isaac_newton wrote:You grossly underestimate how hard this is. Compute the angular size of a 12,000 km wide target from 6 light hours out. Iirc, that’s about 6 billion km. At 10 percent of light it’s 600 hours.which if I’m not mistaken means that if you have a vector error of 3 mm per second you miss.
Keep in mind that this takes place thousands of years in the future. Chances are the computers are doing most of the plotting.
Actually the whole series of books is anachronistic. That means it uses far simpler tech than will probably be the case. After all, we have cars without drivers that can find destinations in cities. Far more complex than moving from one planet to another.
Most planes now just use their autopilots. Yes, the pilots can take over but they usually don't have to do much.
Now move thousands of years ahead and we have astrogators. Most of the time the ship is just moving ahead, generally following Newton's laws. Yet we have a whole class of officers whose main job is to plot out how to go. And in a fleet each ship has at least one and they probably just follow the orders of the leader's staff astrogator.
Also notice that defenses work far faster than most people can act. Dealing with hundreds of missiles in a handful of missiles would basically be impossible without computers and the computers are essentially pre-set. Also, the staff tac officer of the leader divides up the targets. All of this requires really fast, essentially AI computers. It makes sense that the overall plan is run by people but a real lot is organized and run through computers.
Another point: we have seen missiles shot down by other missiles now. The Israelis have done it with short range missiles and the US has managed it with ICBM's. And that is now.