Military spacecraft in fiction

Fictional capital military spacecraft (frequently called space battleships, space cruisers) are spacefaring warships most often found in science fiction, which play similar roles to contemporary warships, though real spacecraft are used for military purposes.^[1] They may fight slow-paced battles across vast distances with long range guided weapons, never attaining visual contact,^[2] or fast-paced, relatively close range combat with unguided weapons and combat maneuvering.^[3]

Parallels to historic battleships

In addition to various military science fiction-typical^{[citation needed]} parallels derived from historic and existing naval customs and technologies, fictional space battleships also often have some specific sea warfare battleship parallels, especially to those used in World War I and World War II:

• Use of main guns (instead of more dispersed armaments) and intricate tactics to bring about large amounts of destruction
• Being ponderous and slow (or at least slow to accelerate), thus creating an excuse for starfighters to exist.
• Compensating speed and size with tremendous resilience, surviving multiple nuclear weapons strikes, in some cases.
• Having hundreds or even thousands of crewmembers.
• In the case of the Japanese animated series Space Battleship Yamato (a.k.a. "Star Blazers"), not only is the old seaborne battleship used to hide a similar space warcraft, but the follow-on Earth battleships share naval architecture such as main, secondary and light gun turrets, superstructure etc.

Battlecruisers

In science fiction, the meaning of the word "battlecruiser" is generally somewhat different from the historical warship of the same name. Usually it denotes a spaceship more comparable to the fast battleships of World War II: A large, fast and tough vessel with both high firepower and enough protection to dish out and take considerable amounts of damage (unlike the battlecruisers of World War I, which proved to have 'glass jaws'). However, in the Honorverse, the battlecruisers are more like the historical version, or the Alaska class cruisers which the United States deployed during World War II.

See also

• List of fictional spaceships
• Starship
• Starship class
• Dropship (science fiction)
• Mother ship
• Starfighter
• Space warfare in fiction

References

1. ^ Amos, Jonathan (14 November 2007), "UK military spacecraft launched", BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7095344.stm, retrieved 29 November 2008 
2. ^ Harrison, Harry (2002), "Or Battle's Sound", in Drake, David, Dogs of War, New York: Warner Books, ISBN 0446610895 
3. ^ Nylund, Eric (2003), Halo: First Strike, New York: Del Ray, ISBN 034546781