[Ultra-Tech] What would naval warfare at TL10 look like?

[Johnny1A.2]

Another thing that navies are useful for is moving ground troops in large numbers. If for whatever reason you don't want to or can not annihilate your enemy entirely with nukes or worse, then to beat him sooner or later you have to invade and occupy his territory. Which means ground troops of some kind, and their associated equipment.

Planes can move some of them, but if you need to move tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people or machines, sea travel is a lot more practical (assuming particular versions of TL10 tech, of course). Likewise, a navy is a useful thing to keep your foe from landing an invasion force on your territory, too.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

So you stick it on a plane. The plane flies through a layer of water vapour and the mirror picks up condensation. Oops. Or dust, or exhaust fumes, or…

I'm not saying this can't be done, but it's not at all easy.

Of course, the mirror itself will not be exposed to the outside air. There will be a window. It is now the window that will collect condensation and particulates. The window can be made out of something tough and refractory. The full power beam will evaporate any condensation, and most environmental particulates will also be removed under full power irradiation before the window is damaged.

It is also possible the window could be coated with a self-cleaning superhydrophobic surface, so all that stuff just rolls off of it.

Luke

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Yes, you do need strong AI, or a human, for that. Cruise missiles are not analogous to planes or ships, they are analogous to bullets.



Which helps how? Outthinking the foe is about far more than evasive maneuvers...and even there blind automation is soon going to come up short against minds.



Lacking them, you still have to have pilots, remote-control operators, or humans in the loop, or you will lose the war.

The reliability issue is about whether you can trust a machine that can think and want and decide for itself to do what you want rather than what it wants.

Why would that be the case? The requirements for an AI to be considered strong are more than being able to do a decent job of categorise unexpected target data in order to decide whether it should continue with the mission or not.

It helps by being able to fight well against human opponents. Even current AIs can perform well against human opponents in simulated air combat (https://www.popsci.com/ai-pilot-beat...rt-in-dogfight). There is no reason to belive that we would need strong AI in order for autonomus aircraft to fight competitively with humans. There are far harder AI problems than how to pilot aircraft.

Why would you be lacking them? Such reliability is not much of an issue if you have enough time for testing. Also, you can have humans in the loop without having them on the planes or having them remote control the planes. Just like how they are currently in the loop with cruise missiles.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Why would that be the case? The requirements for an AI to be considered strong are more than being able to do a decent job of categorise unexpected target data in order to decide whether it should continue with the mission or not.

Target data alone are not sufficient to make that determination. That's the point. It's impossible to spell out before hand what the determinative characteristics for changing the plan would be. It has to be assessed at the time based on judgement.

Which is why pure automata aren't good enough for these purposes.

It helps by being able to fight well against human opponents. Even current AIs can perform well against human opponents in simulated air combat (https://www.popsci.com/ai-pilot-beat...rt-in-dogfight).

But we haven't tried them in the real thing yet, so we really have no idea how they'll perform. Until it's tested for real, it hasn't been tested.

There is no reason to belive that we would need strong AI in order for autonomus aircraft to fight competitively with humans. There are far harder AI problems than how to pilot aircraft.

It has nothing to do with piloting skills. It's about judgement.

Why would you be lacking them? Such reliability is not much of an issue if you have enough time for testing.

1. The only real test for war is war. All 'simulations' of war, though sometimes useful, fall short of the real thing. History is filled with instances of 'well-tested' ideas, plans, weapons, machines, etc. that passed all the war games and tests and simulations but flunked combat.

2. The abilities of judgement that would enable an AI to replace humans in warfare (generally speaking, not in specific applications) make it at least as hard to ascertain reliability as with humans, plus the problem that the AI is an alien entity. We know (loosely, and with limits) how to induce loyalty and reliability in humans, though not with full certainty. We don't even know how to test for such a thing in an AI, not yet. We can't even fully define the problem.

Also, you can have humans in the loop without having them on the planes or having them remote control the planes. Just like how they are currently in the loop with cruise missiles.

