Cross-Universe Shield Comparison, etc. (was Re: 1701-D vs. SD)
Christian Bynum
In article <4f0al6$l...@urvile.msus.edu>, jenn...@condor.stcloud.msus.edu
(JEREMIAH JENNINGS) wrote:
> Michael Atwell (mat...@emerald.tufts.edu) wrote:
> : <.3.91.9602020217...@freenet2.freenet.ufl.edu>
> : Distribution:
> --SNIP--
> : And as for the SD's role as a tie fighter carrier, a Galaxy class would
> : pulverize those unshieled craft without ejection seats in a heartbeat.
>
> I agree. SDs are basically battle ships, and fighters are more for
> surgical operations.
I respectfully disagree. Fighters have (even in our own history" been
used as part of a mass attack rather than a surgical strike. The
Enterprise-D (or any lesser Federation ship), however well or poorly
matched against the Imperial-class Star Destroyer itself, would STILL HAVE
TO FIND a full wing (6 squadrons, or 72 ships, I believe) of TIE fighters,
unshielded and undergunned, to be a significant addition to the threat
posed by the capital ship.
Small craft in both universes have been able physically to "punch through"
the shields of larger vessels (e.g. fighters in the final space battle in
ROTJ, the Kazon shuttle in the recent ST: Voyager episode "Maneuvers,"
etc.). There is dissimilarlity set up by those scenarios: the Kazon
shuttle had to have the support of continuous firepower for a larger
vessel (precisely modulated to the frequency of the shield harmonics, no
less!) to "soften up" the shields of a Federation vessel sufficient to the
cause of a small shuttle making a ramming run, while a pair of A-wing
fighters' laser fire directed at the forward shield generator of the Super
Star Destroyer -- supposedly in operation and protecting the ship -- was
sufficient to cause the whole thing to explode and leaving the mighty
capital ship vulnerable to the infamous A-wing "kamikaze" assault on its
bridge.
While Federation shield technology seems to have some advantage (not to
mention the edge one gains by having a Structural Integrity Field system
that actually keeps all but the most critical hull breaches from trashing
the whole ship!), it does not completely mitigate the threat of a swarm of
highly maeuverable TIE fighters, bombers, and interceptors pounding away
at it. In a DS9 episode, didn't a Galaxy-class Explorer (the U.S.S.
Odyssey) meet its demise against a few (albeit shielded) Jem'Hadar
fighters? The ships of the Empire seem to have a difference -- not so
much an advantage but rather a departure in their underlying design
philosophy -- in one-versus-many combat scenarios. Bristling with
turbolasers all under independent control (i.e., the bridge officer just
says "Fire!" and all hell breaks loose) and equipped with their own
fighters, SDs are built to engage and defend against a swarm, while
Federation ships (with only a few phaser banks and torpedo launchers under
direct primary control of the Tactical Officer under normal combat
situations) are perhaps less well suited to do so.
As a final point, Imperial fighters are also potential kamikaze weapons.
Any pilots dumb enough to continue pursuit into an asteroid field (ESB)
must have had enough brainwashing in boot camp to "buy the farm" for the
grater glory of the Galactic Empire...
- From all this, I think one cannot discount the combat value of Imperial
fighters, even against the technological prowess of a Federation starship;
however, whether this value would decide the battle is quite another
thing...
Peace,
Chris
************************************************************************
Christian Bynum, Sc.M. E-mail: cu...@u.washington.edu
Department of Epidemiology WWW: http://lynx.fhcrc.org/~cbynum/
University of Washington PGP Public Key: WWW or finger cby...@pobox.com
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Jeffrey Kolb
<or...@umich.edu> wrote:
> It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
> use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
> innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
> why...
>
> 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
> enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
> its phasers on the little buggers.
>
> 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
> the shields.
>
> 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
> ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
>
> * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
> expensive, but humor me here...=)
The Jem'Dar use fighters very effectively. Perhaps no alpha quadrant race
uses fighters because fighters really *are* very expensive. (Any Air Force
people out there who can tell me if that's true?)
MORRISON KEITH MURRAY
>The Jem'Dar use fighters very effectively. Perhaps no alpha quadrant race
>uses fighters because fighters really *are* very expensive. (Any Air Force
>people out there who can tell me if that's true?)
Another reason may be that the Founders don't want the Jem'Hadar to have
very big and powerful starships so they became very good with what they were
allowed.
--
Keith Morrison
t0...@unb.ca
T McDonald
Jeffrey Kolb <jk...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
>In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
><or...@umich.edu> wrote:
>
>> It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
>> use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
>> innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
>> why...
>>
>> 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
>> enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
>> its phasers on the little buggers.
>>
>> 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
>> the shields.
>>
>> 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
>> ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
>>
>> * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
>> expensive, but humor me here...=)
>
>uses fighters because fighters really *are* very expensive. (Any Air Force
>people out there who can tell me if that's true?)
I'm not air force, but I had a major hard on for fighters, air combat,
tactics, weapon systems in my youth.
A modern fighter plane will cost differently depending on lots of stuff.
But if you're in the market for something that can hang tough with in
service USAF equipment be prepared to shell out 30 million. But if I'm
not mistaken the YF-22, replacement for the F-15, will run about 40 to 50
million. Of course a Nimitz class carrier runs about 3 BILLION, and a
boomer runs about 700 million. But the rewards we reap from this
millitary investment is far more than we pay in.
Eli Erlikhman
> In article <jkolb-09029...@jk395.students.hamilton.edu> jk...@hamilton.edu (Jeffrey Kolb) writes:
> >The Jem'Dar use fighters very effectively. Perhaps no alpha quadrant race
> >uses fighters because fighters really *are* very expensive. (Any Air Force
> >people out there who can tell me if that's true?)
> Another reason may be that the Founders don't want the Jem'Hadar to have
> very big and powerful starships so they became very good with what they were
> allowed.
> --
> Keith Morrison
> t0...@unb.ca
Jem'Hadar ships are not fughters. They are much smaller than any other A
quadrant ship but they are not fighters.
jem'Hadar ships are about the size of the Defiant which is by any means
not a fighter.
"The Truth is usually just an excuse for lack of imagination."
- Garak
Eli Erlikhman
eerl...@chat.carleton.ca
Timo S Saloniemi
(Nothing new in this post, just the usual X vs. Y stuff. But since
these threads never die, and we need something to do besides bashing
Voyager ep "Treshold", here comes...)
>The Enterprise-D (or any lesser Federation ship), however well or poorly
>matched against the Imperial-class Star Destroyer itself, would STILL HAVE
>TO FIND a full wing (6 squadrons, or 72 ships, I believe) of TIE fighters,
>unshielded and undergunned, to be a significant addition to the threat
>posed by the capital ship.
A swarm of fighters would indeed be an increase in the firepower
of the attacker, and a good way to distribute the E-D's retaliation
over a larger number of targets. But a SD equipped with fighters
carrying TNG-style weapons, or an E-D vulnerable to SW weapons,
would betray the intentions of the people who created the
milieus of those shows. In Trek, big ships will be given the
advantage by any means necessary, since the good guys will
always be aboard big ships (you can't fit a TNG chorus line
of main characters aboard a Millenium Falcon). In SW, the
idea is that individuals, underdogs and small numbers can
make a difference against a mightly empire, so naturally small
ships are given all possible advantages.
>Small craft in both universes have been able physically to "punch through"
>the shields of larger vessels (e.g. fighters in the final space battle in
>ROTJ, the Kazon shuttle in the recent ST: Voyager episode "Maneuvers,"
>etc.). There is dissimilarlity set up by those scenarios...
Yup. ROTJ and the ST episodes dealing with Maquis or Kazon attacks
by small ships give a nice comparison of relative defence strengths.
They also make it clear that the two universes are quite incompatible
at this point (although ST offers good fights against opponents with
lesser tech, like the Cardassians and the Kazon, that can be conducted
"the SW way").
>While Federation shield technology seems to have some advantage (not to
>mention the edge one gains by having a Structural Integrity Field system
>that actually keeps all but the most critical hull breaches from trashing
>the whole ship!), it does not completely mitigate the threat of a swarm of
>highly maeuverable TIE fighters, bombers, and interceptors pounding away
>at it.
If the fighters have Federation, Klingon, Romulan or equal weapons,
then the Fed ships are in danger of not being able to swat the
midgets fast enough to keep their hides intact. But weapons of
such power aboard tiny ships would untermine the original setup
of the Federation, where the good guys patrol the space and enforce
peace, and the average crook from an average planet can't purchase
a small starship to do bad things or present a credible threat.
If anybody had access to small destructive space weapons, there
would be much more "pirates of space" in the Federation than the
sorry bunch seen in "Gambit"(TNG).
In a DS9 episode, didn't a Galaxy-class Explorer (the U.S.S.
>Odyssey) meet its demise against a few (albeit shielded) Jem'Hadar
>fighters? The ships of the Empire seem to have a difference -- not so
>much an advantage but rather a departure in their underlying design
>philosophy -- in one-versus-many combat scenarios. Bristling with
>turbolasers all under independent control (i.e., the bridge officer just
>says "Fire!" and all hell breaks loose) and equipped with their own
>fighters, SDs are built to engage and defend against a swarm, while
>Federation ships (with only a few phaser banks and torpedo launchers under
>direct primary control of the Tactical Officer under normal combat
>situations) are perhaps less well suited to do so.
A defence against a swarm doesn't seem that difficult when the
Fed ships have literally 100% accuracy of phaser fire against
any target (vs. the literally zero accuracy of Deathstar
gunners in ANH). Also, there are phaser emitters for 4-pi
coverage in most TNG ships, so there are no blind spots for
the fighters to use. And even though the usual mode of phaser
operation seems to be to put the whole power output of the
ship into a single shot at a time, there have been instances
of multiple firings, again with 100% accuracy.
The question still is, can the fighters do enough damage
before they are all swatted? Can they provide enough
distraction so that the capital ship is saved from Fed
fire and can engage the Fed ship?
>As a final point, Imperial fighters are also potential kamikaze weapons.
>Any pilots dumb enough to continue pursuit into an asteroid field (ESB)
>must have had enough brainwashing in boot camp to "buy the farm" for the
>grater glory of the Galactic Empire...
Not even Klingons seem to be that well indoctrinated in Trek!
Individual life is valuable among the ranks of the enemy, too,
unlike in SW where the emphasis is on the enemy being a nameless
mass and the good guys being individuals - you can't do
shoot-em-up sequences very well if the viewers sympathize with
the enemy pilots being blown to bits.
>- From all this, I think one cannot discount the combat value of Imperial
>fighters, even against the technological prowess of a Federation starship;
>however, whether this value would decide the battle is quite another
>thing...
Whether such battles would be possible in the first place is
an issue, too. Everything from the starfield effects and set
lightning to the movement of the ships is incompatible in
the two shows - shouldn't the two ships explode out of simple
laws-of-physics mismatch the moment they were brought together?
>Peace,
> Chris
Er... don't you mean War? That's what this is all about, isn't it?
Timo Saloniemi
.sigless and proud of it!
Chung, Peter W.
>
>
>The Jem'Dar use fighters very effectively. Perhaps no alpha quadrant race
>uses fighters because fighters really *are* very expensive. (Any Air Force
>people out there who can tell me if that's true?)
Don't forget that Jem'hedar fighters are about the same size of the Defiant.
The term "fighter" applied to a jem'hedar ship is sorta funny.
Christian Bynum
Saloniemi) wrote:
Er...no. I mean "peace." It's a closing salutation. Actually it's about
tech. And I don't want anyone mistaking me for ".sigless" either! ;)
David Veal
>uses fighters because fighters really *are* very expensive. (Any Air Force
>people out there who can tell me if that's true?)
The Jem'Hadar ships are apparently built on a 'fighter-starship'
principle. Basically reduce the ship to speed, shields, and weaponry.
The Defiant is also an example of the same concept. (Not to mention
BOPs, etc.)
Star Trek's tech is such that 'fighters' in the traditional
single-man sense would be completely inadaquate. You need a minimum
amount of space to generate enough power to be competitive in combat.
High power computer targeting makes 'dodging' a pretty iffy concept...
--
David Veal lve...@utk.edu / ve...@web.ce.utk.edu
"Any smoothly functioning technology will be
indistinguishable from a rigged demo." - Isaac Asimov
Albert Ko
On 15 Feb 1996, darkness wrote:
> Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
> : In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
> : <or...@umich.edu> wrote:
>
> : > It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
> : > use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
> : > innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
> : > why...
> : >
> : > 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
> : > enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
> : > its phasers on the little buggers.
> : >
> : > 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
> : > the shields.
> : >
> : > 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
> : > ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
> : >
> : > * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
> : > expensive, but humor me here...=)
>
> : The Jem'Dar use fighters very effectively. Perhaps no alpha quadrant race
> : uses fighters because fighters really *are* very expensive. (Any Air Force
> : people out there who can tell me if that's true?)
>
> Jen Hadr Ships if you look really arn't fighters. More like the B-1
> Bomber than a Stunt Fighter. There small enough to be manuverable. But
> large enough to be effective. Remember what the Jem Hadr Ship looked like
> against the the Odysesy. It wasn't that small.
As someone else commented. . . Jem-Hadar "fighters" aren't really that
small, as you see one of them ram the Odyssey you can compare its size.
This person also stated that these "fighters" were large enough to be
effective (to a degree) and smaller for "economy". However, the Defiant
is not exactly a "economic" ship to build but relative to a Galaxy, yes
it is really "cost-efficent". It would be a good idea to build more and
try to improve on the spaceframe. Thus, Starfleet would have an easier
time distributing their presence.
