Dogfighting

[phavoc]

Babylon 5 had a space fight scene that shows why you can't "tail" someone in a space fight. Sure, in atmospheric flight it's a basic maneuver, but in a vacuum, forget it.

Essentially, a Star Fury was being followed by an enemy craft. It spun around to face its rear, and then opened fire. Simple. Pretty sure the recent(ish) Battlestar Galactica had a similar scene.

Any ship operating in a vacuum can do the same thing. The ship's facing and velocity are not connected.

Yes, to both examples (the BSG was the Sci-Fi channel version, not the original). The original BSG Vipers travelled much like aircraft. But the Sci-Fi versions did indeed use newtonian movement and spin around on their axis to engage a ship behind them (with space machineguns no less).

Any ship trailing you has to predict your movements in order to counter them, otherwise by the time they are able to match the roll or yaw that you do your weapons have been brought to bear. Plus with computer fire control once they clear your dead zone - shazam! No need to squeeze a trigger.

 

[wbnc]

Babylon 5 had a space fight scene that shows why you can't "tail" someone in a space fight. Sure, in atmospheric flight it's a basic maneuver, but in a vacuum, forget it.

Essentially, a Star Fury was being followed by an enemy craft. It spun around to face its rear, and then opened fire. Simple. Pretty sure the recent(ish) Battlestar Galactica had a similar scene.

Any ship operating in a vacuum can do the same thing. The ship's facing and velocity are not connected.

Interesting side note: In some material on the B5 fury..It mentioned that many pilots could not handle the rapid rotations a fury was capable of. Many fighters didn't take full advantage of their maneuverability.

IN normal combat it wouldn't be a problem...but imagine being n a ship that pitches 360 by 360 focusing on the background stars too long would give you a hell of a case of vertigo.

 

[Nerhesi]

No, your point was that space combat is "harder" because all that drag people expect is missing. But that expectation is only valid for an earth-bound person like us. For someone who has spent much of their lives in space, it might well be perfectly natural to not expect a countering drag force. Further, the forces at work are simpler. So you can't argue that it's easier for one craft to roll and harder for the other one to maintain a candela roll around his blind spot at the same time. It's either easier for both or harder for both; you don't get to pick and choose just to win the argument.

You do not actually get to tell someone else what their point is. That is a logical error on your part. I tell you what my point is. You tell me what your point is.

So not only do you start on a false premise, you also make up some terms (candela roll?), make the most basic of logical errors in a debate, then attempt to educate on how to formulate an argument.

Effective communication at it's best. Truly you're making a good case- oh wait, no. Everyone seems to disagree with you. Hrm... oh well.

Listen, and you might learn something. Because the pilots are incompetent, the positions and orientations of each ship in space is completely random; therefore, the fighter will always have a shot, but the scout will only have a shot half the time due to his blindspot. If you match the skill of the pilots, but give the fighter more agility, as they are likely to have, things are only going to get worse for the starship.

Ad hominem attacks, a bunch of completely unsound assumptions, then an attempt to dictate the variables to make your scenario plausible. Come up with a valid argument, rather than saying what things ought to be to prove your point! What ridiculousness!

No one is going to go out of their way to make the type S scout as slow as you'd like to be, so a pilot can relive some WW2, subsonic dog-fighting glory days!

I know the flight model just fine; you're the one that's still learning.

I have learned that you are incapable of arguing from evidence rather than opinion, and make many very basic lapses in a logical debate. It is evident in this post and others. Perhaps with the overwhelming response (in this post and others) clearly indicating what you're saying is not feasible, or is only possible if you put in place arbitrary constraints on larger ships to make these scenarios plausible, you will come to realise you're screaming into the wind here.

Let me recap:

(1) You're alone in your argument.

(2) Evidence for your argument does not exist.

(3) Directly opposed evidence exists in Newtonian Flight Simulators now played by thousands of people using a variety of dissimilar craft. One of these Flight/Space Simulators (Star Citizen) uses very detailed modeling of thrust-to-weight values to get performance metrics. They are not arbitrarily making anything less or more agile. The flight model was so very detailed and realistic that other Space-sim fans called it "not fun" - because like you, they were expecting atmospheric style dog-fighting.

(4) You make some terms up - for what reason exactly? Candela roll?

(5) You continue to describe an environment where smaller craft are somehow naturally more "agile" than a 100-ton craft because they should be. That is your opinion. This is not an axiom.