Which isn't going to be sufficient absent strong AI. War is about more the missiles and individual engagements.

The funny thing about automation, as I've noted before, is that it doesn't so much remove people from the equation as disguise them, in various ways. True strong AI would be different, but we have no idea how to do such a thing, or when it might happen.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Of course, the mirror itself will not be exposed to the outside air. There will be a window. It is now the window that will collect condensation and particulates. The window can be made out of something tough and refractory. The full power beam will evaporate any condensation, and most environmental particulates will also be removed under full power irradiation before the window is damaged.

It is also possible the window could be coated with a self-cleaning superhydrophobic surface, so all that stuff just rolls off of it.

Luke

But how hard is it going to be to make the plane-based laser accurate, compared to a sea-based or land-based projector? Esp. if the plane is being fired on at the same time by ground/sea based laser installations?

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Target data alone are not sufficient to make that determination. That's the point. It's impossible to spell out before hand what the determinative characteristics for changing the plan would be. It has to be assessed at the time based on judgement.

Which is why pure automata aren't good enough for these purposes.

If targeting data is not enough, then you can provide the other needed data to the aircraft before it leaves, just like you would have to for one with a human pilot. If it is truly impossible to spell out the characteristics like that, then human pilots won't manage such a decision either (unless the requirements are about who makes the decision rather than what result is arrived at).

But we haven't tried them in the real thing yet, so we really have no idea how they'll perform. Until it's tested for real, it hasn't been tested.

Trying them in the real thing is not the only way to know (and our future would have to be very peaceful for there to have been no opportunities to do so by the way). It might very well be that the particular AI refered to in that article has some flaw that makes it unsuitable for real use, but there is no reason to belive that all automata would share such flaws (and it would be very hard to come up with a plausible explanation for why that could be the case).

It has nothing to do with piloting skills. It's about judgement.

Judgment about how to use your aircraft in combat is part of piloting skills.

1. The only real test for war is war. All 'simulations' of war, though sometimes useful, fall short of the real thing. History is filled with instances of 'well-tested' ideas, plans, weapons, machines, etc. that passed all the war games and tests and simulations but flunked combat.

Please give an example of a weapon which passed rigorous large scale war games, tests and simulations, but proved unviable in real combat.

Also, in many aspects, we are now much better at such simulations than we were in the past.

2. The abilities of judgement that would enable an AI to replace humans in warfare (generally speaking, not in specific applications) make it at least as hard to ascertain reliability as with humans, plus the problem that the AI is an alien entity. We know (loosely, and with limits) how to induce loyalty and reliability in humans, though not with full certainty. We don't even know how to test for such a thing in an AI, not yet. We can't even fully define the problem.

Isn't this mainly a discussion about the specific application of aircraft pilots though?

Humans would be more reliable if we could copy them (since we know how to judge particular humans as more reliable than others), so "at least as hard to ascertain reliability as with humans" does not seem like it would be the case. At the very least AIs have the advantages of being copyable and it being possible to freeze them in a certain state.

Which isn't going to be sufficient absent strong AI. War is about more the missiles and individual engagements.

The funny thing about automation, as I've noted before, is that it doesn't so much remove people from the equation as disguise them, in various ways. True strong AI would be different, but we have no idea how to do such a thing, or when it might happen.

Aircraft pilots don't really have to make many military decisions other than those about individual engagements though?

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

But how hard is it going to be to make the plane-based laser accurate, compared to a sea-based or land-based projector? Esp. if the plane is being fired on at the same time by ground/sea based laser installations?

Apparently, not hard at all. Tests and demonstrations of airplane-based and helicopter-based laser weapons systems have shown the same level of accuracy as ground and ship based lasers (admittedly, the helicopter-based laser has so far only tested the targeting system and beam pointer, but not yet emitted a high energy beam through it). That is, in all cases the laser weapons system was able to keep a beam on about a 2 cm spot of stationary and mobile targets (even evading mobile targets) for several seconds (long enough for TL 8 lasers to burn through the casing/body panels and disable/deflagrate whatever is inside).

