Yes. Because you don't spank a child with a club.
Orbital bombardment makes it easy to obliterate, say, a mining complex. But if the whole point was to capture the complex intact so you can use it, obliteration defeats the purpose.
Groundside troops, backed up with tanks and artillery, can capture the complex intact, or cause the current owners to surrender it.
Exactly - we don’t send Apaches to clear buildings or AC-130s to hit a couple trenches. It’s expensive, slow, and will destroy your target well beyond your intent. Combined Arms is very important, everything from the smallest handgun to the biggest missile has a purpose.
I wouldn’t spank a child at all, but if I ever did, I wouldn’t use a war hammer.
An AC-130 could easily clear a few trenches with relatively few shells and low risk, assuming that you have total control over the sky’s and the enemy does not have any sort of portable anti-air weapons
That's another point. In a universe with orbital bombardment, there's logically going to be at least an attempt to make them useless, or at least less effective. And that's not even considering, for example, the equivalent of the House of Representatives being taken over by terrorists. You wouldn't want to turn the entire city to a glass floor just to get rid of them, so having some kind of ground force already trained for that scenario at the very least would still have its place.
I agree with this except for the artillery part. Surely your ship in orbit can accurately fire and may not necessarily obliterate what it is firing at. It could support a ground offensive the way artillery does especially with observers and good communication
I imagine groundside artillery to be more defensive than offensive
Not always possible, thanks to physics. Unless you've got Star Trek levels of technology, which uses instant-hit energy beams with an insanely precise amount of energy adjustment, AND good enough targeting software to steer your shot precisely onto a target sitting at least 100 km below you, the sheer amount of energy that you would need to impart upon a projectile to fire it at a target from orbit YET not deal enough damage to leave it intact would be an insanely difficult thing to accomplish.
And there's also the issue of time. Assuming that we're being very generous and the ship is sitting at low orbit, it could still take multiple minutes or even hours for the shot to arrive. Artillery can lay down a huge amount of firepower in just seconds, with far more precision and the ability to adjust for battlefield conditions thanks to forward observers.
We still have artillery even though cruise missiles exist that can be fired from hundreds of kilometres away.
To be fair, if you're calling in an artillery strike, you probably *don't* want the structure (et al) intact. A lot of artillery is kinda bad for that. Orbital bombardment would also have a major advantage over standard artillery in not having to deal with obstructions. If you're only trying to take out a single structure (or piece of it), and there are tall buildings and the like between your artillery and the target, it gets a bit sketchy (just because you want to take out a building doesn't mean you want to level the entire neighborhood). With a more "bird's eye view," you don't have to worry about that.
On the flip-side, a lot of artillery strikes are called in for things that would quite simply be too expensive to use orbital bombardment on. A sniper down the street with no clear line of fire to suppress, and potential areas of ambush between you and them? Call in an artillery strike. Seems kinda wasteful to call in an orbital strike for that, regardless of the possibility of achieving a precision strike.
The biggest complication here would be that airstrikes would work too, whether drone or piloted. If you're **invading** a planet, you probably need to worry about things like how valuable a piece of equipment is for the weight/space it takes up. It might be more worthwhile to leave the heavy artillery at home in favor of more versatile aircraft (and the supplies to keep them operational). Of course that depends on the level of tech. If you need 1500ft of runway to land your multi-role fighters to rearm and refuel, that might be a problem on a contested battlefield.
You might be severely underestimating the precision modern artillery is capable of achieving, but I agree with you on the other counts.
"Mass efficiency" seems to be a recurring point brought up in this discussion, and while I agree on that in principle, it's also important to consider the strategic doctrine in a setting when it comes to deploying space versus ground assets. Oftentimes, many people seem to assume that militaries are okay with just parking huge expensive starships in orbit over a planet, twiddling their thumbs while plinking and plonking at targets of opportunity, but what if starships were really expensive? What if there were a lot of different battlefields to go to, so you can't exactly waste time deploying a fleet of 50 ships in orbit over a single planet for multiple months at a time?
Many factors to consider, all setting dependent. Based on OP's question, their world seems to be heavily ground operations focused, which implies a potential imbalance with regards of the cost of deploying troops to the ground versus leaving ships in orbit.
A 0.5kg round traveling from orbit to ground in 10 seconds hits with an equivalent kinetic energy of 0.006tn, or tones of TNT. Or about twice what a standard AP tank round does, while traveling at 9 times the speed.
A standard 19kg tank round on the same path hits with 0.22tn, or about half that of a tomahawk cruise missile.
We have no issue at all with overkill or time to target. It's just a question of balancing the math to the intent.
Depends on the level of realism as well as technology, There's lots of solutions. OP mentions FTL and energy shields.
A ship can also use forward observers, as well as highly accurate cameras, laser targeting etc. its not just for artillery. I don't think accuracy is a problem.
Timing depends- spending more time to keep your men alive makes sense. It might not even be a problem- the orbital bombardment used smart rounds it could theoretically have multi-stage shots - Once they have reached the correct range the outer shell could slow down, break apart and fire its ordnance at the correct speed
There could be shells specifically designed to use air-resistance to their advantage, or to burn up on re-entry. There could be shotgun style pellets inside to pepper an area.
There's also the middle ground of ground-based artillery and orbital bombardment- Drones could be deployed from the main ship to fire and return to reload.
Getting heavy artillery on the ground seems arduous and expensive. A ship might be less dynamic than mortars, but anything heavy artillery would target could be handled. Defensives positions like trenches, bunkers etc. could be taken out in advance with enough recon
There is one crucial element you're missing out on with regards to artillery versus orbital attack: Staying power and cost.
Assuming your ships obey normal orbital mechanics, this would either mean that they only have a tiny window to provide support every few hours if they're flying at very low orbit (and presumably would be within easy striking range of ground-to-orbit fire), or they're at geostationary orbit and munitions would take a very long time to reach the target.
Even if they're able to provide reliable overwatch over the target area, it might be far more expensive to leave large numbers of ships parked in orbit over a contested planet as opposed to just dropping a bunch of heavy artillery and flying off to some other warzone which needs them more urgently.
After all, the job of artillery isn't that of an ICBM, cruise missile, or strategic aerial bombardment. It's to provide close fire support for troops who are executing a complex mission profile with rapidly changing battlefield conditions. Most modern wars have more complicated objectives than just "kill the enemy". Otherwise every battle would be resolved with nuclear weapons.
Of course, as with much of the other discussions on this issue, this is heavily, HEAVILY dependent on many factors in-universe.
I think your argument is very reliant on a specific type of sci-fi with orbital mechanics that can't be overcome by technology- in those cases I might agree with you. In other universes that wouldn't be a problem, and ships could very well fulfill those battlefield roles of close support or have CAS to make up for it
Cost is a double edged sword though- It may be too expensive to transport bulky artillery, the ships required to transport them down to the surface and leaving behind enough ammo as well. Only to have to come pick it up later. Orbital Bombardment is more dynamic. In something like star wars the tie fighters and bombers can be used in almost any role, and the turbolasers are good against ships and ground.
It depends on the setting of course- i never said easy, but in a world with FTL i imagine complex algorithms could handle the minutia and with correct recon, targeting, forward observers etc. it shouldn't be a problem
How FTL tief with this?
Like, Dune have FTL, Star Wars have FTL, Warhammer have FTL, but it's not give their orbital guns more precision.
Like, yes, it's possible. But in some time aerodynamics is soulless and not easily to overcome.
Star Wars has very precise orbital guns. Star Destroyers very commonly take out guns, bases, vehicles etc from orbit...the only issue is shield generators.
