Fletcher Pratt

“ The torpedo-shape with brief wings, the type usually pictured, is very attractive. It is the only shape that could take off from earth and go out through the atmosphere. It keeps the machinery well away from the living spaces. For landing on the moon or an asteroid it is quite all right because it can be turned over and set down on its tail jets.
But when space-warfare really gets going the torpedo-shape will take a back space before a vessel built in space (probably at a satellite station) to operate and fight in space. ”

“ In the second place a sphere can be built with no blind angles of approach. The fighter airplane of today, with an enemy on his tail, is in trouble—and so will be a space-ship with an enemy on its exhaust. Of course, turrets can be mounted above or below the exhaust on a torpedo-shaped ship but they will never give quite the same protection as not having any blind angles at all. ”

“ I am aware that the engineering problems of building a space-ship that way are very severe but so are the engineering problems of building an atomic submarine or a carrier to carry jet planes. However, when there is urgent military necessity for something, neither expense nor the difficulty of the problem is ever really allowed to stand in the way. ”

“ And even black coloring would make the space-ship visible as it occluded the practically continuous blanket of stars visible in open space. You can't make a smoke-screen in space—you can make it, but it wouldn't hang and wouldn't be any use against radar if it did. ”

“ The type and purpose of the projectiles also determine the size of the guns. The reason for using large-caliber guns on Earth are two—to get a bigger bursting charge at the receiving end and to obtain greater range by a larger driving charge in the breech.
But in space a projectile would have infinite range, unless it fell into the gravitational attraction of some body, and the big bursting charge is not required. So the gun need be only just big enough to make the driving charge give it a very high muzzle-velocity. ”

“ Still the advantages of mining are so great that they will undoubtedly play a large part in space-warfare. Asteroid or Moon bases can be defended by minefields, which would keep an enemy at a distance until he had painstakingly located the pesky objects and shot them up, during which time the ship would be an ideal target for guns on the ground. ”

“ Comparative speeds that would permit the torpedo-plane type of attack are simply unattainable.
Finally naval experience shows that fire is always opened at the greatest possible range where there is any chance of doing damage—and that range is usually maintained in the hope of avoiding hits. Only when one party has been so badly pounded that defeat seems inevitable is there an effort to close the range for torpedo or gunfire. ”

“ Since the oxygen-producing machinery will be too heavy and bulky to carry aboard the space-ship the job will have to be done at air-refueling stations and these advanced bases will be the key of space-campaigns. Naturally, they will be powerfully fortified against attack from the enemy's space-fleet. Equally naturally they will be logical points of attack in the hope of limiting the enemy's operations by cutting his bases from under him. ”

“ In space-war, given high visibility and the fact that there will be neither gravity nor air resistance to slow up shells, fire will be opened at extremely long ranges—hundreds of miles. At this distance, a rocket-torpedo, clearly indicating its presence by its trail of fire, will be quite easy to intercept—by shooting smaller rockets or shells with proximity fuses at it. ”

“ A solid-shot would have more penetrating power because of its greater mass and unwillingness to break up against armor. And there is also the law of military economics that requires you do everything with the least expensive weapon that will accomplish the purpose. A cast-steel bullet with a soft iron head to "grease" its way through armor will be both cheaper and more effective than any type of shell.
As an alternate type of ammunition for use against ships with exceptionally heavy armor, there might be some projectile using the shaped-charge principle. ”

“ When the breech-block of a gun aboard one of our cruisers is swung open to receive a new shell there is a brief moment when the gun forms an open connecting tube from the inside of the turret to the outside air. ”

“ Oceanic destroyers gain speed by sacrificing armor but there is no comparable gain in a space-ship. Once the jets are started and the original inertia overcome the heavy ship will travel as fast as the light one because the limiting factor is how much acceleration the crew can stand physically—and it's the same for both. ”

“ In the third place the sphere is the most convenient shape for landing on the Moon or asteroids and they are going to be important as bases. And in the fourth place the armor of the sphere can carry the main structural stresses, making the interior structure light.
Using a spherical shape means size, of course, but so do several other necessary factors and it is impossible to avoid them all. This means that the warships of space will not be divided into classes of battleships, cruisers and destroyers like warships of the ocean. With an exception to be noted later all will be battleships. ”

“ Fuel does not look like a particularly serious problem. A given space-ship will be burning lots while she is using it but most of the time she'll be coasting on gained acceleration and will need fuel only for short bursts of maneuver during action. ”

“ With the kind of power that will be available by time we get space-ships, it will be a comparatively simple matter to separate these rock materials from their oxygen electrolytically. Carbon dioxide is partly oxygen, of course, but so stubbornly bonded that no ordinary electrolytic process will break it and it has the unpleasant quality of being a gas under electrolytic conditions. ”

“ But the Sun itself produces ultra-violet faster and in greater quantity than any generator man could build and unless the crews of space-ships are very thoroughly protected against it there won't be any space-ships. ”

“ The fields will be constantly moving. Fixed in an orbit 25,000 miles above the Earth a space-mine would always remain over the same Earthly spot and there is a similar critical distance for the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids. ”

“ Maybe the BEMS from Arcturus will come around with something more serious but it is a better-than-even-money bet that they can't do any more about the laws governing radiation than we can. And if they can't space war will have to be fought with far more mundane weapons. ”

“ But it does help to determine the strategy of space-warfare. It will be fundamentally a struggle for bases where more oxygen can be obtained. Not through going down into the atmosphere of Earth or the thin atmosphere of Mars or the questionable one of Venus. It means bases on the Moon and the asteroids.
The Moon and asteroids are made of rocks, on the surface at least, and practically all rocks are loaded with oxygen—47% in the crust of the Earth for example. ”

“ This plane may tilt violently as they maneuver but at the moment of firing the line from gun to target, or predicted position of target, is a perfectly flat and straight line. This is a much easier ballistic problem than in any Earthly firing, where gravity, air resistance and for long ranges even the curvature and rotation of the Earth must be considered. ”

“ But few of the mines will be at exactly that distance. Unless they are they will be tiny satellites, revolving around their primaries at greater or less speeds, constantly on the go. A space-ship won't have to hit them. They will hunt it up. ”

“ It is the strongest, the most economical for the use of the contained cubic capacity, but these are not the main reasons for building space-warships round. The reasons are those of military efficiency, which take precedence over all others when it comes to designing fighting equipment. ”

“ After the air-tight doors have been closed the men who serve these guns will go into action in space-suits, breathing the air around them but having the suits fitted with automatic valves that will close down the moment the compartment begins to lose air. ”

“ The guns will certainly have automatic radar controls and a high rate of fire. The only trouble is that the calculations fed into the controls will have to be made at lightning speeds, in micro-seconds—which means electronic computers. ”