G. Wayne Calvert
>Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
>: In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
>: <or...@umich.edu> wrote:
>
>: It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
>: use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
>: innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
>: why...
>:
>: 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
>: enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
>: its phasers on the little buggers.
>:
>: 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
>: the shields.
>:
>: 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
>: ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
>:
>: * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
>: expensive, but humor me here...=)
>
That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
Timothy Jones
On 9 Feb 1996, Chung, Peter W. wrote:
> In article <jkolb-09029...@jk395.students.hamilton.edu>, jk...@hamilton.edu (Jeffrey Kolb) writes...
> >In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
> ><or...@umich.edu> wrote:
> [snip]
> >
> >
> >The Jem'Dar use fighters very effectively.
The Jem'Hadar are not the empire. Their fighters are not imperial fighters.
Your comparasin is not valid.
> >Perhaps no alpha quadrant race
> >uses fighters because fighters really *are* very expensive.
Or maybe that's what shuttles and runabouts are for. Or better still,
maybe they don't use them, because they're not effective against starships
of the Federation and many other Alphy quadrant races. But them again,
"maybe" is a flimsy foundation for a position anyway, so let's not bother
with it.
> >(Any Air Force people out there who can tell me if that's true?)
And oh yes, don't forget to include your knowledge on Federation economy;
but oh drat! I just remembered that "Air Force people" wouldn't know a
thing about it!
THETA SIGMA BAAWA
Timothy Jones
On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, G. Wayne Calvert wrote:
> dark...@hawk.phantasy.com (darkness) wrote:
> >Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
> >: In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
> >: <or...@umich.edu> wrote:
> >
> >: It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
> >: use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
> >: innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
> >: why...
> >:
> >: 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
> >: enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
> >: its phasers on the little buggers.
> >:
> >: 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
> >: the shields.
> >:
> >: 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
> >: ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
> >:
> >: * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
> >: expensive, but humor me here...=)
> >
>
> That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
> We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
Why is it that hard data is so often met (esp from the SW crowd) with mere
analogy? The Feds are not the Germans, nor are their craft the Bismark. If
you want the *facts*, here are just a few; and believe me, I'm being
*very* nice hee, and holding back more than a few of the more damning ones!
* Fed sensors are perfectly capable of multi-target acquisition.
SW ships are not.
* SW weapons fire travels below LS and quite possibly slower
than sound.
* A Fed ship with warp engines off-line still moves a significant
fraction of LS even at the sluggish (for them) speed of, say,
one-quarter impulse. This is faster than the very fastest ships
from SW, be they fighters or doritos, which move no more than
at most several hundred to several thousand miles per hour. In
all likelihood, it would appear to be faster than even their
very weapons fire! The bolts themselves from blasters and
turbolaser batteries would easily be outrun.
* A Fed ship with operational warp drive would certainly make the
above point effective, even if you deny it in the context of
impluse-only, as presented. Even a low warp velocity of, say,
the maximum speed of a classic series freighter (warp 2) would
handily leave the very bolts fired by SW ships standing
positively still, to say nothing of the sluggish ships themselves!
* Imperial gunners rely on visual sighting and manual fire-control.
They cannot "lock-on," they way Fed ships do, which use highly
accurate computer-assisted acquisition. Given the speed of a Fed
ship even at low impulse, there is little chance they could be seen,
and none at all they could be tracked effectively. And again, if
this point be at all controversial at impluse speeds, it
definitively ceases to be so when a ship goes to warp.
* A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
at least as fast as the best SW fighters, using only their
maneuvering thrusters.
* A Fed ship totally incapable of movement has a range advantage
that is literally astronomical. It is a matter of canon record
and copious precident that SW weapons have a maximum range of
(depending on which source you consult) 5 kilometers to
several thousand kilometers. A Fed ship can easily lock on to
targets several hundred thousand kilometers distant. (And if
the tech stats from whatever source aren't enough to convince
you of the veracity of this point, refer to common sense,
remembering once again that only the Feds have sufficently
advanced sensor tech; the imps are on manual...can *you* hit
a ship at half a million klicks?)
* Fed weapons are literally hundreds if not thousands of times
more powerfull than blasters or turbolasers. Again, there's
stats that bear this out, but more to the point, there's clear
and ovbious visual evidence from the films and the series.
As an example, remember the battles of Hoth and Endor. Many times,
we see bolts hitting the snow, hitting trees, rocks, people, etc.
They never do anything close to the kind of damage that even a
classic series hand size Phaser I is capable of. I have heard,
and rejected, the counter-argument that these are not examples
of imperial capital ship fire. The RPG stats make it quite
clear that capital ship weapons are analogous to the lesser sized
ones, except that you double the rating when/if they get
applied to non-ship targets. So, since the ineffectual weapons
have ratings from roughly 2 dice to 5 dice, and capitol ship
weapon damage codes are usually around 4 to 6 dice, that means
that capital ship weapons would do about 8 to 12 dice of damage
against non-ship targets. That makes them NO MORE than 3 times
as destructive as the lesser ones. Three times a little explosion
is still not that big a deal; not compared to the power of Fed
weapons, the least of which can easily vaporize man-size targets.
Add to this the consideration that an unshielded ship can be
destroyed by a single Fed photon torpedo, but that SW weapons
including proton torps never do unless they hit a reactor core
or similar vulnerable spot, and there simply is no comparasin.
* Since SW weapons won't penetrate Fed shields, but *will*
penetrate the shields of other SW ships, clearly SW shields
are easily pierced by Fed weapons. This in conjunction with
above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
I've heard many denials to the above and other points. What I have not
heard and will not hear are actual stats or valid counter-arguments that
can disprove any of the above. All I've seen is "We just can't know," or
"It's just a movie," and other such appeals to ignorance. But ultimately,
these last ditch complaints are of no avail. We *do* have more than enough
information to make the determination. Appeals to metaphore and invalid
analogy are irrelevant. And the fact that this is all sci-fi changes
nothing; for the hypothetical nature was never in question to begin with.
I can still say what *would* happen if there ever *was* such a conflict.
And what would happen is far beyond question or reproach; the imps would
not be able to compete with Fed tech. Their would be no contest. The Feds
would win. Don't doubt it for a instant.
THETA SIGMA BAAWA
Bill Huber
>Jen Hadr Ships if you look really arn't fighters. More like the B-1
>Bomber than a Stunt Fighter. There small enough to be manuverable. But
>large enough to be effective. Remember what the Jem Hadr Ship looked like
>against the the Odysesy. It wasn't that small.
>-Darkness
Actually, the B-1 weighs almost as much as a B-52.
I would compare them more to an F-111.
Bill Huber
T McDonald
>dark...@hawk.phantasy.com (darkness) wrote:
>>Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
>>: In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
>>: <or...@umich.edu> wrote:
>>
>>: It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
>>: use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
>>: innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
>>: why...
>>:
>>: 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
>>: enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
>>: its phasers on the little buggers.
>>:
>>: 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
>>: the shields.
>>:
>>: 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
>>: ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
>>:
>>: * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
>>: expensive, but humor me here...=)
>>
>
>That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
>We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
Some of do, but are you one of them?
The Germans built a brand new bad ass battle ship and they were trying to
get into the atlantic where they would be home free. And they managed to
sneak it out into the North see where a by a stroke of luck it was
photographed by a returning allied plane, and the british understanding
this threat all too well sent 2 battle ships after it. For days the
Bismark eluded the British, but finally their luck ran out and they were
found. This turned out to be very unfortuitus for the british as the
Bismark all but ignored the first volly. Six minuets later the Hood (??)
was on her way to the bottom, while the Bismark evaded the british
again. I think that the Bismark was damaged by the hood to the point of
only being able to make left turns =), and thus had to sail the long way
around the British Ilse being careful to stay beyond her formitable air
power and race to make it to a safe port in France. The British in a
last ditch effort managed to cripple and sink the Bismark with venerable
torpedo bombers.
But the lost was a greater one for Britan. Her reigns of power over the
see were no more. Her most powerful ship, widly reguarded as invincible,
lay bent and broken at the bottom of the sea; the awesome firepower of
the Bismarks guns had done what could not be done.
Ironic that old torpedo bombers did what an invicible battle ship could not.
The irony is not lost on me, how bout you?
Timothy Jones
On Fri, 16 Feb 1996, JA. Driscoll wrote:
> Timothy Jones (time...@u.washington.edu) wrote:
>
> : On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, G. Wayne Calvert wrote:
>
> : > dark...@hawk.phantasy.com (darkness) wrote:
> : > >Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
> : > >: In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
> : > >: <or...@umich.edu> wrote:
> : > >
> : > >: It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
> : > >: use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
> : > >: innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
> : > >: why...
> : > >:
> : > >: 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
> : > >: enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
> : > >: its phasers on the little buggers.
> : > >:
> Yeah. the 1701D could probably toast about 1 per sec.
Actually, they'd be a lot faster. Remember the ep when the E-D swept
through a minefield with rapid phaser fire. They destroyed all of them
in roughly 3 seconds. Remember, Fed ships are perfectly capable of multi
target acquisition; and the relative speeds involved would give them
about a month of lead time in the worst of all reasonable scenarios.
> : > >: 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
> : > >: the shields.
> : > >:
> ??????
He's refering to pt. 2 of "Best of Both Worlds," wherein a shuttle craft
was temporarially hidden from Borg sensors by employing a spread of
antimatter.
> : > >: 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
> : > >: ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
> : > >:
> Yes, but the navigational deflector array would just knock them out of the way...:)
Well that's all the Feds would notice, yes. But consider the force of the
impact, the force with which the fighters are being deflected. If they're
encountered at warp, they'd be destroyed. I personally do not prefer this
method however, since the nnav deflector was designe to divert particles
and the like, not macroscopic objects. Although imperial weapons would be
useless, the ships themselves could do some damage if allowed to ram. I'm
unsure on this point. It could go either way, but I wouldn't want to take
the chance. Better to just shoot, tractor or outrun them.
> : > >: * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
> : > >: expensive, but humor me here...=)
> : >
> : > That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
> : > We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
>
> Uhh... yes, and there is also the small problem of building a fast, well-armed
> fighter craft without making it a portable bomb... You know how those warp drives
> LOVE breaching...
Not due to anything they'd encounter from the SW universe they wouldn't!
> : Why is it that hard data is so often met (esp from the SW crowd) with mere
> : analogy? The Feds are not the Germans, nor are their craft the Bismark. If
> : you want the *facts*, here are just a few; and believe me, I'm being
> : *very* nice here, and holding back more than a few of the
> : more damning ones!
> :
> : * Fed sensors are perfectly capable of multi-target acquisition.
> : SW ships are not.
>
> Hmm... let me think... Star Destroyer.... too many guns to ever get all ofthem to
> bear... not vulnerable to fighters...
Not to SW fighters, I agree.
> individual gunners...
Who aim and fire on manual, w/o computer lock-on.
> : * SW weapons fire travels below LS and quite possibly slower
> : than sound.
>
> As does ST weapons fire (Excepting photons fired while at warp speed)
I hear this a lot, but it's false. In the calssic series, phasers could be
and were fired in warp. The only reason they are not still fired in warp
in TNG is because of the increased number of layers in the warp field
necessary to push Fed ships' max speed above warp 7.3. In other words, if
they really wanted to, Geordi or whoever was the engineer could make a
quicky modification to the warp field dynamics, to basically knock off all
the added lavels of the field. This would reduce their max speed to warp 7
or so (which is hardly a damning limitation when dealing with sublight
weaponery) but would again allow for warp speed phaser fire. Evan as it
is, they can still fire phasers at any impulse speed, which is likewise
faster than anything from SW.
> : * A Fed ship with warp engines off-line still moves a significant
> : fraction of LS even at the sluggish (for them) speed of, say,
> : one-quarter impulse. This is faster than the very fastest ships
> : from SW, be they fighters or doritos, which move no more than
> : at most several hundred to several thousand miles per hour. In
> : all likelihood, it would appear to be faster than even their
> : very weapons fire! The bolts themselves from blasters and
> : turbolaser batteries would easily be outrun.
>
> Do you know what travelling at lightspeed would DO to a ship of that size?
Yes. It would send it into warp. Warp 1 to be precise.
> Impulse is NOT lightspeed.
I know that, and have never said that it was. I said that impulse speeds
are an appreciable frction of LS. Those were my words. The point is, that
even 1/4 impulse is still far faster than anything in SW that is not in
hyperspace.
> Besides which the ships you see in ST are mainly exploration ships(or based on
> them) and so would be built to go fast to cover the huge empty spaces involved.
> Whereas SW ships are always in civilised systems.
Well I tend to agree. Say, are we arguing on opposite sides or the same side?
(My apologies; I'm used to being opposed without reason around here. For
you to *agre* with me *with* reason is a little startling. :} )
> : * A Fed ship with operational warp drive would certainly make the
> : above point effective, even if you deny it in the context of
> : impluse-only, as presented. Even a low warp velocity of, say,
> : the maximum speed of a classic series freighter (warp 2) would
> : handily leave the very bolts fired by SW ships standing
> : positively still, to say nothing of the sluggish ships themselves!
>
> Yes.... and an SW ship in hyperspace would leave it rocking in its wake...
Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think we can be certain. But more to the point,
it makes no difference in battle, for hyperdrive can only be used therein
to retreat. Only warp drive is effective *in* and *for* a battle.
> : * Imperial gunners rely on visual sighting and manual fire-control.
> : They cannot "lock-on," they way Fed ships do, which use highly
> : accurate computer-assisted acquisition. Given the speed of a Fed
> : ship even at low impulse, there is little chance they could be seen,
> : and none at all they could be tracked effectively. And again, if
> : this point be at all controversial at impluse speeds, it
> : definitively ceases to be so when a ship goes to warp.
