Redesign Star Wars

[tigercat]

so the planet killer is basically a Space Monitor . Big guns , but very slow and vulnerable .

does Star Wars have an equivalent of a Space submarine ?

The Star Destroyer is one of those Japanese carrier / battleship hybrid .

[jcf]

does Star Wars have an equivalent of a Space submarine ?

Umm, isn't any spaceship basically analogous to a submarine?
A vessel containing a bubble of air surrounded by a hostile environment?

[Weaver]

so the planet killer is basically a Space Monitor . Big guns , but very slow and vulnerable .

does Star Wars have an equivalent of a Space submarine ?

The Star Destroyer is one of those Japanese carrier / battleship hybrid .

Not as far as I know, but I have had thoughts along those lines before now.

Imagine this:

Your FTL technology is such that practical ships, i.e. ones with a useful payload fraction, have to make 'blind leap' jumps through hyperspace. The point where they are going to come out in normal space is determined by what they do at the start of the jump, and they are blind and powerless to change anything once in hyperspace. However, by devoting almost almost all it's mass to much more complicated and power-hungry equipment, a ship can 'hover' in hyperspace for a time, and the same equipment gives it both the ability to detect other ships during their jumps, and to project a disruption field into their path which causes their own hyperspace field to collapse, with the result that different bits of their ship re-enter normal space at different points along their path 

Just as with a WWII submarine, the 'ambusher' ship has severe limitations as well as scary capabilities. It can't move very fast in hyperspace, so it has to move slowly in normal space, often to inconvenient locations, in order to 'hover' at a a suitable point in hyperspace (the mapping of normal space to hyperspace being, by definition, variable and non-linear). It's detection range in hyperspace is limited, and the act of projecting the disruption field causes it to pop out of hyperspace itself, with most of it's energy drained, and the possibility of this leading to it's own destruction (by re-entering in the middle of a star or in deep interstellar space, too far from anywhere to refuel/recharge) is a limitation on when it can fire without sacrificing itself. You could add more limitations. One thing that occurred to me was that perhaps control of the hovering/detecting/firing is only possible by telepathic and/or mutated individuals who are in short supply, thereby limiting the number of ambushers that could be deployed at any one time.

The character of a battle between normal ships and hyperspace 'bushwackers' might therefore take on the character of a WWII submarine/anti-submarine battle: a hidden enemy taking out helpless cargo ships with escorts using various semi-effective countermeasures while the respective captains try to out-think their unseen enemies using psychology and mind-games.

[zenrat]

...Off topic, but it's just struck me that this is a plot hole in Rogue One. In a New Hope, the Death Star has to travel in normal space for over 15 minutes to  get into firing position on Yavin (source: Rebel command centre dialogue). However, in Rogue One, it pops out of hyperspace practically on top of Scarif and takes a shot about 1 minute later (source: timings of space battle scene). Okay it's "only" a "one-reactor" shot, but it's still pretty devastating and would more than suffice to finish off the Rebel base on Yavin. So since it worked so well at Scarif, why didn't they do the same thing a few weeks later at Yavin? Also, where was the Imperial fleet at Yavin?

Van Allen radiation, solar winds, magnetic fields etc .  I'm sure something fairly convincing could be cobbled up out of any one of a number of sciency words.
At Yavin Tarkin prolly reckoned he didn't need to wait for the rest of the fleet as the Death Star was invincible...
He could also have wanted to prove he didn't need their support.

[Weaver]

...Off topic, but it's just struck me that this is a plot hole in Rogue One. In a New Hope, the Death Star has to travel in normal space for over 15 minutes to  get into firing position on Yavin (source: Rebel command centre dialogue). However, in Rogue One, it pops out of hyperspace practically on top of Scarif and takes a shot about 1 minute later (source: timings of space battle scene). Okay it's "only" a "one-reactor" shot, but it's still pretty devastating and would more than suffice to finish off the Rebel base on Yavin. So since it worked so well at Scarif, why didn't they do the same thing a few weeks later at Yavin? Also, where was the Imperial fleet at Yavin?

Van Allen radiation, solar winds, magnetic fields etc .  I'm sure something fairly convincing could be cobbled up out of any one of a number of sciency words.
At Yavin Tarkin prolly reckoned he didn't need to wait for the rest of the fleet as the Death Star was invincible...
He could also have wanted to prove he didn't need their support.

