Why Planteary Defense Weapons are Suicide

[Harle]

You surrender after you've been defeated, not before.

Edit: let me expound a little.

Your argument is basically against planetary anti-orbital defenses. But your rationale is that they might fail, and thus serve as a grounds for nuking the planet.

This isn't a justification for not putting in planetary defenses, it is justification for knowing when to put up the white flag and give up because nobody is coming to help you out of this dire situation, even if you have some defenses left. If you can't win, you surrender.

I just don't see the rationale of taking that all the way back to 'well we shouldn't even try to deter an invasion using these methods, whether they work or not.'

 

[Edraii]

You surrender after you've been defeated, not before.

Edit: let me expound a little.

Your argument is basically against planetary anti-orbital defenses. But your rationale is that they might fail, and thus serve as a grounds for nuking the planet.

This isn't a justification for not putting in planetary defenses, it is justification for knowing when to put up the white flag and give up because nobody is coming to help you out of this dire situation, even if you have some defenses left. If you can't win, you surrender.

I just don't see the rationale of taking that all the way back to 'well we shouldn't even try to deter an invasion using these methods, whether they work or not.'

I don't really see how they're a "Deterrence" given grounds discussed earlier. The only thing they reasonably deter is a direct invasion and I don't see how the other options are better. I just don't see the invader going...
"Oh well, can't capture the planet without engaging the planetary guns, I guess I'll abandon my dreams of conquest."
I think the tune would turn more towards
"1 rock, 2 rocks... ready to talk yet? 3 rocks..."
Or maybe an old fashioned siege.

 

[Harle]

Things planetary weapons would be good for:

Destroying pirate vessels, who probably can't just bombard (and would have little reason to if they could), but nonetheless cause problems for civilian ships.
Destroying landing craft, making ground invasions more difficult, which is important as the planet supports the fleets.
Assisting fleet actions in orbit, making planets difficult places to stage attacks around.
Assisting stations under fire from enemy fleets, again making planets difficult places to stage attacks around.
Making blockades costly and possibly impossible.
Engaging enemy fleets when their particular bombardment technology is not sufficient to breach your defenses.

To name a few. I'm sure we could think of more perfectly good reasons someone might want to set up defenses like these if they were physically possible.

If you want to only look at a worst case scenario, where the enemy always wins, then you are going to eliminate the justification for all kinds of weapons and defenses which may prove ineffective in that one scenario. But that doesn't mean they would not be useful in a pile of other scenarios.

 

[Denkt]

Planetary defence could force the attacker to completely destroy the planet or let the enemy keep the planet, espacially if the attacker have a reputation of being crule I don't think the planet will surrender.

No weapon have unlimited range: Laser will get weaker over long distance while missiles and mass drivers can be eliminated before they reach the planet. It will be basically impossible to hide a fleet because the defender would have space probes and such in the system which would identify enemy ships before they can get into effective weapon range of the planet.

It is not easy to change direction in space because the lack of friction which mean ships can't move as randomly as suggested. The planets weapons could score hits by firing its weapon in a such that the shots form a square/ellipse/circle, calculated so that atleast some shots will hit the ship no matter how the ship try to dodge the shots. And that may be enough to destroy or cripple the ship.

A huge reason for defence is to win time for your own fleet to arrive to help the planet, only hyperdrive can flee if they are deep inside the system, the other two FTL methods require that the ship move to the edge of the system. That mean it is very risky to attack a well fortified system.

 

[Edraii]

It is not easy to change direction in space because the lack of friction which mean ships can't move as randomly as suggested. The planets weapons could score hits by firing its weapon in a such that the shots form a square/ellipse/circle, calculated so that atleast some shots will hit the ship no matter how the ship try to dodge the shots. And that may be enough to destroy or cripple the ship.

I'm to sleepy for maths, but do you realize how many shots would be required to bracket that large an area of space a light minute or two away? Someone else here probably has a formula, but it's not a feasible strategy less you have enough dakka to make an ork blush.

Even a small velocity change in any direction, just a slight change of momentum will be enough to throw shots off with ease at light minute distances, Such a method is simply not feasible.

 

[Harle]

Planetary defence could force the attacker to completely destroy the planet or let the enemy keep the planet, espacially if the attacker have a reputation of being crule I don't think the planet will surrender.

