2018-03-08
https://youtu.be/O_XCB08OPw8
Leo Tolstoy said “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time”.
When it comes to interstellar warfare, he couldn’t know how right he was.
So today we will be looking at interstellar warfare and the dynamics involved betweenhow two ships would fight while traveling in interstellar space, how you’d move fleetsaround, and the sorts of weapons people might shoot from their home system to an enemy starsystem, the interstellar equivalent of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, ISBMs rather than ICBMs.
This won’t be one of our longer episodes but you might still want to grab a drink andsnack, because there’s also a companion episode talking more about the science fictionand worldbuilding aspects of interstellar warfare which I’ll mention again near theend.
This episode itself is focused more on the known science angles and how it affects theconcept of Interstellar conflicts.
That’s a tricky concept too.
As I mentioned back in the original Space Warfare episode, predicting the future ofthe battlefield in terms of tactics and strategies is almost an exercise in futility becausethe dynamics of combat can change massively with a single minor piece of new technology.
I’ve seen that first hand too, my own unit got in a ton of new gear prior to our deploymentto Iraq, a lot of lasers and optics, so unsurprisingly my unit’s leadership decided the guy who’dbeen working on a doctorate in physics before jumping ship to enlist was well-suited tofigure out how all the new toys worked and train the others with them.
New gadgets, no matter how good, are useless if folks don’t know how and when to usethem, indeed they can do more harm than good, but of course used properly even a seeminglyminor bit of technology can let you dominate a battlefield.
That’s the first rule of warfare too, know how to use you