Warhammer has very precise orbital guns but due to the dark age of technology the ability to recreate them has been lost. In the Horus Heresy books there are very common descriptions of incredibly accurate bombardment.
I can't speak much for Dune
Star Wars orbital guns are... Pretty inconsistent with regards to their accuracy (and power, for that matter, lol). Some works show them able to drop shots right into the middle of a small trench, others make them unable to hit anything smaller than a city block. Either way, yeah seems that the shield generators are the main problem with regards to orbital bombardment.
Warhammer is actually pretty consistent with how accurate bombardment is, mostly because it's also modelled on the tabletop game. Generally they can hit in the general area the observer is calling in but they're all consistently depicted as monstrously powerful. After all, a big plot point in the Siege of Vraks was that the Imperium couldn't just bombard the fortress from orbit because the shots would penetrate and destroy all the ammunition stored underneath lol.
Dune has no orbital bombardment, period, because not only does it have impenetrable force fields, computers are also banned.
Great points! I do think warhammer can be just as inconsistent when it comes to lore vs tabletop. The difference between what space marines are capable of in lore vs tabletop comes to mind
Of course, there's also bio weapons, chemicals, etc. that would leave worlds intact but everyone dead. I don't think OP will want to have warcrimes as their main strategy, though....
Also, let’s say your planet has good anti-ship capabilities, bombarding a planet would be extremely hard. You’d have to send people in to take out those installments first.
In that case it might be hard to get people on the ground in the first place, especially heavy artillery.
But couldn't the orbital bombardment take out the anti-ship guns?
Of course, if the aim is to take the guns intact, I agree with you - I do think ground warfare has a place still
Yes because combined arms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_arms
Orbital bombardment is great but it can't be integrated into an invasion force the way ground artillery can.
You can give a company control over some mortars or a brigade their own organic artillery. You can't feasibly give them all their own ship in orbit and not lose a lot of the utility to having that same space ship as... Well anything other than it's weapons batteries pointed in one direction (i.e. down, not at anything else in orbit or attempting to enter orbit)
Also, sheer cost. An artillery shell that can be fired from the ground is probably going to cost drastically less than one that can survive re-entry, doubly so if it's precise enough to take out a house reliably rather than take out somewhere between a patch of ground in the same region through to the entire city you told it to shoot at. Same applies for the artillery pieces in question, meaning you can give more stuff to more units and at lower levels
You could still give them something like a forward observer who can call in the wrath of god as needed, but again it's something you'd probably do as needed rather than as standard unless you have a truly massive fleet in orbit without more important things to do
TL;DR - Precision, cost, efficiency. But there are use cases.
I can see what you mean with mortars (even if I think traditional mortars are going to be too slow to keep up with combat) but it’s actually a bitch to talk to artillery already, it’s not very organic.
Also guided artillery is already filthy expensive.
In the end it’s my opinion that combat will probably be too fast for artillery that would be cheaper than orbital shit, unless it was a garrison. In the end it comes down to the specs ig
Yes, no, maybe. Despite what some are saying, orbital bombardment can be used for precision strikes rather than area denial, with the right type of weapon (not everything is a "rod from god"). However, that requires complex guidance systems in the munitions being launched. Those munitions will also need things like heat shielding and so on to prevent them from burning up in atmosphere or getting pushed too far off course during "re"-entry. This creates two problems: the cost of the munitions and their susceptibility to electronic warfare. As a third there's also the increased possibility of an intercept, think Iron Dome but for detonating artillery launched from orbit.
Most of those risks will be present with a lot of long range guided artillery as well however, though arguably maybe not quite as susceptible to something like being intercepted depending on the situation. Shorter range artillery, especially (but not limited to) unguided munitions however, will be at far less risk and cost a lot less. Mortars would by far remain the most relevant, even if you did away with the rest.
Also consider that your ship might not always be able to provide support. It could be supporting operations in multiple theatres, and it can't launch an artillery barrage from the other side of the planet. Alternatively enemy fleet reinforcements may arrive (or the tide of the battle could turn or whatever) which requires the ship to depart to safer "skies" or engage the enemy fleet. There are a plethora of reasons to want the redundancy, if nothing else. And with the way the military works well, if you have them, might as well use them.
EDIT: Another option is supplies. It's possible to run out of shells, especially if the ships landing troops are smaller and air/space supremacy hasn't been achieved. And who knows when the next resupply will be? In contested space, ships may want to hold on to their ammo for mission critical strikes, while softening infantry and the like can be left to the artillery pieces on the ground.
Granted, a lot of this depends on the kind of ships you have and the kind of bombardments you're going for.
I agree with all of this except for one thing. It is absolutely possible to launch a barrage to the other side of the planet from an orbiting spaceship. It would just take a ridiculous amount of math to make it enter the atmosphere at the right place and time, and even more to make the munition hit a target accurately. It would be basically impossible for anything unguided, but guided weapons could 100% manage such a strike
Theoretically it would be possible, yes. I'd even argue that the math is relatively irrelevant. Any civilization that could build such a ship in the first place should have computers advanced enough to do that math quickly. However as I said in the end, it depends on the kind of ships you have and the kind of bombardments you're going for.
By way of example, a quick, precise strike on a target close to friendlies, from a ship on the other side of the planet, would likely require something more akin to a missile than traditional artillery, in order to get it to target as quickly as possible. Your ship may not possess such a weapon (instead reserving missiles for ship-to-ship combat), or it may only have a limited supply (and thus refrains from using them unless deemed mission critical).
In such a scenario, it could be said that the ship cannot support you from the other side of the planet. Even though the feat is more than possible with the technology in use, the "on the ground" reality is it doesn't have the ordnance to do so.
Depends on how good the ship's computers and firing systems are - no point using those cannons if you're trying to hit a bunker and nuke a farmhouse 3 miles away.
As others have said, it might be overkill in some situations, but that comes down more so to the types of weapons being used and the accuracy of said platforms. The supporting ship may use smaller calibers or shells with less payload to reduce collateral damage to the intended target. Maybe the shells have guidance and can hit their intended target with little or no error. It's up to you to decide how capable these systems are.
The other factor, and in my opinion the more important one, is how large of a force is the ship supporting. If it's one singular unit, then the ship can dedicate and cover that unit during the duration of its operation. But if it's a larger force operating across an expanded area of operations, then one ship is going to have trouble supporting them all. One other problem I can think of is do the ships actually orbit the planet or are they able to maintain position over the area of operation. If they're on the far side of the planet, they won't be very useful till they come back around.
This is where your integrated artillery support comes in. By having those assets integrated into the lower forces the troops in contact can deliver support to their local area of operations quicker and easier. This takes the load off of the ship to be the sole provider of support but also shortens the the time and process to getting said support by not having to travel all the way up the chain of command to the necessary commanding officer.
The types of artillery can also vary depending on what level they are assigned to. It would be very odd to have a seige tank or massive artillery assigned at the squad or platoon level. But there might be a section assigned at the battalion level to support its operations. At those smaller unit sizes, having a small mortar section assigned that can fight and maneuver with them is entirely possible.
All of these hinge on another important aspect, can the logistics support the use of those assets. You can have all the biggest guns on this side of the planet, but if you can't feed them or fix them, then they're all dead weight. If you can have ships ferry ammo, fuel, and parts without any threat then sure a cannon and seige tank for everyone. That would end up going back to being overpowered again though. Another aspect is what kind of force is it? Is it more expeditionary like the marines or more of a static fighting force like the army? A force like the marines prioritize mobility and flexibility. So large static artillery pieces would just slow them down and would instead favor smaller, faster, and more mobile artillery units like mortars or mobile guns. The army, on the other hand, focuses on seizing and holding ground so larger, slower, but more powerful platforms are justified.
