Describe if you will, a "real" Star Trek battle...

[Angry Fanboy]

T'Girl wrote:

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... how do you figure "two dimensional?"

Up to a point obviously, space being infinite in all directions and all that.

[SeerSGB]

I wonder though: at least in early generations till tactics and expressed developed in real time space combat, if human instinct wouldn't default to thinking in two dimensional tactics? Give it a couple of generations of field experience rotating back into the training regimes and you'd have a Starfleet that would be capable of three dimensional combat as a natural form of tactics.

[Crazy Eddie]

SeerSGB wrote:

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I wonder though: at least in early generations till tactics and expressed developed in real time space combat, if human instinct wouldn't default to thinking in two dimensional tactics?

It wouldn't, since three-dimensional combat tactics have already been developed for fighter planes and even submarines to a limited extent.

More importantly, people are going to be living and working in space long before they start FIGHTING there. The kinds of people who are likely to be involved in a real space battle are the kinds of people who have been in space long enough to stop making those kinds of mistakes; they're used to thinking in three dimensions because it's impossible to operate in space otherwise.

Give it a couple of generations of field experience rotating back into the training regimes and you'd have a Starfleet that would be capable of three dimensional combat as a natural form of tactics.

Considering the Klingons have been fighting wars in space for hundreds of years before Starfleet even develops phasers, it's unlikely they'd really have a "couple generations" to figure that out.

[blssdwlf]

From "Shattered Mirror"

O'BRIEN: A bird of prey has locked onto us.
SISKO: Evasive maneuvers. Pattern Delta.
...
O'BRIEN: Pattern Delta? What's that?
SISKO: Rock her.
O'BRIEN: Rock her?
SISKO: Port to starboard, hard.
O'BRIEN: Got it. Can't lose her.
SISKO: Hard to port.
...
SISKO: Fire!
...
(enemy ship destroyed)
...
O'BRIEN: I must remember that one.

[Caesar753]

Here's an interesting take on how a "real" Star Trek battle might pan out: http://www.tested.com/news/news/4516...s-really-look/

[Crazy Eddie]

Same as the Atomic Rockets guys. Take a hard specific sci-fi premise and write an essay about it and that makes it not fiction anymore.

[blssdwlf]

Caesar753 wrote:

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Here's an interesting take on how a "real" Star Trek battle might pan out: http://www.tested.com/news/news/4516...s-really-look/

That's more a "real" future battle but it isn't Star Trek

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Forbin wrote:

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CAP: "No worries. Coffee, yoeman?"

YOEMAN: "yes it is, sir."

Captain: Tactical, how soon until we repair the damage?
Tactical: I can't tell, sir.
Captain: You can tell me, I'm the captain.
Tactical: No sir, I mean I'm just not sure.
Captain: Can't you take a guess?
Tactical: Well, sir...not for another two hours.
Captain: You can't take a guess for another two hours?

[Forbin]

[TheRoyalFamily]

Maybe Trek battles take place so close is because you have to get that close to overcome all the general sensor jamming and computer trickery that would be going on in a joined battle.

[FatherRob]

Forbin wrote:

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Agreed. Weber does the battle very convincingly.
If only he wouldn't babble on about fictional politics for chapters on end...

I don't mind the politics, but I have to say that I definitely feel like I have been immersed in interstellar combat when I read a HH novel.

Rob+

[Forbin]

TheRoyalFamily wrote:

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Maybe Trek battles take place so close is because you have to get that close to overcome all the general sensor jamming and computer trickery that would be going on in a joined battle.

Ya know, that's a good point. Our actual jet fighters in the 60s had switched over to all-missile armament because "experts" decided the age of the dogfight was over. Then reality got in the way over Viet Nam when the MiGs kept managing to get in close (and our crappy Sparrow missiles kept failing). So in the 70s we started putting guns on fighters again, and training the pilots for close-in knife fights at Top Gun and Red Flag.

[FatherRob]

Santa's Fanboy wrote:

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Starships able to travel at faster-than and near light-speed velocities, firing phaser beams and so forth would doubtless be handled better by computers than by people?