Just thought of a good one: Scarif is a small planet but Yavin is actually Yavin 4, a moon of the gas giant Yavin. Most sci-fi holds that FTL 'jumps' can't take place deep in a gravity well, so presumably the Death Star had to drop out of hyperspace a decent distance from Yavin and then go into orbit around it to get to a firing position on Yavin 4.

[Mossie]

Yep, that's it.  In the extended universe the Empire has a class of ship that exploits this, the interdictor.  It has large generators that create a gravity well that can pull a ship or even a fleet out of hyperspace.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Interdictor_vessel

[jcf]

All real space battles would have the characteristics of submarine warfare, rather than the
WWII air combat stylings of Star Wars and similar.


The BSG reboot and The Expanse are still the best representations of space combat
that takes into account being in space, the latter show being the even better than BSG.

[tigercat]

trying to remember book where  missile subs were converted into space craft

[Weaver]

All real space battles would have the characteristics of submarine warfare, rather than the
WWII air combat stylings of Star Wars and similar.


The BSG reboot and The Expanse are still the best representations of space combat
that takes into account being in space, the latter show being the even better than BSG.

Well, yes and no. It's impossible to really hide in space, since, against the extemely cold background, even the slightest amount of heat stands out like a blowtorch, and a totally cold ship is a dead ship. You can reduce your signature to reduce detection range, but you don't pay a heavy price for this in the way that submarines do for their ability to submerge, and nor do you, nor your opponents, need a totally different and specialized sensor suite to operate in this way. You can also do deception, i.e. you can't avoid being spotted, but you can control what the spotter identifes you as. If we're into WWII analogies, this aspect is more like Q-ship warfare than submarine warfare.

BSG is better than Star Wars in that fighters turn around and fly backwards while off-axis straffing (IIRC Babylon 5 was the first to do this), but they still run away from an enemy in their six instead of just turning around and blasting them and their maneuvering is generally very aircraft-like. The launch and recovery system makes very little sense and seems more a matter of evoking the tropes of carrier warfare than being practical or safe.

[zenrat]

The B5 fighter spacecraft were IIRC designed with the assistance of real rocket scientists.  Hence the lack of flight control surfaces and engine intakes.

In his Culture books Iain M Banks has engagements involving Rapid Offensive Units with no human crews taking place at great distance and in very short time.
An uncrewed craft is always going to be able to outmanoeuvre one with soft squashy lifeforms on board because it can pull much higher gee as it doesn't have to worry about killing its crew.

Neal Asher writes good space battle.  His Polity books feature massive battles between Humans, drones, massive AI controlled star dreadnoughts, Cannibalistic Alien Crustacean, Mad AIs and Self Hedgemonising Swarm.

[Weaver]

The B5 fighter spacecraft were IIRC designed with the assistance of real rocket scientists.  Hence the lack of flight control surfaces and engine intakes.

Not exactly: the Starfury was designed by movie-industry artists who wanted to have something that used, and looked like it used, more realistic physics than Star Wars era films/TV shows. The show was subsequently approached by some NASA researchers who were working on MMUs and space-handling type vehicles, and they were given a briefing on the design. Nothing more came of this however.

[NARSES2]

I've been re-reading all of this and the only conclusion I can come to is that I was obviously asleep when we covered this area in my "O Level" physics class 

[zenrat]

I might have paid more attention if Mr Powell had taught the Physics of Space Warfare.  As he'd been in bomber command between '39 & '45 he could well have had some interesting ideas about the subject.

[NARSES2]

Probably half of my old masters were WWII vets and could quite easily be distracted 

Mind you it could be fun when ex Sgt Moir and ex Maj Mags rubbed each other up the wrong way, which was quite often. There was obviously a history there we didn't know about.

[scooter]

I might have paid more attention if Mr Powell had taught the Physics of Space Warfare.  As he'd been in bomber command between '39 & '45 he could well have had some interesting ideas about the subject.

Probably *not* space B-17s.

H. Paul Honsinger's Man of War series looks at space combat, and stealthing a space combatant.  Excellent read as well, definitely *not* David Weber...and his personal "massager" shaped ships or Mary Sue lead character