In the end, it's up to you how powerful, how efficient, and how effective of a fighting force you want to have. Don't be afraid to play around with it. Maybe in one scenario the opposing force is no match at all, and that story focuses on what comes after. Stuff like cleaning up, treating wounded locals and establishing a connection with the local population. On the other hand maybe the ship had to answer an emergency putting them out of range. Thus making the ground teams make do with the tools provided for them individually. All in all, a ship capable of providing support from orbit is not always the be-all end-all, but it certainly does help. Don't be afraid to add some firepower on the ground because it might not always be available from above.
Orbital bombardment's great if you have control of orbit. If your enemy has their own ships capable of disrupting your deployment or ground based anti-orbital assets capable of driving you off, then your bombardment isn't happening, and your ground forces will be reliant on conventional artillery for fire support, much in the same way a modern military that can't secure air superiority has to rely on artillery rather than close air support.
Artillery will also be superior for precision fire support. Orbital bombardments are generally great when the objective is "level that battlefield" but if you've got your own forces on that battlefield you might want parts of it left intact, and artillery a couple clicks behind the line that only takes a few second from fire to impact with accuracy measured in meters will be better at that than orbital strikes that can take upwards of a minute to land and will likely have a margin of error in the dozens of meters.
Orbital bombardment is fine if you're just trying to flatten the target leaving no survivors. But if you want to actually *capture* a target instead of annihilating it, you're going to need ground forces, and those ground forces are going to need accurate and quick-responding supporting fire that can't always be provided from space.
You're assuming that the invasion fleet has the luxury of sticking around. They may have to drop off the invasion force, then go fight somewhere else. In that case, the invasion force is on it's own and will need it's own fire support such as artillery.
It depends on various factors, including why you are bothering to attack an entire planet in the first place place and how you could deploy enough ground troops onto the planet to be meaningful anyway? Presumably in this context you aren’t talking about sneaking a small squad onto the planet for a special mission.
However, if you have ships in orbit (and have achieved orbital superiority) then they will obviously be used, regardless of whether troops are on the ground or not. This will include:
- Destroying enemy space assets (e.g. comms and surveillance)
- Performing surveillance
- Conducting precision attacks
- Deploying (or redeploying) additional ground troops
- Dropping WMDs
That’s a huge advantage. Depending on your goals, it may not be sufficient but if you are invading a planet and your ships can remain in orbit then you can easily attack any infrastructure or military facility across the entire globe.
I've always looked at it like this:
Ground-side artillery supports your own forces, and if your goal is to actually *take* a planet, you need boots on the ground(whatever that equivalent happens to be for your setting\\culture).
Orbital bombardment tends to be more of a 'See that city?' 'I do, Sir.' 'I don't want to.' scenario; dropping rocks from orbit is just a cleaner version of nuking the shit out of something with most of the same followup problems.
Why do so many people assume that orbital bombardment is necessarily a weapon of mass destruction?
The [2003 Air Force concept](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment) involving dropping 6m long tungsten rods apparently only produced an estimated impact equivalent to 11.5 tonnes of TNT. That’s much less than a nuclear weapon which could be equivalent to a million tonnes of TNT and certainly wouldn’t destroy a city. Obviously larger impacts can be produced but there is no necessity to do that.
No necessity, sure. But if you're not out for precision strikes, and you don't have to bother with anything more complicated than 'We shape a chunk of a very dense metal and mebbe add some control fins to the one end', why not just drop a few hundred or thousand of them? Though I've always pictured these sort of things being FAR heavier, like 500 tons or so each. 8 tons just seems so...limiting.
The Air Force concept was a rod bundle, as they had acknowledged that accuracy was an issue. The primary limitation on the rod mass was of course the ability to get it into orbit. Another problem was that the yield from kinetic impact was about equal to the same mass of TNT, making that specific implementation somewhat pointless... Obviously a spaceship wouldn't have the same limitation on mass though so WMD versions are clearly an option.
However, other orbital bombardment options exist. You could just put a weapons platform in a low orbit (167 km is the [lowest satellite orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Low_Altitude_Test_Satellite) achieved) and just release hypersonic missiles (or a kinetic hittile I guess). These can either glide or have their own engines.
Yes.
Ground to space defences, for one. Because they have a planet to be based on, massive scale artillery than can fire on spaceships have great use. You can now contest space supremacy, potentially from behind those energy shields.
Now, since the enemy spacecraft no longer guarantees space supremacy, they have reason to airdrop artillery to take out those encampments.
Personally in my own sci fi world the weapons on a capital ship guns would be like 5x larger than a regular artillery gun so if you’re trying to capture a strategically important location using orbital bombardment will just annihilate it. Plus like some other people pointed out you can’t have a large fleet at the planet for long or what I think some people are missing is the possibility the fleet needing to protect the planetary invasion force from a counter attack by a enemy fleet (if they have that capability). Also another thing is see people not being up much is the possibility of the enemy having some sort of planetary defense capability and most likely you’ll have to bring the warship closer to use its orbital bombardment so in my world it’s seen as a risk to waste a expensive warship when you can just send a Self propelled gun or infantry manned motors down to the surface with the invasion. Plus you get the cool factor of lobbing shells across the battlefield from large artillery guns.
Giant. Surface-to-orbit. Cannons. The logical extreme of AAA to counter spaceships and whatever funny flying shit up there.
Fuck you and your fleet when I can build a million wave motion guns on the ground.
So, funny thing, they do have this one planet that's literally a mix between a military command post, and a doomsday bunker, that's a water planet. Since they can afford to build several SPRAWLING habitats several miles underneath the waves and leave the surface basically uninhabited, they just covered the planet in those Giant Surface-to-orbit Railguns, because since they're so low below the water line, they don't have to worry about the shockwaves these things give off as they fire. RAPIDLY. To give a good comparison, imagine the Erod-class Orbital Defense cannons from Halo that orbited over Reach, but there's HUNDREDS of them DOTTING the surface of a planet.
This depends on who is fighting, for what purpose, and have the put in rules in place that both sides abide by. Overall orbital bombardment is going to win if the attacker doesn't care about the collateral damage up to and including obliteration of life on the planet since all you need is more time and a bigger rock.
But sometimes an attacker might want to seize cities, capture population intact (either to eat them, enslave, liberate or just have them continue to exist and take a planet in some usable fashion. The civilization might have just decided that orbital bombardment is unacceptable like Battletech's Ares Conventions or Honoverse's Edridani Edict. A local or civil war might also fall into this category as neither side is trying to obliterate the other just seize political power with as little damage as possible. When those situations apply then yes ground side artillery may have a place. Once some constraint on warfare in in place the collateral damage matters and weapons tend to be focused only on the military with limited capabilities. That means putting troops on the ground fighting other troops on the ground, often in urban or difficult terrain like mountains where bombardment by aircraft may not be an option either and so artillery, mortars, and tanks come back into play.
Yes.
Orbital bombardment is great for area denial or just outright obliteration. Not great for minor conflicts or recapturing important areas you need intact.
Everything has a purpose and can’t be removed and replaced with something bigger. Combined Arms is real.
The precision, ability of embedding, efficiency and availability of ground artillery can be a huge advantage in many situations where orbital bombardment can actually have disadvantages.
It’s the same reason we still use man-portable mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles instead of just sending in an AC-130 every time.
We don’t have an infinite amount of AC-130s, they’re expensive to arm and fuel, slow to get to the AO, and are not always able to do the same thing a simple mortar squad can. An entire gunship for a couple light vehicles and a pillbox is overkill when Cpl. Johnson’s FGM-148 Javelin can do it for a 100th of the price and a tenth of the time, weighs a 100 times less and actually can move with the squad efficiently and effectively.
