Cannons, guns are tabbo in space, apparently the recoil can be so disruptive that it is not ideal to have cannons or guns on a space craft (mostly due to the recoil in zero g), but lets say you have a turret mounted on a ship with a lot of micro thrusters sensors all the important stuff.
I mean in space whats wrong with wondering a few hundred meters firing a cannon at a enemy ship? Would you even wonder off that far even under sustained fire whats so bad flying off milles away. I mean these ships should be alble to correct for wondering off, and even if it wonders off I'm sure that the battle would probobly be moving every where and not stay in the same place in space.
I questioned this well watching a episode of Modern Marvels I think it was the episode Extreme aircraft II I could be wrong though. There was a simulation of the first space aircraft engaged in combat against another nation. They envisioned Ramjets flying in to orbit the Jets were were not able to stay in space, they had no micro thrusters and could not maneuver. They skipped in and out of atmosphere, they had no other weapons besides a single turret laser mounted underneath the aircraft, it said that conventional weapons would not be ideal in space, and that in the future spacecraft would be armed with them.
Lasers? In the documentary the way they were talking about the use of conventional fire arms (cannons, rifles ect) made it seem like ballistic weapons were extremely efficient and would never be used? at lease thats how I interpreted it.