Space battles are a staple of Science Fiction, especially in it’s visual mediums such as tv and movies.  I’ve talked a lot with friends and family about space battles over time, whether discussing the relevance of the massive finale battle in the newest Star Wars movie with my dad (of which he was decidedly NOT a fan), or commending the genius of including the detail of thrusters firing in Battlestar Galactica. The truth of space battles is that they can be exciting, boring, overwhelming, confusing, underwhelming, tense, or any combination of these. I did some research about what makes a good space battle, but before revealing what I found I’ll write what my thoughts going in to the searching were:

1. Too many ships makes for a bad fight, I can’t (and, frankly, won’t) care about 1 million individual nameless people fighting for something that seems arbitrary.
2. Ships in SF media tend to be a combination of carriers and battleships, especially the larger ones. If there are fighters onboard, they should have a purpose beyond taking up space on the screen. Similarly, if there are big guns those should have a purpose other than to fire and constantly miss.
3. Planet killing is scary, but overdone at this point.
4. Tension is better than explosions, communicate danger.
5. Realistic battles are best.

Now I’ll admit that some of these opinions formed after watching some videos dissecting and comparing space battles from Star Trek and Star Wars, but I still held them (if not knowing the exact words to use) before all of that.

In my research, I happened across an article written by a graduate of the United States Military Academy turned science fiction writer Michael Mammay talking about space battles in SF and why, for the most part, they are totally unrealistic. His reasoning stemmed from the physical limitations to combat to the strategic limitations. While certain things might make sense tactical sense in Star Wars, in the real world with real world physics many maneuvers and tactics are either impossible or unhelpful. Here is a short list, breaking down some of the points:

1. Space is so big that capital ships (even very large ones) ever encountering each other and fighting is exceptionally improbable, especially outside of planetary orbit. Furthermore, distance becomes an issue when traveling without some faster-than-light novum.
2. Speed in space is all speed relative to something else, so two ships moving at very slow speeds relative to each other without prior planning is extremely improbable.
3. Combat tends to happen near resources, so in the case of most SF that would be on or very near planets.
4. Acceleration in the cockpit would make it impossible for any human fighter pilot to best a robot in a space dogfight
5. A large focus of modern combat is supremacy in BVR (beyond visual range) engagements. While dogfights and short range engagements with dumb (meaning un-automated or unguided, think an unguided space missile) weapons may look cool and have a more intimate feeling to them they are unrealistic.

So that’s what makes a space battle realistic. But if there’s one thing fiction, fantasy, and SF have taught us it’s that realistic doesn’t always mean good. I’ll explore in my next post what makes a good space battle, if realism allowed to have a looser definition.