5 Things Movies Get Wrong About Space Combat

my friends welcome back to another episode of generation films my name is Alan as movie makers explore new and unfamiliar territory and subject matter they oftentimes use their prior experiences to fill in any information that might be missing take a world like Pandora for instance it might seem exotic and aliens who us as viewers trying to enjoy the movie but if we were actually to find Pandora in real life scientists would be amazed by how similar it is to earth the local talking monkeys oddly look like humans and even have horse like mounts that they ride of course everything is scaled up a bit more a bit more fluorescent in the world but it's a comfortable and familiar environment for our viewers to see and that's important because we want the audience to be familiar they don't want to be so jarred by the setting that they can't focus on other things are more important like the characters and story development although in Avatar I think that was missing but anyway in the science fiction genre more than any other genre the artists are given more creative Liberty because often times they're delving into subject matter that our human race has yet to encounter and so imagination and visual creativity often times replace reality especially when we don't know where reality is and one of the things that science fiction always gets wrong is how they portray space comment it's the most exciting part of any space opera and it's what really draws the mainstream audiences to these movies unfortunately the realities of what space combat will look like will be very different from when we see in science fiction movies it's probably gonna be a lot more boring on slower anyway today I want to take a look at five major things that sci-fi movies get wrong about space combat when I first read through Ender's Game as a child I didn't really understand the idea behind battle school what was its purpose and Rouge game was about all these children who were selected from around the world to attend an extremely prestigious military academy floating in orbit called battle school these children were supposed to be the future commanders and officers of Earth's invasion fleet of a hostile alien race known as the formics these young cadets would one day command the greatest battleships and carriers of humanity in epic space melees the battle room was a zero gravity room at the center the battle school you trained slept and practiced with your army and constantly went to the battle room where you would battle other armies in mock skirmishes but these battles had nothing to do with starships and commanding fleets or so I thought see every cadet serves as an infantryman and was given a non-lethal stun gun it was basically a laser tag in zero gravity it seemed like a lot of fun but it didn't really make much sense why aren't these kids learning about naval strategies or you know how to manage logistics for an invasion fleets but then I realized fighting in space is very different from anything we encountered here on earth the idea behind the battle room was not only to learn how to lead people into combat but also to get these cadets used to fighting in zero gravity 3d space which is an extremely difficult thing to do if you're not born in zero gravity the simple task of just getting oriented and knowing where your enemy is can be very difficult to do and disorienting when you're fighting on a planet there are a lot of reference points to use for navigation it's much easier to get around there's also gravity which limits where your enemy can come from now obviously there are planes and helicopters and cliffs and tunnels below you but for the most part your enemy will be fighting at the same level as you ground battlefields just lack the same type of verticality you'll see in space battles and in space battles because there are no gravity oftentimes your horizontal planes turn into your vertical planes which gets even more nauseating and confusing this will be really disorienting for most people who aren't used to zero gravity especially because our brains and bodies have evolved to handle walking around on Earth's gravity and not floating in space and things get even more confusing when these battles happen in deep space when there's not even they're stars around to give you reference points but aside from Ender's Game we don't really see much zero-gravity orientation training in sci-fi movies which really should be the first step in training anyone who gets involved in these type of battles whether they're a Space Marine or a Rear Admiral so now you got your 0g orientation and terminology down you can effectively move and communicate with your fellow soldiers in 3d environments that's great but it's only in the beginning now you're gonna have to learn orbital mechanics which honestly I learned from a video game called Kerbal space program see you don't just fire up your ship and point it at the sky and hope for the best there's tons of preparation and mathematical calculations being made let's say you want to go to Mars from Earth well if you point your ship straight at Mars and attempt to fly at it even if you managed to get to that spot Mars will have moved already and you're gonna have to lead it instead what you have to do is calculate how long it will take your ship to reach Mars and figure out where Mars will be in its orbit after that time ideally you'd want to do this orbit transfer when Mars and Earth are at their closest points this could save you weeks if not months if done correctly now that you've figured out where Mars will be in its orbit you can't just point your ship directly at where you think it's gonna be gravity is still in play in space and to be successful space power you're gonna have to let those gravitational forces work for you rather than against you when you launch your ship from Earth or from a bow station over Earth you immediately enter Earth's orbit hopefully a stable orbit which means in orbit that does not increase or decrease in distance from the body it's revolving around when you're orbiting a planets you can do three things maintain a stable orbits increase your orbit size or decrease the size now they're gonna be two coordinates they're gonna help you to increase and decrease your orbit they're called the retrograde and the pro-grade the retrograde is the point that goes directly against the rotation of your orbit so if you burn retrograde you're burning against the orbit and it gets smaller and smaller and so it's no longer a stable orbit and turns into a reentry if you burn pro-grade you're going with the direction of your orbits rotation which will increase your distance from the object and speed until you have enough speed to launch and escape out of the orbit of the planet you're around now obviously there are limitations of our current technology chemical rocket boosters and hydrogen peroxide thrusters are still relatively Rimet if compared to what we see in most sci-fi franchises but even then understanding orbital mechanics will give you a huge advantage in how you control the movement of your ship for instance a ship that is in low orbit around Earth is most likely traveling around 17,000 miles per hour that seems really fast but in space it's not anything special let's say a few Martians have slingshotted around their planet and are now approaching earth to attack the ships in low orbit they're not gonna burn retrograde to slow down in order to enter Earth's orbit they're just gonna fly right by us and launch whatever weapons they have at us and basically not slow down this really limits their exposure to an enemy fire as a defender you probably