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[Zrk2]

Or they could never be possible. Or they could be fields or iron particles manipulated via magnetism.

[Realmfighter]

And thats why trying to predict space combat is stupid and pointless.

[RedKing]

In realistic space combat, kinetic weapons are likely to be the only realistic option. You state that they travel slow, but you're forgetting that:

A. Initial vector is that of the firing ship. Which means bullets in space are already going really fast.
B. Near-vacuum means extremely long range with very little loss in velocity.
C. Cost-effectiveness is king.

Consider this: The Space Shuttle in orbit moves at roughly 7860 m/s. Another craft approaches it directly in its flight path at the same speed (even though an incoming craft would likely move considerably faster than a vessel in orbit, being under active power). The Shuttle has been outfitted with with a standard Barrett M82 50mm (muzzle velocity, 853m/s) with, let's say a 700g bullet. You now have a 700g projectile traveling at a speed of 16573 m/s relative to the oncoming craft. Loss of velocity is going to be negligble due to near-lack of gravity and friction.

Energy = 1/2 X mass X velocity squared = 0.5 X 0.7 X  (16573)^2 = 9.613 Megajoules. That's a LOT of kinetic energy, from a single off-the-shelf .50cal sniper rifle. Which is a lot cheaper to develop, build and supply than exotic energy weapons. Aiming accurately might be a bitch at high speeds, but with computer assistance, it can be done.

The comic series Albedo (a good read, despite being a furry) had a pretty solid depiction of space combat that was purely kinetic, firing swarms of metal shards with limited manuever ability, and counter-swarms intended to impact and destroy the incoming burst. Basically, both ships fired and waited however long it took for the impactors to reach other. Hopefully your armor was thick enough to withstand whatever got through. Joe Haldeman's The Forever War had another similar example, although only in one or two scenes in the book.

[Johnfalcon99977]

There are a few flaws I see with this.

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.

The problem with this is simply 2 words. Time and reasouses. (Yes, I know that is really 3 words, but I don't count the "and")
The size of said "Capital Ships" would need to be quite large in order to carry enough fighters to make difference. Also, the cost to make the figthers would be high also, and since they have little-to-no defence of there own, they would be killed quite easily by missle and kentic weapon ships. A high cost for a mediocre tactic.

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.

Short range and long range. I find these defintions unclear most of the time because "range" changes with how large the objects are.
This is better understood if I use an example. There are 3 things. One is larger then normal fly. The other is a large parking lot, and the last is a skyscaper. You would call the fly "huge", even though it is tiny compared to the parking lot. You would call the parking lot "large" even though it pales in comparison to the skyscraper. The object being referred to changes the mean, even though the word does not. So when thinking about range, you have to take in the size of the ships first. The light-lag area grows bigger (or smaller? Whatever makes the distance before the shot starts to lag) as the ships get smaller, so if you have 2 really small ships fighting each other, what would very tiny to a large ship is huge to a small ship. And as our mastery of techology increases so does our ability to build bigger ships and ability to launch kentic and missle projectiles at higher speeds. The time lag to me may not be a problem unless we just focus on making bigger ships.

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.

The same as the first. Time and reasourses. It will painful and long to build a computer that would be smart enough to direct ships without going stupid. Live pilots are more reliable to me because they have the ability to look at problem and solve it. Live pilots won't ever break or require maintenance. (On the field of battle that is. Come on, A guys gota lay back and take a break once in a while!) Early ship computers will be not smart enough to guide ships all by themselves and they will cost improble amounts of money. If I was in charge of the military, I would always opt for the mind and ingenuity of Humanity.

Electronic and cyber warfare would also be crucial to disrupting and limiting the effectiveness of the enemy.

But at last, someone who agrees with me!

[Realmfighter]

Once you make a computer smart then a human, you can mass produce them far faster then it would take to even train a human, let alone copulate, give birth and raise for years.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Once you make a computer smart then a human, you can mass produce them far faster then it would take to even train a human, let alone copulate, give birth and raise for years.

How?

[Akura]

I didn't really pay too much attention to this topic, since it really does look like a bunch of sci-fi geeks and gun geeks arguing about stuff they don't know any more about than the guy who wrote the Wikipedia article, who may or may not be knowledgeable on the subject. But I just want to make a snarky comment:

Any kind of meaningfull combat will have to be knife range unless you're firing at something with a predictable course/speed or something which is motionless relative to you.

Somebody is way too optimistic for the sci fi novels were hand to hand combat is still the way of heros.

His term of knife-range being relative. In this case, knife-range means hundreds of thousands of miles.

Long-range knifing Duke.  With a scope.

If space warfare does happen, it'll probably be missiles, or lasers. Missle may have more damage potential, but a laser may cut a hole in their ship, which is generally bad enough.

[Realmfighter]

Once you make a computer smart then a human, you can mass produce them far faster then it would take to even train a human, let alone copulate, give birth and raise for years.

How?

If your calling my argument invalid because you don't think a computer smarter then a human is likely to happen anytime soon, then this entire thread is invalid.