Not having enough ground troops available to 'capture' every world may also force the attacker to completely destroy planets rather than allow the enemy to keep them. Might as well try to defend the planet, right?

No weapon have unlimited range: Laser will get weaker over long distance while missiles and mass drivers can be eliminated before they reach the planet. It will be basically impossible to hide a fleet because the defender would have space probes and such in the system which would identify enemy ships before they can get into effective weapon range of the planet.

Presuming that the attacker has made no efforts to destroy satellites/jam communications/cloak their fleet. Also, depending on the nature of the object it could be very difficult to spot. These objects could easily 'run cold' and would be extremely small. Chances are good that slower torpedos would also also shielded and protected in some way from point defense fire, and a fleet would be capable of launching a saturation of fire. Presuming a mass driver or torpedo was able to reach its target, and presuming the science was there to make bombardment possible, I think it would be very effective.

It is not easy to change direction in space because the lack of friction which mean ships can't move as randomly as suggested. The planets weapons could score hits by firing its weapon in a such that the shots form a square/ellipse/circle, calculated so that atleast some shots will hit the ship no matter how the ship try to dodge the shots. And that may be enough to destroy or cripple the ship.

It is easy to change direction in space when you can travel at the speeds allowed for in the game. It is also easy to leave the system, much of the time. How long do you think it would take for munitions to travel between the planet and the target? Do you really think you could account for hours or days of movement, and just hit every position a spaceship could possibly have moved to in that time? Even accounting for self-correcting or guided munitions you still have an enormous area to cover and the fleet might as well have just jumped out of the system after releasing their barrage. How do you retaliate against that?

 

[Denkt]

Do we even know how fast the ships can move in the game? It could take months in game time to travle from the edge of a system to the planet. Unlike Master of Orion you can't just retreat at will, only hyper lane can retreat inside a system and both hyper lane and warp drive have a cold down.

Ships can only accelerate in the directions their engines are turned (they could also use their weapons but that would be much less effective way). To make ships more mobile you could add more engines but engines are weak spots. Ships can't brake in the same way as a car can because space lacks friction, to brake the ship need to use its engines, the same applies if the ship wan't to turn.

That mean ships are not as mobile as you may think and you can't do the hit and run attack with warp drive or wormhole and maybe not even with hyper lane (hyper lane can't really launch surprise attacks because of the limited strategical mobility.

The less mobile the ships are the harder it will be to avoid enemy fire. I don't think you can fire mass driver shots and missile so fast that they will be undetectable (we are talking about detection technologies in a league far above our own) at a safe distance.

Given that most ships would be much less able to take hits then a planet, the defenders can afford weaker shots then the ships can. First the defenders could fire shots to disable the ship and then fire more powerful shots to destroy the ship.

 

[grisamentum]

Not much to say here but there's a reason why naval ships stay away from coastal batteries threw out history and now you have coastal missile batteries.

No limits on what you can build on land, you can only put so much on a ship.

Hilariously enough, space works the opposite way. Anything you fire from the surface you need to be able to boost into orbit, through gravity, through an atmosphere.

If you want a more realistic naval analogy, you should think of it like a flying aircraft carrier carrying ICBMs versus cannons on the wall of a fort that only face one way.

There is basically zero reason ever to put a weapons battery on a planetary surface. If you want it to have any realistic chance of defending the planet (which it probably doesn't, anyway), it needs to be in orbit.

 

[Denkt]

There is basically zero reason ever to put a weapons battery on a planetary surface. If you want it to have any realistic chance of defending the planet (which it probably doesn't, anyway), it needs to be in orbit.

It is much much harder to destroy a well protected weapon that is located on the planet surface.

 

[dragoon9105]

If you wanted a realistic interpretation of how Space warfare will work, Stellaris will not be it keep in mind.

From a Balance Perspective I can see Paradox going with what is familiar. Planets will have a fortification level and fleets will need to 'Bombard' them into submission over time as they disable Ground based weaponry, military centers and other important targets of opportunity, meanwhile the Planet will occasionally fire bursts of PDF fire at beseiging fleets and call for help and the besieging fleets will drop SSTO aircraft into the atmosphere to drop special forces and the like to disable major fortifications and ruin infrastructure.

