you rather use it to shoot a Railgun in just the right place or use it to cause your enemies to fight each other.

I do not take my ideas from movies but from my common sense. n fact, the movies often have it all wrong in my opinon.

If you cut off the transmission you're still close by and they can try to find you. You cannot do something like this over a long distance due to lightspeed lag unless you want them to realize it takes 10 seconds for you to respond every time and then realize its a false signal.

Given the choice you posit, and knowing the exact position/course/speed of every ship in the enemy fleet, I would simply bracket each one's projected position with an overwhelming volley of kinetic weaponry. Its cheap and clean, and has zero risk. You know it will work, and it can't go catastrophically wrong.

[Burnt Pies]

What about the kinetic weaponry that misses? What if it strikes some populated world somewhere, decades after the original battle?

[forsaken1111]

What about the kinetic weaponry that misses? What if it strikes some populated world somewhere, decades after the original battle?

If they aren't my worlds, I don't care.

Also the chances of a kinetic ship-to-ship round striking a world at all is indefinably small. The chance that they would not only strike a world but strike it at the narrow range of angles which would allow it to enter the atmosphere without burning up are even smaller.

[Il Palazzo]

But it's still a nuclear bomb and it still most often Uranium.

Check and mate.

Plutonium.

Re: hacking the comms.

It's all nice and dandy, providing that whomever build the ship did not have enough common sense to take simple steps to prevent hacking. E.g., not using MS Windows on all the combat computers, not interconnecting the armada via the World Wide Web etc.
Why use radio for communication, and be open to wide-frequency jamming and be forced to listen to enemy propaganda talks, when you can use lasers for information transfer? No interference is even possible, unless you've got a James Bond on one of the ships smearing strawbery jam on the receiver/emitter.

What about the kinetic weaponry that misses? What if it strikes some populated world somewhere, decades after the original battle?

Somewhere out there, a huge projectile is flying through space, shot and forgotten by some ancient civilization. Given enough time, it is going to hit the Earth, and we can do jack shit about it. You know it's true.

[forsaken1111]

unless you've got a James Bond on one of the ships smearing strawbery jam on the receiver/emitter.

Ahh, the spaceballs school of jamming technology.

Of course, that was raspberry.

NOBODY GIVES ME THE RASPBERRY

[Shinziril]

I assume communications lasers fall under the typical scifi jargon of "tightbeam" transmission, since they are directional, specific, and nearly immune to interference.  Radio transmissions would be broadcast and most likely coded to prevent interception. 

[Urist is dead tome]

Wouldn't the technology to block hackers progress with hacking?

[Johnfalcon99977]

Well hacking is in cyberwarfare, and cyberwarfare is a very large part of our military today...

Don't believe me?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Military

In the U.S., General Keith B. Alexander, first head of the recently formed Cyber Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that computer network warfare is evolving so rapidly that there is a "mismatch between our technical capabilities to conduct operations and the governing laws and policies." Cyber Command is the newest global combatant and its sole mission is cyberspace, outside the traditional battlefields of land, sea, air and space." It will attempt to find and, when necessary, neutralize cyberattacks and to defend military computer networks.[21]

Alexander sketched out the broad battlefield envisioned for the computer warfare command, listing the kind of targets that his new headquarters could be ordered to attack, including "traditional battlefield prizes – command-and-control systems at military headquarters, air defense networks and weapons systems that require computers to operate."[21]

One cyber warfare scenario, Cyber ShockWave, which was wargamed on the cabinet level by former administration officials, raised issues ranging from the National Guard to the power grid to the limits of statutory authority.[22][23][24][25]

The distributed nature of internet based attacks means that it is difficult to determine motivation and attacking party, meaning that it is unclear when a specific act should be considered an act of war.[26]

Also, if you can just "disconnect the thing from the radiowaves and internet" and leave it like that, then riddle me this.

A single hacker managed to shutdown an ENTIRE CITY. From the lights to machinery railways. Everything.
So if they could've just "Cut those things off" from all the radiowaves and internet, why didn't they do it? Cyberwarfare is very dangerous and should not be forgotten during the wars in space.

Also, on the topic of kinetic weapons, since they travel very slow, they would be very impratical in a battle with only a little ships.
But say that there are like, 200 ships taking part? The anwser is simlar to the problem of early gunpowder weapons. If you have a bunch of kentic shots firing at a mob of enemies, chances are at least ONE of them will hit.

[Zrk2]

I think space battles would be quick, massively destructive and ultimately frightening. They would involve fleets flying at each other and when they get close enough firing off masses of missiles and hoping they come out unscathed. Any hit on a ship would likely completely destroy it, meaning tiny ships would me the most likely way for battles to happen.

[Realmfighter]

With our current technology.

For all we know, tomorrow we could discover forcefield technology that blocks anything designed to be shot and only let through crazies with rifles.

[Zrk2]

Forcefields could be crashed via massive explosions overwhelming them.

[Realmfighter]

Theoretically, just as they could theoretically could last forever.