>
> Oh, so you admit there ARE Imperial Gunners, eh?
Well...yes. Have I previously denied it?
> Why do you think they don't have computers?
Because I've seen them firing, and they stink. Example; during the battle
of Yavin, fighters who were right on top of each other continually missed
for several shots before they hit their targets, and often didn't hit them
at all. They make use of HUDs and timing calculations (as with the DS
exhaust port), but they still have to aim and fire themselves. Their
systems never do it for them. Another example of this is the falcon's
escape scene from the DS, when they fight off 4 TIE fighters. I'm sure I
could think of other if I needed, and of course there's no mention of
anything comparable to Fed style sensors in any SW source book.
> Even on the little piddly Millenium Falcon the gunnery systems had some kind of
> computer tracking...
All I saw there was a target display. It had a crude position tracker,
but no locking capabilities. (Funny you should bring up the falcon...[see
above])
> : * A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
> : at least as fast as the best SW fighters, using only their
> : maneuvering thrusters.
>
> uh.... 200kph odd... and that's for Voyager... well, perhaps...
I've also heard Picard order speeds of up to several hundred kph, and
don't see why they wouldn't be capable of much more. After all, what's a
thruster maneuvering speed of 10,000 kph when the lazy sunday (for them)
speed of 1/4 impulse is astronomically faster? If one-fourth of the speed
of light is sluggish for a Fed ship, it's not at all a stretch that their
"maneuvering" speeds would be in the neighborhood of several hundred to
several thousand kph, and I certainly believe their technology is up to
it. Sure, I'm speculating a little. But not much. And at the very least,
we know they're capable of at least the several hundred kph estimate. The
observed sub-light speeds of SW ships would appear to be in this
neighborhood as well; and that's for their swiftest fighters. But like I
said, I'm perfectly willing to bend on this one.
> : * A Fed ship totally incapable of movement has a range advantage
> : that is literally astronomical. It is a matter of canon record
> : and copious precident that SW weapons have a maximum range of
> : (depending on which source you consult) 5 kilometers to
> : several thousand kilometers. A Fed ship can easily lock on to
> : targets several hundred thousand kilometers distant. (And if
> : the tech stats from whatever source aren't enough to convince
> : you of the veracity of this point, refer to common sense,
> : remembering once again that only the Feds have sufficently
> : advanced sensor tech; the imps are on manual...can *you* hit
> : a ship at half a million klicks?)
>
> Yes... But the thing is, SW ships just carry lots of smaller guns.
> I have no doubt the Death Star could shoot something at those kind of
> distances.
Nope. The DS uses exact;y the same weapons as the rest of the imperial
fleet, with the single exception of the superlaser. Which we know must be
relatively close to its target. Perhapse *that* particular weapon has a
range to match that of Fed ship weapons. But then again, it's also just
another laser to the Feds; and even if I accepts the anticipated
counter-argument that it just *has* to be more than that to be able to
destroy a planet (eg., if I accept the account that it's really a beam of
antimatter contained in a magnetic sheath, which I believe I read in a SW
source book once, but can't seem to find again), given that it is immobile
and fixed, it would never get the chance to be used on any Fed ship.
Furthermore, if indeed it is just a very powerfull laser, not only would
it be mmoving so slowly that any Fed ship could easily just get out of the
way well after the beam was fired, but in fact, they could probably come
up with a way to use phaser fire or a photon detonation to disrupt the
beam itself, to say nothing of how quickly they could simply destroy the
beam emitters with a spread of torpedoes.
> Just imagine the pasting the 1701D would get next to an SD...
What are you basing this on?
> and SW ships could fairly easily drop in to close to weapon range...
I very much doubt it. Given the exact calculations you need just to get
close to a planet (and the time it takes to set them), compared to the two
or three seconds it takes for any Fed ship to plot *any* course, there is
no way any SW ship could jump that close to a Fed vessel; besides which,
the Feds would see them coming on long range sensors and move, but the
approaching ship would have to drop out of hyperspace in order to make any
sort of course correction.
> : * Fed weapons are literally hundreds if not thousands of times
> : more powerfull than blasters or turbolasers. Again, there's
> : stats that bear this out, but more to the point, there's clear
> : and ovbious visual evidence from the films and the series.
>
> Hmmm... well, ST weapons seem to make flashy lights on the shields a lot, but in
> terms of damage/sec a full SD turbolaser battery would do better.
Not at all. Compare how effective each is against various targets.
i) We see blaster and turbolaser bolts hit rocks, trees, people
and ships, and do only minimal damage. We see bombs dropped by
TIE bombers in ESB that do little or no damage to the asteroids
they hit, and we've seen that even a vessel with no shields
must be hit many times by bolts or proton torps to destroy it.
Examples range from the DS (where a pair of torps did only
minimal damage to a small section of the surface), to sections
of wall being hit by everything from blasters to lightsabers,
with little effect.
ii) We see that even a hand size phaser I from the classic series
can easily vaporize man-sized targets, and that Fed ship weapons
can destroy unshielded craft with a single photon torpedo, or
a few phaser hits. We know that a single photon topr is capable
of destroying a sizeable area of land on a planetary surface, and
that phasers can drill many kilometers into a planets crust.
A planetary assault from an imperial vessel would take hundreds if
not thousands of their proton torps to do the same thing (one
warhead would only be able to take out a single building or other
such unshielded structure), and their beam weapons cannot be used
for drilling, not only due to a lack of power, but also because
they don't seem to be able to be focused properly or aimed that
accurately. They just aren't sophisticated enough.
> : As an example, remember the battles of Hoth and Endor. Many times,
> : we see bolts hitting the snow, hitting trees, rocks, people, etc.
> : They never do anything close to the kind of damage that even a
> : classic series hand size Phaser I is capable of.
>
> A Phaser I on setting 16 could destroy a building, but would probably blow up in
> the process.
It never seems to have done so. And a lower setting (which is
unambiguously safe) would still vaporize man-sized targets.
> But basicly, hand blasters are just meant to blast people and get 'em
> out of the fight, and phasers are used in much the same way...
Except that phasers are both more powerfull and more versatile.
> : I have heard,
> : and rejected, the counter-argument that these are not examples
> : of imperial capital ship fire. The RPG stats make it quite
> : clear that capital ship weapons are analogous to the lesser sized
> : ones, except that you double the rating when/if they get
> : applied to non-ship targets. So, since the ineffectual weapons
> : have ratings from roughly 2 dice to 5 dice, and capitol ship
> : weapon damage codes are usually around 4 to 6 dice, that means
> : that capital ship weapons would do about 8 to 12 dice of damage
> : against non-ship targets. That makes them NO MORE than 3 times
> : as destructive as the lesser ones. Three times a little explosion
> : is still not that big a deal; not compared to the power of Fed
> : weapons, the least of which can easily vaporize man-size targets.
> : Add to this the consideration that an unshielded ship can be
> : destroyed by a single Fed photon torpedo, but that SW weapons
> : including proton torps never do unless they hit a reactor core
> : or similar vulnerable spot, and there simply is no comparasin.
>
> Pro-torps?
Yes. That's what SW ship have.
> Look, Photons are NOTHING LIKE protons!
I know that. In fact, I'm counting on it.
> a photon torpedo is a capital
> ship weapon; a proton torp is a starfighter weapon!
Actually, I think some SW capital ships are equipped with proton torps,
cuncussion missles, or both, like the SDs. The point was, they're nowhere
near as powerfull as Fed photon torps. And there's a very good reason why.
SW proton torps are fusion weapons, as the name implies. That means the
damage they do is all based on solid matter interactions, i.e., friction
and impact inertia. But even the nav deflector on a Fed ship is capable of
easily dissipating just these forces at high warp speeds; and a proton
torpedo hardly travels that fast, nor is its blast potential anywhere near
as powerfull as the impact force of even subatomic particles in space that
a Fed ship encounters at warp speeds, yet deflects without ever even
knowing they were there. OTOH, a Fed photon torpedo uses a
matter/antimatter interaction at a preset rate of propogation (the warhead
yield setting) to generate enormous amounts of energy. This is necessary
because of the advanced shielding possessed by the Klingons, Romulans,
Cardassians, Federation and many other races, as well as the myriad
natural phenomana they are forced to contend with. Such a warhead at
maximum yield (which means that all the matter and antimatter interacts at
once, or at least as fast as they can get it to) would easily have
hundreds if not thousands of times more destructive power than any
projectile from the SW universe.
> Ummmm.... Death Star?
Same story, except for the superlaser. [see above]
> : * Since SW weapons won't penetrate Fed shields, but *will*
> : penetrate the shields of other SW ships, clearly SW shields
> : are easily pierced by Fed weapons.
> ???
> I think you'll find SW shields are just more hull-hugging.
> You're probably thinking of the ion cannon on Hoth.
> Probably a special case.
Actually no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm sorry, I left the middle
portion of this argument out, just because I thought it was already known,
and so could be taken as read. The full version is as follows:
i) Fed weapons will eventually penetrate Fed shields.
ii) SW weapons will eventually penetrate SW shields.
iii) SW weapons will NOT penetrate Fed shields.
iiii) Fed weapons are known to be many times more powerfull
than SW weapons.
iiiii) Therefore, Fed weapons will quickly penetrate
SW shields.
> As for SW weapons v ST shields... why not?
They're not nearly powerfull enough, and are of the wrong energy type.
(eg., turbolasers, which are by definition ineffective.)
> Fed shields are built to deflect
> phased energy or relatively slow projectiles...
If you call particles encountered at high warp velocities "relatively
slow..." As for the ships themselves, they may do some damage if allowed
to ram a Fed ship -- I don't know -- but they'd never get the chance.
> turbolasers are not phased so
> they would continually penetrate ST shield 'windows'.
You've got it backwards. It's exactly *because* they're not phased that
they could never penetrate through any "window," even if their was one,
which there isn't. Lasers are entirely the wrong form of energy to use
against a Fed ship's shields, and it's a matter of claer precident and
canon record that the nav deflector alone makes a Fed ship immune to them,
nevermind the battle shields thamselves. This is why they switched from
lasers to phasers in the first place; that and the fact that phasers are
far more energy efficient.
> : This in conjunction with
> : above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
> : indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
> : capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
> : the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
> : photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
>
> IF the ship's shields are down, AND the weak spots are pointed out.
No no no. I mean NO MATTER WHAT. Shields or no shields. Weak spots known
or not known (which they would be, BTW, after a routine tac scan), it would
take just as many shots as I said, simply because SW shields are so
comparatively weak, and also BTW because their hulls are too.
> You have to admit, hitting the front of an SD is unlikely to destroy it...
> you'd
> probably have to destroy half of it before it blew up..
Ah but you're still thinking in terms of SW weaponery, in relation to
which I'd agree. But a matter-antimatter warhead would detonate with
the release of too much energy and force for most ships to bear without
adequate shields.
> Whereas ST ships are all essential systems.
I'm not sure what this means.
> : I've heard many denials to the above and other points. What I have not
> : heard and will not hear are actual stats or valid counter-arguments that
> : can disprove any of the above. All I've seen is "We just can't know," or
>
> Why won't you hear them? can't you face the facts?
> :)
Just as soon as I get some. :}
> There ARE no facts and figures, by definition...
Actually, there are. We already know tht we're talking about science-fiction.
By "facts," we're supposed to understand that we're refering to what's
laid out in the accepted canon source materials that are extant, and the
precidents of the films and serials thamselves.
> Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a 1-to-1 basis
> (When they hit!)
Yes I know. I've heard that counter-argument before as well. But watch
that scene again, and you'll notice that the only asteroids that were
destroyed in this way were no bigger than the width (not the length even,
but the *width*!) of the bolts that struck them. Fed weapons seem to do a
great deal better. From what I've seen and read, this is one pecker
contest the empire just can't win.
P.S.: BTW, I'd like to thank you for your decency in responding to my
post. It's quite rare for anyone on this group to manage to stick to
rational debate and an attempt to render valid arguments, as opposed to ad
hominizing, and groundless dogmatism. If the others in this debate keep
behaving the way they've been doing so far, you may well end up being
about the only person I bother replying to.
TSB
Timothy Jones
On Fri, 16 Feb 1996, Albert Ko wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, Timothy Jones wrote:
>
> > > >: It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
> > > >: use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
> > > >: innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
> > > >: why...
> > > >:
> > > >: 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
> > > >: enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
> > > >: its phasers on the little buggers.
>
> That's why Jem-Hadar "fighters" are quite a bit larger than a TIE :)
> Their shields are good enough to survive some degree to be effective
> (obviously not against the Defiant though)
>
> > > >: 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
> > > >: the shields.
>
> AM wouldn't just blind them.
>
> Considering how bad the majority of pilots
> are for the Empire, they all be sucking vacuum. Shielding on the Reb
> fighters and advanced Imps would help some. But then phototorps should
> take out a squadron or two before visual range.
>
> > > >: 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
> > > >: ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
>
> Ack, too time consuming especially if the squadron disperses for attack.
>
> > > >: * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
> > > >: expensive, but humor me here...=)
> > > >
> > >
> > > That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
> > > We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
> >
> > Why is it that hard data is so often met (esp from the SW crowd) with mere
> > analogy? The Feds are not the Germans, nor are their craft the Bismark. If
> > you want the *facts*, here are just a few; and believe me, I'm being
> > *very* nice hee, and holding back more than a few of the more damning ones!
> >
> > * Fed sensors are perfectly capable of multi-target acquisition.
> > SW ships are not.