Eventually the Planet will fold if help does not arrive or the Attacking fleet dwindles to such a size they can no longer effectively blockade the planet. Sufficiently large fleets may be able to undergo a full planetary invasion and take heavy lossses to PDF and ground forces in exchange for seizing the planet quickly. This may sound familiar, that's because its how ever other Clausewitz game works besides HOI.


If this was a realistic situation, a sufficiently advanced civilization could just build bunkers miles underground to resist light orbital bombardment. You'd need to invade or render the planet completely inhospitable to life if you truly wished to force them to submit. Making the planet completely inhospitable has its own consequences keep in mind, you'd have to terraform the planet all over again completely defeating the point of taking it by force in the first place unless your just out to purge the galaxy of all life, in which case nobody would surrender to you anyway.

 

[HerrderGezeiten]

The problem of any orbital installation is, they are easy to disable with kinetic attacks without them being able to react.

The GOD -> Global Orbital Deafens use long range Scanning, Rocket (Interception Deafens) and there control nozzle to evade.
There long range weapons are able to reach almost anything known.
They also have a standby mode that makes them nearly untraceable in the debris area of a Planet.
In combat the units combine there force for attack and deafens.
------
Weapon of Mass Destruction
The use of mass drivers in warfare - accelerating asteroids to bombard a planet from space - has been outlawed by every civilized planet. In 2259 at the conclusion of the Narn-Centauri War the Centauri Republic used mass drivers mounted on Primus class battlecruisers to decimate the surface of Narn for four days, in defiance of protests from the Minbari Federation, the Earth Alliance and the Vorlon Empire

 

[bz249]

Not having enough ground troops available to 'capture' every world may also force the attacker to completely destroy planets rather than allow the enemy to keep them. Might as well try to defend the planet, right?



Presuming that the attacker has made no efforts to destroy satellites/jam communications/cloak their fleet. Also, depending on the nature of the object it could be very difficult to spot. These objects could easily 'run cold' and would be extremely small. Chances are good that slower torpedos would also also shielded and protected in some way from point defense fire, and a fleet would be capable of launching a saturation of fire. Presuming a mass driver or torpedo was able to reach its target, and presuming the science was there to make bombardment possible, I think it would be very effective.



It is easy to change direction in space when you can travel at the speeds allowed for in the game. It is also easy to leave the system, much of the time. How long do you think it would take for munitions to travel between the planet and the target? Do you really think you could account for hours or days of movement, and just hit every position a spaceship could possibly have moved to in that time? Even accounting for self-correcting or guided munitions you still have an enormous area to cover and the fleet might as well have just jumped out of the system after releasing their barrage. How do you retaliate against that?

The way you described the attack is how real life anti air weapons work, they don't have to kill the aircraft... Just deny the airspace for effective enemy operations.
So the attack you suggested is pretty much rendered the space superiority useless. You released your ammo at large distances and the planetary defenses just easily pick the launch position (there is no hiding in space a block of ice is too hot as compared to 2.7 Kelvin) and then let them to coast towards the planet in predictable pathes. (The defenses just have to saturate a planet sized target which is not at all hard) with sophisticated enough sensors they can pick them one by one... Their missiles don't have to run cold as they have no need to avoid detection. This the countermissiles can use active sensors and maneuvering at the terminal phase.

 

[grisamentum]

It is much much harder to destroy a well protected weapon that is located on the planet surface.

No, there's no difference. Any weapon on a planet has to become a weapon in space if it wants to hit a target in space.

 

[Atlantians]

Wow, the arguments in this thread are just getting worse and worse.

Laser guided relativistic projectiles!

Wire-guided rail gun projectiles fired over multiple AU!

I don't think half the people in this thread know what half the words they are using actually mean.

 

[Harle]

Wow, the arguments in this thread are just getting worse and worse.

Laser guided relativistic projectiles!

Wire-guided rail gun projectiles fired over multiple AU!

I don't think half the people in this thread know what half the words they are using actually mean.

I wouldn't get too cocky there, bucko.

There is nothing particularly out-there about anything you just listed.

It's a game that assumes you have mastered the speed of light/causality. It's not kerbal frigging space program.