Well, if we are trying to get all realistic and such, if I were writing a bible for a reboot of Trek, here would be my battle rules:

1) Combat within the gravity well of a star must be at impulse speeds. Warp drive use within the gravity well of a star (or other major source of gravitational pull) can lead to undesirable effects on local space, planets, etc.

2) FTL Combat in the true interstellar medium can only take place using projectile weapons. Beam weapons cannot function at FTL speeds.

3) Maximum range for phasers would be 100 kilometers.

4) Maximum range for torpedoes would be dependent upon their speed. At warp 8, a torp has 10 seconds of effective powered life. Based on your warp scale, expand life as you slow the torp down.

5) Shields take 10 seconds to regain one percentage point of effectiveness after a hit, provided the shield generator has not suffered damage.

6) Electronic Countermeasures are in use (per Forbin's example), at least for projectile weapons. Beam weapons will be close enough for a visual lock, and thus, unless you are carrying around a giant inflatable starship in your hangar deck, you won't be fooling anyone with a little ECM drone.

Just my thoughts.

Not strictly related to combat, per-se, but I would also find a way to equip all crew members with some sort of emergency evac suit that went on when action stations were called. (Yes, I know I am ripping that idea from the HH books, but it makes a world of sense, and allows for a great episode where Captain Yirk and Commander Yor float into one another after destroying their mutual commands, grab bladed weapons, and have a weightless battle to iconic fight music!)

Rob+

[Crazy Eddie]

^ Actually, I think it would be standard practice for some starfleets (not neccesarily the Federation) to intentionally decompress their ships on entering combat and have the crew perform the entire operation in space suits. It occurs to me that a ship full of atmosphere and combustible materials is probably an enormous fire hazard and it's just safer to avoid the whole "exploding consoles" thing if there's no air in there to begin with. Shutting down artificial gravity would seem to be a safe bet too; no more bridge officers getting crushed by falling pillars.

A bit of a tangent, but since we're on the subject of a distant-future trek reboot, I would probably take a cue from Mass Effect and simplify all technology so that it's in some way related to subspace field/mass reducing technology. IOW, phasers would really just be weaponized deflector beams: you have a setting that can repel the target (or a portion of the target) at a hundred gs, or a more gentle 10Gs if you just want to punch him out and not neccesarily kill him, or a "disruptor" setting that switches back and forth between repulsion and attraction a hundred times a second, literally rattling your target with intense hundred-g vibrations. Some more vicious versions of the phaser might cause the object to accelerate at high speed away or towards the center of the beam, alternately exploding or imploding your target. Photon torpedoes would be similar: effectively, disembodied warp nacelles with their own engines and fuel supply that chase down their targets and slam into them at high warp.

No shields, not really, but deflectors would actually be part of the warp drive and would involve using a repulsive warp field to propel incoming energy/objects away from the ship at high speed. The main deflector would have a much longer range, and a starship could actually defend itself by turning its bow towards an approaching torpedo or ship and turning on its deflector, forcing the aggressor to keep its distance.

[TheRoyalFamily]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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^ Actually, I think it would be standard practice for some starfleets (not neccesarily the Federation) to intentionally decompress their ships on entering combat and have the crew perform the entire operation in space suits. It occurs to me that a ship full of atmosphere and combustible materials is probably an enormous fire hazard and it's just safer to avoid the whole "exploding consoles" thing if there's no air in there to begin with.

Keep the suits, leave the atmosphere. That way, if a console explodes and punctures the suit, the crew member isn't totally screwed, but they are prepared if the environmental systems go offline, or the hull is breached in their area.

The way consoles explode, I don't think combustion with air has much to do with it. The fires afterwards, sure, but explosive consoles gonna 'splode, air or no. Really, extreme-environment suits, like Spock's in the new movie, would be the best protection.

Shutting down artificial gravity would seem to be a safe bet too; no more bridge officers getting crushed by falling pillars.

How often does it happen that things just fall and hit folks? Usually it's stuff that exploded. Without gravity, it's going to fly across the bridge, hitting lots of people while ricocheting off walls and stuff.