 

[Nerhesi]

Babylon 5 had a space fight scene that shows why you can't "tail" someone in a space fight. Sure, in atmospheric flight it's a basic maneuver, but in a vacuum, forget it.

Essentially, a Star Fury was being followed by an enemy craft. It spun around to face its rear, and then opened fire. Simple. Pretty sure the recent(ish) Battlestar Galactica had a similar scene.

Any ship operating in a vacuum can do the same thing. The ship's facing and velocity are not connected.

Yes, to both examples (the BSG was the Sci-Fi channel version, not the original). The original BSG Vipers travelled much like aircraft. But the Sci-Fi versions did indeed use newtonian movement and spin around on their axis to engage a ship behind them (with space machineguns no less).

Any ship trailing you has to predict your movements in order to counter them, otherwise by the time they are able to match the roll or yaw that you do your weapons have been brought to bear. Plus with computer fire control once they clear your dead zone - shazam! No need to squeeze a trigger.

That was one of the often pointed two "realistic" qualities of that show - the later seasons space-combat. I think I remember those scenes pretty clearly where a star-fury would instantly spin while moving either laterally or directly away from a target to engage it.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Babylon 5 had a space fight scene that shows why you can't "tail" someone in a space fight. Sure, in atmospheric flight it's a basic maneuver, but in a vacuum, forget it.

Essentially, a Star Fury was being followed by an enemy craft. It spun around to face its rear, and then opened fire. Simple. Pretty sure the recent(ish) Battlestar Galactica had a similar scene.

Any ship operating in a vacuum can do the same thing. The ship's facing and velocity are not connected.

I never said they were connected. You can still effectively "tail" a craft in space; but the target you are tailing is rolling, so you have to counter that roll with movement about the roll axis; which you can do, because you have extra thrust with which to do it.

Now, to debunk your example; your example is flawed in that the Starfury was optimized for agility, and the other ship was optimized for speed. This difference isn't possible in the existing Traveller rules. The example you are using to illustrate your point violates the very constraints Traveller relies upon.

Further, you are deliberately using an example of a more agile craft against a less agile craft. Which violates the whole context of our discussion!

As such, you have provided no true counterexample to the circumstances central to our discussion. Feel free to try again.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Any ship trailing you has to predict your movements in order to counter them, otherwise by the time they are able to match the roll or yaw that you do your weapons have been brought to bear. Plus with computer fire control once they clear your dead zone - shazam! No need to squeeze a trigger.

No, you are neglecting the entire picture. There are 4 scenarios; assume the unused Thrust of the pilot's craft is applied as agility to his roll:

1. Scout pilot and Fighter pilot both succeed equally well: Blindspot is neither left nor entered; status quo.

2. Scout pilot loses to Fighter pilot: Fighter wins; blindspot retained.

3. Fighter pilot loses to Scout pilot: Scout wins; blindspot lost.

4. Scout pilot and Fighter pilot both fail: Both pilots failed to anticipate the actions of their opponent; the result is essentially random; we could roll a die here, or use the odds vs. evens sum of the existing dice as a coin flip.

Note that the superior agility of the Fighter is going to heavily skew the results in his favor, particularly if the Scout tries to run instead of fight, because it just amplifies the proportional difference in the remaining Thrust.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Interesting side note: In some material on the B5 fury..It mentioned that many pilots could not handle the rapid rotations a fury was capable of. Many fighters didn't take full advantage of their maneuverability.

IN normal combat it wouldn't be a problem...but imagine being n a ship that pitches 360 by 360 focusing on the background stars too long would give you a hell of a case of vertigo.

This mostly had to do with the pilot necessarily being at the center of rotation, and his head and limbs being outside that center; every coasting pitch or roll cases a redout, not just the forward ones! Priority necessarily would be on yawing.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

So not only do you start on a false premise, you also make up some terms (candela roll?), make the most basic of logical errors in a debate, then attempt to educate on how to formulate an argument.

Excuse my spelling mistake; I typed that from my phone, and I guessed at how it was spelled. Here's the relevant maneuver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandelle

Ad hominem attacks, a bunch of completely unsound assumptions, then an attempt to dictate the variables to make your scenario plausible. Come up with a valid argument, rather than saying what things ought to be to prove your point! What ridiculousness!

This is not an attempt to dictate the variables. This is establishing a mathematical baseline. You establish the baseline, and then you see how the growth of variables changes those results. In this case, it makes them worse for the scout.

No one is going to go out of their way to make the type S scout as slow as you'd like to be, so a pilot can relive some WW2, subsonic dog-fighting glory days!

