Melee combat in science fiction

[Mr. Brownstone]

Because it's just so cool. I did search, but found nothing, if you know of a thread where this has been discussed please provide the link, thanks! : ) (Hope this in the right spot, if not I'm sorry)

Anyways:

I've been thinking about believable reasons to have melee combat in science fiction between sci-fi militaries and after much searching here and on the internet I've come across a ideas, but all them had fatal flaws.

1. Dune-like Force Fields.

What happens to the generator? The impact is still going to get transferred from your invisible shield to the generator.

Why can't I just stick the barrel of my rifle through the invisible field and then pull the trigger?

Why do you have to attack slowly? A human being at full speed is still going to be moving much slower than even a .22 caliber bullet or an arrow.

Lasers cause nuclear explosions? WTH?

2. Honor/Cultural or It's dishonorable to shoot a man with a sword.

What happens when those idiots meet someone who doesn't care about honor and fights dirty? Or another culture that thinks that anyone dumb enough to bring a knife to a gunfight deserves to die?

3. Teleportation/Cloaking Devices for assassins make it desirable to use melee weapons so as not to alert any enemies in the area to your presence.

This doesn't make any sense, we have supressed pistols now and presumably they'll only be more effective in the future.

So with that in mind what are believable reasons for having melee combat in a science fiction setting?

[Prince_Asuryan]

See Jedi.

[The Silly Dragon]

See Jedi.

This and don't forget Space Marine Power Fists and/or Chainswords.

Also while today's standards all infantry do carry Knifes into combat. For a starter its a full back in close quarters combat. Also its still a weapon if you find yourself without any ammo (anything is better then just your fists...unless your a Ninja). So for the simple fact that you wont have infinite ammo a knife will always be present.

Its silent wilst even suppressers still make that 'flum' sound. Yes in the future they may well be alot better but as it stands we will have to presume they aren't much better. Science Fiction is just that fiction so you could just make it up.

Tactics. In the future the main way to fight could be completely different. Look in history from the long lines of muskets firing at each other to then world war trenches and now squad based urban warfare with precision strikes. In the future (sci fi) it may even be space ship against space ship.

Also science fiction or not Knifes are excellent survivial tools. Imagine a soldier being stranded on a desert island on his own with only a Knife. Now if you watch stuff like Ray Mears (TV survivial 'expert') he always states that the best tool for survivial is your mind and then a Knife.

Edit: The Xenomorphs from 'Aliens' do well enough without guns.

[John Rainbow]

Cos it's cool.

You know the best bit in the new Star Trek movie is when Sulu gets out his folding katana. Also, see above and look up 'Jedi'.

As for your discussions:

Dune: You could imagine that force fields are some kind of EM waves or somesuch and that an interaction with a laser (also an EM wave) could lead to some sort of mega-constructive interference where the whole thing explodes. It's not entirely beyond the realm of possibility. As for sticking your gun in and shooting why bother? If you're that close just stick a knife in instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferen ... agation%29

Honour: See Han Solo shooting the guys under the table in Star Wars, some of the scenes from Firefly, etc. Dirty fighting still works in the sci-fi future.

Silent Assassin: It's in the name really. Choking someone with a piano wire is pretty silent. What if you can't get a gun past a gun detector or something? A last resort is to use your body as the weapon (i.e. fists or something more civilised).

[The Silly Dragon]

Whats dune?

[grantmepower]

This doesn't make any sense, we have supressed pistols now and presumably they'll only be more effective in the future.

"Silenced" guns are nothing like you see in Hollywood movies. They're still quite loud.

Whats dune?

I hope you're joking

[The Silly Dragon]

Whats dune?

I hope you're joking

I am not...

...this is where you say what it is and i remember it and look very embarased

[~Milliardo~]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28film%29

Close combat is useful any time you can be on top of your opponent before he realizes whats up - I would rather be using a sword within a 6 foot bubble than a pistol, particularly in built up areas.