[forsaken1111]

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.

Because a city is not a military network. Civilians expect things to be connected, and are willing to sacrifice security for convenience, or are simply unaware of the vulnerabilities.

I didn't really pay too much attention to this topic, since it really does look like a bunch of sci-fi geeks and gun geeks arguing about stuff they don't know any more about than the guy who wrote the Wikipedia article, who may or may not be knowledgeable on the subject. But I just want to make a snarky comment:

-snip-

If space warfare does happen, it'll probably be missiles, or lasers. Missle may have more damage potential, but a laser may cut a hole in their ship, which is generally bad enough.

So you pop in to insult us all, drop off a stupid picture, and then proceed to do the same thing you're making fun of us for doing. Classy.

[RedKing]

The same as the first. Time and reasourses. It will painful and long to build a computer that would be smart enough to direct ships without going stupid. Live pilots are more reliable to me because they have the ability to look at problem and solve it. Live pilots won't ever break or require maintenance. (On the field of battle that is. Come on, A guys gota lay back and take a break once in a while!) Early ship computers will be not smart enough to guide ships all by themselves and they will cost improble amounts of money. If I was in charge of the military, I would always opt for the mind and ingenuity of Humanity.

Really? A target intercept is purely a mathematical problem. Computers that we have NOW can solve equations on the fly to determine the optimal intercept path to a moving object. I mean, hell....we have torpedoes now that if they lose their initial target, will begin performing manuevers to hunt for a new target. This isn't rocket science (pun intended). Launch drones with small, high-performance engines. Drone has been fed target vector info at launch from the firing vessel. At this point, it's reduced to a problem of "You are at point A. Your target is at point B, heading in vector X. Catch up to it." With a kinetic-kill drone, you wouldn't even need an explosive payload, just ram the drone into your target.

[inteuniso]

I think lasers have the edge once the technology is miniaturized, and a power source is easily and reliably generated.

Lasers travel faster than missiles. Simply approach from the top, or bottom, or behind the ship, and make slag out of their engines. Or burn a hole in their ship. Either one.

[Cheese]

Than, not then, guys. I'll contribute tommorow.

[PsyberianHusky]

Has DARPA done any research on the subject?

[forsaken1111]

The same as the first. Time and reasourses. It will painful and long to build a computer that would be smart enough to direct ships without going stupid. Live pilots are more reliable to me because they have the ability to look at problem and solve it. Live pilots won't ever break or require maintenance. (On the field of battle that is. Come on, A guys gota lay back and take a break once in a while!) Early ship computers will be not smart enough to guide ships all by themselves and they will cost improble amounts of money. If I was in charge of the military, I would always opt for the mind and ingenuity of Humanity.

Really? A target intercept is purely a mathematical problem. Computers that we have NOW can solve equations on the fly to determine the optimal intercept path to a moving object. I mean, hell....we have torpedoes now that if they lose their initial target, will begin performing manuevers to hunt for a new target. This isn't rocket science (pun intended). Launch drones with small, high-performance engines. Drone has been fed target vector info at launch from the firing vessel. At this point, it's reduced to a problem of "You are at point A. Your target is at point B, heading in vector X. Catch up to it." With a kinetic-kill drone, you wouldn't even need an explosive payload, just ram the drone into your target.

The problem is determine the exact position and heading of the target at the time of firing. Beyond even half a light second of distance, the target could have moved significantly from where your light-speed sensors reported it, as well as changed course. You have to predict where it will be when your shell arrives, not know where it is at that moment.

[Johnfalcon99977]

The same as the first. Time and reasourses. It will painful and long to build a computer that would be smart enough to direct ships without going stupid. Live pilots are more reliable to me because they have the ability to look at problem and solve it. Live pilots won't ever break or require maintenance. (On the field of battle that is. Come on, A guys gota lay back and take a break once in a while!) Early ship computers will be not smart enough to guide ships all by themselves and they will cost improble amounts of money. If I was in charge of the military, I would always opt for the mind and ingenuity of Humanity.

Really? A target intercept is purely a mathematical problem. Computers that we have NOW can solve equations on the fly to determine the optimal intercept path to a moving object. I mean, hell....we have torpedoes now that if they lose their initial target, will begin performing manuevers to hunt for a new target. This isn't rocket science (pun intended). Launch drones with small, high-performance engines. Drone has been fed target vector info at launch from the firing vessel. At this point, it's reduced to a problem of "You are at point A. Your target is at point B, heading in vector X. Catch up to it." With a kinetic-kill drone, you wouldn't even need an explosive payload, just ram the drone into your target.

The problem is determine the exact position and heading of the target at the time of firing. Beyond even half a light second of distance, the target could have moved significantly from where your light-speed sensors reported it, as well as changed course. You have to predict where it will be when your shell arrives, not know where it is at that moment.

So in your sense, the smaller the ship is the better. I agree with this. But keep in mind that we will not start out with gigantic ships. I reckon they will be quite small, so the distance of half a light second would be dramaticly increased.