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Dogfights in outer space Ask Question

Asked today Active today Viewed 3k times

Assuming spacecraft are using contemporary propulsion technology, and are engaging in a dogfight in outer space
(whether they are manned, drone, or autonomous), would the movements of the craft be abrupt and jerky, or smooth
10 and graceful?

science-fiction spaceships space-combat

share improve this question edited 19 hours ago asked 20 hours ago
Bob516
548 1 16

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 3 Hi Bob516, what do you mean by "contemporary propulsion technology"? Are you referring to chemical rockets of the Saturn V or
SpaceX Dragon? Neither of those are particularly well-suited to dogfighting, with their single main thrust vector and minimal
maneuverability. – Dubukay 20 hours ago

14 They would be abrupt and jerky... because something has gone horribly horribly wrong. Why are they dogfighting in the first place?
– Cort Ammon 20 hours ago

6 As the OP seems unaware of orbital mechanics and how real life rockets work, I would recommend reading this: what-
if.xkcd.com/58 (to learn how fast spacecraft are going) and what-if.xkcd.com/38 (to learn why you can't just turn around in space).
– vsz 11 hours ago

4 I'd also recommend Children Of A Dead Earth for the most in depth look at realistic space warfare outside of secret pentagon
bunkers. – Innovine 9 hours ago

3 I liked the fighters on Babylon 5, because of the maneuvering jets that rotated the ship so it could alter course. I think the
movement and control was reasonably well thought out – Stephen R 4 hours ago

show 8 more comments

8 Answers active oldest votes

To expand on Cort's comment. Propulsion in space is too costly and distances too great for a dogfight to happen. With
modern tech, space combat is limited to more of an artillery duel between satellites that are on more or less fixed
22 trajectories. If they start trying to move around too much they are going to just end up falling into the atmosphere or
flying out into space. They can also see each other way too clearly to ever survive long enough to get into dogfighting
range even if they tried. Your armed satellites may have some maneuvering jets designed to make subtle course
corrections for dodging, but high speed evasions would use too much fuel and need too heavy of thrusters to be an
effective war doctrine using rocket propulsion.

So to answer your question... they would be "smooth and graceful" in the sense that they will not actually be moving
around much to begin with.

Perhaps one day we will have some manner of technology that will make orbital mechanics and rocket equations a moot
point in the face of overwhelmingly efficient and powerful propulsion systems. With what we've got today, just getting
into a stable orbit is a trick unto itself.

answered 20 hours ago

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 a s e ed 0 ou s ago
share improve this answer edited 4 hours ago
Nosajimiki
Frostfyre 8,789 1 11 46
18.2k 11 67 135

The spacecraft would be moving in the sense that they are orbiting a planet or star. To dodge a projectile you’d only need a tiny
amount of fuel, assuming you can detect the projectile early enough. Of course that doesn’t help against smart missiles which can
follow your new trajectory/orbit and probably have more delta-v than your spacecraft. – Michael 1 hour ago

A key aspect of this is impulse management. If I am in a fighter, going 1 on 1 with another fighter, I use some of my fuel to change
my direction (to dodge something), and then use some fuel to move back to my previous velocity (which is the direction I wanted
to go), I now am in the same position as before, but I now have less fuel. If I do this too violently, or too often, my opponent merely
sits still and waits for me to run low on fuel. Accordingly, there is a great encouragement to use as little impulse as possible when
maneuvering. – Cort Ammon 1 hour ago

This issue arises in jet fighters as well. However, thanks to their air breathing nature and their ability to use the air as an inert mass
rather than having to carry your own inert mass like a rocket, jet fighters can recover from a momentum deficit better than a rocket
fighter could. – Cort Ammon 1 hour ago

@Michael, The projectile that you want to dodge almost certainly is self-propelled. The guy who launched it does not want to
compensate for the recoil of a tube-launched weapon. If he's going to make it self-propelled, then he'll probably pay the trivial
extra cost to make it self guided as well. In that case, your evasive maneuvers will have to be somewhat more than "subtle." –
Solomon Slow 18 mins ago

add a comment

The short answer is jerky and abrupt, but the longer answer is far more interesting...

First of all, the preceding answers explain why fighter combat in space is really a bad idea; it's not an efficient use of
12 propellants or fuels, and you're far better off doing what was done in naval warfare; focusing on a smaller number of
larger ships with REALLY big, long range, powerful guns. But if you insist on putting fighters up there, the first thing you
have to do is get the idea of air combat out of your head; space fighters and dogfights are going to look completely
different.