Really, the main reason the sword fell out of favor is because of economics - cost of the weapon, cost of the training to use it, weight of the weapon in addition to heavy packs, rifle, water and ammo, etc. There's also the bit where if you give a blade to some people, and they become addled, they'll charge the enemy, effectively killing themselves - if they just have a rifle or a knife, they're more likely to sit tight in cover and grind it out.

Personally, I think any military that doesn't give its troops knives, bayonets or at least entrenching tools isn't equipping them properly. You'll see even with modern troops in Iraq/Afghanistan, when the war started, they weren't issued a lot of these things, and soldiers had to buy them on their own.

Also, for a personal, useless anecdote... My cousin, when he returned home, stated that the bullets in his rifle were designed for maximum wounding, instead of killing, and so when he found himself and his mates shooting at religious extremists who were whipped up on homemade combat drugs, they'd have to effectively kill them twice - they got worryingly close from time to time, and it was only their complete lack of tactics that prevented that.

If you've got humans who don't care about their death, or a fictional race like Orks, that also get whipped up into a frenzy, close combat becomes a huge part of even modern warfare. See WW2 Stalingrad, storming the trenches with trench knives in WW1, and the Black Hawk Down incident, where you have huge crowds of people charging relatively few defenders with limited ammo.

If you want a unit to reach close combat in modern warfare, all you need is another unit or two giving suppressing fire on the defenders... then swords, knives, bayonets, pistols and grenades become tremendously useful.

[Mr. Brownstone]

As for sticking your gun in and shooting why bother? If you're that close just stick a knife in instead.

My rifle has longer reach and a .308 expanding bullet will do more damage

I would rather be using a sword within a 6 foot bubble than a pistol, particularly in built up areas.

But that pistol will pack more punch and they don't use as much space.

"Silenced" guns are nothing like you see in Hollywood movies. They're still quite loud.

Now they are, but in 25-something?

[The Silly Dragon]

Nope i did not know Dune was a film. By what wiki says though it wasn't a big success so no wonder i didn't know of it (that and i am like 24 not 50).

The whole idea of the Knife is a last resort in close combat. Say you've assaulted a building and so the large clumsy rifle in enclosed spaces is not a good idea. You then use your Pistol or smaller SMG or something of the like. But if caught unaware or while you are reloading then its not so useful.

Let me paint a picture you. The bullets/lasers will leave the barrel of the gun and normally thats held out infront of you to aim. Get someone close to you and that barrel is now at their side and pointing at nothing while the enemy is cutting and stabbing you. The only thing that the gun will kill is that infront of it, get beside it or behind it and its useless. A Knife on the other hand can be used much more effectively in this picture, as its much closer to you.

You asked about Melee aka hand to hand combat. Here knifes/swords/hammers/fists etc will more or less always be more effective here than a gun will. As they will be soldiers and all soldiers train in hand to hand and will easily disarm the one with the gun and then proceed to do some stabbing.

Also i don't know if anyone here plays Battlefield or Call of Duty online but the people who run around knifing everyone normally do fairly well in the kill/death ratio and thats sci fi.

[John Rainbow]

Dune was an [insert expletive] film but an awesome book before it became a film. I am also 24 and I've read all of them. I heartily recommend.

[The Silly Dragon]

Dune was an [insert expletive] film but an awesome book before it became a film. I am also 24 and I've read all of them. I heartily recommend.

Alright then i will look in my local library for a copy to read. Is it a series (and if so whats the first one?) or just the one book?

[Teledor]

Nope i did not know Dune was a film. By what wiki says though it wasn't a big success so no wonder i didn't know of it (that and i am like 24 not 50)

Whoa there.. The Dune series is a number of books based on Herbert's classic Dune. Some consider it the equivalent of Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings in Sci-Fi. If you're at all in interested in Sci-Fi books I'd suggest you pick it up. It's one of my all time favorites. Now, the movie bombed mainly because it's one of those books that is based on a lot of narration from the protagonists prospective. A lot of time is spent inside his head, and it just translated poorly to film. The remake and subsequent mini series in the late 90's/early 2000's did a much better job.