The Scout's chances are better if it goes slow, instead of going fast and having no Thrust left to maneuver with.

What you might be trying to say is, "No way is anyone going to make a Scout slower than a Fighter!"; except, that's a key design criteria for Fightercraft... being faster than a Scout, and being able to destroy one that has gone rogue. Otherwise, they'd never build them in the first place; they'd have no battlefield application.

Perhaps with the overwhelming response (in this post and others) clearly indicating what you're saying is not feasible, or is only possible if you put in place arbitrary constraints on larger ships to make these scenarios plausible, you will come to realise you're screaming into the wind here.

Arbitrary constraints? Such as?

Let me recap:

(1) You're alone in your argument.

(2) Evidence for your argument does not exist.

(3) Directly opposed evidence exists in Newtonian Flight Simulators now played by thousands of people using a variety of dissimilar craft. One of these Flight/Space Simulators (Star Citizen) uses very detailed modeling of thrust-to-weight values to get performance metrics. They are not arbitrarily making anything less or more agile. The flight model was so very detailed and realistic that other Space-sim fans called it "not fun" - because like you, they were expecting atmospheric style dog-fighting.

(4) You make some terms up - for what reason exactly? Candela roll?

(5) You continue to describe an environment where smaller craft are somehow naturally more "agile" than a 100-ton craft because they should be. That is your opinion. This is not an axiom.

1. Correctness is a lonely business.

2. Yes it does. You have simply failed to understand it.

3. Only at the most naive degree of piloting skill. At any meaningful degree of piloting skill, as would correspond to "Pilot 1" and above, what I say is correct. For me, Star Citizen is insufficiently detailed; no n-body physics dynamics, for instance.

4. I spelled it as I understood its pronunciation; I was on my phone at the time, and couldn't be troubled to look it up.

5. They are not "naturally more agile"; they are more agile by design. Because that would be the design criteria to bother manufacturing them in the first place.

I'm happy to explain this to you long enough for you to understand it. Please let me know what parts you are confused about.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

That was one of the often pointed two "realistic" qualities of that show - the later seasons space-combat. I think I remember those scenes pretty clearly where a star-fury would instantly spin while moving either laterally or directly away from a target to engage it.

Yes, it was a lovely show that got the physics right so very often. Still need to get some friends of mine to watch it. They'd rather watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation" all over again.

 

[Condottiere]

Classically speaking, the turret tracks your opposing number independent of the direction of your fighter.

 

[Nerhesi]

Still nothing more than your opinion, with no facts. I'm not confused, just surprised you don't get it.

Regardless, the idea of blindspots doesn't exist unless, by design, unless you badly design ships. Otherwise a larger ships simply need larger/more thrusters to spin you faster than the fighter can keep turning around you.

I'd love to see where the Candela roll term comes from, once you figure out how to spell it or whatever.

 

[phavoc]

As the reference to B5 Starfuries goes, it's simply not possible to maintain yourself in the deadzone of most ships. Why? Because in order to remain there with impunity you have to (a) react instantly to changes in their orientation, (b) have a ship that has more available thrust and maneuverability than your target, and (c) a helluva lotta luck.

Thrust really doesn't play into the picture here for most things. Why? Because it's all about pushing your ship (generally forward, but also for braking - there's no reverse in space). A ship that has the maneuverability can pivot on it's axis, or roll far faster than a ship tailing it and trying to remain in a dead spot. Let's use our S class scout for an example.

The turret is on the dorsal (top) side. If you approach from 'above' the ship you can be engaged by the turret. If you approach from 'below' you cannot. Obviously there are fields and angles here, but let's keep it simple for discussion sake. If you are below the scout cannot target you. To engage the scout merely has to roll 180 degrees. The chasing craft cannot rotate as fast as the scout can spin, and therefore cannot stay in the blind spot. Not only that but because we are talking newtonian movement, as soon as the scout changes angles it's course changes. To match that course the chasing craft would have to re-orient it's primary engines in the same direction. Which for most craft they are mounted on the back, thus the chasing craft cannot maintain it's position. Thrusters used for maneuvering are insufficiently powerful to make a difference in the short term.