Let's start with the fighters themselves. They are not going to be sleek, aerodynamic craft that bank and turn gracefully;
they're going to be spheres.

The reason for this is very simple. In an atmosphere, the air itself gives the plane something to help the craft bank and
turn; the wings effectively push air around themselves and shape it with control surfaces to move the plane in a desired

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 direction; it's actually pushing against the air to go where it needs to go. In space you don't have that so every change in
velocity (whether it be speed, direction or both) must be done with a maneuvering thrusters. To make your fighter as
agile as possible, you want to be able to thrust in almost every direction so that you can react to the combat around you
with a minimum of orientation changes (as these also cost fuel) and to do that, you want thrusters pointing out in almost
every possible direction. That means a sphere.

Now, it's possible for you to thrust in almost any direction without a sphere if you have a thruster that can turn and spin
around you; say 3 thrusters each at 120o from each other on a ring that can rotate and spin around your ship, but in a
combat situation do you really want to wait the half second or so for your ring to put the thrusters in the right position?
Probably not. So, sphere.

Now, dealing with the maneuvers; because you're not pushing against anything but firing a thruster every time you want
to turn, and because you don't want to ramp up the thruster gently (time is not your friend in combat) you're going to
have a very abrupt, jerky, but agile turning approach. You'll be able to pull off moves that are simply not possible in a
plane, and most banking turns a plane uses will actually be inefficient for this kind of fighter, but you're in a different
medium to begin with which is why you need to think in a different way as to how you move about in combat.

Realistically; for space fighters, you want them to be drones. The G forces and inertial effects on the craft are not going
to be friendly to your pilot, who needs to be able to maintain some consistent frame of reference for 'up' and all the
accompanying directions. You can't do that in a space fighter because every thrust is going to act on the pilot to reorient
his 'down' to align with the thruster just fired. Also, because of the fact that you're moving in a way that planes can't most
of the time, your pilot will suffer massive G-forces and won't last long in the cockpit. Further, not having to maintain life
support for the pilot means you can make the craft more compact, making it a smaller target while also allowing it to be
more nimble. It's basically a weapons platform surrounded by engines all pointing outwards.

The important thing to note is that cars, planes, and even boats can manage their smooth turns because they're all
effectively pushing against something; a road, the ocean, or an atmosphere. Your space fighter has nothing to push
against, so it must use its engines to do ALL the pushing. Once you get your head around that, smoothing the change in
velocity means making the craft inefficient and before long, you're taking the pilot out of the craft for his or her protection
more than anything else as you give your craft an edge (hopefully) over the enemy craft.

Put even more simply, if modern drones could be designed to make instant 90o turns in the air, they would be simply
because it would give them an edge in combat. Your space fighters CAN be designed to do that, so they will.

share improve this answer answered 17 hours ago

Tim B II

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 40.4k 6 90 163

4 Space fighters designed to make 90^o turns in space? Not quite. They would need to decelerate almost instantaneous
in their forward momentum vector while doing the same in accelerating orthogonally. This exceeds contemporary propulsion
technology by orders of magnitude. But given the right propulsion systems, yes they could, though not presently. – a4android 15
hours ago

3 Inertia is a female dog... – Ian Kemp 9 hours ago

3 While I agree with much of your reasoning, I disagree with your conclusion; Modern propulsion technology would struggle to
deliver sufficient impulse for the "jerky" movements you suggest, especially without the damping properties of atmosphere. Once
you reduce the impulse, your drone manoeuvres with sweeping curves instead - otherwise, it has to slow to a stop, and then set
off in the new direction. – Chronocidal 9 hours ago

1 @a4android if you hold the Alt key and type 0176 on the numpad, you get a degree symbol: ° – Carl Kevinson 3 hours ago

1 @IanKemp That would actually be a good name for a female dog. Thanks for the idea! – Adrian Hall 3 hours ago

show 2 more comments

There won't be any dogfights in space without the science-fiction tag.

8 The reason is that we have been toying with lasers for a long time. The YAL-1 project was cancelled, yes, but it worked
kinda well in 2014. If we are going to space, we are going to have better technology. The lack of an atmosphere will also
make it much easier to hit stuff with lasers.

