DS9: How can beam weapons miss? (Defiant vs. E-E)
Allen Kim
Just got another look at the "Call to Arms" episode, and it seems that
beams weapons really can miss under certain circumstances. My question
is, how? Usually, the premise is WYSIWYG, and the only way you can miss
with a laser is if the targeting sight is pretty jittery (which is hard
to imagine in Star Trek), or if the target is moving at breakneck
speeds. Unfortunately, neither is the case.
For example, I've seen the Defiant pull off some pretty cool evasive
maneuvers. But if, say, I was the one at the Tactical helm, it wouldn't
be too hard for me to just press the fire button whenever the Defiant is
within the crosshairs. All my years of arcade games should testify to
that claim. Of course, you could argue that the crosshairs don't really
move as quickly as they should. Well if they don't, I can just turn on
the manual controls and just aim the weapon myself. It's not too hard
for me to anticipate where the Defiant will fly.
So how do they explain the fact that beams sometimes miss? Maybe this
goes along with the mystery behind Voyager's unlimited "Just Add Water"
shuttles.
Oh, and one more thing. In "A Time to Stand," it seems that beam
weapons never missed during the tussle between the U.S.S. Centaur and
the Jem'Hadar fighter. Of course, targeting a specific system on the
Centaur is yet another challenge, especially given the speed at which
the two ships were flying.
--
Allen Kim
alle...@scic.intel.com
Timo S Saloniemi
In article <3435A564...@scic.intel.com> Allen Kim <alle...@scic.intel.com> writes:
>Just got another look at the "Call to Arms" episode, and it seems that
>beams weapons really can miss under certain circumstances.
>So how do they explain the fact that beams sometimes miss? Maybe this
>goes along with the mystery behind Voyager's unlimited "Just Add Water"
>shuttles.
Prior to "Call to Arms" (which I haven't seen yet), the Federation
TNG-era beam weapons had literally 100% hit rate against uncloaked
targets. This was a welcome change to the usual sci-fi practice of
equating beam weapons with WWII aircraft machine guns. Romulan beam
weapons never missed, either, but Romulan and Klingon bolt weapons
apparently operated more on a "spray and pray" principle.
Which beam weapons missed in "Call to Arms"? The Defiant's pulse
phasers apparently have targeting problems - probably the weapon
itself has to be mechanically trained to some degree, whereas the
continuous-beam weapons of other starships seem to be targeted with
some kind of phased-array system and are thus theoretically much more
agile. The Jem'Hadar beams have been confirmed to have mechanical
steering (listen to dialogue in "The Ship"), so they probably simply
can't be targeted fast enough to keep up with even moderately
maneuvering starships. The Jem'Hadar tactics of swarming the enemy
compensate nicely for this problem - the weapons do not have to
track very precisely.
>Oh, and one more thing. In "A Time to Stand," it seems that beam
>weapons never missed during the tussle between the U.S.S. Centaur and
>the Jem'Hadar fighter.
This would be logical - Fed phasers do have 100% hit rate in my books.
And whenever Sisko fired back, he would be sure to have PERFECT aim
so as not to deal a fatal blow to a friendly vessel. Thus, the
inherent problems of the Jem'Hadar weapon would not play a role -
when not certain of his aim, Sisko would simply not fire.
>Of course, targeting a specific system on the
>Centaur is yet another challenge, especially given the speed at which
>the two ships were flying.
If the ships also rolled and yawed a little in the battle, this would
be even more difficult... perhaps there are some kind of gentlemen's
rules in space combat, precluding 3D movement and rolling?
Timo Saloniemi
William J. Keith
> If the ships also rolled and yawed a little in the battle, this would
> be even more difficult... perhaps there are some kind of gentlemen's
> rules in space combat, precluding 3D movement and rolling?
>
> Timo Saloniemi
This should be done more. Consider - the Jem'hadar ship and the Starfleet
ship were executing their fight in a series of passes. This reminded me
of nothing so much as two knights on horseback jousting. It shouldn't
have been difficult to, say, rotate the plane by rolling 90 degrees before
sweeping around again. I did appreciate that the two occasionally passed
at significantly different relative "altitudes." And I've just come up
with a salient point: ships are designed with these "saucer" sections, or
some with "wing" sections. Heading straight for your enemy is the way to
present the least surface area to attack. Perhaps space battle strategies
have developed to account for this over the years.
Also, didn't major battle scenes, like Wolf 359 and First Contact, have
Federation ships going in all sorts of directions? And certainly we've
seen englobement maneuvers when some hapless Federation vessel is being
surrounded by a number of enemy ships.
Besides, gentlemen's rules would exist only betwen cultures in
considerable communication. As was pointed out earlier in this group, not
all cultures in the galaxy know about each other. Not only that, but I
quote the Aiel to support my position on war: "Rules against hurting are
for children's games." In war, you take every advantage possible.
Or maybe Timo was being sarcastic. I can't tell.
William J. Keith
Allen Kim
Timo S Saloniemi wrote:
>
> In article <3435A564...@scic.intel.com> Allen Kim <alle...@scic.intel.com> writes:
> >Just got another look at the "Call to Arms" episode, and it seems that
> >beams weapons really can miss under certain circumstances.
>
> >So how do they explain the fact that beams sometimes miss? Maybe this
> >goes along with the mystery behind Voyager's unlimited "Just Add Water"
> >shuttles.
>
> phasers apparently have targeting problems - probably the weapon
> itself has to be mechanically trained to some degree, whereas the
> continuous-beam weapons of other starships seem to be targeted with
> some kind of phased-array system and are thus theoretically much more
When the Defiant and Martok's Bird-of-Prey flew away from DS9 in
retreat, the second wave of Dominion ships opened fire with their phased
polaron beams, but not one hit. I've also seen DS9's phasers "miss"
during the big battle, but I'm willing to bet that those phasers
actually hit targets which were visible on camera.
> agile. The Jem'Hadar beams have been confirmed to have mechanical
> steering (listen to dialogue in "The Ship"), so they probably simply
> can't be targeted fast enough to keep up with even moderately
> maneuvering starships. The Jem'Hadar tactics of swarming the enemy
> compensate nicely for this problem - the weapons do not have to
> track very precisely.
OK, I've got to rewatch that episode. Mechanical aiming would be less
accurate than Federation-style emitter arrays, but I wasn't sure which
method the Jem'Hadar used.
> This would be logical - Fed phasers do have 100% hit rate in my books.
That's what I thought, too.
--
Allen Kim
alle...@scic.intel.com