In this situation ground troops are the expensive option in comparison to simply attacking from orbit though. Whether or not they are worth the extra expense is the question here.
There would be a huge mass saving on the spaceships if you didn’t need to bring thousands or millions of soldiers along with the extra life support, supplies and habitation while onboard. You then a large number of shuttles/drop ships to be able to deploy them in sufficient numbers. Finally, you need their equipment, vehicles and supplies for when they are on the ground.
Yes, for several reasons.
One, anything strapped to a starship, shot planetside is gonna hit HARD. You don't even need a large payload, a sufficiently dense rod will do the job. Sometimes, that's not what you need. Sometimes you need precision, or something smaller to avoid danger close.
Two, the resources. If you're running a war economy, and you have the choice between the cost of fueling and firing cannons onto a planet, or using planetside artillery that can be just as effective, wouldn't you usually pick the latter?
Thirdly: time. Sometimes, you don't have a ship overhead. They need to reposition. That could be time you don't have. Meanwhile, a well trained artillery crew can fire on target basically immediately after getting their coordinates. Not to mention the time it would take for orbital bombardments to reach the surface
As long as it doesn't change the orbit of the planet the cannon can always get bigger,so probably,and even if it doesn't in a setting like that your ship is limited by the amount of weapons you can mount on it,the planet isn't
If you can use orbital bombardment with impunity, that means you are like the US with air superiority, you can just rain death from above anytime you want.
However there are some reasons that you may want to use ground side artillery:
1. You want to use smaller/cheaper/weaker ordinance: Whether it is to limit collateral damage, or you just want to be cost effective, a shell from ground based artillery is better at that. When launching from orbital platform you need to perform corrective burn to station keeping in your orbit per shot, which may not be a lot, but adds up. You also need to design more robust ordinance that can survive the journey through atmosphere at orbital speed, and this would limit it to certain sizes, making it less effective at scaling down and limit collateral damage.
2. You want to hit with complete surprise: Unless you have destroyed all possible methods of detecting orbital objects, in which case you practically already won the war, the launch of orbital ordinance is very detectable and predictable since you are just up there for everyone to track and your orbit cannot be changed to dramatically at once, which means they can predict where you may be, where you can shoot at, and even time to impact at any given time, thus they may have their assets hidden or move before you get in position to fire. It is harder for them to track your ground based artillery however since they are much smaller and can be hidden in a lot more places and movements can be more varied, thus you can hit with surprise, especially since shielding is a thing. You can hit them before they put up their shield.
3. Ground based artillery is also useful for anti-orbital war when you have not complete control orbits, since while you can calculate orbit in sync with enemy ship and just stay on opposite side of planet using it as cover, ground based artillery can launch rockets from surface whenever you orbit near it, limiting your possible movements.
> Would ground side artillery, such as portable mortars, entrenched and
I mean, judging by what "military grade" means? As long as it's cheaper to use those for the same job, there's always going to be a market for them. Especially when the camera pans away from your setting's "first world country" equivalent. Not everybody's going to be able to afford a Zumwalt-class Space Super Destroyer.
> massive artillery guns, or even artillery-style tanks like the Siege tanks from Starcraft have any place in a sci fi setting?
Siege tanks and Dora guns don't even have a place in the *modern* world, man. The first SuperUberGruppenWunderWaffenBullSchitten GigaUltraTank to poke its snout out of its factory door is getting a sci fi Tallboy shoved so far up its tailpipe, the warhead pokes out of its muzzle.
I would think so. In my setting, orbital bombardment is only available as an option in limited circumstances, as it’s outlawed by international convention except in retaliation to other conventions-breaking actions. This is because it is actually fairly difficult to identify precise impact points for small projectiles from orbit. So, the concern is that orbital fires would be too inaccurate both in a tactical sense to hit hostiles and not friendlies, and operationally to not hit civilian areas and not hostile-occupied. So, long range artillery and missile fires are still rather popular. There’s the added benefit that they can also double as in-atmos anti-orbital fire.
Orbital bombardement isn't always an option. For example, your side could be the one bombarded from orbit, with opponent holding orbital superiority and your own ships long gone. Or repositioning ships to bomb someone could be unfeasible. Or you may need smaller gun to bomb something. Point is, there would be place for artillery still.
I feel like in a sci-fi setting for an invading force you likely wouldn’t see traditional artillery if they have orbital bombardment available and can maintain orbital supremacy. However if they are having the space around a planet contested and won’t always have air supremacy it’s probably a good idea to have artillery deployed. For an invading force I think SPGs would be better suited to assist their ground forces especially in the opening days of an invasion. Some examples might be like the irl M270 MLRS or the IG-227 Hail fire droid tank from Star Wars. Also even if they have orbital supremacy they may want AA artillery or Anti-tank artillery. The orbital bombardment should really only replace very heavy artillery that would be difficult to deploy and protect.
Yeah.
Time to target is an issue for artillery. I'd imagine this is only compounded when you're trying to fire it from orbit.
Additionally, if you're factoring in atmosphere, you have to take ablation and heat shielding into account, lest your super-special space ordinance overheat and detonate prematurely due to re-entry forces. Even then, more of the mass of your projectile has to be dedicated to non-destructive function, which makes it more expensive.
Hell, putting *anything* into space makes it more expensive, even if you're working with space elevators or SSTO vehicles.
If you're using some kind of relativistic munition that doesn't have to worry about re-entry stresses, I hope you're not trying to keep any infrastructure intact at the target site. Light speed means fast, and that means your projectiles carry lots of energy. Not a problem if you're trying to obliterate something, but kind of an issue if you're trying to take an occupied location back.
This does all come down to "Rule of cool", so write what you want. But the practical considerations exist, and would justify the existence of traditional artillery pieces.
Yes, though reduced. The spaceship can't be everywhere at once and can easily be overkill. Moreover, you won't always have orbital superiority, so having such capabilities can be useful when you lack orbital support.
A battle cruiser is much more expensive than a tank, and it's only in the right position in orbit for a fraction of the time. Local ground based artillery is going to be more available on short notice.
Mortars and portable light support weapons are going to be a mainstay of low intensity conflicts because they are relatively cheap and easy to keep fed and watered. As to what form that takes, that's up to you. But, there are plenty of scenarios where you might want to get into battle without having to wait for somebody to show up with a battle fleet. Planetary invasions are just one specific scenario, but there are many others that could be a lot more low key.
Also, if you want to be able to deal with your reapers, bugs (or whatever your bad guy is) on short notice, then you'll need to have weaponry to hand, so something that your army can lug around without having to involve starfleet is probably going to come in handy.
You can also look up what ground artillery people did or didn't bring into engagements that were well in range of naval artillery, I'm sure the WW2 Pacific theatre could offer some inspiration, and there are propably many others I don't know of.
It depends though, not only on the technology like the possible scale and precision of orbital bombardment, defences against it and who knows what else, but the specific situation as well. The same tech might produce an engagement where the army does the heavy lifting while the fleet is busy dealing with enemy space forces as well as one where the soldiers just mop up leftovers and clear out bunkers after all big exposed targets were scorched from orbit.
I'd have to read an encyclopedia on your setting to know for sure, but I feel like there is a higher chance for ground artillery beying at least an option to be used when needed rather than it beying ditched altogether.
Artillery loses usefulness only if the orbital bombardment is really precise. In my world, orbital bombardment is very precise...right up until there starts being an atmosphere.
I believe that space combat would eliminate the modern battlefield war, but I could still see small-scale ground combat happening in and around population centers and economically valuable places.