This is still an area of on-going R&D, so we don't have all the answers. What it is looking like to me (and I follow these things with some interest) is that it will be a solved problem for an aircraft to maintain targeting while it maneuvers, but that maneuver will not have much of an effect on the ability of the enemy beam projectors to hit the target aircraft.

If it is a case of laser armed aircraft attacking an enemy installation or ship at TL 10, I would expect a brief flicker of invisible beams as soon as the aircraft (or, more likely, aircraft swarm) has line of sight. Then, either all the aircraft have been shot down or all the beam pointer telescopes of the ship/installation have been disabled. This is assuming clear air - haze or bad weather could significantly lengthen the engagement, or encourage the use of missiles.

Luke

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

If it is a case of laser armed aircraft attacking an enemy installation or ship at TL 10, I would expect a brief flicker of invisible beams as soon as the aircraft (or, more likely, aircraft swarm) has line of sight. Then, either all the aircraft have been shot down or all the beam pointer telescopes of the ship/installation have been disabled. This is assuming clear air - haze or bad weather could significantly lengthen the engagement, or encourage the use of missiles.

I'm trying to imagine what countermeasures we'd be looking at.

First off there's scads of chaff, but its random fluttering wouldn't give enough coverage to not be burnt through after a couple of shots.

Maybe laser fog- whatever that'd be. Installations might be permanently enshrouded in it, while incoming attackers would fill the battlezone first before attacking with non-laser munitions.

Otherwise, as ericthered suggested, installations might be domed with meta-material multi-spectral reflective armour.

For either of those, does it sound possible to engineer a material that's transparent under normal conditions, but opaquens (?) when illuminated by high-intensity photons? I guess we already have photochromic eyewear now that essentially does the same trick.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I'm trying to imagine what countermeasures we'd be looking at.

First off there's scads of chaff, but its random fluttering wouldn't give enough coverage to not be burnt through after a couple of shots.

Maybe laser fog- whatever that'd be. Installations might be permanently enshrouded in it, while incoming attackers would fill the battlezone first before attacking with non-laser munitions.

Otherwise, as ericthered suggested, installations might be domed with meta-material multi-spectral reflective armour.

For either of those, does it sound possible to engineer a material that's transparent under normal conditions, but opaquens (?) when illuminated by high-intensity photons? I guess we already have photochromic eyewear now that essentially does the same trick.

A ship, or an installation located near the water, could use water pumps to send a spray of water up around it for laser cover. However, this works both ways - the ship would not be able to see or shoot its own lasers out. I suspect this would actually disadvantage the ship. First, if the attacking aircraft carry their own on-board lasers rather than re-directing the beams of remote ships or installations, the target ship will have the more powerful laser. As the aircraft come over the horizon, there will be a fairly significant amount of attenuation from sea-aerosols due to the long path length through the air just over the surface of the water. The more powerful ship-based laser would be less disadvantaged under these conditions, making it favorable for the ship to open up on the aircraft while they are still far away (this assumes you don't have partially cloudy or cloudy conditions, where the aircraft hide behind clouds and then fly out from the clouds to engage through clear air). Second, if there are a group of warships, and only some of them are using this spray-screen, it allows the aircraft to concentrate fire on the other ships without needing to worry about the screened ships. Once the other ships have their lasers disabled, the screened ships would be vulnerable to missiles launched from the aircraft. On the other hand, if you have specialized laser ships, missile ships, carrier ships, and so forth, it could make sense for all but the laser ships to send up a spray-screen. Note that this defense is also weather dependent - high winds will disperse the cloud and make it less useful.

The thing to remember about all of these laser defenses is that lasers use visible or near-visible light - if the laser can't get through, you can't see through, either. You might be able to keep the enemy from shooting you for a bit, but you won't be able to see them or shoot back and you're only delaying the inevitable (modulo things like fighting by radar only).

