Vac suits during battle onboad a space cruiser?

[Stofsk]

Is it practical to wear vac suits onboard a space cruiser fitted for combat? What are the risks of the loss of hull integrity? And given that the ship killers will be thermonuclear weaponry would it matter to wear a vac suit? Realistically a proximity hit from a nuke would be more than enough to finish off any feasible space warship.

Of course, that's Hard SF. In Soft Sci-fi we regularly see ship crews wear normal uniforms. On the bridge of a Star Destroyer or the Enterprise. Actually "Nemesis" shows that a hull breach can really fuck you over and they some of the crew ought to have worn some vac suits to continue breathing, but that movie was shit anyway. On a Star Destroyer, if the shields were to fail your ship's life expectancy can be measured in seconds (witness Admiral Ackbar looking on as a ISD cops a direct hit from a turbolaser and goes up like a firecracker in ROTJ).

[Batman]

Actually nukes are going to do very little to the ship itself as all they produce in a vacuum is hard radiation. They'll kill the crew if the rad shielding is inadequate but that's about it.
As for the viability of wearing vac suits that depends on the nature of combat and the practicability of the suits.
Both Trek and Wars have had non-fatal hull integrity failures often enough that suits sure as hell would have been useful and both have the tech to make vac suits pratical (Wars has force fields on the suit level for Valen's sake).
On the contrary, something like modern day space suits would rather severely interfere with the crew's ability to do their jobs so that wouldn't work.

[frigidmagi]

If you could make a suit that was relativity none bulky and didn't result in a lost of dexerity then yes it would be rather useful in most combat enviroments. This allows the crew to work in a vaccum, if (big if) the suits can carry enough air and a transmitter they can also be useful in case you blown off your ship and survive. I have seen some series where the outter parts of the ship is turned into vaccum to reduce the likelyhood of fire, this is mostly in animes and books however.

Of course there are combat enviroments where if you're hulled you're so dead that a vac suit is just wasted money. Star Wars for example.

[Stofsk]

I would think depressurising before a battle would take a long time, (well, to do it safely anyway) while repressurising would, also, take a long time.

I guess it also assumes you even have a great supply of oxygen that you don't have to worry about it running out.

[Batman]

Um-either it takes a long time i.e. you're pumping the air out and thus aren't losing any of it (which means it does not affect your oxygen reserves) or you worry abour losing oxygen in which case you're simply opening those sections to vacuum, which isn't going to take all that long.

[frigidmagi]

Again I note that happens mostly in books and animes. I suppose you could keep certain sections without oxygen all the time, but that seems kinda of a bother to.

If you vented it out to space I would assume that to mean you're close to a point where you can take on new air, honestly.

[Comrade Tortoise]

I am going to be honest, missiles are both very good and very poor weapons to use in space. they are expensive per until and can be intercepted. We have technology now that will do that (in addition they can flat out be avoided because it could take hours for them to reach their targets, even if they remain stationary ;)

That having been said, the right missile can do nasty things if it hits.

Anyway, a laser or particle beam is probably a more likely weapon for space combat, and the risk of decompression from those is rather high. In addition, the crew should probably be strapped into a grav-couch anyway if they want to be going anywhere fast. So yeah, a vac-suit would be a good idea

[Stofsk]

I would say lasers and missiles would be the weapons of choice in space. They each have advantages and disadvantages, but they both complement each other in my opinion.