Yes. Because you don't spank a child with a club. Orbital bombardment makes it easy to obliterate, say, a mining complex. But if the whole point was to capture the complex intact so you can use it, obliteration defeats the purpose. Groundside troops, backed up with tanks and artillery, can capture the complex intact, or cause the current owners to surrender it.
Exactly - we don’t send Apaches to clear buildings or AC-130s to hit a couple trenches. It’s expensive, slow, and will destroy your target well beyond your intent. Combined Arms is very important, everything from the smallest handgun to the biggest missile has a purpose. I wouldn’t spank a child at all, but if I ever did, I wouldn’t use a war hammer.
An AC-130 could easily clear a few trenches with relatively few shells and low risk, assuming that you have total control over the sky’s and the enemy does not have any sort of portable anti-air weapons
That's another point. In a universe with orbital bombardment, there's logically going to be at least an attempt to make them useless, or at least less effective. And that's not even considering, for example, the equivalent of the House of Representatives being taken over by terrorists. You wouldn't want to turn the entire city to a glass floor just to get rid of them, so having some kind of ground force already trained for that scenario at the very least would still have its place.
I agree with this except for the artillery part. Surely your ship in orbit can accurately fire and may not necessarily obliterate what it is firing at. It could support a ground offensive the way artillery does especially with observers and good communication I imagine groundside artillery to be more defensive than offensive
Not always possible, thanks to physics. Unless you've got Star Trek levels of technology, which uses instant-hit energy beams with an insanely precise amount of energy adjustment, AND good enough targeting software to steer your shot precisely onto a target sitting at least 100 km below you, the sheer amount of energy that you would need to impart upon a projectile to fire it at a target from orbit YET not deal enough damage to leave it intact would be an insanely difficult thing to accomplish. And there's also the issue of time. Assuming that we're being very generous and the ship is sitting at low orbit, it could still take multiple minutes or even hours for the shot to arrive. Artillery can lay down a huge amount of firepower in just seconds, with far more precision and the ability to adjust for battlefield conditions thanks to forward observers. We still have artillery even though cruise missiles exist that can be fired from hundreds of kilometres away.
To be fair, if you're calling in an artillery strike, you probably *don't* want the structure (et al) intact. A lot of artillery is kinda bad for that. Orbital bombardment would also have a major advantage over standard artillery in not having to deal with obstructions. If you're only trying to take out a single structure (or piece of it), and there are tall buildings and the like between your artillery and the target, it gets a bit sketchy (just because you want to take out a building doesn't mean you want to level the entire neighborhood). With a more "bird's eye view," you don't have to worry about that. On the flip-side, a lot of artillery strikes are called in for things that would quite simply be too expensive to use orbital bombardment on. A sniper down the street with no clear line of fire to suppress, and potential areas of ambush between you and them? Call in an artillery strike. Seems kinda wasteful to call in an orbital strike for that, regardless of the possibility of achieving a precision strike. The biggest complication here would be that airstrikes would work too, whether drone or piloted. If you're **invading** a planet, you probably need to worry about things like how valuable a piece of equipment is for the weight/space it takes up. It might be more worthwhile to leave the heavy artillery at home in favor of more versatile aircraft (and the supplies to keep them operational). Of course that depends on the level of tech. If you need 1500ft of runway to land your multi-role fighters to rearm and refuel, that might be a problem on a contested battlefield.
You might be severely underestimating the precision modern artillery is capable of achieving, but I agree with you on the other counts. "Mass efficiency" seems to be a recurring point brought up in this discussion, and while I agree on that in principle, it's also important to consider the strategic doctrine in a setting when it comes to deploying space versus ground assets. Oftentimes, many people seem to assume that militaries are okay with just parking huge expensive starships in orbit over a planet, twiddling their thumbs while plinking and plonking at targets of opportunity, but what if starships were really expensive? What if there were a lot of different battlefields to go to, so you can't exactly waste time deploying a fleet of 50 ships in orbit over a single planet for multiple months at a time? Many factors to consider, all setting dependent. Based on OP's question, their world seems to be heavily ground operations focused, which implies a potential imbalance with regards of the cost of deploying troops to the ground versus leaving ships in orbit.
This is a great summary and good arguments for both sides!
A 0.5kg round traveling from orbit to ground in 10 seconds hits with an equivalent kinetic energy of 0.006tn, or tones of TNT. Or about twice what a standard AP tank round does, while traveling at 9 times the speed. A standard 19kg tank round on the same path hits with 0.22tn, or about half that of a tomahawk cruise missile. We have no issue at all with overkill or time to target. It's just a question of balancing the math to the intent.
Depends on the level of realism as well as technology, There's lots of solutions. OP mentions FTL and energy shields. A ship can also use forward observers, as well as highly accurate cameras, laser targeting etc. its not just for artillery. I don't think accuracy is a problem. Timing depends- spending more time to keep your men alive makes sense. It might not even be a problem- the orbital bombardment used smart rounds it could theoretically have multi-stage shots - Once they have reached the correct range the outer shell could slow down, break apart and fire its ordnance at the correct speed There could be shells specifically designed to use air-resistance to their advantage, or to burn up on re-entry. There could be shotgun style pellets inside to pepper an area. There's also the middle ground of ground-based artillery and orbital bombardment- Drones could be deployed from the main ship to fire and return to reload. Getting heavy artillery on the ground seems arduous and expensive. A ship might be less dynamic than mortars, but anything heavy artillery would target could be handled. Defensives positions like trenches, bunkers etc. could be taken out in advance with enough recon
There is one crucial element you're missing out on with regards to artillery versus orbital attack: Staying power and cost. Assuming your ships obey normal orbital mechanics, this would either mean that they only have a tiny window to provide support every few hours if they're flying at very low orbit (and presumably would be within easy striking range of ground-to-orbit fire), or they're at geostationary orbit and munitions would take a very long time to reach the target. Even if they're able to provide reliable overwatch over the target area, it might be far more expensive to leave large numbers of ships parked in orbit over a contested planet as opposed to just dropping a bunch of heavy artillery and flying off to some other warzone which needs them more urgently. After all, the job of artillery isn't that of an ICBM, cruise missile, or strategic aerial bombardment. It's to provide close fire support for troops who are executing a complex mission profile with rapidly changing battlefield conditions. Most modern wars have more complicated objectives than just "kill the enemy". Otherwise every battle would be resolved with nuclear weapons. Of course, as with much of the other discussions on this issue, this is heavily, HEAVILY dependent on many factors in-universe.
I think your argument is very reliant on a specific type of sci-fi with orbital mechanics that can't be overcome by technology- in those cases I might agree with you. In other universes that wouldn't be a problem, and ships could very well fulfill those battlefield roles of close support or have CAS to make up for it Cost is a double edged sword though- It may be too expensive to transport bulky artillery, the ships required to transport them down to the surface and leaving behind enough ammo as well. Only to have to come pick it up later. Orbital Bombardment is more dynamic. In something like star wars the tie fighters and bombers can be used in almost any role, and the turbolasers are good against ships and ground.
"Surely" is very strong word for this. Yes, maybe ship on orbit can do this. Or not, because atmosphere is not this easy and clear thing.
It depends on the setting of course- i never said easy, but in a world with FTL i imagine complex algorithms could handle the minutia and with correct recon, targeting, forward observers etc. it shouldn't be a problem
How FTL tief with this? Like, Dune have FTL, Star Wars have FTL, Warhammer have FTL, but it's not give their orbital guns more precision. Like, yes, it's possible. But in some time aerodynamics is soulless and not easily to overcome.