Also, mirrored armor and the like is not likely to work, since the laser can be focused to a concentrated spot on the mirror. With pulsed lasers (like I expect you have at TL 10), this will enable non-linear optical processes to take place where reflectivity doesn't really help. Even without this, we know from experience that high powered machining lasers are not much affected by mirror surfaces when cutting materials - at high intensities, the laser quickly removes the surface layer and begins to cut into the underlying material, where the surface roughness of the evaporating interface doesn't leave much room for a high polish. Further, high energy beams typically couple to the target via a plasma layer - the plasma absorbs the beam, and then transmits the heat to the target via conduction, which makes reflectivity pointless. Generally, even against highly reflective metals like aluminum and silver, about 50% of the beam energy is absorbed by the metal. For non-metals, it is more like 90% to 95%, so your meta-material dielectric mirror/optical band-gap material/whatever will give a brief moment of high reflectivity before it's reflective properties are destroyed and the the majority of the beam energy is used to drill through the mirror armor.

You can make materials that photo-darken. These is some issue of response time - if a laser uses millisecond pulses but it takes a tenth of a second for the material to respond, it will not be much use. I suspect you can get around that with proper materials engineering. A more serious drawback, however, is that the laser will drill through the material like it will anything else. So you will essentially have a dome of inferior armor that you have to shoot through yourself if you want to shoot down incoming missiles or artillery or aircraft or whatever it is you want to use your own lasers against. You might be able to engineer the photo-darkening threshold so that it does not darken when the beam is not yet at fairly tight focus, so since your beams are still wide and diffuse while going out it does not darken against your own beams - unless the enemy is reasonably close to the barrier, in which case it will still block your beams because you will need to focus the beam to a tight spot near the barrier (and then the enemy's beams will be able to shoot right through it to get to you). This photo-darkening idea might give some benefit if the distance between the barrier and the thing it protects is longer than the enemy laser's depth of focus (the range over which the beam is at tight focus). In this case, the enemy will have to first focus on the barrier to drill a hole through it that is wide enough for their still not-quite-focused beam to go through when it then targets your installation.

If you know the exact wavelength of the enemy lasers, you can engineer some sort of aerosol that strongly resonates with that frequency of light. Then you could see through the aerosol cloud using all the other frequencies of light in sunlight, but the enemy lasers would have a hard time getting through. If your own lasers were on a different frequency, you could shoot through the aerosol cloud yourself. This only works if high energy lasers are not frequency agile (I suspect that by TL 10 they will be, but of course I cannot know that for sure).

Saturation attacks are a common method people talk about in order to overcome lasers. Shoot more missiles at the enemy than he can shoot down in the time it takes for the missiles to get there. Also, while he is shooting down your missiles, he is not shooting at you, giving you more time to blast him. Of course, the enemy will also be using this tactic against you, and may deploy anti-missiles against your missiles rather than shooting them down with lasers.

I tend to suspect that the main defense will just be to shoot the other guy before he shoots you first.

Luke

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

This only works if high energy lasers are not frequency agile (I suspect that by TL 10 they will be, but of course I cannot know that for sure).

I was thinking about that possibility before, when ericthered mentioned the reflective armour. I think it's down to the definition of TL's rather than the other way round.

We get Rainbow Lasers at TL11, and free electron X-ray lasers, so frequency-agile lasers would probably appear one tech-increment earlier. They'd have to be a bulkier, more expensive option for regular laser weapons, of course.

Within that, there are various options to choose too.
1) Different frequencies are different weapon load-outs: an armourer has to exchange the lasing cavity or something. Slow, but versatile enough to bring a favoured option to a particular battlefield, and unpredictable, so mono-frequency armours would be useless.

2) The weapon has a limited, finite number of available frequencies, like 5 or 10. They might be all visible only, or include the other laser options- IR, blue-green and UV.

3) Continuously tunable in between shots. Being tunable for the duration of one shot is basically what the Rainbow Laser does.

BTW- this is just spitballing in gamistic terms- I make no claim on how feasible any of these are in reality.