>
> Actually, they are. Unfortunately "Turbolasers" don't travel at "c" like
> real lasers and phasers do.
>
> > * SW weapons fire travels below LS and quite possibly slower
> > than sound.
>
> At the speed those TIE buggers and Reb Wings are going? 100kps is mighty
> fast, and that's just your standard TIE.
I don't kow where you got *those* speed stats from, but I can assure you
they're wrong. That's right, W-R-O-N-G. Given the stats in the mmanuals
and the observed flight speeds they seem to display over landscapes and
the time it takes them to cross the wake of large ships and so on, there
is no way they're going faster than several hundred to perhapse several
thousand kilometers per *hour*. I mean really, their weapons fire isn't
a fast as the speed you stated! Not if the observational evidence is
anything to go by.
> > * A Fed ship with warp engines off-line still moves a significant
> > fraction of LS even at the sluggish (for them) speed of, say,
> > one-quarter impulse. This is faster than the very fastest ships
> > from SW, be they fighters or doritos, which move no more than
> > at most several hundred to several thousand miles per hour. In
> > all likelihood, it would appear to be faster than even their
> > very weapons fire! The bolts themselves from blasters and
> > turbolaser batteries would easily be outrun.
>
> Couple hundred kilometers per second for the fastest ones at sublight.
That cannot possibly be right. They'd be running into their own weapons
fire.
> Still, 0.25c (or .25 x 3.0 X 10^6 a.k.a. Full Impulse)
Or you could just say 1/4 c for short. :}
> is much faster than the fastest SW ship at sublight.
>
> > * A Fed ship with operational warp drive would certainly make the
> > above point effective, even if you deny it in the context of
> > impluse-only, as presented. Even a low warp velocity of, say,
> > the maximum speed of a classic series freighter (warp 2) would
> > handily leave the very bolts fired by SW ships standing
> > positively still, to say nothing of the sluggish ships themselves!
>
> True, but the fighters can run away with hyperdrive, just preset the nav
> data.
Granted. But retreating is about all a hyperdrive is good for in battle.
And who knows what the development of the transwarp drive may may possible
for the Feds, even if Voyager never makes it back to Fed space...
> > * Imperial gunners rely on visual sighting and manual fire-control.
> > They cannot "lock-on," the way Fed ships do, which use highly
> > accurate computer-assisted acquisition. Given the speed of a Fed
> > ship even at low impulse, there is little chance they could be seen,
> > and none at all they could be tracked effectively. And again, if
> > this point be at all controversial at impluse speeds, it
> > definitively ceases to be so when a ship goes to warp.
>
> They have computers but they just aren't as great cause they have to
> compensate for the speed of the "lasers".
It's more than that. They cannot use their systems to aim for them. They
have to aim themselves. All they have are fire control mechanisms which
are like steady-cams for guns. Notice how much they miss even at close
ranges. It's all based on eyesight. Their computers can acquire a target,
but cannot provide accurate guidance for the weapons.
> > * A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
> > at least as fast as the best SW fighters, using only their
> > maneuvering thrusters.
>
> Possibly true, but Impulse engines without the partial warp field sucks.
Impulse engines do not use warp field tech at all; that's why they're
impulse engines. But they do produce speeds that approach LS. The only
hitch to sustained high impulse speeds are the relativistic effects the
ship encounteres, since it's still subject to the laws of general and
special realtivity, ala Einstein. This is why starship captains are loath
to travel for very long on impulse drive at more than 1/2 impulse or so,
unless it's an emergency; it screws their clocks up. But it's still more
than enough to do the job vs the empire.
> > * A Fed ship totally incapable of movement has a range advantage
> > that is literally astronomical. It is a matter of canon record
> > and copious precident that SW weapons have a maximum range of
> > (depending on which source you consult) 5 kilometers to
> > several thousand kilometers. A Fed ship can easily lock on to
> > targets several hundred thousand kilometers distant. (And if
> > the tech stats from whatever source aren't enough to convince
> > you of the veracity of this point, refer to common sense,
> > remembering once again that only the Feds have sufficently
> > advanced sensor tech; the imps are on manual...can *you* hit
> > a ship at half a million klicks?)
>
> True, as I said before. Throw some phototorps at 'em mebbe a swarm of
> ten would be overkill.
It would be, yes. But even if it took more, the range advantage is the real
point. They'd have all the lead time they need.
> > * Fed weapons are literally hundreds if not thousands of times
> > more powerfull than blasters or turbolasers. Again, there's
> > stats that bear this out, but more to the point, there's clear
> > and ovbious visual evidence from the films and the series.
> > As an example, remember the battles of Hoth and Endor. Many times,
> > we see bolts hitting the snow, hitting trees, rocks, people, etc.
> > They never do anything close to the kind of damage that even a
> > classic series hand size Phaser I is capable of. I have heard,
> > and rejected, the counter-argument that these are not examples
> > of imperial capital ship fire. The RPG stats make it quite
> > clear that capital ship weapons are analogous to the lesser sized
> > ones, except that you double the rating when/if they get
> > applied to non-ship targets. So, since the ineffectual weapons
> > have ratings from roughly 2 dice to 5 dice, and capitol ship
> > weapon damage codes are usually around 4 to 6 dice, that means
> > that capital ship weapons would do about 8 to 12 dice of damage
> > against non-ship targets. That makes them NO MORE than 3 times
> > as destructive as the lesser ones. Three times a little explosion
> > is still not that big a deal; not compared to the power of Fed
> > weapons, the least of which can easily vaporize man-size targets.
> > Add to this the consideration that an unshielded ship can be
> > destroyed by a single Fed photon torpedo, but that SW weapons
> > including proton torps never do unless they hit a reactor core
> > or similar vulnerable spot, and there simply is no comparasin.
>
> I don't agree with the energy weapon part of your argument. It seems
> that the SW cap ships have tons more weapons to counterbalance the
> relative weakness of the weapons. But then planetary bombardment with
> energy weapons is quite common in SW.
When you take into consideration that, as was established in ESB, an
energy shield will be "strong enough to deflect any bombardment," and that
Fed shields are enormously better than those of SW, nothing remains to
persuade me that any amount of imperial fire can affect Fed shields.
Remember, we know how much energy can be dissipated each and every second
by Fed shields *before* they are weakened by the effort, and imperial
weapons cannot meet this level of required energy. If they can't do it in
one second, they can't do it at all. (That figure BTW, is "in excess of
7.3 * 10~5 kW," for primary energy dissipation, and for heat dissipation
for each generator it's 750,000 MJ. Source: ST TNG tech manual, page 138.
BTW, it also states that "...when the frequency characteristics of a
directed energy weapon are known, it is possible to dramatically increase
deflector effeciency by adjusting the shielding frequencies to match those
of the incoming weapon." So, after a tac scan of the imps weapons systems,
and perhaps a few of their incoming bolts -- which would take ages to
reach the ship anyway -- they could likely modify their shields to make SW
weapons fire even less effective, regardless of however much power they
put out at the outset.)
Given what I've seen of their impact efects and destructive potential,
there's no way they're anywhere near that powerfull. Because if they were,
the mundane things they hit would be getting vaporized, not merely scared,
knocked down, or blown up.
> > * Since SW weapons won't penetrate Fed shields, but *will*
> > penetrate the shields of other SW ships, clearly SW shields
> > are easily pierced by Fed weapons. This in conjunction with
> > above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
> > indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
> > capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
> > the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
> > photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
>
> This seems relatively true until you take into account that SW tech
> allows capital ships (like the Eclipse) to vaporize planets without a
> hitch.
Planets aren't starships, and their atmospheres aren't Federation shields.
Also, there are no firm stats on the Eclipse, and that vessel is not a part
of the canon record for SW (it's not listed in any reference source), but
is only in the writing of an independant author -- but that I mean he
doesn't work for Lucas and co. Now OTOH, if I were to see the Eclipse in
a future SW film made by Lucas...
But even so, if the weapons it's using are the same ones on other
imperial ships (there just being more of them), then nothing at all is
different about it. I'm pretty sure it's the superlaser that's being
relied upon here,and *that* weapon has already been addressed. To
restate, itis by definition still just another laser by Fed standards.
Whatever it can do to planets does not establish anything about its
capabilities vs a Fed ship, which we know to be immune to any and all
lasers; they're simply the wrong kind of energy. Besides which, there
remains still the considerations of range and speed. In short, they'd
never get the chance to use it.
> I don't even think a Starbase could "repel that kind of
> firepower".
But what are you basing this on?
> However, I feel the AM is the reason why SW tech is the way
> it is and ST tech is so. That is the major disadvantage of SW, where the
> power comes from.
The AM? What's that? If you mean Amplitide Modulation, I fail to see how
that applies.
> > I've heard many denials to the above and other points. What I have not
> > heard and will not hear are actual stats or valid counter-arguments that
> > can disprove any of the above. All I've seen is "We just can't know," or
> > "It's just a movie," and other such appeals to ignorance. But ultimately,
> > these last ditch complaints are of no avail. We *do* have more than enough
> > information to make the determination. Appeals to metaphore and invalid
> > analogy are irrelevant. And the fact that this is all sci-fi changes
> > nothing; for the hypothetical nature was never in question to begin with.
> > I can still say what *would* happen if there ever *was* such a conflict.
> > And what would happen is far beyond question or reproach; the imps would
> > not be able to compete with Fed tech. Their would be no contest. The Feds
> > would win. Don't doubt it for a instant.
>
> Course not, the Feds may have smaller ships (capital) but they pack more
> range and power unless you have a Death star laser on board.
And probably not even then.
TSB
Chung, Peter W.
>In article <2f7cc$112628.1f6@jeck>, G. Wayne Calvert <cal...@twave.net> wrote:
>>dark...@hawk.phantasy.com (darkness) wrote:
>>>Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
>>>: In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
>>>
>>>: It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
>>>: use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
>>>: innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
>>>: why...
>>>:
>>>: 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
>>>: enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
>>>: its phasers on the little buggers.
>>>: the shields.
>>>: ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
>>>: expensive, but humor me here...=)
>>>
>>
>>That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
>>We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
>
>The Germans built a brand new bad ass battle ship and they were trying to
>But the lost was a greater one for Britan. Her reigns of power over the
>see were no more. Her most powerful ship, widly reguarded as invincible,
>lay bent and broken at the bottom of the sea; the awesome firepower of
>the Bismarks guns had done what could not be done.
>Ironic that old torpedo bombers did what an invicible battle ship could not.
>The irony is not lost on me, how bout you?
A little more information (or disinformation if someone has better :) )
the Bismarck was part of "Rheinubung" aka "Exercise Rhine" where the objective
was to disrupt the Atlantic convoys of the Allied forces. THe Bismarck
and the Prinz Eugen (a 17,000t cruiser) were photographed by British
reconnaissance and the British attempted to stop the German breakout to
open sea by sending the HMS Hood (a 44,600t Battle-cruiser)and her squadron
to stop them. The HMS Hood, however, was built in 1918, while the Bismarck
was more recent, built in 1939. However, both ships had roughly equivalent
armament. The HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk are first to make visual and
radar contact with the Bismarck. The Bismarck's guns kept the cruisers
at distance, and the cruisers were waiting for the Hood and her ships to
arrive. Many hours later, the Hood, along with HMS Prince of Wales and
6 destroyers contact and engage the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen at around
25,000 yards. Prinz Eugen scored the first hit on the HMS Hood, starting
a fire. As the range closed, the Bismarck scores a direct hit amidships of the
HMS Hood, and the explosion would send the ship to the bottom within a
few minutes. Only 3 out 1419 men survived. THe Prince of Wales became
the German's focus and at 18000 yds took 4 15-inch shells several 8-in
shells. The bridge took a direct hit and everyone died except for the CO
and the Chief Yeoman. THe Prince of Wales took 2 more hits as she broke
off, and was lucky that the German ships did not pursue.
At this point Force-H, consisting of the HMS Renown (cruiser), Sheffield
(cruiser) and the Ark Royal (aircraft carrier) and six destroyers, were
sent to help.
The Bismarck had taken 3 hits, 1 a glancing blow across the deck, 1
forward of the port boiler room (losing one of her main dynamos) and
a shell that passed through her bows, piercing two oil tanks.
The Prinz Eugen seperated from the Bismarck to operate independently.
The HMS Victorious launches 7 Swordfish and 2 Fulmar aircarft to attack
the Bismarck, since attacking with ships was considered to dangerous.
Only 1 torpedo managed to strike, and that was at Bismarck's amidships.
The Bismarck continued to affect escape.
Contact was lost with the Bismarck briefly, but re-established with a
RAF Catalina. Force-H closed on the Bismarck's position. Only the planes
of the Ark Royal could strike at the Bismarck, and so 15 Swordfish aircraft
took off to engage the Bismarck, but due to pilot error, the squadron
attacked the HMS Sheffield by accident. The Sheffield dodged 6 torpedoes,
was lucky to have 2 torps explode on hitting water and 3 more detonated when
crossing the wake of the cruiser. The Sheffield never returned fire :)
The second Swordfish strike force (rearmed after they returned) attacked
the Bismarck. 2 hits were scored. The critical hit was to the ships
steering mechanisms, rendering the ship totally unable to steer. 5 aircraft
were severely damaged by gunfire. Only 1 aircraft crashed.
The next day, as more british ships gathered, the HMS Rodney (33900t
battleship, circa 1925) and the HMS King George V (35,000t battleship)
opened fire at the now immobile Bismarck. The Norfolk and Dorsetshire
soon joined the attack. The battleships approached to 3300 yds and in
an hour or so of fighting, the Bismarck was disabled, unable to fire back.
