Quote:
Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity
I’m trying to work out what a naval task force would look like at TL10 as a thought experiment, and I’m having trouble deciding which options presented by Ultra-Tech are most effective. I’m concentrating on a safe-tech TL10, so no superscience or volitional AIs, and only limited genetic engineering (so it differs from Transhuman Space).
Depending on your interpretation, the principle component of a naval force (i.e. at the top of the admirals’ wish list when governments look at funding and procurement) could change from a surface aircraft carrier to a heavily stealthed battleship with a 160mm railgun and/or heavy missile armament with point defence lasers, or a drone-carrying submarine, which packs most of its offensive punch in non-volitional AI-controlled drones, which it launches before creeping back under the waves.
I’m not sure there’s any firm answers to these, but I wondered what everyone thought and how other factors I’ve not thought of might influence matters.
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One issue which does not seem to have been mentioned is that as industrialized navies have gotten more and more expensive and irreplaceable they fight each other less and less, which means more and more naval developments are based on theories which have never been tested in action. The number of times that a fleet has fought another fleet since WW II is not very large. So whatever they use in your setting, some things will probably go horribly wrong the first time they are used in earnest, like in the Falklands War. And of course, procurement decisions rarely make sense outside of a particular bubble.
My impression is that the atmosphere gives small, fast-moving things a reasonable defence against THOR and similar projects. The faster they go, the more they overheat and damage their control services and surround themselves in a sheath of plasma which blocks signals from the controller.