As soon as you make that assumption, relativistic speeds are common-place.

Smart munitions exist today.

Even without relativistic speeds, if you were to accelerate a munition to 50,000 meters per second, you could fire a round from 3AU (roughly the distance of the main belt) that would arrive at Earth in 103 days. Which is perfectly reasonable for a military timeline if your strategy is to prepare an entire planet for invasion.

So you tell me, what precisely is the issue you've decided to be cocky about?

 

[EleventhAvenue]

This is an interesting discussion, but I think that it's pretty pointless for the game. I hope (and believe) that Stellaris is going to be an unique and new experience, but in the end, it's a Space 4x game, and it's going to play its Space 4x-tropes. It's not Aurora, and even Aurora is full of Space 4x-tropes.

I don't know (of course) exactly how this is going to work, but we already know that there's ground troops. One way to capture a planet will be to carry troops there, land, fight a ground war and defeat the enemy. Another might be to defeat the enemy operationally and demand (untouched) planets in a peace treaty. Another might be to completely exterminate the enemy presence in the system (by glassing or just by forcing them to leave), and then colonize what's left.

My guess about planetary defences is that they're going to be cheap platforms for weapons. They're easier to support and build, in return you don't get the same utility as you would've if you mounted the weaponry on ships. Maybe some combat modifiers, such as additional armor-rating if you construct the PDC in bedrock. The things people are discussing here are, in my belief at least, way beyond the scope of what I think this game is going to try and accomplish. It's not some kind of far-future mil-sim.

 

[Harle]

Yeah, I don't expect the game to venture far from the norm, on this subject at least.

Warfare is not really their focus here, so thinking hard about and presenting far-future problems inherent in space warfare is probably not something we can expect to see as a game mechanic. It's a game about borders and diplomacy and exploration.

... I wouldn't mind seeing a game that tried to tackle some of the weirder physics stuff we've talked about and how it would change warfare, but this isn't that game.

 

[Knightfall52]

I really disagree with. It has 'defense capabilities' i can glass it concept. First is the issue with what does defense capabilities mean, does it stop at 'x' caliber of weapons or even a police force armed with non-lethal would qualify. Second why not just 'surgical' strike instead of all out planetary annihilation?

There are many types of defensive installations, guerilla training academies, scorched earth self destruct on key facilities, orbital cannons, shielding, sensor shielding/counter measures.

Its all relative to the technologies, but one thing is for certain all technologies will have at the very least soft counters since this is a strategy game and op strategies will quickly get ''''fixed'''''.

In a theoritical real life but with a spaceships concept that use a ftl tech that somehow doesnt influence weapon systems in the slightest trans-atmospheric bombardment would be nearly impossible with non-comets mostly due to the constrains of re-entry and not accuracy.

 

[Aleks S. I]

Assuming the two warring factions are roughly equal in technology, I imagine any sort of fixed defense would be the space equivalent of modern AA, or even artillery in general. These weapons are meant to play supporting roles in combat, not actually win a pitched battle on their own. A single artillery piece would likely be able to wipe out a squad of infantry, however several squads would very quickly overwhelm it suffering few casualties. However, if that artillery is supporting a some friendly infantry, the number of casualties incurred by the attacking force increases massively.

In terms of gameplay balance, I would like to see planetary defenses make "tall" empires militarily viable. A large empire would likely have much more population and a greater industrial capacity (even if the tall empire has more developed planets, development does not equate to sheer capacity) allowing them to field fleets far larger than a tall empire. A large empire would need more ships simply because of their size. Most games try to balance this by giving large empires arbitrary "large empire penalties" that make them worse at just about everything so that (ideally, if the penalty works as intended) in the end, both empires play in the same way. Having planetary defenses act sort of as a "force multiplier" for a nearby friendly fleet allows a tall empire with a smaller fleet to win defensive battles against a large empire, without forcing that large empire to play as though they were a small one.

 

[pguyton]

I'm reminded of Hoth : "com-scan has detected an energy field protecting an area of the 6th planet of the Hoth system. The field is strong enough to deflect any bombardment". Even the largest ship with the biggest fleet couldn't match the power of a ground based shield - infinite powers vs limited power on ships