Trek combat maneuvers

The way spaceships maneuver in most sci-fi movies and television shows bears no relation to the reality of physics. Not once have I seen a ship rotate while in motion and move "backwards" or sideways while the original vector of motion was still in play. In sci-fi movies and TV the ships move like aircraft for the most part when in space a craft can be moving at high speed with it's attitude backward or sideways or whatever with no detriment to it's velocity until thrust is applied in the opposite direction.
I still love Star Trek etc., but I'd love to see a Sci Fi movie or show where the physics are accurate.

DJ

dj

didnt the remake of Battlestar kindda do that ? they used thrusters to change direction and all so in a way it's been done , maybe in a sublime way but still it's progress ?

I guess the new Battlestar Galactica was the most accurate I've ever seen. I've seen a miniatures wargame where the way spaceships maneuver was all accurate. You don't want to build up to big a head of steam in a maneuvering fight or you'll just fly off the edge of the table!

DJ

Also, there is no atmosphere, hence, no sound in space...but that would make for a very boring movie action sequence.

Ever seen the mini series Babylon 5? They have some of the most realistic space combat sequences.

I reckon the ol' game "Asteroids" was pretty accurate in this department...

Let me also point out that no one who wrote or created space battle scenes for Next Gen, DS9, V'ger or Enterprise has one freaking clue about real military procedures or tactics. Sometimes they look good, but hey almost never make any sense.

“Suspension of Disbelief” – But it all makes for good entertainment.

As far as ships moving in space portrayed by movies is usually a forward reverse thing but in the movie, "The Last Starfighter" the star fight turn every which way. It was kind of cool even though the movie itself was very B stylish.

How about this. Let's assume that Star Trek is Science Fantasy and not Science Fiction.
Also, throw a little Space Opera in to the mix.

Now, Start Trek ships can do all those things in space that, in reality, they cannot do.

With that information, might we apply my question again?

I should amend this. By making Scienece Fantasy, that means the star ships can do ANYTHING.

I was originally hoping for a trek fan who could say something to the affect of "Well, an older ship couldn't do blah, but a ship like the Defiant or Intrepid class could because of the more compact design, etc

With that information, you answered your own question, didn't you?

Correct, I just didn't amend fast enough :)

Ah, now I see what you were after.
You'd think there'd be a Star Trek fan or two out there who could tell ya, eh?

I'm sure there are Star Trek fans who could tell you in great detail, but they'd be proven wrong before very long. There IS no set of rules for satrship maneuvering.

In TOS, the Enterprise was thought of as a huge seagoing vessel, and maneuvered with corresponding grace and deliberation.

In TNG and onward, they started showing us space battles with monsterous megatonne starships zipping around like Spitfires.

In the Kirk-era movies, especially those helmed by Nick Meyer, the ships were again given that grace and sense of mass - it made sense that such huge vessels needed time and power[/u] to alter all that inertia.

In DS9, they showed two Miranda-class ships (which we saw maneuvering with deliberate slowness in Wrath of Kahn) [i]running interference for the Defiant and maneuvering right along with it!

In Enterprise, that supposedly primitive and delicate starship that preceded Kirk's ship, is shown doing immelmans, loops, and flying thru the atmosphere of gas giants.

So the answer is, they can do whatever the hell the writers want them to do, and thus whatever the hell YOU want them too. :) There are no rules that aren't eventually broken.

QUOTE: Originally posted by djrost_2000 The way spaceships maneuver in most sci-fi movies and television shows bears no relation to the reality of physics. Not once have I seen a ship rotate while in motion and move "backwards" or sideways while the original vector of motion was still in play. In sci-fi movies and TV the ships move like aircraft for the most part when in space a craft can be moving at high speed with it's attitude backward or sideways or whatever with no detriment to it's velocity until thrust is applied in the opposite direction. I still love Star Trek etc., but I'd love to see a Sci Fi movie or show where the physics are accurate. DJ

Umm, Babylon 5, anyone?

The Starfuries are usually shown doing the "point one way while flying in another" at some point during most battles, as are many other ships.