The Dorsetshire torpedoed the Bismarck on both sides at close range,
sinking the battleship. The Dorsetshire was a 9,975t cruiser.
Points to be learned from this incident:
1. The aircraft were only able to do what they did because of relatively
ineffective AA-fire.
2. The aircraft were instrumental in maintaining contact and reconnaisance.
3. It still took significant and prolonged fire from other warships to
finish off the Bismarck.
4. It was a changing point in naval warfare, since aircraft became a
viable method for delivering damage onto enemy ships, primarily because
AA defense was less than 100%-effective.
A. This does not take account for the advancement of targetting and
detection of aircraft by modern ships. The critical point is to intercept
the aircraft at a standoff distance, before the aircraft opened fire.
B. Modern aircraft often carry a missile capable of doing significant
damage to a ship. and at very great ranges.
* However, this doesn't really apply to Trek, since the ones that
are considered "fighters" are destroyed too quickly to contribute to the
battle ("Conundrum" and "Dreadnaught" and "BoBW 2".) While ships
considered "Very Heavy Fighters" and "Small Warships" are more viable
in numbers against a single, stationary ship ("The Jem'hedar", "Maquis?"
,"The Die Is Cast", "Way of the Warrior".)
Chung, Peter W.
Well, in the Jem'hedar's case, they are about the size of the Defiant.
The Defiant isn't a fighter (not even close), then the Jem'hedar would
fall under the small warship classification. It'd have to be the size
of a runabout to be considered a "fighter" of any sort.
David Zeiger
: Nope. The DS uses exact;y the same weapons as the rest of the imperial
: fleet, with the single exception of the superlaser. Which we know must be
: relatively close to its target. Perhapse *that* particular weapon has a
: range to match that of Fed ship weapons. But then again, it's also just
: another laser to the Feds; and even if I accepts the anticipated
: counter-argument that it just *has* to be more than that to be able to
: destroy a planet (eg., if I accept the account that it's really a beam of
: antimatter contained in a magnetic sheath, which I believe I read in a SW
: source book once, but can't seem to find again), given that it is immobile
: and fixed, it would never get the chance to be used on any Fed ship.
: Furthermore, if indeed it is just a very powerfull laser, not only would
: it be mmoving so slowly that any Fed ship could easily just get out of the
: way well after the beam was fired, but in fact, they could probably come
: up with a way to use phaser fire or a photon detonation to disrupt the
: beam itself, to say nothing of how quickly they could simply destroy the
: beam emitters with a spread of torpedoes.
Timmy, Timmy, Timmy, the above is probably the most convoluted display
of ignorance I've seen in a long time.
If the superlaser is "just a laser," it must, by your own argument,
not be able to penetrate the navagational shields of the Enterprise.
All of the "but it couldn't hit it anyway" garbage is nothing more than
a smokescreen for the above absurdity.
Now, your entire arguement about turbolasers being lasers is based on
the idea that they are lasers because they are called lasers. This
line of arguement is invalidated if you then turn around and claim
that the superlaser is *not* a laser.
So you have a choice. Either the superlaser couldn't penetrate the
nav deflectors of the Enterprise--an obvious absurdity--or turbolasers
are not lasers.
It's funny. You claim that those in favor of the SD can't do anything
more than recite dogma. But what's really going on? Zorro's using
*real* *physics* equations. I'm quoting from the Technical Journal
(not that souped-up Glossary "Guide" that you keep misrepresenting as
a Tech Manual). Your arguement is entirely hinged on a single statement
by Riker in one episode of TNG.
Now, who's being dogmatic?
--
David Zeiger dze...@netcom.com
Ancient cloth fragments show that "stripes" were somewhat shorter
than they are today.
--Abrell's and Thompson's Actual Facts
Albert Ko
Manuals that Lucas doesn't consider real canon. You also have to remember,
fighters don't
go top speed when fighting half the time! 110 kps is not that fast,
especially when compared to fractions of c.
> > > * A Fed ship with warp engines off-line still moves a significant
> > > fraction of LS even at the sluggish (for them) speed of, say,
> > > one-quarter impulse. This is faster than the very fastest ships
> > > from SW, be they fighters or doritos, which move no more than
> > > at most several hundred to several thousand miles per hour. In
> > > all likelihood, it would appear to be faster than even their
> > > very weapons fire! The bolts themselves from blasters and
> > > turbolaser batteries would easily be outrun.
> >
> > Couple hundred kilometers per second for the fastest ones at sublight.
>
> That cannot possibly be right. They'd be running into their own weapons
> fire.
Do you know exactly how fast the weapons fire is?
If you have followed a recent thread on Impulse and sublight you would
know that in TNG, many impulse engines are run under a partial warp field
to allow for better acceleration and higher speed. Something as massive
as the E-D would just take too much thrust to accelerate to 0.25c in a
short amount of time thus "cheating" with a warp field helps mucho.
Most of that is true granted, but the shield generator in ESB is "old" SW
tech. Also, I think Vader wanted to capture the base, not wipe it off
the face of the planet (which he quite possibly could have done).
> > > * Since SW weapons won't penetrate Fed shields, but *will*
> > > penetrate the shields of other SW ships, clearly SW shields
> > > are easily pierced by Fed weapons. This in conjunction with
> > > above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
> > > indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
> > > capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
> > > the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
> > > photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
> >
> > This seems relatively true until you take into account that SW tech
> > allows capital ships (like the Eclipse) to vaporize planets without a
> > hitch.
>
> Planets aren't starships, and their atmospheres aren't Federation shields.
> Also, there are no firm stats on the Eclipse, and that vessel is not a part
> of the canon record for SW (it's not listed in any reference source), but
> is only in the writing of an independant author -- but that I mean he
> doesn't work for Lucas and co. Now OTOH, if I were to see the Eclipse in
> a future SW film made by Lucas...
I thought the Dark Empire series was canon. . . Lucas did approve.
Albeit the point is moot due to the charge up time of the planet
destroying "laser". I really doubt that the energy it takes completely
turn a planet into pebbles is less than what a starship's shields can handle.
> But even so, if the weapons it's using are the same ones on other
> imperial ships (there just being more of them), then nothing at all is
> different about it. I'm pretty sure it's the superlaser that's being
> relied upon here,and *that* weapon has already been addressed. To
> restate, itis by definition still just another laser by Fed standards.
Not really a "laser" though sorta like Turbolasers (this is why I don't
enjoy discussing SW tech, it's less defined).
> Whatever it can do to planets does not establish anything about its
> capabilities vs a Fed ship, which we know to be immune to any and all
> lasers; they're simply the wrong kind of energy. Besides which, there
> remains still the considerations of range and speed. In short, they'd
> never get the chance to use it.
Point taken, I sure don't know the range of the Eclipse laser but I
remember seeing it in the Dark Empire Sourcebook.
> > I don't even think a Starbase could "repel that kind of
> > firepower".
>
> But what are you basing this on?
Basing on the assumption (which may or may not be true and will never
really know) that the "superlaser" is not your standard laser and the
output of energy needs to be incredible (not even a Trek ship can
vaporize a planet by itself)
> > However, I feel the AM is the reason why SW tech is the way
> > it is and ST tech is so. That is the major disadvantage of SW, where the
> > power comes from.
>
> The AM? What's that? If you mean Amplitide Modulation, I fail to see how
> that applies.
Anti-Matter! The major source of power for all Fed ships.
>
> > > I've heard many denials to the above and other points. What I have not
> > > heard and will not hear are actual stats or valid counter-arguments that
> > > can disprove any of the above. All I've seen is "We just can't know," or
> > > "It's just a movie," and other such appeals to ignorance. But ultimately,
> > > these last ditch complaints are of no avail. We *do* have more than enough
> > > information to make the determination. Appeals to metaphore and invalid
> > > analogy are irrelevant. And the fact that this is all sci-fi changes
> > > nothing; for the hypothetical nature was never in question to begin with.
> > > I can still say what *would* happen if there ever *was* such a conflict.
> > > And what would happen is far beyond question or reproach; the imps would
> > > not be able to compete with Fed tech. Their would be no contest. The Feds
> > > would win. Don't doubt it for a instant.
> >
> > Course not, the Feds may have smaller ships (capital) but they pack more
> > range and power unless you have a Death star laser on board.
>
> And probably not even then.
Yes, the SW ships would not be able to fire their weaponry unless they
were in range = they have to get close = either hyperjump right next to
the Feds (tough to do) or move in (instant death).
Mark Sinclair
>Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a 1-to-1 basis
>(When they hit!)
Havn't you just hit on the real comparison that can be made between ST and SW
weaponry? Can ST ships do the same as the SDs in ESB? In one episode in the
original series of Staer Trek the enterprise couldn't even deflect let alone
damage an admittedly large (SD size? :-) ) asteroid. Anyone got any other
examples of Fed ships vs asteroids?
--
Mark Sinclair
Chung, Peter W.
>
>
>On Fri, 16 Feb 1996, Timothy Jones wrote:
>
>>
>
>Manuals that Lucas doesn't consider real canon. You also have to remember,
>fighters don't
>go top speed when fighting half the time! 110 kps is not that fast,
>especially when compared to fractions of c.
Good point. Here is a project someone can perform (since I'm working at the
moment), but someone could time how long and how far it took the rebel
fighters in Star Wars (A New Hope) to leave the planet and engage the
DS-1. (It was suppose to be in firing position in 15? minutes, right?)
From there, you could extrapolate a minimum top speed from the distance
the fighters covered in the observed time.
[super snip]
>
>> > I don't even think a Starbase could "repel that kind of
>> > firepower".
>>
>> But what are you basing this on?
>
>Basing on the assumption (which may or may not be true and will never
>really know) that the "superlaser" is not your standard laser and the
>output of energy needs to be incredible (not even a Trek ship can
>vaporize a planet by itself)
Well, with the recent Voy episode concerning "Dreadnought", it does appear
that even a 3rd-world power can (and built) a "long-range-cruise-photondrone"
capable of destroying a "small moon". It was loaded with a 1000kg AM/1000kgM
warhead. Given that, a 1st-world power like the Feds or Roms or Klingons
could come up with something far more powerful and since the device was
a little bigger than 2/3rd's Voy's warp nacelle, it would be very portable.
So instead of 3 runabouts, 2 "Dreadnoughts" would be interesting :)
>> > However, I feel the AM is the reason why SW tech is the way
>> > it is and ST tech is so. That is the major disadvantage of SW, where the
>> > power comes from.
>>
>> The AM? What's that? If you mean Amplitide Modulation, I fail to see how
>> that applies.
>
>Anti-Matter! The major source of power for all Fed ships.
Not taking sides, however, even in TOS times, the crew has been amazed by
ships running on "ion-power" from that fairly bad TOS-episode ("Who?s Brain")
however, the ship was only capable of sublight speeds. Antimatter and
Forced-Quantum Singularity-based ships will tend to have smaller and lighter
power systems capable of putting out the same amount of power that more
conventional systems of larger and bulkier size can put out.
Tony Maravola
in the ST universe is so much superior to SW? If you're into the SW scene at
all, you should realize that all the Technologies used in SW have been around
for at least 4000 years. Now, I'd have to guess that technologies developed
over 4000 years would FAR surpass those that have only taken 400 years. The
great thing about SW is that not everything has to be explained. It just is.
Tony
--
"You are a part of the rebel alliance and a TRAITOR!!! Take her away!!!"
-Darth Vader
"It's time to RISE!!!" -Phil Anselmo
"If ignorance is bliss, then knock this smile off my face!!!"
-Zach De La Rocha
"I know it (the starship Enterprise) is an icon for people who don't
have a life." -Alf
Gary Monroe Sarli
> Why is it that hard data is so often met (esp from the SW crowd) with mere
> analogy? The Feds are not the Germans, nor are their craft the Bismark. If
> you want the *facts*, here are just a few; and believe me, I'm being
> *very* nice hee, and holding back more than a few of the more damning ones!
> * Fed sensors are perfectly capable of multi-target acquisition.
> SW ships are not.
Fact: Fed sensors are perfectly capable of multi-target acquisition.
Completely unsupported conjecture: SW ships are not.
There is no evidence that SW can't track multiple targets. In fact, the
Battle of Endor scenes seem to indicate that Star Destroyers, Corellian
Corvettes, MC80 Cruisers, and Nebulon-B frigates are all capable of
shooting at more than one target at once. Multiple turbolaser shots are
seen to come from individual ships, and they were not shooting at the
same target.
> * SW weapons fire travels below LS and quite possibly slower
> than sound.
Where did you get THIS? SW weapons are referred to (IN THE MOVIES) as
"lasers" of various sorts. Lasers (by definition) travel at the speed of
light. Phasers in Star Trek *also* travel at the speed of light (this is
mentioned in Tech chapter 11 among other places -- yes, I know, it's
SEMI-canon, but, hell, with comparisons like this you have to use what
you can).
> * A Fed ship with warp engines off-line still moves a significant
> fraction of LS even at the sluggish (for them) speed of, say,
> one-quarter impulse. This is faster than the very fastest ships
> from SW, be they fighters or doritos, which move no more than
> at most several hundred to several thousand miles per hour. In
> all likelihood, it would appear to be faster than even their
> very weapons fire! The bolts themselves from blasters and
> turbolaser batteries would easily be outrun.
Again, where did you get THIS? Do you have any idea how fast a starship
goes when it's just in orbit? Try TENS of thousands of mph, at the very
minimum, plus we know they are capable of reaching escape velocity (the
Millenium Falcon, three Star Destroyers, and tons of TIEs left the orbit
of Hoth and flew to the Anoat asteroid field). Moreover, the time in
which they apparently did this was AT MOST a few hours, and the
screenplay implies that it only took a few minutes to go what was at
least several million miles.
