Trope-a-Day: Ramming Always Works

Ramming Always Works: Mostly averted.  At the distances at which most space combat happens, you’re lucky to be able to set a course with accuracy enough to make ramming work, and the other ship has plenty of time to either evade you or explode you.  This makes it a tactic most useful to AKVs (see Action Bomb) which have run out of ammunition and as such are working as k-kill missiles, right then.

Could be played straight in some limited-range encounters, as seen in planetary orbit or at choke points (meaning, primarily, stargates), but then the other problem results which is, well, it does actually work too well – the usual result is a total kill of both ships involved in the collision, extravagant fireballs included, and lots of highly dangerous debris moving in unpredictable vectors, right next to the asset defining the choke point.  This is rarely an economic or admiralty-approved tactic, since starships are expensive, starship crews more so, and cleanup most of all – and let us not even mention Kessler Syndrome.