In TNG there was an episode in the first season where they showed the "Picard Maneuver". What happened was that in a battle with the Ferengi, Captain Picard commanding the Stargazer ordered his ship to fly at warp 9 directly at the Ferengi then stop right next to it. For a moment it looked as if there were two Stargazer's. Then Picard began to fire all of his photon torpedoes and knock the living daylights out of the Ferengi. It was pretty cool.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Kugai Umm, Babylon 5, anyone? The Starfuries are usually shown doing the "point one way while flying in another" at some point during most battles, as are many other ships.

I'm with ya Kugai - I already mentioned B5 in a previous post. Maybe no one's seen it?!?!?!?

Anyone ever read the book “The Physics of Star Trek”? I’m a big fan of ST but this book is a real downer for the “realist” – One example:

The enterprise doesn’t use “warp” technology for its “impulse” engines. These starships us some sort of energy reaction to propel the ship.

Now, one of the laws of physics state (don’t ask me any more detail…I’m not a physicist) that the most powerful and efficient energy reaction is the matter/anti-matter reaction. When matter and anti-matter collide, they destroy themselves and transform 100% of their matter into energy.

Assume that the “impulse” drives use this matter-anti matter reaction (the most efficient and powerful form of energy creation) to “push” the starship…

BUT, given the assumed mass of the enterprise – it would take (now don’t quote me because I don’t have the book on hand…) somewhere around 100 times the mass of the enterprise in matter/anti-matter “fuel” to push the ship some relatively small measure of distance….and then don’t forget about stopping it.

Damn that inertia!

you guys should check out 'Starfleet Command' for the PC. It's a PC game and about the Ster Trek universe. Maneuvers and battle tactics are the closest i've ever imagined it could be for ships that size. Can be a little boring cause it really takes time for a ship to maneuver and stop.
another game that is great for tactics and battle scenes is 'Homeworld'.

Unfortunately they haven't models of some of the starships you see in both games. if they did, i'd like to know where i can get them.

I never saw Babylon 5, so I couldn't include that in my thinking. The new Battlestar Galactica seemed to be marginally accurate.
I guess that in the far future perhaps they will be able to create artificial gravitational force that can be vectored. Perhaps that will tie in to the propulsion systems, and ships of the future can maneuver in any direction they please at any time and velocity they please. Then we'll have ships that can instantaneously change direction and speed at any given time, and the crew won't have to worry about inertia because the artificial gravitational force can compensate for any G-force the crew would experience. If the UFOs of today are for real, this is how they operate.

DJ

Think about OUR reality, if they filmed the Enterprise in a correct turn the screen it was shown on would be a mile wide and the Enterprise would be 1/4" long. The ships must be able to manuver in the space allowed which means screen space not outer space.

QUOTE: Originally posted by thevinman Anyone ever read the book “The Physics of Star Trek”? I’m a big fan of ST but this book is a real downer for the “realist” – One example: The enterprise doesn’t use “warp” technology for its “impulse” engines. These starships us some sort of energy reaction to propel the ship.

A friend of mine would say that we are using today's physics to explain something two to 400 years in the future. Think of someone in the 1600s explaining how an airplane flys and how impossible it is.

Yea, it's interesting what some people will put in a book.

But I already ignored "today's physics" knowing that there is always some theory being disproved. Don't forget Einstein's Theory of Reletivity is just a Theory.

Then again, about the insanity that is Trek, why would you put the bridge of a ship on the very top? I mean that would be the easiest place to hit and should be the focus for every attack. But Rodenberry wanted the bridge in a place for the audience to see, so the Genre continuted with it.

.........................where was I again?

QUOTE: Originally posted by thevinman Anyone ever read the book “The Physics of Star Trek”? I’m a big fan of ST but this book is a real downer for the “realist” – One example: The enterprise doesn’t use “warp” technology for its “impulse” engines. These starships us some sort of energy reaction to propel the ship. Now, one of the laws of physics state (don’t ask me any more detail…I’m not a physicist) that the most powerful and efficient energy reaction is the matter/anti-matter reaction. When matter and anti-matter collide, they destroy themselves and transform 100% of their matter into energy. Assume that the “impulse” drives use this matter-anti matter reaction (the most efficient and powerful form of energy creation) to “push” the starship… BUT, given the assumed mass of the enterprise – it would take (now don’t quote me because I don’t have the book on hand…) somewhere around 100 times the mass of the enterprise in matter/anti-matter “fuel” to push the ship some relatively small measure of distance….and then don’t forget about stopping it. Damn that inertia!