[Teledor]

Dune was an [insert expletive] film but an awesome book before it became a film. I am also 24 and I've read all of them. I heartily recommend.

Alright then i will look in my local library for a copy to read. Is it a series (and if so whats the first one?) or just the one book?

Just Dune is the first book. Then it follows with five or six in the series after and a whole bunch of prequels came out in the late 90's/early 2000's written in part by his son.

[Loflar]

1. Dune-like Force Fields.
What happens to the generator? The impact is still going to get transferred from your invisible shield to the generator.

Hard to say without knowledge how the force field works.

Why can't I just stick the barrel of my rifle through the invisible field and then pull the trigger?

Because the bullet would hit the force field on the opposite side? And if it does not matter, it means the you are armed with heavy, unwieldy, rather short blunt thing, while your opponent has, say, rapier...

Why do you have to attack slowly? A human being at full speed is still going to be moving much slower than even a .22 caliber bullet or an arrow.

Because the writer wanted something special, to show that advance dtechnology requires adjustments, while important things remain unchanged.

Lasers cause nuclear explosions? WTH?

Lasers in contact with the force field. In a science fiction, without knowledge how the force field works, it is hard to dismiss.

2. Honor/Cultural or It's dishonorable to shoot a man with a sword.
What happens when those idiots meet someone who doesn't care about honor and fights dirty? Or another culture that thinks that anyone dumb enough to bring a knife to a gunfight deserves to die?

Someone willing to fight dirty will win a few fights, then be surrounded and publicly executed for blasphemy or similar reason. If it is another culture, then one or both sides will probably undergo some cultural adjustments.

And, BTW, similar question was asked in Heinlein's Starship Troopers. A recruit asked a training sergeant, why to learn close combat, when they carry H-bombs and can eliminate enemy by pushing a button. The sergeant asked him to push the button, and before the young man could do it, the sergeant hurled a knife, which pinned recruit's hand to the wall.

3. Teleportation/Cloaking Devices for assassins make it desirable to use melee weapons so as not to alert any enemies in the area to your presence.
This doesn't make any sense, we have supressed pistols now and presumably they'll only be more effective in the future.

The weapon is not the only noisy thing there, there is also your victim.

So with that in mind what are believable reasons for having melee combat in a science fiction setting?

Yes. Guns can jam or run out of ammo. For close combat, you don't need any special equipment.

[Bob of Beleriand]

Dune is a fantastic 'space opera', the writing and narrative are excellent so are some of the themes or ideas the author explores. Stick to Frank Herbert though, don't touch his sons work they're abysmal.

This doesn't make any sense, we have supressed pistols now and presumably they'll only be more effective in the future.

"Silenced" guns are nothing like you see in Hollywood movies. They're still quite loud.

Suppressed weapons with sub-sonic rounds on the other hand are relatively quiet.

[Feanordil]

First four books of Dune are great, but next are worthless and those of his son requires true devotion for the series to get through it. As for melee combat in s-f i thought a difference between knife fight and sword duel is obvious but as i was reading ur examples of knifes and bayonets in modern warfare to explain melee in sf i got a bit confused. Honestly the only reason for melee in s-f is becouse its so epic and spectacular. Personally when a jedi knight charges horde of blaster-users realism is last thing i take into consideration

[Madeline Merri]

...Nerds.



I don't think I can say much else as to reasons why it exists in Sci-Fi, suffice to say combat is badass when up close and personal. Nothing beats the feel of sockin' someone right in the puss! But also as a film convention, it generally denotes an intensity, an intimacy, victory means more when it's up close and personal. If it were a footrace to press a big red button? It'd be funny, but not entertaining.

-Maddo