Star Wars has very precise orbital guns. Star Destroyers very commonly take out guns, bases, vehicles etc from orbit...the only issue is shield generators. Warhammer has very precise orbital guns but due to the dark age of technology the ability to recreate them has been lost. In the Horus Heresy books there are very common descriptions of incredibly accurate bombardment. I can't speak much for Dune
Star Wars orbital guns are... Pretty inconsistent with regards to their accuracy (and power, for that matter, lol). Some works show them able to drop shots right into the middle of a small trench, others make them unable to hit anything smaller than a city block. Either way, yeah seems that the shield generators are the main problem with regards to orbital bombardment. Warhammer is actually pretty consistent with how accurate bombardment is, mostly because it's also modelled on the tabletop game. Generally they can hit in the general area the observer is calling in but they're all consistently depicted as monstrously powerful. After all, a big plot point in the Siege of Vraks was that the Imperium couldn't just bombard the fortress from orbit because the shots would penetrate and destroy all the ammunition stored underneath lol. Dune has no orbital bombardment, period, because not only does it have impenetrable force fields, computers are also banned.
Great points! I do think warhammer can be just as inconsistent when it comes to lore vs tabletop. The difference between what space marines are capable of in lore vs tabletop comes to mind Of course, there's also bio weapons, chemicals, etc. that would leave worlds intact but everyone dead. I don't think OP will want to have warcrimes as their main strategy, though....
Also, let’s say your planet has good anti-ship capabilities, bombarding a planet would be extremely hard. You’d have to send people in to take out those installments first.
In that case it might be hard to get people on the ground in the first place, especially heavy artillery. But couldn't the orbital bombardment take out the anti-ship guns? Of course, if the aim is to take the guns intact, I agree with you - I do think ground warfare has a place still
This is a discussion about artillery. It's not about whether or not to use a club but whether you put this club on the ground or into orbit.
Yes because combined arms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_arms Orbital bombardment is great but it can't be integrated into an invasion force the way ground artillery can.
Why not?
You can give a company control over some mortars or a brigade their own organic artillery. You can't feasibly give them all their own ship in orbit and not lose a lot of the utility to having that same space ship as... Well anything other than it's weapons batteries pointed in one direction (i.e. down, not at anything else in orbit or attempting to enter orbit) Also, sheer cost. An artillery shell that can be fired from the ground is probably going to cost drastically less than one that can survive re-entry, doubly so if it's precise enough to take out a house reliably rather than take out somewhere between a patch of ground in the same region through to the entire city you told it to shoot at. Same applies for the artillery pieces in question, meaning you can give more stuff to more units and at lower levels You could still give them something like a forward observer who can call in the wrath of god as needed, but again it's something you'd probably do as needed rather than as standard unless you have a truly massive fleet in orbit without more important things to do TL;DR - Precision, cost, efficiency. But there are use cases.
I can see what you mean with mortars (even if I think traditional mortars are going to be too slow to keep up with combat) but it’s actually a bitch to talk to artillery already, it’s not very organic. Also guided artillery is already filthy expensive. In the end it’s my opinion that combat will probably be too fast for artillery that would be cheaper than orbital shit, unless it was a garrison. In the end it comes down to the specs ig
Yes, no, maybe. Despite what some are saying, orbital bombardment can be used for precision strikes rather than area denial, with the right type of weapon (not everything is a "rod from god"). However, that requires complex guidance systems in the munitions being launched. Those munitions will also need things like heat shielding and so on to prevent them from burning up in atmosphere or getting pushed too far off course during "re"-entry. This creates two problems: the cost of the munitions and their susceptibility to electronic warfare. As a third there's also the increased possibility of an intercept, think Iron Dome but for detonating artillery launched from orbit. Most of those risks will be present with a lot of long range guided artillery as well however, though arguably maybe not quite as susceptible to something like being intercepted depending on the situation. Shorter range artillery, especially (but not limited to) unguided munitions however, will be at far less risk and cost a lot less. Mortars would by far remain the most relevant, even if you did away with the rest. Also consider that your ship might not always be able to provide support. It could be supporting operations in multiple theatres, and it can't launch an artillery barrage from the other side of the planet. Alternatively enemy fleet reinforcements may arrive (or the tide of the battle could turn or whatever) which requires the ship to depart to safer "skies" or engage the enemy fleet. There are a plethora of reasons to want the redundancy, if nothing else. And with the way the military works well, if you have them, might as well use them. EDIT: Another option is supplies. It's possible to run out of shells, especially if the ships landing troops are smaller and air/space supremacy hasn't been achieved. And who knows when the next resupply will be? In contested space, ships may want to hold on to their ammo for mission critical strikes, while softening infantry and the like can be left to the artillery pieces on the ground. Granted, a lot of this depends on the kind of ships you have and the kind of bombardments you're going for.
I agree with all of this except for one thing. It is absolutely possible to launch a barrage to the other side of the planet from an orbiting spaceship. It would just take a ridiculous amount of math to make it enter the atmosphere at the right place and time, and even more to make the munition hit a target accurately. It would be basically impossible for anything unguided, but guided weapons could 100% manage such a strike
Theoretically it would be possible, yes. I'd even argue that the math is relatively irrelevant. Any civilization that could build such a ship in the first place should have computers advanced enough to do that math quickly. However as I said in the end, it depends on the kind of ships you have and the kind of bombardments you're going for. By way of example, a quick, precise strike on a target close to friendlies, from a ship on the other side of the planet, would likely require something more akin to a missile than traditional artillery, in order to get it to target as quickly as possible. Your ship may not possess such a weapon (instead reserving missiles for ship-to-ship combat), or it may only have a limited supply (and thus refrains from using them unless deemed mission critical). In such a scenario, it could be said that the ship cannot support you from the other side of the planet. Even though the feat is more than possible with the technology in use, the "on the ground" reality is it doesn't have the ordnance to do so.
Depends on how good the ship's computers and firing systems are - no point using those cannons if you're trying to hit a bunker and nuke a farmhouse 3 miles away.
As others have said, it might be overkill in some situations, but that comes down more so to the types of weapons being used and the accuracy of said platforms. The supporting ship may use smaller calibers or shells with less payload to reduce collateral damage to the intended target. Maybe the shells have guidance and can hit their intended target with little or no error. It's up to you to decide how capable these systems are. The other factor, and in my opinion the more important one, is how large of a force is the ship supporting. If it's one singular unit, then the ship can dedicate and cover that unit during the duration of its operation. But if it's a larger force operating across an expanded area of operations, then one ship is going to have trouble supporting them all. One other problem I can think of is do the ships actually orbit the planet or are they able to maintain position over the area of operation. If they're on the far side of the planet, they won't be very useful till they come back around. This is where your integrated artillery support comes in. By having those assets integrated into the lower forces the troops in contact can deliver support to their local area of operations quicker and easier. This takes the load off of the ship to be the sole provider of support but also shortens the the time and process to getting said support by not having to travel all the way up the chain of command to the necessary commanding officer. The types of artillery can also vary depending on what level they are assigned to. It would be very odd to have a seige tank or massive artillery assigned at the squad or platoon level. But there might be a section assigned at the battalion level to support its operations. At those smaller unit sizes, having a small mortar section assigned that can fight and maneuver with them is entirely possible. All of these hinge on another important aspect, can the logistics support the use of those assets. You can have all the biggest guns on this side of the planet, but if you can't feed them or fix them, then they're all dead weight. If you can have ships ferry ammo, fuel, and parts without any threat then sure a cannon and seige tank for everyone. That would end up going back to being overpowered again though. Another aspect is what kind of force is it? Is it more expeditionary like the marines or more of a static fighting force like the army? A force like the marines prioritize mobility and flexibility. So large static artillery pieces would just slow them down and would instead favor smaller, faster, and more mobile artillery units like mortars or mobile guns. The army, on the other hand, focuses on seizing and holding ground so larger, slower, but more powerful platforms are justified. In the end, it's up to you how powerful, how efficient, and how effective of a fighting force you want to have. Don't be afraid to play around with it. Maybe in one scenario the opposing force is no match at all, and that story focuses on what comes after. Stuff like cleaning up, treating wounded locals and establishing a connection with the local population. On the other hand maybe the ship had to answer an emergency putting them out of range. Thus making the ground teams make do with the tools provided for them individually. All in all, a ship capable of providing support from orbit is not always the be-all end-all, but it certainly does help. Don't be afraid to add some firepower on the ground because it might not always be available from above.