> * A Fed ship with operational warp drive would certainly make the
> above point effective, even if you deny it in the context of
> impluse-only, as presented. Even a low warp velocity of, say,
> the maximum speed of a classic series freighter (warp 2) would
> handily leave the very bolts fired by SW ships standing
> positively still, to say nothing of the sluggish ships themselves!
There are *very* few combat sequences in any Trek series in which the
combatants were moving at warp speed (I remember the Orion craft doing it
in "Journey to Babel" [TOS], but I don't recall it being done extensively
in any TNG-era or later stuff). Most combat sequences in Trek are a) at
sublight, b) at relative velocities small enough to keep both ships on
the TV screen at once, and c) CLOSE enough in range to make the vehicles
visible on the TV. This matches the basic qualities of any SW battle
(not in hyperspace, both combatants are visible on screen, and visual
spotting is possible).
Note that, yes, you can "outrun" laser fire, but you can do the same to
phasers and (according to Tech) photon torpedoes launched at sublight.
> * Imperial gunners rely on visual sighting and manual fire-control.
> They cannot "lock-on," they way Fed ships do, which use highly
> accurate computer-assisted acquisition. Given the speed of a Fed
> ship even at low impulse, there is little chance they could be seen,
> and none at all they could be tracked effectively. And again, if
> this point be at all controversial at impluse speeds, it
> definitively ceases to be so when a ship goes to warp.
Who says Imperial gunners rely on visual sighting and manual fire
control? Han Solo and Luke had targetting computers (which DID, BTW,
perform target acquisition and tracking functions) on the quad laser
cannons on the Millenium Falcon -- a REALLY OLD SHIP that was almost
certainly not anywhere near the cutting edge technology the Empire has.
> * A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
> at least as fast as the best SW fighters, using only their
> maneuvering thrusters.
I've already addressed this. SW fighters (and Star Destroyers, the "big
Corellian ships" referred to by Han Solo) can move absurd distances in a
few minutes to a few hours. They took a comparable time in ESB to reach
the Anoat asteroid field as it took the E-A to reach Jupiter in ST:TMP on
impulse drive. Therefore, their sublight propulsion is almost certainly
comparable (no more than an order of magnitude apart).
> * A Fed ship totally incapable of movement has a range advantage
> that is literally astronomical. It is a matter of canon record
> and copious precident that SW weapons have a maximum range of
> (depending on which source you consult) 5 kilometers to
> several thousand kilometers. A Fed ship can easily lock on to
> targets several hundred thousand kilometers distant. (And if
> the tech stats from whatever source aren't enough to convince
> you of the veracity of this point, refer to common sense,
> remembering once again that only the Feds have sufficently
> advanced sensor tech; the imps are on manual...can *you* hit
> a ship at half a million klicks?)
It is true that the Tech manual lists the maximum range of the ship's
phasers at 300,000 km. However, THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DEMONSTRATED
ON-SCREEN. All battles have taken place within visual range. That may
be analogous to the range of a rifle being a few miles (i.e., a bullet
fired a a 45 degree angle will land a few miles distant), but (an M-16,
for example) is only considered tactically effective to 500 m or so, tops.
Meanwhile, in SW, the Death Star superlaser, has been demonstrated to
fire at a range of several hundred thousand kilometers (judging from the
arc taken up by Alderaan in the picture in SW, it was about as far from
the Death Star as the Moon is from Earth, give or take a 100,000 km or
so). This is FAR MORE range than anything that has ever been
demonstrated by any Trek phaser (photorps have been fired farther than
this on occasion, but not in combat conditions).
Now, I know you'll object and say that the Death Star is NOT a good
example against which to compare Star Destroyers and the like. Well,
it's the only example we have, and it is an on-screen example of what
kind of range SW technology is capable of. Star Destroyer turbolasers
probably have no less than 1/10th the range of the Death Star (and, if
you say that the SW RPG is semi-canon just as Tech is semi-canon, they
say that turbolasers have 1/2 the range of the Death Star superlaser).
> * Fed weapons are literally hundreds if not thousands of times
> more powerfull than blasters or turbolasers. Again, there's
> stats that bear this out, but more to the point, there's clear
> and ovbious visual evidence from the films and the series.
> As an example, remember the battles of Hoth and Endor. Many times,
> we see bolts hitting the snow, hitting trees, rocks, people, etc.
> They never do anything close to the kind of damage that even a
> classic series hand size Phaser I is capable of. I have heard,
> and rejected, the counter-argument that these are not examples
> of imperial capital ship fire. The RPG stats make it quite
> clear that capital ship weapons are analogous to the lesser sized
> ones, except that you double the rating when/if they get
> applied to non-ship targets. So, since the ineffectual weapons
> have ratings from roughly 2 dice to 5 dice, and capitol ship
> weapon damage codes are usually around 4 to 6 dice, that means
> that capital ship weapons would do about 8 to 12 dice of damage
> against non-ship targets. That makes them NO MORE than 3 times
> as destructive as the lesser ones. Three times a little explosion
> is still not that big a deal; not compared to the power of Fed
> weapons, the least of which can easily vaporize man-size targets.
> Add to this the consideration that an unshielded ship can be
> destroyed by a single Fed photon torpedo, but that SW weapons
> including proton torps never do unless they hit a reactor core
> or similar vulnerable spot, and there simply is no comparasin.
You are HIDEOUSLY misinterpreting the RPG stats (re: semi-canon).
Capital weapons in the RPG are so much more powerful than Character-scale
weapons that they CAN'T EVEN BE CONVERTED TO ONE ANOTHER. A character
hit by a turbolaser is INSTANTLY DEAD -- no STR roll to resist.
Now, setting semi-canon aside (I prefer not to rely on it), there is only
one case in all three movies of someone being hit by a laser weapon and
surviving (Leia, hit in the shoulder in RotJ). This is comparable to the
phasers used in ST:TUC by the assassins (one person, hit in the arm,
survived to tell about it) -- I'd guestimate the setting on those phasers
as 5 or 6 (i.e., enough to be lethal, but not enough to disintegrate).
You may say: "Yeah, but what about a phaser on level 16?" Well, that
would disintegrate the target (and potentially cause an explosion, Tech
pg. 137).
Darth Vader's line to Boba Fett in ESB: "I want them alive. NO
DISINTEGRATIONS."
Therefore, weapons with disintegrating effects DO EXIST in SW. Again,
since the same essential effect is known to exist, I would say that the
two weapon technologies are no more than an order of magnitude apart.
Moreover, SW does have weapons like the Death Star which can utterly
destroy an entire planet with one hit. The only thing comparable to that
is the supernova-inducing missile Soran used in ST:G (although a SW
novel, the first of the Jedi Academy trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson,
described an identical weapon almost a year before Generations came out).
And, even granting that Soran's missile kicks butt, it merely induces a
star to supernova, and the star does the actual damage involved. The
Death Star can obliterate a planet using nothing but itself, and it does
it in one hit.
In "The Die is Cast," a massive armada of Romulans and Cardassians
attacked a planet, bombaridng it for several seconds with everything they
had -- and all they did was screw up the surface of the planet. This is
apparently comparable to SW technology:
Han Solo [speaking in reference to the Empire destroying
Alderaan]: "It would take a thousand starships ..."
It could be supposed that a similarly-sized armada of Star Destroyers
(say, a few dozen) would do about the same damage as the Obsidian
Order-Tal'Shiar alliance did (again, with an order of magnitude margin of
error).
> * Since SW weapons won't penetrate Fed shields, but *will*
> penetrate the shields of other SW ships, clearly SW shields
> are easily pierced by Fed weapons. This in conjunction with
> above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
> indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
> capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
> the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
> photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
And just where do you get this? We have no way of knowing, one way or
the other, whether SW weapons can pentrate ST shields -- THEY'VE NEVER
MET ON-SCREEN.
We know that SW weapons can penetrate SW shields, and we know ST weapons
can pentrate ST shields, and my comparisons above demonstrate that they
are comparable in overall firepower. If anything, either side could
penetrate either side's shields.
> I've heard many denials to the above and other points. What I have not
> heard and will not hear are actual stats or valid counter-arguments that
> can disprove any of the above. All I've seen is "We just can't know," or
> "It's just a movie," and other such appeals to ignorance. But ultimately,
> these last ditch complaints are of no avail. We *do* have more than enough
> information to make the determination. Appeals to metaphore and invalid
> analogy are irrelevant. And the fact that this is all sci-fi changes
> nothing; for the hypothetical nature was never in question to begin with.
> I can still say what *would* happen if there ever *was* such a conflict.
> And what would happen is far beyond question or reproach; the imps would
> not be able to compete with Fed tech. Their would be no contest. The Feds
> would win. Don't doubt it for a instant.
> THETA SIGMA BAAWA
I've answered your argument, following your rules. I went with what was
on-screen. Don't try to say my arguments about range are invalid -- sure,
the "real" reason both sides are visible onscreen is so the audience can
follow the battle, and the "real" reason ST does most battles at sublight
is because the warp effects are expensive, BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER HERE.
We are pretending that everything seen on screen is *exactly* as it would
look if a real camera was floating next to the "real" ships as they fight.
What I've shown here is that SW and ST tech are *comparable* -- they are
probably within an order of magnitude of each other. Maybe one has
slightly better weapons, maybe the other's a little faster, and maybe SW
has weaker shields but more hull mass to absorb damage with, and so forth.
I personally think it's too close to call -- without actual MW figures to
compare their relative weapon strengths, we have no way of knowing one
way or the other. My opinion is that a Star Destroyer would have an edge
just from shear size (1 mile long), the Enterprise would have trouble
with something that massive (and they have before -- they were called
Borg). Still, I think the Enterprise's shields are probably better (they
have to deal with plowing through space at warp 9, while a Star Destroyer
slips into an apparently stress-free alternate dimension).
Bottom line: Too close to call, but I'd give the edge to shear size
(Imperials) and numbers (Imperials).
(Of course, if it was the Enterprise with her kick-ass bridge crew, all
bets are off).
Gary
Chung, Peter W.
>Timothy Jones (time...@u.washington.edu) wrote:
>
[snip, very good points raised]
>
>Who says Imperial gunners rely on visual sighting and manual fire
>control? Han Solo and Luke had targetting computers (which DID, BTW,
>perform target acquisition and tracking functions) on the quad laser
>cannons on the Millenium Falcon -- a REALLY OLD SHIP that was almost
>certainly not anywhere near the cutting edge technology the Empire has.
That same movie did have scenes where Star Destroyer weapons fire was
only 50-70% accurate, against small corvettes as well as fighters...
>> * A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
>> at least as fast as the best SW fighters, using only their
>> maneuvering thrusters.
>
>I've already addressed this. SW fighters (and Star Destroyers, the "big
>Corellian ships" referred to by Han Solo) can move absurd distances in a
>few minutes to a few hours. They took a comparable time in ESB to reach
>the Anoat asteroid field as it took the E-A to reach Jupiter in ST:TMP on
>impulse drive. Therefore, their sublight propulsion is almost certainly
>comparable (no more than an order of magnitude apart).
Well, it took the E-Nil-Upgrade 1.8 hours at Warp .5 to reach and pass
Jupiter. Lets say Jupiter was on a straight line out of the system,
starting point Earth, then we get:
5.2AU Sun to Jupiter
1.0AU Sun to Earth
Distance travelled in 1.8 hours is 4.2AU (shortest distance can be much
farther...)
Average speed would be 97000 km/s or .32c.
However since it was Warp .5, then the distance covered would be around
6AU in 1.8 hours and it would not have been a straight-line away from the
sun.
[snip]
>
>It is true that the Tech manual lists the maximum range of the ship's
>phasers at 300,000 km. However, THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DEMONSTRATED
>ON-SCREEN. All battles have taken place within visual range. That may
Errhum. TOS phasers have been used up to 100,000km against low warp speed
targets from a sublight platform in "Journey to Babel", while warp speed
combat in "Ultimate Computer" had phasers used at warp, against warp targets
at around 80,000km while "Balance of Terror" suggests that "extreme phaser
range" are phaser flight times in excess of 5 warp-seconds. In TFS,
the Enterprise was tempted to engage with phasers at extreme range at
Warp in ST1:TMP. Phaser range in TNG has been roughly verified by the
diagrams in "The Wounded" where the tactical phaser ranges of the Nebula-class
USS Phoenix was displayed.
Photon torpedo range is estimated at 5 warp-seconds flight time when fired
at warp in TOS. In TMP, photorps used by the Klingons were used at warp
against V'ger's center, a 40AU flight distance. In TNG, "The Wounded"
had the TNG photorp confirmed to hit and destroy a Cardassian warship at
roughly 280,000km at sublight. Midrange yield is said to be 3,500,000km
for a TNG photorp, and this is somewhat confirmed in the "De-evolution"
episode with Worf's errant torpedo.
[snip]
>Moreover, SW does have weapons like the Death Star which can utterly
>destroy an entire planet with one hit. The only thing comparable to that
>is the supernova-inducing missile Soran used in ST:G (although a SW
Well, with the introduction of the new Voy episode, Trek indeed possesses
weapons of mass destruction, notably missiles such as "Dreadnought" of the
same episode name. It was listed as capable of taking out a "small moon",
and of a 3rd-world power, the Cardassians. In terms of cost, portability and
usefulness, these things are the "photon-cruise-missiles" of Trek. Just
imagine the 1st-world Federation or Klingon versions.