So now lets look at a ship chasing from behind. The scout has a natural blind spot to the rear (let's say it's 1km) that it cannot engage the target due to the turret emplacement. The scout could simply spin 180 degrees to eliminate the blindspot. Lets say the chasing ship maneuvered 'below' the nose,thus bringing a new blindspot to bear. If the scout rotates again along the axis the turret is now capable of bearing on the target. Or it could bring the nose 'down' to clear the blind spot as well. The chasing ship simply cannot move faster than the scout can turn to keep it in a blind spot. Not to mention that the chasing ship must expend equal thrust to stop it's movement in other directions when things change. To do so requires it to maneuver with it's main engines because the scout just wants to engage, thus the advantage in movement is with the scout - regardless of the chasing ships thrust.

Plus all of this requires the chasing ship to perfectly match each manveuver with greater thrust due to being at a distance and having to use more thrust to maintain the same position. Assuming it can even do this, if the scout suddenly reverse's it's efforts, the chasing craft must apply braking thrust and then new thrust in the correct direction.

There are simply too many advantages to the defender in this case being at the center of the sphere for an attacker to maintain this advantage indefinitely. The scout needs less power & less time than the attacker. And with the ability to spin in place it's a losing proposition for any chase craft to maintain a perfect position to never get engaged.

 

[Nerhesi]

As the reference to B5 Starfuries goes, it's simply not possible to maintain yourself in the deadzone of most ships. Why? Because in order to remain there with impunity you have to (a) react instantly to changes in their orientation, (b) have a ship that has more available thrust and maneuverability than your target, and (c) a helluva lotta luck.

Concisely put Phavoc. And especially that point (b) isnt' intrinsic or some sort of axiom for fighters. The only way it would happen is perhaps you dont care about maneuverability or thrust - so maybe a large bulk frieghter can have some blind spots vs an agile fighter. But you'd have to try extra hard to NOT add thrusters on military craft to make it so cumbersome as that it can't rotate fast enough to keep up with the fighter.

 

[phavoc]

Excuse my spelling mistake; I typed that from my phone, and I guessed at how it was spelled. Here's the relevant maneuver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandelle

This wouldn't work in space as there is no atmosphere to leverage against. To perform this maneuver a ship that had accelerated for 1 turn in a direction would have to flip and decelerate using it's main engines for 1 turn to come to a relative stop, and only then could it change course to go back in the opposite direction.

Space movement isn't aircraft movement because the mediums are different. Star Wars snubfighters had 'ethereic pedals' to mimic atmospheric maneuvers. Since we are trying to make this a discussion based more on science, pretty much all atmospheric maneuvers that utilize lift, drag or any aspect of the atmosphere aren't replicatable in space. Now, if you had a craft that was essentially covered with engines, and you fired your engines off to adjust your headings, that would come far closer, but still not be the same.

But one needs to make sure that craft in question for dogfighting are proper equivalents. I don't expect a 50,000 cruiser to be able to spin on it's axis as fast as a 100 ton scout, or a 35 ton fighter. Then again, unless that cruiser has had significant damage and loss of defenses that 35 ton fighter is toast if it expects to close and engage. There wouldn't be any dead zones to take advantage of.

 

[Nerhesi]

Phavoc beat me to the educational piece here and addressed your points. I think you need to read the article you've linked here.

The Chandelle is a maneuver that heavily leverages drag and stall speed aerodynamics to execute a tight turn. This is very clear in your wiki link as well. It simply does not work as intended in space. It has a lot to do with manipulating your aircraft's energy due to drag, gravity, and airspeed to achieve a tight turn.

Attempting a Chandelle in space, will see you overshoot the target wildly when you're at the 90-degree aspect of your turn, then hit zero velocity on what was direction of initial travel, then begin to slowly accelerate again. So basically you become a slow moving target.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Classically speaking, the turret tracks your opposing number independent of the direction of your fighter.

The turret can't track your fighter through its own ship.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Regardless, the idea of blindspots doesn't exist unless, by design, unless you badly design ships.

Yes, that's the point. The classic Scout S is a badly designed ship; primarily due to requiring exactly one turret, instead of 4 small ones. Most classic Traveller designs have pathological weaknesses in their turret placement.

Otherwise a larger ships simply need larger/more thrusters to spin you faster than the fighter can keep turning around you.

This would mean having more agility than the dogfighter, which would negate any purpose for its existence. You would just use Scouts as your fightercraft.

 

[Anonymous]

This thread reminds me why I spend less time here

:roll:

Nothing to see here, move along...

 

[Condottiere]

Since there is no up or down, you can flip over the fighter if the general hull hull gets in the way of the tracking turret.