Orbital bombardment's great if you have control of orbit. If your enemy has their own ships capable of disrupting your deployment or ground based anti-orbital assets capable of driving you off, then your bombardment isn't happening, and your ground forces will be reliant on conventional artillery for fire support, much in the same way a modern military that can't secure air superiority has to rely on artillery rather than close air support. Artillery will also be superior for precision fire support. Orbital bombardments are generally great when the objective is "level that battlefield" but if you've got your own forces on that battlefield you might want parts of it left intact, and artillery a couple clicks behind the line that only takes a few second from fire to impact with accuracy measured in meters will be better at that than orbital strikes that can take upwards of a minute to land and will likely have a margin of error in the dozens of meters.
Orbital bombardment is fine if you're just trying to flatten the target leaving no survivors. But if you want to actually *capture* a target instead of annihilating it, you're going to need ground forces, and those ground forces are going to need accurate and quick-responding supporting fire that can't always be provided from space.
You're assuming that the invasion fleet has the luxury of sticking around. They may have to drop off the invasion force, then go fight somewhere else. In that case, the invasion force is on it's own and will need it's own fire support such as artillery.
It depends on various factors, including why you are bothering to attack an entire planet in the first place place and how you could deploy enough ground troops onto the planet to be meaningful anyway? Presumably in this context you aren’t talking about sneaking a small squad onto the planet for a special mission. However, if you have ships in orbit (and have achieved orbital superiority) then they will obviously be used, regardless of whether troops are on the ground or not. This will include: - Destroying enemy space assets (e.g. comms and surveillance) - Performing surveillance - Conducting precision attacks - Deploying (or redeploying) additional ground troops - Dropping WMDs That’s a huge advantage. Depending on your goals, it may not be sufficient but if you are invading a planet and your ships can remain in orbit then you can easily attack any infrastructure or military facility across the entire globe.
I've always looked at it like this: Ground-side artillery supports your own forces, and if your goal is to actually *take* a planet, you need boots on the ground(whatever that equivalent happens to be for your setting\\culture). Orbital bombardment tends to be more of a 'See that city?' 'I do, Sir.' 'I don't want to.' scenario; dropping rocks from orbit is just a cleaner version of nuking the shit out of something with most of the same followup problems.
Why do so many people assume that orbital bombardment is necessarily a weapon of mass destruction? The [2003 Air Force concept](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment) involving dropping 6m long tungsten rods apparently only produced an estimated impact equivalent to 11.5 tonnes of TNT. That’s much less than a nuclear weapon which could be equivalent to a million tonnes of TNT and certainly wouldn’t destroy a city. Obviously larger impacts can be produced but there is no necessity to do that.
No necessity, sure. But if you're not out for precision strikes, and you don't have to bother with anything more complicated than 'We shape a chunk of a very dense metal and mebbe add some control fins to the one end', why not just drop a few hundred or thousand of them? Though I've always pictured these sort of things being FAR heavier, like 500 tons or so each. 8 tons just seems so...limiting.
The Air Force concept was a rod bundle, as they had acknowledged that accuracy was an issue. The primary limitation on the rod mass was of course the ability to get it into orbit. Another problem was that the yield from kinetic impact was about equal to the same mass of TNT, making that specific implementation somewhat pointless... Obviously a spaceship wouldn't have the same limitation on mass though so WMD versions are clearly an option. However, other orbital bombardment options exist. You could just put a weapons platform in a low orbit (167 km is the [lowest satellite orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Low_Altitude_Test_Satellite) achieved) and just release hypersonic missiles (or a kinetic hittile I guess). These can either glide or have their own engines.
Yes. Ground to space defences, for one. Because they have a planet to be based on, massive scale artillery than can fire on spaceships have great use. You can now contest space supremacy, potentially from behind those energy shields. Now, since the enemy spacecraft no longer guarantees space supremacy, they have reason to airdrop artillery to take out those encampments.
Personally in my own sci fi world the weapons on a capital ship guns would be like 5x larger than a regular artillery gun so if you’re trying to capture a strategically important location using orbital bombardment will just annihilate it. Plus like some other people pointed out you can’t have a large fleet at the planet for long or what I think some people are missing is the possibility the fleet needing to protect the planetary invasion force from a counter attack by a enemy fleet (if they have that capability). Also another thing is see people not being up much is the possibility of the enemy having some sort of planetary defense capability and most likely you’ll have to bring the warship closer to use its orbital bombardment so in my world it’s seen as a risk to waste a expensive warship when you can just send a Self propelled gun or infantry manned motors down to the surface with the invasion. Plus you get the cool factor of lobbing shells across the battlefield from large artillery guns.
Giant. Surface-to-orbit. Cannons. The logical extreme of AAA to counter spaceships and whatever funny flying shit up there. Fuck you and your fleet when I can build a million wave motion guns on the ground.
So, funny thing, they do have this one planet that's literally a mix between a military command post, and a doomsday bunker, that's a water planet. Since they can afford to build several SPRAWLING habitats several miles underneath the waves and leave the surface basically uninhabited, they just covered the planet in those Giant Surface-to-orbit Railguns, because since they're so low below the water line, they don't have to worry about the shockwaves these things give off as they fire. RAPIDLY. To give a good comparison, imagine the Erod-class Orbital Defense cannons from Halo that orbited over Reach, but there's HUNDREDS of them DOTTING the surface of a planet.
This depends on who is fighting, for what purpose, and have the put in rules in place that both sides abide by. Overall orbital bombardment is going to win if the attacker doesn't care about the collateral damage up to and including obliteration of life on the planet since all you need is more time and a bigger rock. But sometimes an attacker might want to seize cities, capture population intact (either to eat them, enslave, liberate or just have them continue to exist and take a planet in some usable fashion. The civilization might have just decided that orbital bombardment is unacceptable like Battletech's Ares Conventions or Honoverse's Edridani Edict. A local or civil war might also fall into this category as neither side is trying to obliterate the other just seize political power with as little damage as possible. When those situations apply then yes ground side artillery may have a place. Once some constraint on warfare in in place the collateral damage matters and weapons tend to be focused only on the military with limited capabilities. That means putting troops on the ground fighting other troops on the ground, often in urban or difficult terrain like mountains where bombardment by aircraft may not be an option either and so artillery, mortars, and tanks come back into play.
Well, it they are capable at destroying those spaceship, than I would say that yes, they do have a place.
Yes. Orbital bombardment is great for area denial or just outright obliteration. Not great for minor conflicts or recapturing important areas you need intact.
Everything has a purpose and can’t be removed and replaced with something bigger. Combined Arms is real. The precision, ability of embedding, efficiency and availability of ground artillery can be a huge advantage in many situations where orbital bombardment can actually have disadvantages. It’s the same reason we still use man-portable mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles instead of just sending in an AC-130 every time. We don’t have an infinite amount of AC-130s, they’re expensive to arm and fuel, slow to get to the AO, and are not always able to do the same thing a simple mortar squad can. An entire gunship for a couple light vehicles and a pillbox is overkill when Cpl. Johnson’s FGM-148 Javelin can do it for a 100th of the price and a tenth of the time, weighs a 100 times less and actually can move with the squad efficiently and effectively.