Just adding where things were not right :)
Albert Ko
On 18 Feb 1996, Gary Monroe Sarli wrote:
[ka-snip]
> > * A Fed ship totally incapable of movement has a range advantage
> > that is literally astronomical. It is a matter of canon record
> > and copious precident that SW weapons have a maximum range of
> > (depending on which source you consult) 5 kilometers to
> > several thousand kilometers. A Fed ship can easily lock on to
> > targets several hundred thousand kilometers distant. (And if
> > the tech stats from whatever source aren't enough to convince
> > you of the veracity of this point, refer to common sense,
> > remembering once again that only the Feds have sufficently
> > advanced sensor tech; the imps are on manual...can *you* hit
> > a ship at half a million klicks?)
>
> It is true that the Tech manual lists the maximum range of the ship's
> phasers at 300,000 km. However, THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DEMONSTRATED
> ON-SCREEN. All battles have taken place within visual range. That may
> be analogous to the range of a rifle being a few miles (i.e., a bullet
> fired a a 45 degree angle will land a few miles distant), but (an M-16,
> for example) is only considered tactically effective to 500 m or so, tops.
The range of ST torpedoes changes the discussion as does the SW
missile-type weapons (especially unstoppable things like the Galaxy Gun
from Dark Empire II).
> Meanwhile, in SW, the Death Star superlaser, has been demonstrated to
> fire at a range of several hundred thousand kilometers (judging from the
> arc taken up by Alderaan in the picture in SW, it was about as far from
> the Death Star as the Moon is from Earth, give or take a 100,000 km or
> so). This is FAR MORE range than anything that has ever been
> demonstrated by any Trek phaser (photorps have been fired farther than
> this on occasion, but not in combat conditions).
The reason why torps have not been fired at max range is because their
efficency is dramatically reduced because of this. But then doesn't the
same apply to max range for SW weapons? (mebbe not a superlaser though)
> Now, I know you'll object and say that the Death Star is NOT a good
> example against which to compare Star Destroyers and the like. Well,
> it's the only example we have, and it is an on-screen example of what
> kind of range SW technology is capable of. Star Destroyer turbolasers
> probably have no less than 1/10th the range of the Death Star (and, if
> you say that the SW RPG is semi-canon just as Tech is semi-canon, they
> say that turbolasers have 1/2 the range of the Death Star superlaser).
That means you can even take into account the semi-canon Dark Empire
sourcebook and say that since there are Imp capital ships (like the
Eclipse) that carry an onboard "Death Star"-type superlaser, that could
pose a lot of problems for the Federation.
And the Death Star is "obselete" tech in SW since the introduction of
superlaser-carrying ships like the Eclipse (the reason I mention this
ship so often is because it is the Emperor's flagship)
> In "The Die is Cast," a massive armada of Romulans and Cardassians
> attacked a planet, bombaridng it for several seconds with everything they
> had -- and all they did was screw up the surface of the planet. This is
> apparently comparable to SW technology:
>
> Han Solo [speaking in reference to the Empire destroying
> Alderaan]: "It would take a thousand starships ..."
>
> It could be supposed that a similarly-sized armada of Star Destroyers
> (say, a few dozen) would do about the same damage as the Obsidian
> Order-Tal'Shiar alliance did (again, with an order of magnitude margin of
> error).
Actually, SDs can vaporize most objects on the surface with no problem,
its just that it isn't good when you destroy resources. That's why the
World Devastators were built.
> > * Since SW weapons won't penetrate Fed shields, but *will*
> > penetrate the shields of other SW ships, clearly SW shields
> > are easily pierced by Fed weapons. This in conjunction with
> > above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
> > indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
> > capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
> > the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
> > photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
>
> And just where do you get this? We have no way of knowing, one way or
> the other, whether SW weapons can pentrate ST shields -- THEY'VE NEVER
> MET ON-SCREEN.
>
> We know that SW weapons can penetrate SW shields, and we know ST weapons
> can pentrate ST shields, and my comparisons above demonstrate that they
> are comparable in overall firepower. If anything, either side could
> penetrate either side's shields.
True, the root of this problem lies in the fact that Lucas never, ever
completely described what a "turbolaser/blaster. . ./deflector shields. . ."
was composed of. We do know what ST weapons and shields are composed of
(sorta).
> I've answered your argument, following your rules. I went with what was
> on-screen. Don't try to say my arguments about range are invalid -- sure,
> the "real" reason both sides are visible onscreen is so the audience can
> follow the battle, and the "real" reason ST does most battles at sublight
> is because the warp effects are expensive, BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER HERE.
> We are pretending that everything seen on screen is *exactly* as it would
> look if a real camera was floating next to the "real" ships as they fight.
>
> What I've shown here is that SW and ST tech are *comparable* -- they are
> probably within an order of magnitude of each other. Maybe one has
> slightly better weapons, maybe the other's a little faster, and maybe SW
> has weaker shields but more hull mass to absorb damage with, and so forth.
>
> I personally think it's too close to call -- without actual MW figures to
> compare their relative weapon strengths, we have no way of knowing one
> way or the other. My opinion is that a Star Destroyer would have an edge
> just from shear size (1 mile long), the Enterprise would have trouble
> with something that massive (and they have before -- they were called
> Borg). Still, I think the Enterprise's shields are probably better (they
> have to deal with plowing through space at warp 9, while a Star Destroyer
> slips into an apparently stress-free alternate dimension).
>
> Bottom line: Too close to call, but I'd give the edge to shear size
> (Imperials) and numbers (Imperials).
>
> (Of course, if it was the Enterprise with her kick-ass bridge crew, all
> bets are off).
Not even! Just throw Wedge in command of any Fed ships and watch it tear
apart the friggin Imp fleet :)
F. Cowart
: Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
: : In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
: : > It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
: : > use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
: : > innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
: : > why...
: : >
: : > 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
: : > enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
: : > its phasers on the little buggers.
: : >
I have always felt that shields are the answer. To carry a power source
big enought to power shields you have to have a big ship. So smaller
ships = smaller shields, when you get down to the size of a tie fighter
the enterprise could handle them like my jeep handles a bug. ( what is
the last thing to go through a bugs mind as he hits the windscreen? His
bung! ;)
F. Cowart
: Oh, so you admit there ARE Imperial Gunners, eh?
I HAVE to jump in here, in every star wars movie the shots fired to hit
ration is roughly 700,000,000 to 1! Imp troupers LIVE for spray and pray!
;)
: Why do you think they don't have computers?
: Even on the little piddly Millenium Falcon the gunnery systems had some kind of
: computer tracking...
: : * A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
F. Cowart
: >Some of do, but are you one of them?
Old tech vs New tech, the war ship of wwII was the aircraft carrer, what
you should be worryed about is that the gov is still waisting money on
aircraft carrers. WWII ended 50 years ago!
David Zeiger
: Good point. Here is a project someone can perform (since I'm working at the
: moment), but someone could time how long and how far it took the rebel
: fighters in Star Wars (A New Hope) to leave the planet and engage the
: DS-1. (It was suppose to be in firing position in 15? minutes, right?)
: From there, you could extrapolate a minimum top speed from the distance
: the fighters covered in the observed time.
You'd need the radius of Yavin, the oribital radius of the moon, the
orbital radius of the DS (I'm assuming it was orbiting), and, depending
on how precise you wanted to be, you might need the mass of Yavin for
gravity calculations.
Unfortunately, even if you had all this, there are at least 2 jump
cuts between launch and arrival at the DS, so the calculations would
be pretty futile anyway :-).
Now what *I* want to know is this. Haw can Timmy, in one post, claim
that turbolasers are lasers, and then, in *another* post, claim that
if TIEs move at 100kps, they would outfly their fire!
--
David Zeiger dze...@netcom.com
The correct term for a flute player is neither "flutist" nor
"flautist," but "flottner."
Timo S Saloniemi
>> We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
>Why is it that hard data is so often met (esp from the SW crowd) with mere
>analogy? The Feds are not the Germans, nor are their craft the Bismark. If
>you want the *facts*, here are just a few; and believe me, I'm being
>*very* nice hee, and holding back more than a few of the more damning ones!
I would like to answer with a couple of facts, too. Admittedly these
are only "facts" of Trek, i.e. stuff gleaned from aired episodes, and
not facts verifiable from multiple sources or applying to the real world.
But I think you have got some details ...differently from what I
think.
> * Fed sensors are perfectly capable of multi-target acquisition.
> SW ships are not.
Seems "true".
> * SW weapons fire travels below LS and quite possibly slower
> than sound.
Seems also "true". But Star Trek phasers also seem to travel well
below the speed of light or sound, with the more powerful shipboard
phasers perhaps being a bit faster than the less powerful hand weapons.
Only TOS phasers seemd to go FTL, perhaps as a result of a "subspace
augmentation" or other technobabble that was abandoned in TNG.
Admittedly, Trek literature claims phasers are lightspeed weapons,
but this is contradicted by on-screen effects, and it is far safer
and more comfortable to rely on aired stuff than to written "spinoff"
material, regardless of who is writing.
> * A Fed ship with warp engines off-line still moves a significant
> fraction of LS even at the sluggish (for them) speed of, say,
> one-quarter impulse. This is faster than the very fastest ships
> from SW, be they fighters or doritos, which move no more than
> at most several hundred to several thousand miles per hour. In
> all likelihood, it would appear to be faster than even their
> very weapons fire! The bolts themselves from blasters and
> turbolaser batteries would easily be outrun.
The scene with the damaged USS Odyssey in "Jem'Hadar" (DS9) does not
confirm this. The ship still had full impulse drive but couldn't
outrun the Jem'Hadar "fighters" or their weapons. Reaching a signifi-
cant fraction of c would presumably still take several hours of accele-
ration, and has not been seen in Trek episodes to date.
> * A Fed ship with operational warp drive would certainly make the
> above point effective, even if you deny it in the context of
> impluse-only, as presented. Even a low warp velocity of, say,
> the maximum speed of a classic series freighter (warp 2) would
> handily leave the very bolts fired by SW ships standing
> positively still, to say nothing of the sluggish ships themselves!
That seems quite "true". However, one can still lay a "minefield" of
actual mines or turbolaser bolts etc. in front of a warping ship -
Trek starships do not "exit N-space" or "enter hyperspace" or "jump
into subspace" while at warp, and are vulnerable to "realspace"
weaponry if applied carefully.
> * Imperial gunners rely on visual sighting and manual fire-control.
> They cannot "lock-on," they way Fed ships do, which use highly
> accurate computer-assisted acquisition. Given the speed of a Fed
> ship even at low impulse, there is little chance they could be seen,
> and none at all they could be tracked effectively. And again, if
> this point be at all controversial at impluse speeds, it
> definitively ceases to be so when a ship goes to warp.
This seems unlikely to be entirely "true". The rebels had computerized
sights that seemed to lock onto TIEs quite nicely, and the turbolaser
gunners of the Deathstar didn't actually look out of the window either.
Admittedly, the turbolaser firing accuracy in SW:ANH was practically
zero, while Trek starship phasers have a literally 100% accuracy, but
then again, Trek ships always fight at point-blank range with their
phasers in TNG (negating the speed advantage).
When it comes to capital ship manouverability or firepower, the
Fed ships could fly circles around the Empire vessels, and seem
to have a higher offensive capacity versus ships of their own
universe (the star destroyer in ROTJ fires a broadside at the
"medical frigate" from a range of <50 meters, and gets near-zero
results). But this ignores the issue of shields, which are hard
to cross-compare between universes.
> * A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
> at least as fast as the best SW fighters, using only their
> maneuvering thrusters.
We see the E-D doing some fancy maneuvering with its thrusters in
"Booby Trap", but when one compares that scene with the similar
scene in ESB, with Han Solo fleeing into the asteroid field, one
has to say this claim is unlikely to be "true".
> * A Fed ship totally incapable of movement has a range advantage
> that is literally astronomical. It is a matter of canon record
> and copious precident that SW weapons have a maximum range of
> (depending on which source you consult) 5 kilometers to
> several thousand kilometers. A Fed ship can easily lock on to
> targets several hundred thousand kilometers distant. (And if
> the tech stats from whatever source aren't enough to convince
> you of the veracity of this point, refer to common sense,
> remembering once again that only the Feds have sufficently
> advanced sensor tech; the imps are on manual...can *you* hit
> a ship at half a million klicks?)
This seems "true" (except for the targeting issue). The warp-capable
photon torpedoes of Trek seem to be an ultimate weapon against Star
Wars technology. Of course, we have never seen weapons like that in SW,
and neither have we seen battles requiring such weapons, since the
rebels always bring in the annoying fighters that can't be destroyed
that way.
The Deathstar "laser" seems to enjoy (or even surpass) the range of
Trek phasers, while having far greater firepower (Trek weapons can
melt large areas of planetary surface, but not explode planets that
don't want to explode), but presumably you can't hope to fit
one in a star destroyer...
> * Fed weapons are literally hundreds if not thousands of times
> more powerfull than blasters or turbolasers. Again, there's
> stats that bear this out, but more to the point, there's clear
> and ovbious visual evidence from the films and the series.
> As an example, remember the battles of Hoth and Endor. Many times,
> we see bolts hitting the snow, hitting trees, rocks, people, etc.
> They never do anything close to the kind of damage that even a
> classic series hand size Phaser I is capable of.
It seems that for hand weapons, this has to be accepted as "true".
The power of TOS phasers was IMHO poor drama, especially the
stun setting which made it hard to understand why one would use
a kill setting in battle at all.
> I have heard,
> and rejected, the counter-argument that these are not examples
> of imperial capital ship fire. The RPG stats make it quite
> clear that capital ship weapons are analogous to the lesser sized
> ones, except that you double the rating when/if they get
> applied to non-ship targets.