Dogfighting in space is really Lucasian, though fun to see if you can create it as a concept in Traveller.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

As the reference to B5 Starfuries goes, it's simply not possible to maintain yourself in the deadzone of most ships. Why? Because in order to remain there with impunity you have to (a) react instantly to changes in their orientation, (b) have a ship that has more available thrust and maneuverability than your target, and (c) a helluva lotta luck.

You have just described the 3 primary criteria for a Fightercraft and its pilot.

a. The pilot is trained to anticipate the maneuvers of his target. This doesn't always work, but when it does, the pilot maneuvers the craft into the blindspot.

b. Look up the term "Air Superiority Fighter". The point of a Fightercraft is exactly to be more maneuverable than the opponent. And Scouts are, by definition, not the pinnacle of Fightercraft.

c. Pilots have a saying about exactly this. But because of a Scout's blindspot, the Fighter Pilot only has to work on improving his odds from a baseline of 50%.

Without these 3 things, no Fightercraft Development Program, or Fighter Pilot Training School, would exist! There would be no strategic justification for them, because they'd just continuously lose against recycling Scout ships.

Thrust really doesn't play into the picture here for most things. Why? Because it's all about pushing your ship (generally forward, but also for braking - there's no reverse in space). A ship that has the maneuverability can pivot on it's axis, or roll far faster than a ship tailing it and trying to remain in a dead spot.

This is entirely incorrect. All maneuvering in Traveller is a function of Thrust. There's no independent stat for "rate of angular acceleration"; if there were, I would happily tell you the range at which a dogfighter can maintain its blindspot over the Scout, for a given pivot rate. Maneuver Drives do the Thrusting and the pivoting, and the only stat they provide is Thrust. As such, the modeling of the system must be done using that variable exclusively.

Let's use our S class scout for an example. The turret is on the dorsal (top) side. If you approach from 'above' the ship you can be engaged by the turret. If you approach from 'below' you cannot. Obviously there are fields and angles here, but let's keep it simple for discussion sake. If you are below the scout cannot target you. To engage the scout merely has to roll 180 degrees. The chasing craft cannot rotate as fast as the scout can spin, and therefore cannot stay in the blind spot. Not only that but because we are talking newtonian movement, as soon as the scout changes angles it's course changes. To match that course the chasing craft would have to re-orient it's primary engines in the same direction. Which for most craft they are mounted on the back, thus the chasing craft cannot maintain it's position. Thrusters used for maneuvering are insufficiently powerful to make a difference in the short term.

There are no "primary engines". There are only "Maneuver Drives", which work equally well in all directions. For a radius about which the scout is doing a helical roll, the dogfighter with superior agility can do the same roll within a radius larger by the proportion of the remaining Thrust each ship hasn't used yet. So if the Fightercraft's remaining Thrust is 3 times the Scout's remaining Thrust, the Fightercraft can match the same helical roll at 3 times the radius, and anywhere in between; the Fightercraft has an additional +2 radius maneuverability margin over the Scout.

So now lets look at a ship chasing from behind. The scout has a natural blind spot to the rear (let's say it's 1km) that it cannot engage the target due to the turret emplacement. The scout could simply spin 180 degrees to eliminate the blindspot. Lets say the chasing ship maneuvered 'below' the nose,thus bringing a new blindspot to bear. If the scout rotates again along the axis the turret is now capable of bearing on the target. Or it could bring the nose 'down' to clear the blind spot as well. The chasing ship simply cannot move faster than the scout can turn to keep it in a blind spot. Not to mention that the chasing ship must expend equal thrust to stop it's movement in other directions when things change. To do so requires it to maneuver with it's main engines because the scout just wants to engage, thus the advantage in movement is with the scout - regardless of the chasing ships thrust.

Again; there's no separate stat for spin. And regardless, during that spin, the turret still only had 50% firing access. Suppose the Scout is just constantly spinning, and the dogfighter stays in place; the gunner only has 50% access at all times. It's the Fighter Pilot's job to improve this number; and he's gonna, with a more agile ship.

There are simply too many advantages to the defender in this case being at the center of the sphere for an attacker to maintain this advantage indefinitely. The scout needs less power & less time than the attacker. And with the ability to spin in place it's a losing proposition for any chase craft to maintain a perfect position to never get engaged.

Being in the center has an advantage, yes, but it is limited by the agility of the craft, which is dictated entirely by the Thrust numbers of the Maneuver Drives in question, which is why I framed the argument in terms of that number, and not others, like rate of angular acceleration; Traveller just has no "thing" for this.

At no point did you quote a specific number being larger than another number in a specific context. Your argument hinges entirely on how circumstances seem.