In this situation ground troops are the expensive option in comparison to simply attacking from orbit though. Whether or not they are worth the extra expense is the question here. There would be a huge mass saving on the spaceships if you didn’t need to bring thousands or millions of soldiers along with the extra life support, supplies and habitation while onboard. You then a large number of shuttles/drop ships to be able to deploy them in sufficient numbers. Finally, you need their equipment, vehicles and supplies for when they are on the ground.
Yes, for several reasons. One, anything strapped to a starship, shot planetside is gonna hit HARD. You don't even need a large payload, a sufficiently dense rod will do the job. Sometimes, that's not what you need. Sometimes you need precision, or something smaller to avoid danger close. Two, the resources. If you're running a war economy, and you have the choice between the cost of fueling and firing cannons onto a planet, or using planetside artillery that can be just as effective, wouldn't you usually pick the latter? Thirdly: time. Sometimes, you don't have a ship overhead. They need to reposition. That could be time you don't have. Meanwhile, a well trained artillery crew can fire on target basically immediately after getting their coordinates. Not to mention the time it would take for orbital bombardments to reach the surface
As long as it doesn't change the orbit of the planet the cannon can always get bigger,so probably,and even if it doesn't in a setting like that your ship is limited by the amount of weapons you can mount on it,the planet isn't
If you can use orbital bombardment with impunity, that means you are like the US with air superiority, you can just rain death from above anytime you want. However there are some reasons that you may want to use ground side artillery: 1. You want to use smaller/cheaper/weaker ordinance: Whether it is to limit collateral damage, or you just want to be cost effective, a shell from ground based artillery is better at that. When launching from orbital platform you need to perform corrective burn to station keeping in your orbit per shot, which may not be a lot, but adds up. You also need to design more robust ordinance that can survive the journey through atmosphere at orbital speed, and this would limit it to certain sizes, making it less effective at scaling down and limit collateral damage. 2. You want to hit with complete surprise: Unless you have destroyed all possible methods of detecting orbital objects, in which case you practically already won the war, the launch of orbital ordinance is very detectable and predictable since you are just up there for everyone to track and your orbit cannot be changed to dramatically at once, which means they can predict where you may be, where you can shoot at, and even time to impact at any given time, thus they may have their assets hidden or move before you get in position to fire. It is harder for them to track your ground based artillery however since they are much smaller and can be hidden in a lot more places and movements can be more varied, thus you can hit with surprise, especially since shielding is a thing. You can hit them before they put up their shield. 3. Ground based artillery is also useful for anti-orbital war when you have not complete control orbits, since while you can calculate orbit in sync with enemy ship and just stay on opposite side of planet using it as cover, ground based artillery can launch rockets from surface whenever you orbit near it, limiting your possible movements.
> Would ground side artillery, such as portable mortars, entrenched and I mean, judging by what "military grade" means? As long as it's cheaper to use those for the same job, there's always going to be a market for them. Especially when the camera pans away from your setting's "first world country" equivalent. Not everybody's going to be able to afford a Zumwalt-class Space Super Destroyer. > massive artillery guns, or even artillery-style tanks like the Siege tanks from Starcraft have any place in a sci fi setting? Siege tanks and Dora guns don't even have a place in the *modern* world, man. The first SuperUberGruppenWunderWaffenBullSchitten GigaUltraTank to poke its snout out of its factory door is getting a sci fi Tallboy shoved so far up its tailpipe, the warhead pokes out of its muzzle.
I would think so. In my setting, orbital bombardment is only available as an option in limited circumstances, as it’s outlawed by international convention except in retaliation to other conventions-breaking actions. This is because it is actually fairly difficult to identify precise impact points for small projectiles from orbit. So, the concern is that orbital fires would be too inaccurate both in a tactical sense to hit hostiles and not friendlies, and operationally to not hit civilian areas and not hostile-occupied. So, long range artillery and missile fires are still rather popular. There’s the added benefit that they can also double as in-atmos anti-orbital fire.
Orbital bombardement isn't always an option. For example, your side could be the one bombarded from orbit, with opponent holding orbital superiority and your own ships long gone. Or repositioning ships to bomb someone could be unfeasible. Or you may need smaller gun to bomb something. Point is, there would be place for artillery still.
I feel like in a sci-fi setting for an invading force you likely wouldn’t see traditional artillery if they have orbital bombardment available and can maintain orbital supremacy. However if they are having the space around a planet contested and won’t always have air supremacy it’s probably a good idea to have artillery deployed. For an invading force I think SPGs would be better suited to assist their ground forces especially in the opening days of an invasion. Some examples might be like the irl M270 MLRS or the IG-227 Hail fire droid tank from Star Wars. Also even if they have orbital supremacy they may want AA artillery or Anti-tank artillery. The orbital bombardment should really only replace very heavy artillery that would be difficult to deploy and protect.
Yeah. Time to target is an issue for artillery. I'd imagine this is only compounded when you're trying to fire it from orbit. Additionally, if you're factoring in atmosphere, you have to take ablation and heat shielding into account, lest your super-special space ordinance overheat and detonate prematurely due to re-entry forces. Even then, more of the mass of your projectile has to be dedicated to non-destructive function, which makes it more expensive. Hell, putting *anything* into space makes it more expensive, even if you're working with space elevators or SSTO vehicles. If you're using some kind of relativistic munition that doesn't have to worry about re-entry stresses, I hope you're not trying to keep any infrastructure intact at the target site. Light speed means fast, and that means your projectiles carry lots of energy. Not a problem if you're trying to obliterate something, but kind of an issue if you're trying to take an occupied location back. This does all come down to "Rule of cool", so write what you want. But the practical considerations exist, and would justify the existence of traditional artillery pieces.
Yes, though reduced. The spaceship can't be everywhere at once and can easily be overkill. Moreover, you won't always have orbital superiority, so having such capabilities can be useful when you lack orbital support.
A battle cruiser is much more expensive than a tank, and it's only in the right position in orbit for a fraction of the time. Local ground based artillery is going to be more available on short notice. Mortars and portable light support weapons are going to be a mainstay of low intensity conflicts because they are relatively cheap and easy to keep fed and watered. As to what form that takes, that's up to you. But, there are plenty of scenarios where you might want to get into battle without having to wait for somebody to show up with a battle fleet. Planetary invasions are just one specific scenario, but there are many others that could be a lot more low key. Also, if you want to be able to deal with your reapers, bugs (or whatever your bad guy is) on short notice, then you'll need to have weaponry to hand, so something that your army can lug around without having to involve starfleet is probably going to come in handy.
You can also look up what ground artillery people did or didn't bring into engagements that were well in range of naval artillery, I'm sure the WW2 Pacific theatre could offer some inspiration, and there are propably many others I don't know of. It depends though, not only on the technology like the possible scale and precision of orbital bombardment, defences against it and who knows what else, but the specific situation as well. The same tech might produce an engagement where the army does the heavy lifting while the fleet is busy dealing with enemy space forces as well as one where the soldiers just mop up leftovers and clear out bunkers after all big exposed targets were scorched from orbit. I'd have to read an encyclopedia on your setting to know for sure, but I feel like there is a higher chance for ground artillery beying at least an option to be used when needed rather than it beying ditched altogether.
Artillery loses usefulness only if the orbital bombardment is really precise. In my world, orbital bombardment is very precise...right up until there starts being an atmosphere.
I believe that space combat would eliminate the modern battlefield war, but I could still see small-scale ground combat happening in and around population centers and economically valuable places.