Space Assault

Space Assault is a term often referring to any kind of space combat, but it's about offensive operations.

Background
As space technology becomes available the move from planetary warfare to space warfare is inevitable. The most basic act of war is an attack, therefore, space assault is a required knowledge for any command officer.

Pipper line-of-sight
In modern warfare firing weapons are computer aided. Computers process sensor data and pre-calculate the aim point based on highest probability of kill (pk). The gunner presets the depression of the gunsight (HUD) aiming-reference - the 'pipper' - to correspond to a set speed, dive-angle and ordnance type so that the gun is properly pitched at the moment of weapons release. As long as the target is in the pipper and the other parameters have been met, beams, cannon shells or rockets should hit the target.

Buddy shelling technique
When using guided targeting like designating a target with a guiding laser beam then it is possible for a single craft to guide weapons fire from its buddies. The techniques require meticulous timing, but enables a small quantity of laser-equipped craft to guide a large number of otherwise dumb gunners or bombers.

Orbital target
When a target is fixed in an orbit numerous attack scenarios are possible that warrant its demise.

Plane attack
The majority of arrival vector into a system are located within the galactic plane ,and hence, most planetary planes. However, this does not necessarily mean the arrival vector to target will be on the plane. Course changes are always possible!

Relativistic Attack
Due to the short time for detection and defense this attack has a high rate of success. However, defense can be easily achived by a tight mine field or mesh placed (very) far in front of the target. Due to the distance and necessary coverage, hence amount of mines, this type of defense is not feasible.
 * Launching missiles, asteriorites, comets etc. at a pre-calculated target position
 * Ships accelerating to relativistic velocities to conduct an attack that breaches enemy defenses as used in Seikai no Senki 4.



Maelstrom
This is basically a multi-vector attack, but conducted on the plane. For example the combined Abh forces attack in Seikai no Senki 4..



Out of plane attack
Orbital insertion in a plane attack require breaking maneuver at close approach; requires careful targeting for a close swingby and braking maneuver around the planet. It's high speed, the course is predictable, and sucetiple to danger of defensive obstacle like defense plateform, layed fire or mines. Therefore, out of plane maneuvers are more preferable.

This type of attack is advatageous for being difficult to detect and the final vector being less predictable.

Pole Insertion Attack
Coming from above the pole an attack can be conducted against any point of an orbit. This attack requires precision to hit the target as the window of error is small once the target point has been chosen. The also applies to enemy fire, hence, this attack is difficult to defend against. After passing a ship can veer off into an orbit (Butterfly Attack) of choice or to flee the battle field.



Butterfly Attack
A butterfly attack is conducted by inserting into the L1- and L2-halo orbits for turning. It's a special case similar to the Lissajous orbit. The back and forth engagement is similar to Jousting Warfare‏‎ but on a far larger distance-time scale. It is not practical for time critical response. This orbit attack is also unique because the manifold trajectories exhibit unreliable extreme sensitivities to the angle-like parameter.

Slingshot Attack
A balistic slingshot attack can be done while conducting a slingshot maneuver.

This attack can cover half of a planetary system's region. And the attacking ship can get away on the other side.