YAL-1 could deliver well in the range of 2kWh in 3 to 5 seconds. That is enough to really ruin the day of whomever is in
the receiving end - too concentrated and you get holes in our hull, too dispersed and in the very least your
instrumentation goes blind.

You just can't compete with lasers. The fastest acceleration we've ever managed for a rocket-powered vessel was with
New Horizons. It passed the Moon's orbit within nine hours of its launch. Light, however, is much faster and will cover
the same distance in close to 1.3 seconds.

So don't try to enter a dogfight in space - as soon as you are seen, you are toast.

Someone might say "oh come on Renan, this means acceleration will be jerky in order to avoid lasers". The attacker
may simply spread the laser wide. As long as you are within the beam you are in trouble, for the same reason that laser

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 pointers are dangerous to aircraft. The laser will not reach you as a small dot. And once you are blind, there isn't much
point in doing random maneuvers.

share improve this answer answered 19 hours ago

Renan
64.5k 19 151 315

6 When spread to a ship-sized spot, 2KW beam is not much worse than a spotlight. – Alexander 19 hours ago

3 As a wide beam you'd just drain your power dry, then they see you again and begin proceeding to destroy you. This concept
should be more clearly paired with something like missiles or railguns or something; so, you can capitalize on that blindness.
Otherwise this is a good answer. – Nosajimiki 15 hours ago

2 I don't want to rain on your parade, but this answer is a good one about possible contemporary weaponry that could be used in
space dogfights and not contemporary propulsion technology as asked in the question. – a4android 15 hours ago

Plus why use a wide beam when the divergence is big enough over ranges of a light second or more. – Efialtes 6 hours ago

1 If anything, lasers would be a good reason for space dogfight because of the inverse square law. To gain a distantly unpleasant
output at the target area, your emitter should be within hundreds of meters from the target. – mg30rg 5 hours ago

show 1 more comment

In space, everything is ballistic in nature.

It would be smooth, but not graceful. Both ships would be struggling to stay within their optimum ranges, and out
2 maneuver the tracking speed of the enemy guns.

The whole thing devolves into firing mass drivers at each other from miles (and miles) away, then adjusting position, so
that hopefully, the other projectile misses. Most of the time, the ships would be operating at such extreme ranges that
the other ship would only be visible on instruments.

Imagine the scenario: Ship fires, several minutes pass. Gunner: "Negative hit sir" Sensors: "Incoming projectile"
Captain: "Adjust heading to miss the projectile, re-target and return fire. Someone bring me a hot cup of Earl Grey."

If you have lasers, it's a game of "let's see how long it takes for you to have a hull breach", with both sides firing until
either guns blow up, or the other ship does (from miles away, again):

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 Ship fires, several minutes pass. Gunner: "Their armour is holding, and they are returning fire." Captain: "Maintain fire,
and deploy reflective plating. Keep an eye on temps" Ship maintains fire, several more minutes pass. Gunner:
"Hullbreach reported by telescopics, and guns are starting to overheat". Captain: "Good, cycle lasers and heatsinks, and
find us another target"

Small, maneuverable ships could be used, but not for dog-fighting; they would be used in boarding actions, and as they
would see you coming for literally hundreds of miles away, the casualty rate would be horrific(think world war 1 level
losses). If you could invent some form of stealth tech, this could make for exciting boarding marine action.

The only way to have dogfights be viable, is for the ships to have reactionless, low inertia drives, which enables fast
changes in velocity, with little in the way of G-forces. At this point, the motion of the ships would be erratic, making long
range artillery utterly pointless outside bombarding space stations. At this point, the motion of ships would be jerky and
erratic, as they try to do the same thing all pilots have since aerial warfare began: getting behind the enemy(where there
are typically no guns), and shooting them. This is your basic star wars/battlestar galactica, star trek etc fare.

So, for your world, You have to decide what space combat will be like:

1. Dogfighting, using "magic" propulsion which also gets rid of G-forces powerful enough to liquefy a man.
2. Long range artillery duels, using missiles, point defence guns, armour and mass drivers.
3. Ships with heavy armour on the front. These ships simply ram into the other ships, to cause as much damage as
possible. Basically steerable missiles with a crew.
4. Laser combat. More long range engagements, with each combatant trying to melt through the other ship before the
same happens to them.