should know that being in low orbit at such slow speeds is a huge danger you might as well be a sitting duck this is just one of the many situations that captain's are gonna have to take into account when fighting in space everything is going to be about orbital mechanics gravity and and using energy in a very different way from how we're used to here on earth there's nothing more exciting than a close-range dogfight yeah these two individuals strapped into these flying machines that are fighting very hard against gravity stay in air and at the same time they're fighting for the perfect position against their opponents so that they can strike there's something very romantic about this struggle and trying to fly but it's not something that really translates into space battles for one the distances in space are immense and although space travel seems very tranquil and calm in these movies it's only because we have no visual context around these ships to make us understand how fast are actually moving in space forces like gravity don't just pin you to the ground they pull you in multiple directions depending on the source and there's no friction from air pressure as well this means that space ships can accelerate for a much longer time and reach a much higher top speed on earth the faster you go the more air pressure you're going to encounter ultimately requiring you to design more dynamic frames but even then you're gonna have limitations that you're never gonna see in space now given the choice between an extremely maneuverable ship and a very fast ship well which one would be better for space battles while at the end of World War two the Germans introduced the enemy - six - it was one of the first jet fighters in the world although almost every Allied fighter was more reliable and more maneuverable than the me-262 the jet fighter was easily a hundred miles faster than any of the propeller planes that the Allies had instead of trying to dogfight and turn with the allied pilots the me-262 pilot would just build up a massive amount of speed and do an attack run and then just fly off into the distance again and set up another attack none of the propeller planes could really keep up with this really really fast ship and in space where the distances are even more vast and there's even more space to fly around well I think top speed is going to be very very important a lot more important than maneuverability which is only important in close-range dogfights and confined spaces which you're not going to see in space battles know a lot of sci-fi obviously portrays space battles as if they were dock fights look at how these x-wings bank their wings and use lift to help them make tighter turns that's that they were in an atmosphere none of this really makes a lot of sense but it should be mentioned that Star Wars has a lot of World War two influences behind it George Lucas has admitted that he basically took a lot of elements from a movie called dam Busters when he set up the Battle of Yavin and the final run another Death Star even takes some lines of dialogue directly from that movie and just implants it in to Star Wars [Music] Lucas also looked at a lot of World War 2 gun cam footage in order to understand how the starship should move around which of course was completely wrong but the fans loved it and because Star Wars became so popular it kind of set the standard for space battles for better or worse now if there is one franchise that gets Starfighter combat correct its Babylon 5 the essay 23 e Mitchell hundun Star Ferry had four particle thrust engines arranged at the end of four struts that come out from the body of the ship the location at the outer most edge of the ship gives these thrusters extra leverage and allows the ship to spend quicker on its central axis it's exactly how real space ships work - they use vectoring thrusters to orient their ship in the right direction so they can burn retrograde or pro-grade I mean this is a really unavoidable fact of space travel in spaceflight and you know the space combat cannot happen without these elements also most starships should have off board firing or the ability to attack targets that aren't directly lined up with the front of your ship because again we're vectoring with our entire ship so it's not really practical to always have to aim your ship in the direction of your enemy when you're firing right on ghor firing was just a result of technological limitations I mean the first prop planes fitted with machine guns solved the issue of firing through the propeller by just making the propeller bulletproof safety standards were kind of different back then the invention of larger planes led to the creation of gun turrets that can rotate and track enemies in any direction then in the jet age we add things like guided missiles and helmet controlled auto guns the idea of fixing lasers and rail guns at the front of your ship that have to be manually pointed by your pilot is a very archaic an ancient idea it does not belong on a starship I'm really worried about the new Top Gun I just don't think it's gonna be as good as the old one and one of the main reasons why is how much aerial combat has changed since the 80s well even back then jet fighters were engaging each other at increasingly longer arranges when compared to Vietnam or Korea in World War two today with advanced detection capabilities and long-range missiles and f-35 can track multiple targets from 100 miles away and simultaneously launch several missiles at them and take them all out at the same time it doesn't really seem fair but for all those individuals hating on the f-35 s poor performance and aerodynamics well they're kind of missing the points you see the f-35 is not primarily designed for dogfighting nor should it be because there really haven't been any close-range dogfights since the 70s or 80s and if you think distances in aerial combat are far wait until you get to space combat and space you'll be able to spot your enemies from a million miles away the expanse kind of doesn't austin job that's showing list in the first season when the Canterbury is destroyed the crew doesn't even see the enemy ship because it's so far away and that is how most battles will happen in space way beyond visual range just like how aerial battles take place here on earth right now way beyond visual range so everything will revolve around stealth technology detection ability long-range missiles and countermeasures like flares or point defense Auto clearance so as you guys can tell I have a lot to say about this topic and I actually have a lot more points I wanted to talk about like for instance creating debris fields in orbit that is a huge nightmare but if you guys want to see more content about you know maybe a part two about you know this topic let me know in the comments section below maybe we'll do it well guys I hope you enjoyed today's episode don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification button so you don't miss sound the rest of our awesome content as usual my name is Alan reminding you that life is a movie and you are the protagonist

Channel: Generation Films

Views: 372,031

Keywords: space battles, space combat, best space combat in science fiction, things space movies get wrong, things movies get wrong about space combat, star wars, the expanse, star trek, 40k, star destroyer, what movies get wrong about space battles, missiles, turbolasers, boarding, gravity, kerbal space program, orbital mechanics, long range, space combat long range, nasa, space program, private space mission, mission to mars

Id: pANFGh0tNlk

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Tue May 12 2020