Sci-fi Military Tactics and Strategy

@Fox

Kind of, it you've got long range VTOL fighters. The idea is that you can slip fighters through a defense grid more easily than a troop transport. It's kinda cartoony, though. Like something you'd see on a saturday morning action show.

That just makes me think of boarding pods.

^ Or a Drop Pod.

"Drop into Hell, feet first!"

Arguably you can use the fighter as an exfiltration method as well as infiltration. However, that isn't much of an advantage and leaves a number of vehicles unguarded in hostile territory.

So not really worth it.

"Live forever, Apes."

edited 23rd Jul '16 8:12:06 AM by AFP

I miss that show, damn I wish they had at least finished the Earth Invasion arch.

I know right? It wasn't best written or the best animated but it was sci-fi b movie levels of entertainment.

I apologise if this is the wrong thread, but I would like to ask the people here if it would be plausible for a developed but truculent and clannish society that lives in a desert to have some sort of semi-official sportlike raiding between the different clans as both a tension release mechanism and a popular pastime. Or would official war games work better for that puprose?

Depends ENTIRELY on the rules of engagement and conditions of "victory".

Then what would the rules of engagement and the conditions of victory be, if the end result is something like the native American low intensity warfare that doesn't usually result in casualties and serious destruction?

Some sort of ritualized combat? Like the old Beduin raids that exchanged a lot of horses and camels but seldom got anyone killed.

Soccer, right? We're talking about soccer.

^ Oh please, if you want REAL hooligans you look at hockey.

Hockey, where even the players show up to brawl. In armor, with sticks.

Why not combine the two? Call it Sockey or Hocker. Create the ultimate hooligan. Louder. Faster. Stronger. Hooliganier.

edited 27th Jul '16 10:55:44 AM by madprophet

That's called Polo.

No, Polo is when you throw horses into the mix.

Frankly, horses tend to dominate any sport you're doing with them. They're kinda big.

What would be considered "Holy fuck, that fighter is fast" in a vacuum?

Mach 20? Mach 25?

Or I guess it depends on what the fighter's primary role is?

If you want to be uber pedantic, anything involving a significant fraction of the speed of light. Greater than or equal to 1% of c.

But that kind of speed has problems beyond being a cruising speed for vessels trying to show off how hard their science fiction is. Mostly it becomes all but impossible to maneuver in a reasonable amount of distance as in say less than the distance between Earth and the Moon. Among other things.

From what I've seen, harder (or at least crunchier) sci-fi works mostly ignore velocity as a factor of overall performance (after all, anything can go fast if you accelerate it long enough), and instead focus on acceleration, and as well as inertial dampening. One faction's ability to better deal with ΔV translates into ships that can accelerate and maneuver much more quickly than their opponents. This could mean being better able to outrun or outmaneuver an enemy, as well as being able to counter the advantage of a long running start for someone hoping for a high-speed smash-and-dash attack.

That said, even harder sci-fi works will sometimes acknowledge that raw velocity can be very useful if you're able to get that running start before you enter the enemy's engagement envelope, minimizing their reaction and engagement times before you're out the other side.

Okay, I've been thinking about averting Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale in one particular area: Force sizes. It's practically a given that spacefaring sci-fi will involve interstellar war in some way, but what would it really take to conquer a planet? (As much as I love the Ciaphas Cain novels, they are pretty ridiculous about this-three regiments to secure an entire planet? Really?)

Anyways, for the sake of discussion, let us assume an earthlike planet with a population of about six billion and no long-term insurgency. Orbital superiority is a given, but this is a conquest/occupation mission, not annihilation. How many divisions would you bring to take over this hypothetical world?

We talking divisions as in what kind of forces? Or troops sizes.

Because ground and Space forces all the way, the Space forces providing orbital bombardment on key locations (military bases and government buildings) with the Ground forces keeping troops occupied and getting at weapons and key points that aren't easily bombed.

It would depend how much of planet is settled and defended. A heavily developed world with a large industrial base and population would be hellish to take. A fairly new colony world or low development world would be easier to target.

It would be like trying to conquer the Omaha Metro vs taking the entire Eastern Seaboard.

edited 31st Jul '16 4:16:28 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Plus is your galactic government completely uniform or not?

My Mecha'verse has a Federation that keeps things really split up so nothing ends up being micromanaged, it goes from Colony Government, to System Government, to the Federation itself.

I'd say you'd need around 60 million soldiers for an industrial planet, assuming A) Technological superiority and B)very strategic invasion points.

Unless you were the biggest idiot commander in the galaxy, no one would try to conquer and invade every square inch of a planet.