Sorry about that, hit the wrong button.

WARNING!!: FANBOY TREKKER TECHNO-BABBLE AHEAD!!

QUOTE: Originally posted by thevinman Anyone ever read the book “The Physics of Star Trek”? I’m a big fan of ST but this book is a real downer for the “realist” – One example: The enterprise doesn’t use “warp” technology for its “impulse” engines. These starships us some sort of energy reaction to propel the ship. Now, one of the laws of physics state (don’t ask me any more detail…I’m not a physicist) that the most powerful and efficient energy reaction is the matter/anti-matter reaction. When matter and anti-matter collide, they destroy themselves and transform 100% of their matter into energy. Assume that the “impulse” drives use this matter-anti matter reaction (the most efficient and powerful form of energy creation) to “push” the starship… BUT, given the assumed mass of the enterprise – it would take (now don’t quote me because I don’t have the book on hand…) somewhere around 100 times the mass of the enterprise in matter/anti-matter “fuel” to push the ship some relatively small measure of distance….and then don’t forget about stopping it. Damn that inertia!

Okay, referring to "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise..."

The warp drive produces no thrust. It creates a field, similar to gravity combined with electromagnetism, that effectively "shrinks" ( warps ) the space immediately around the ship so that in its local space the ship is traveling at sublight speed, but an observer outside the field would clock it at several times the speed of light. This system, as well as the weapons and shields is powered by the warp core, the shimmering vertical shaft in the engine room. Matter comes down the upper part and antimatter comes up from the lower part of the column. The center is the intermix chamber where the two meet and create energy.

From there, some of the energy is routed to the weapons and other systems while the majority of the power is routed to the warp engines. If you look at almost any post-Original-Series ( starting with the first movie ) engine room you'll see a horizontal shaft running to the aft of the ship that splits into 2 upward-slanting shafts, or just the two shafts going directly from the intermix chamber. Those continue out to the engines and the excess plasma/energy venting from the warp engine is what causes the glow ( blue on Fed ships, green on the Romulans', etc. )

The Impuse drive is a fusion reactor that also acts as a backup power source for critical systems. This is the only source of thrust for a ship aside from the RCS (Maneuvering thrusters ). The fusion reactor superheats reaction mass well beyond what you have in a conventional rocket and routes it out the back to provide thrust, producing more power with less fuel. Though the ship carries a reserve of matter for this and the warp system, most of the matter used while the ship is moving is collected by the Bussard Ramscoops ( the front part of the warp engines where you usually see the red glow ). These use a magnetic field to draw in intertellar gas and dust that is stored for later use.

As for the potential power of antimatter, the only rough figure I've heard of from scientists is that it has several hundred times the energy potential of an equal amount of nuclear fuel. The prequel to the novel "The DaVinci Code" quoted it as 25 kilotons of explosive force per gram of antimatter. Given the amount of plutonium needed to get the same power and the fact that the author had a long list of consultants, I'd say that should be about right. The ships in Star Trek usually have several tons of the stuff so I don't think inertia would be too much of an obstacle.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Kugai Sorry about that, hit the wrong button. WARNING!!: FANBOY TREKKER TECHNO-BABBLE AHEAD!! The Impuse drive is a fusion reactor that also acts as a backup power source for critical systems. This is the only source of thrust for a ship aside from the RCS (Maneuvering thrusters ). The fusion reactor superheats reaction mass well beyond what you have in a conventional rocket and routes it out the back to provide thrust, producing more power with less fuel. Though the ship carries a reserve of matter for this and the warp system, most of the matter used while the ship is moving is collected by the Bussard Ramscoops ( the front part of the warp engines where you usually see the red glow ). These use a magnetic field to draw in interstellar gas and dust that is stored for later use.

Counter Point:

Impulse engines used for slower than light travel. These use nuclear fusion (same reactions that drives the sun by turning hydrogen into helium). In fusion reactions, about 1% of the available mass is converted into energy. The helium atoms produced can come streaming out the rocket at 1/8th the speed of light. Using this, one can calculate the amount of fuel needed to accelerate the Enterprise to half the speed of light. Each time the Enterprise accelerates to half the speed of light, it must burn 81 times its entire mass in Hydrogen fuel. The Enterprise weighs about 4 million metric tonnes, therefore needs over 300 million metric tonnes of fuel to accelerate to half light speed. If one used a matter-antimatter drive, one would only need twice the mass of the ship in fuel to reach that acceleration.

