Text 12212, 88 rader
Skriven 2007-02-14 05:10:27 av Jeffrey MacHott (15653.babylon5)
  Kommentar till text 12211 av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (15652.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Military tactics in sci-fi?
=======================================
Vorlonagent wrote:
> "Soundy" <soundy106@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:1171386845.035788.66680@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> 
>> You also aren't TRULY operating in three dimensions, where planetary
>> tactics are limited by gravity to what's possible in one dimension...
>> it's sort of a two-and-a-half-dimension situation: if you could build
>> your minefield high enough (ie. from the planetary surface to the
>> fringes of the atmosphere) you take away one possible avoidance route.
> 
>> And of course, the reduced effectiveness of nukes in a vacuum must be
>> taken into consideration: you lose one of the major destructive
>> properties of ANY explosive, namely the shock wave.
> 
> Then there's the problem of building and maintaining that many nukes.
> 
> Mines work on 21st century earth because they're a cheap method of denying 
> passage through territory to the enemy.
> 
> Trying to barricade the way to an earth-size planet would require sufficient 
> depth that the enemy still risks life and limb *after* the first mine goes 
> off, either because they have to penentrate multiple layers or because the 
> mine explosion won't kill other mines.
> 
> You would need thousands of nukes to do this.  Mine fields would have to be 
> set up in belts orbiting the planet.  You would need successive belts from 
> equatorial orbit to polar orbit to effectively seal the planet off.  Each 
> belt would be narrow so you'd need 10s or 100s of them to get complete 
> coverage.  The belts can't be at the same altitude or the mines will 
> collide.  Running belts at different altitudes takes up potentially valuable 
> oribital real estate.  And sicne they have to be spaced so that an exposion 
> from one doesn't vaporize or EMP other belts, there are seams between the 
> belts that ships might be able to navigate.
> 
> Then there's the question of how to get legitimate traffic in and out safely 
> when every mind around the planet is whizzing around at 50,000 MPH.
> 
> No, mines don't work in space in any broad, territory-holding manner. 
> Earth's "Defense Grid" concept (the Centuari use it too, probably most 
> races) works much better and is much cheaper.  You could mine something like 
> B5, however.   If the whole field orbits the planet or is in deep space, you 
> can build a grid pattern that is tedious or dangerous to penetrate.  You 
> could have a convoluted set of "safe paths" thought the field to allow 
> maintenance and traffic flow.
> 
> But still the cost would be high and the maintenance cost pretty severe. 
> You would only mine extremely important or vital assets.  If EarthForce had 
> a free-floating supreme HQ for example, they might mine that.

It occurs to me that we have seen one space minefield on B5, in the 
beginning of season 3.  When told that they'd need to clear a path 
through it to allow a group of Rangers to withdraw from a planet in the 
system before the Shadows could arrive, Sheridan's first assumption was 
that they'd need "A starship", he didn't seem concerned with what type 
of starship or that they'd need more than one, so presumably minefields, 
as used on B5, are generally most effective around a jumpgate (and thus, 
only effective against smaller ships not equipped with jump generators).

A pre-Minbari War ship like the EAS Hyperion could probably make easy 
work of the minefield if they knew to jump in rather than use the jump 
gate, and then just proceed to get gunnery practice in with the 
explosive clay pidgeons.  To be effective, a minefield would need to be 
supported by mobile forces, probably a flotilla of cruisers or 
destroyers and their fighters, in order to fend off any minesweeping 
efforts.

Similarly, we've seen that the G.O.D. arrays over Earth are of only 
limited use against attacking fleets when deprived of support from 
warships.  Ideally you'd probably want to catch the enemy force in a 
pincer movement, pinning them in a crossfire between your ships and the 
defense grid, minimizing the effectiveness of their point-defense.  Both 
times Earth was attacked after we saw that they had the defense grid in 
place, the (sizable) EarthForce units deployed to protect Earth were 
distracted (General Leftcourt's squadron was disabled in orbit over Mars 
by the White Stars and the CyborgPeeps, and General Yuri's fleet was 
attacking the Planet Killer, or at least the forces around it).

The Defense Grid is probably outstanding in defending against raids and 
planet-swatting asteroids and what not, and a minefield is probably a 
handy blockade tool, but both have severe limitations if you don't use 
the other tools in your box effectively.

-- 
--Jeffrey MacHott

"Sola bona lingua est mortua lingua"
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