Basically, unless you use some space magic, space combat is going to be dull, and uneventful, until something actually
hits, then everyone dies, as the ship now has a massive hole in it.

share improve this answer edited 4 hours ago answered 4 hours ago
Ian Young
259 3

2 To your 2nd option, I'd like to add that mass drivers would look very odd as they would aim at really weird places, but never right at
the target (or leading it), potentially shooting around the earth instead by predicting their path. They'd be really software-focused in
their aim. – Infrisios 3 hours ago

So, ballistic but not balletic then? – Alchymist 3 hours ago

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 Indeed. Mass drivers do not make exciting weapons, except when they hit something. The actual use of them is just firing into the
black. Indeed. Not balletic at all. – Ian Young 3 hours ago

add a comment

I want them jerky with a thousand tiny space warps.

If they used rockets or some other thruster that involved throwing mass then there would be smooth accelerations and
0 decelerations.

But jerky would be cool and weird. If the fighters modulated their position through dimensional shifting or warping /
curving local space, they could be super jerky. The ships do not have inertia because from the perspective of the pilot,
the ship is not moving at all - space around him is flashing and changing as though he is watching it on a screen. It
could look like a bad flash animation. If you had some shimmering or bending of the adjacent space to denote what was
happening to the viewer it would not look like bad Flash but flickering and surreal.

This sort of "many tiny warps" propulsion tech also saves your dogfighting SF from the avalanche of wet blankets so far
posted as regards the possibility of space dogfights because you can invoke it to sidestep the issues that would exist for
Xwing star wars type spacecraft.

share improve this answer answered 3 hours ago

Willk
134k 34 254 559

add a comment

With contemporary technology, you really have two choices for stopping your path being purely ballistic. You can expend
very large quantities of fuel to change your velocity rapidly (think Saturn V taking off) but you can only do this for a short
0 period of time before you run out, or you can expend smaller quantities of fuel for low acceleration but one you can
sustain for longer.

In the first scenario, either you hit the vessel that you are aiming for (with probably catastrophic g forces on both sides)
or you get close enough to deliver some other attack. Then you travel past them at speed and probably don't have the

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 fuel to return to the battle. This is similar to a kamikaze attack against a ship rather than a dogfight, or a strafing run if
you don't intend to run into the enemy directly.

In the second scenario, you may be able to approach the enemy with a relatively small difference in velocity, allowing
you and the enemy to each fire on the other, and maybe even seek to board. This is closer to naval warfare with sail, or
even oar-powered vessels.

Neither seems much like a dogfight as you seem to envisage it. Both may be worse than just estimating where the
enemy is heading and leaving millions of ball bearings in their path - effectively a mine field.

share improve this answer answered 3 hours ago

Alchymist
289 1 3

add a comment

Think Alchymist touched on a key point with the ball bearings. The battlefields would remain deadly (and therefore
cumulatively deadlier (argh, got be a better way to phrase that)) after the first few explosions and/or shrapnel bursts.
0 Before long there would be large areas of left over small junk and/or deliberate shrapnel mines where it would be hard to
operate in unless you had some sort of massive armor or deflector technology or the ability to somehow phase shift out
to other dimensions.

We already have a problem with that now. So the answer to the question would be "neither after the first few encounters
because both sides would be denied access"

share improve this answer answered 2 hours ago

WorkerDroid13
1

New contributor

2 Only temporarily though. Nothing stays put in space. You might have temporary, localized areas that become unsafe, especially in
gravity wells, but generally speaking your cloud of munitions and debris is going to get more and more diffuse because it's all
moving on its own trajectories. Your cloud of dangerous density might persist for hours, maybe days depending on the intensity of
the engagement and how quickly things were moving relative to each other, but not much longer than that. – Morris The Cat 2
hours ago

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 add a comment

With known technologies the answer is kind of both, but differing depending on perspective:

The accelerations ships would need in order to evade fire at dogfight ranges (which is unrealistic given modern
0 weapons options) would be brutal for the interiors of the ships, any crew, whether on board or operating on remote
will have a jerky and chaotic experience of the battle.
Due to the fact that 1. only direct counterthrust stops motion in a given direction and 2. that in battle you don't have
any maneuvering fuel to spare for course alterations you don't need to make. The actual motions seen from the
outside will still be fairly stately.

share improve this answer answered 2 hours ago

Ash
34.1k 5 80 179

add a comment

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