BUT, wait! It gets worse...

That’s to accelerate. Once you get to your destination, you have to bring the ship to a halt. This would require the same factor of 81 times its mass in fuel. This means that to go somewhere at half light speed and stop once you got there would require 81x81 = 6561 times the entire ship’s mass. Suppose, you want to achieve this acceleration in a few hours (with inertial dampers active), the power radiated as propellant by the engines would then be about 10^22 watts (1 with 22 zeros after it), or about a billion times the total average power presently produced and used by all human activity on earth.

What if you could collect the fuel as you fly along? Why not sweep up the hydrogen necessary as you travel through space? The average density of matter in the universe is 1 hydrogen atom per cubic centimeter. To sweep up one gram of hydrogen, (even traveling at half light speed) would require you to deploy collection panels with a diameter of over 25 miles. Even then, this would provide you with only a hundred-millionth of the needed propulsion power.
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The above was written by someone who is way smarter and with a lot more time on their hands than me…

QUOTE: Originally posted by thevinman The above was written by someone who is way smarter and with a lot more time on their hands than me…

Unless of coarse that person wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Everything is based on what we think MUST be beyond our solar system. Nothing man made has gone beyond our solar system. Until someone gets out there and says "yup everything is spread out just as we thought it should be" I will still think of it as just more science fiction.

Rodenberry had to have something that defied our physics. What kind of show would there be if it was all about living a cylinder that approached the speed of light then had to turn around to slow down to its destination or the like.

found this on a search and had to somment, starships in the star trek univers dont use matter/antimatter for impulse navigation, they burn a fuel called deuterium, so they have a chemical engine that required suel much like the space shuttle, i may be wrong in this but many years ago i read about it in the enterprise tech manual

Interesting thread, but if you want sci-fi with real physics, you'll probably have skip any combat related films and watch 2001, 2010, or Silent Running (BTW, the FX are good, but the story hasn't aged real well).  They are much more energy and fuel conscious than any other film I've seen.  If you want to know what space combat would be like, I'd suggest watching Das Boot, Run Silent Run Deep or the Enemy Below (which was the motivator/inspiration behind TOS episode The Balance of Terror).  For what it's worth, submarines are probably the closest things to combat space ships we've can relate to and they fight the way a star ship probably would, fighting with nothing but sensors, trying to stay hidden until they can strike first, extremely aware of things like fuel, energy/fuel, ammo, air, and requiring a special crew to deal with the psychology of deep space or the deep sea.

 

Doug

 

 

Someone mentioned the starships maneuvering with a very "aircraft-like" set of moves, I would think right off the top of my head,  at least at high relative sublight, or even warp speed moves, this would have to be because they need the navigational deflector to do it's thing.

 

We all know,(with the exception of the Miranda class) starships are equipped with one usually on the front of the secondary hull.(Constitution, Galaxy, Ambassador classes or example). Without the navigational deflector, even a small particle of dust could rip a hole in the hull at high speeds. (In theory). They have to keep the deflector primarily pointed forward to be effective. An exception to this rule would be in the original series episode "Balance of Terror" where Kirk ordered "Full Astern! Emergency Warp Speed!!" Now, I'm not sure about you, but warp 9 in reverse wouldn't get much benefit from a forward facing navigational deflector.

 

You'd think if the warp engines really "warp" space around the ship, they'd warp everything, dust included. So, we are looking at high sublight speeds where the navigational deflector works best. At least I read all this in a book about it somewhere a longtime ago. Come to think about it, I'm not sure where Klingon Nav deflectors are, nor Romulan for that matter............ 

 

Only thing I can chalk it up to is "Creative License", and just plain good story writing.

It's best to just accept Trek as sci-fi/fantasy and let it entertain.

One thing that always amused me is an unshielded ship getting hit with a Photo Torpedo that has an anti-matter warhead and only getting a fairly small hole blown in it.

 If space combat is your thing, Star Fleet Battles the board game or Star Fleet Command the PC game are excellent. While the games might not be realistic etc because Trek isn't they are good tactical simulation games.