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I've been working on designs for some model starships, in particular warships. My working assumption has been that the designs and materials for these ships will reflect the way that the civilisation itself conducts warfare i.e. a warship that uses particle beam weapons will be shaped and armoured to maximise it's survival under fire from similar weapons. This is predicated on the assumption that said vessels are being designed and built by a civilisation that has never actually gone to war with any external military force. I'm wondering if that assumption is valid.

My question is what, if any, factors/events (aside from contact with another civilisation that uses different tactics and/or weapons) would lead to a military force building ships that use armour and/or hull shapes designed to defend against weapon systems that that force does not itself use?

Assume:

• the civilisation has meet no alien beings.




• they think their primary weapon systems are the best available option (they could be wrong).




• other weapons have never been seen as viable options for primary combat operations.




• fitting out different or multipurpose armour/hull designs is relatively expensive.

I'm going to present a frame challenge here because there are a couple of really important factors that your question leads me to believe aren't getting proper consideration.

First: The biggest reality check that almost everybody ignores when it comes to spacecraft design is that NOTHING is more important than mass. Earth-based vehicles of all types can make use of the ground, the water, or the air to help dissipate or otherwise support the mass of the vehicle and help propel it more efficiently. Spacecraft can't do that. So unless you're planning to handwave Newton's third law away by positing propulsion systems with effectively limitless thrust and fuel, then the most critical aspect of your design is making the spacecraft as mass-efficient as possible and that means no heavy armor.

Warships in The Expanse universe are a good example of this. This is more near-future than most science fiction shows, and even the biggest warships are only armored well enough to protect against shrapnel, because any armor that could actually stop a direct hit from a projectile would make the ship so heavy that it couldn't get anywhere you needed it to go in the time you have to get it there.

If you're actually concerned about realism, the defenses on your warships will be electromagnetic in nature, either star trek/star wars style shields, or more realistically: electronic warfare designed to prevent your opponents from being able to target you accurately enough to hit you in the first place.

Second: Military designers are RUTHLESS pragmatists. The short answer to your question is that no military designer anywhere, ever, would design the defenses of a warship (or anything else) to protect against ANYTHING except the weapons they believe are most likely to be used against them.

That said, they might do so ACCIDENTALLY, but only if they thought they were solving a different problem. E.g. a hull material designed to make the ship more difficult to detect ALSO happens to dissipate energy from beam weapons so effectively as to reduce or prevent damage.

This, ultimately, is the answer to your question though. If you're not actually fighting wars, you design your weapons systems to protect against the most dangerous stuff you can think of. This is what the US Navy has been doing for the last 80 years. If you're REALLY lucky, something you did to solve one problem ALSO solves problems you didn't know you had yet.

Historical experience is no guide at all if you are working in a new and unknown medium.

To use an example, imagine asking a very knowledgeable officer in the 1700's how air combat might work. He might start with the assumption that air vehicles would be some sort of evolution of sailing warships. If he is really astute, he might consider that the newly developed steam engine might be somehow useful in flight

Miazaki airship

The answers would include ideas like finding and gaining the weather gauge, crossing the enemy "T", debating using broadsides of cannon vs carronade....

They would never anticipate this:

Fokker Eindecker

Let alone this:

F-35B

Terminology like Immelmann Turn, "Boom and Zoom", Energy Maneuverability Theory, BVR combat, Stealth and so on would be totally meaningless, since there is no context or examples to draw upon.

Space combat might be derived from "First Principles" if the nation creating the Space Force is lucky and has time to think upon and develop their ideas. The knowledge that space is vast, there is no stealth in space, orbits can be tracked easily and calculated months in advance, objects moving at orbital velocity have massive amounts of kinetic energy and there is no effective "terrain" in space can all be considered when designing space vehicles. Other technical considerations such as the need to carry reaction mass, heat management systems and so on also will constrain what the designers can and cannot do. Instead of the "cool" vehicles depicted in SF movies and TV shows, the vehicles will likely be very utilitarian in design; "Children of a Dead Earth" rather than "Star Wars"

Realistic space warship as depicted in Children of a Dead Earth

Of course supposition and even careful thinking is not a substitute for experience. First generation space warships may end up more like a weaponized ISS simply because there is no true experience to draw upon, and multiple iterations might be needed to find a truely workable system. Even then, if the enemy is making different assumptions, the space warships might discover they are totally unsuitable for the mission.

"Lock S Foils in Attack position"

So historical analogies will have no bearing on working in a different medium. This is why Armies, Navies and Air Forces in the modern world are different from each other (and indeed different nations use different doctrines and come up with different sorts of Armies, Navies and Air Forces based on starting with different assumptions). The Space Force will be in exactly the same position. and people who try to draw too heavily on Naval or Air Force historical examples will likely discover these cannot be effectively translated into Space without causing huge difficulties.

Well, form follows function, especially when it comes to weaponry. A space based battleship is a weapon, just like a club, a sword, a rifle....whatever. It's purpose is to project violent power. If you need to project that power on to a man in front of you, you take into account the weapons that man has. This grows in to Army tactics, Navy tactics and will inevitably into Space combat tactics.

So your armor, drives, and weapons will reflect this. Throughout history, the army with better tech had a decided advantage in battles. I include deployment strategies for troops in this as well.

When trying to prep for the unknown, that's where you run into a problem. If the potential enemy has a different method or weapon, YOU DON"T KNOW ABOUT IT. Of course you can't plan for it. At least not accurately.

You aren't exactly helpless here though. What you need is some creative people who are in to games and puzzles. Set up simulators. Invite them to penetrate, immobilize, or otherwise beat the defenses as best they can. These people will guide you to things you haven't thought of. We humans are a pretty clever lot. Then you have to decide how defenses against these new potential threats will work, or if they are worth the effort. If someone figures out how to beat your platform but it would take a ton of luck, maybe you don't worry about it.

Keep these creative in your back pocket, because you never know when you will need them. When you do get to the inevitable alien invasion, they may be able to spot enemy weaknesses or thought patterns faster than your generals (admirals, poo-bahs, whatever).

Civilization of fanboys.

1: Your civilization no longer actually makes war. It has not made war for generations.

2: Your civilization loves science fiction in which space aliens make war on each other.

3: Your military ships are art projects constructed by state-sponsored architects who are rabid fans of one SF or another. The ships are patterned after the fictional ships and crewed by like minded fans in costume.

4: Many aspects of these ships are impractical, but it is considered lame and cheesy to make ships that are just props. These ships have to actually replicate the performance of the fictional ships in so far as technology allows. These ships are capable of kicking ass in outlandish but awesome ways.