RPGs are, of course, a different category. But the battle above Endor
in ROTJ seems to confirm that imperial capital ship fire can be
rendered ineffective by rebel "shields" or "hull armor" or whatnot.
> Add to this the consideration that an unshielded ship can be
> destroyed by a single Fed photon torpedo, but that SW weapons
> including proton torps never do unless they hit a reactor core
> or similar vulnerable spot, and there simply is no comparasin.
One also has to notice that SW ships seem to have more of the vulnerable
spots, with the machinery apparently packed in tighter. But the issue
of "shielded" vs "unshielded" in SW is quite unclear - perhaps all
ships have "conformal" shielding instead of the bubbles we see in TNG?
Obviously, the star destroyers had something called "shields" in ROTJ,
and were near-invulnerable to the fire of the rebel "medical frigate",
but then again succumbed to a couple of A-wings.
> * Since SW weapons won't penetrate Fed shields, but *will*
> penetrate the shields of other SW ships, clearly SW shields
> are easily pierced by Fed weapons. This in conjunction with
> above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
> indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
> capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
> the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
> photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
This is deduction from the above points, some of which were not
quite accurately protrayed. So this may or may not be "true".
>I've heard many denials to the above and other points. What I have not
>heard and will not hear are actual stats or valid counter-arguments that
>can disprove any of the above.
Well, impartial stats for cross-universe comparison do not and will not
exist (RPG stats are meaningless if they do not agree with the dramatic
premises of the universes, and I dare anybody to find common ground
in the dramatic purposes of SW and ST universes); the arguments that can
be made today may be outdated when further SW movies air or when ST:Voyager
or DS9 reveal further Trek "facts".
>All I've seen is "We just can't know," or
>"It's just a movie," and other such appeals to ignorance. But ultimately,
>these last ditch complaints are of no avail. We *do* have more than enough
>information to make the determination. Appeals to metaphore and invalid
>analogy are irrelevant. And the fact that this is all sci-fi changes
>nothing; for the hypothetical nature was never in question to begin with.
>I can still say what *would* happen if there ever *was* such a conflict.
Everybody can say that, certainly. It's just that the universes in
conflict are defined by the dramatic setup of the movies featuring
the universes, and you have to fight a long and bloody battle between
those setups before you can send the actual ships to shoot each other...
>And what would happen is far beyond question or reproach; the imps would
>not be able to compete with Fed tech. Their would be no contest. The Feds
>would win. Don't doubt it for a instant.
That is a possible outcome after a battle of setups in which Star Wars
lost. However, if the "common ground" for the battle was set up as
something nearer to SW milieu, the puny UFP hardly could resist the
galaxy-wide Empire/Republic/whatnot. And remember that the ST and
SW heroes both have to fight from the underdog position to be
"justified" in killing thousands of enemy soldiers - so do not
give the upper hand to the good guys, or you are ruining the
moral high ground and the viewing entertainment.... :)
>THETA SIGMA BAAWA
Why, thank you. KLAATU NIKTO BAAWA or something like that to you.
Timo S Saloniemi
>In article <Pine.A32.3.91.960218...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu>, Albert Ko <a-...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu> writes...
>>
>>
>Not taking sides, however, even in TOS times, the crew has been amazed by
>ships running on "ion-power" from that fairly bad TOS-episode ("Who?s Brain")
>however, the ship was only capable of sublight speeds. Antimatter and
>Forced-Quantum Singularity-based ships will tend to have smaller and lighter
>power systems capable of putting out the same amount of power that more
>conventional systems of larger and bulkier size can put out.
Well, I would be fairly amazed myself if I saw a 100mph sports car based
on the bicycle principle.... The "ion drive" seemed to fascinate Scotty
because it was an inferior technology taken to the extreme, an elegant
if antiquated solution to sublight propulsion instead of a brutal-force
one.
Antimatter management is a nice piece of tech that can easily be used
for weaponry. So is artificial gravity, and warp drive. In fact, most
of the basic sci-fi technologies could make for formidable weapons
if used porperly, and a culture having only gravitics would not
necessarily be inferior to one having warp and AM and transporters,
if the writers let it develop weapons in unconventional ways.
The SW and ST universes seem to be nicely different in that SW has
better AI and robotics, faster hyperdrive etc, while ST has
better weapons, transporters, tactically more useful FTL drive
etc, without either culture being noticeably inferior or superior.
They are just different. Within ST, everybody from Romulans and
Klingons to Talarians seems to build weapons and cultures the
same way, with a definite, rigid hierarchy of power. Only the
crew of the Enterprise has the backdoor of using "unconventional"
technology. None of the "unconventionals" with psi powers or
strange technology seem to create empires or fight battles.
One would hope for a little more variety...
Chung, Peter W.
>Chung, Peter W. (st...@rosie.uh.edu) wrote:
>: Good point. Here is a project someone can perform (since I'm working at the
>: moment), but someone could time how long and how far it took the rebel
>: fighters in Star Wars (A New Hope) to leave the planet and engage the
>: DS-1. (It was suppose to be in firing position in 15? minutes, right?)
>: From there, you could extrapolate a minimum top speed from the distance
>: the fighters covered in the observed time.
>
>You'd need the radius of Yavin, the oribital radius of the moon, the
>orbital radius of the DS (I'm assuming it was orbiting), and, depending
>on how precise you wanted to be, you might need the mass of Yavin for
>gravity calculations.
>
>Unfortunately, even if you had all this, there are at least 2 jump
>cuts between launch and arrival at the DS, so the calculations would
>be pretty futile anyway :-).
Well, even with cut scenes, we do know what the upper time-limit would
be. At best we can extrapolate an approx. top speed, since I doubt
that the Rebel fighters decided to take their time to engage the
Death Star that was about to achieve firing position...
>
>Now what *I* want to know is this. Haw can Timmy, in one post, claim
>that turbolasers are lasers, and then, in *another* post, claim that
>if TIEs move at 100kps, they would outfly their fire!
A long, long time ago,
There was an interesting discussion on another group concerning weapons and
stuff, and a poster, Peter Kwangjun Suk posted an interesting formula for
deriving the percent hit for a detected firing against a target given
a certain amount of acceleration to dodge.
<Prob hit> = Rs^2 / ( Rs + (1/2)a (d/Vw - d/c)^2 )^2
Rs = radius of target ship
a = max acceleration of target ship
d = distance between ships
Vw = velocity of weapon
c = speed of light
This formula works for guaranteed hits at a certain distance. I'll see if
I can find the post and post it here.
In either case, if SW employs weapons that work at light speed, and
only have tactical-use light-speed based sensors, their ships by default
cannot actively dodge incoming fire, but must evade and hope they don't
get hit. And since the accuracy of fire in SW generally is very low,
even from Imperial Star Destroyers and other advanced equipment then that
does suggest poor targetting and tracking systems or that their "laser"
named weapons travel at speeds lower than light speed.
Of course, the answer to this is because SW is based on the WW2 combat model.
Fighters in WW2, like SW, had *a chance* to get close and mix it up with
a capital ship since AA-fire in WW2 wasn't 100% accurate nor 100% effective.
Indeed, the best thing to AA-fire was CAP by friendly fighters, hence the
classic dogfighting.
Chung, Peter W.
>In article <Pine.A32.3.91j.960215...@homer24.u.washington.edu> Timothy Jones <time...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>
>>> We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
[snip]
>
>The scene with the damaged USS Odyssey in "Jem'Hadar" (DS9) does not
>confirm this. The ship still had full impulse drive but couldn't
>outrun the Jem'Hadar "fighters" or their weapons. Reaching a signifi-
>cant fraction of c would presumably still take several hours of accele-
>ration, and has not been seen in Trek episodes to date.
A bit of clarification, the Odyssey, commanded by Captain "Dunzel" Keogh
*did not* maneuver, did not move during its battle with the Jem'hedar
warships. Only when they decided to retreat did the Odyssey ever even
turn. In another post, in ST1:TMP, the E-Nil-upgrade made Warp .5
in 1.8 hours, crossing anywhere between 4.2 to 6.2 AUs in that period
of time.
>> * A Fed ship with operational warp drive would certainly make the
>> above point effective, even if you deny it in the context of
>> impluse-only, as presented. Even a low warp velocity of, say,
>> the maximum speed of a classic series freighter (warp 2) would
>> handily leave the very bolts fired by SW ships standing
>> positively still, to say nothing of the sluggish ships themselves!
>
>That seems quite "true". However, one can still lay a "minefield" of
>actual mines or turbolaser bolts etc. in front of a warping ship -
>Trek starships do not "exit N-space" or "enter hyperspace" or "jump
>into subspace" while at warp, and are vulnerable to "realspace"
>weaponry if applied carefully.
True, however, since Trek ships can detect weapons emissions at FTL speeds,
it is very difficult to surprise or attack an incoming ship at Warp 8 from
a sublight position, as demonstrated in "Journey to Babel" and "Elaan of
Troyius". If it was that easy, Scotty's statement to Kirk regarding
fighting a warp ship at sublight would not have been made. It went something
like, "What? Wallow around at sublight like a garbage-scowl against a
warp-driven starship?" - from "Elaan of Troyius".
Personally, I'd like to see somewhat write a DS9 episode concerning this
very problem :)
B.D. Kerr
Organization: Computer Science, Liverpool University
What the hell is the point in all this SW vs.ST shit?
They are two completely different things set in entirely different universes,
times, etc. You want fantasy, go for star wars. You want something that can be
backed up by tons of facts, go for star trek. Who cares? I know what I like, I
dont care which has bigger shields, etc. Just enjoy what you like and like what
you enjoy !!!!
Christin Myrs
>In article <4g9dn5$o...@nntp.hut.fi>, tsal...@vipunen.hut.fi (Timo S Saloniemi) writes...
>>
>>>> We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
>
>>
>>The scene with the damaged USS Odyssey in "Jem'Hadar" (DS9) does not
>>confirm this. The ship still had full impulse drive but couldn't
>>outrun the Jem'Hadar "fighters" or their weapons. Reaching a signifi-
>>cant fraction of c would presumably still take several hours of accele-
>>ration, and has not been seen in Trek episodes to date.
>
>*did not* maneuver, did not move during its battle with the Jem'hedar
>warships. Only when they decided to retreat did the Odyssey ever even
>turn. In another post, in ST1:TMP, the E-Nil-upgrade made Warp .5
>in 1.8 hours, crossing anywhere between 4.2 to 6.2 AUs in that period
>of time.
probably including Space-Above and Beyond. Simply put, the feds have no
idea how to fight. They park their ship ten feet away from their
opponents and just shoot, never seeming to try to turn, dodge, or
anything. SW weapons miss alot, but are being fired on small, fast
moving targets that know enough to dodge. Even if the ST ships could
dodge SW weapons they are unlikely to do so, this has been seen over and
over. The most likely situation for a SD fighting a fed ship is for the
fed ship to park itself at point-blank range (the enterprise has done
this with vastly more powerful Borg ships and paid the price) and get
stuck in 10 tractor beams and blasted by 120 guns, while dozens of small
fighters shoot proton torpedoes at their exposed warp engines. The feds
have managed to lose the genisis device which could have killed the borg
and nearly were destroyed by the borg! ST people are just dumb when it
comes to fighting, even the klingons are brain-dead when it comes to
fighting. In one episode of DS9 the kingons invade the station by
beaming onto DS9, and prompty attack with KNIVES!!!! A ten-year old with
an uzi could have beaten the entire klingon invasion force with enough
bullets!!!
Christin Myrs
>In article <4g9dn5$o...@nntp.hut.fi>, tsal...@vipunen.hut.fi (Timo S Saloniemi) writes...
>>
>>>> We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
>
>>
>>The scene with the damaged USS Odyssey in "Jem'Hadar" (DS9) does not
>>confirm this. The ship still had full impulse drive but couldn't
>>outrun the Jem'Hadar "fighters" or their weapons. Reaching a signifi-
>>cant fraction of c would presumably still take several hours of accele-
>>ration, and has not been seen in Trek episodes to date.
>
Simon H. Lee
> This is why ST would lose any battle with any other sci-fi
group,
>probably including Space-Above and Beyond.
Hmm...the Enterprise beset by about 80 Chig fighters and
bombers...
> Simply put, the feds have no
>idea how to fight. They park their ship ten feet away from their
>opponents and just shoot, never seeming to try to turn, dodge, or
>anything. SW weapons miss alot, but are being fired on small, fast
>moving targets that know enough to dodge. Even if the ST ships could
>dodge SW weapons they are unlikely to do so, this has been seen over
One really painful example of this is in Star Trek II: During
the Mutara Nebula battle, the Reliant pops up on the Ent's portside,
Kirk yells for an evasive, and the ship *slowly* heels over to
starboard--exposing the entire port side to phaser fire (the shot
where the torpedo room's left side gets roasted "can opener" style),
and which eventually results in the warp engines going and Spock
dying.
Here's a hot question: In "Jem Hadar," why didn't Keough's
Odessey have a chair for him to sit in? He goes through the entire
battle standing up!
--
___________________A L L D O N E! B Y E B Y E!____________________
| __ |
| (__ * _ _ _ _ The Monitors are pleased with you. |
| __)|| | |(_)| \ |
|_________________________________________________________________________|
JA. Driscoll
: > >
: > >That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
: > >We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
: >
Yeah, but the Germans didn't have radar. We did.
Jim
Bwana
>Because I've seen them firing, and they stink. Example; during the battle
>of Yavin, fighters who were right on top of each other continually missed
>for several shots before they hit their targets, and often didn't hit them
>at all. They make use of HUDs and timing calculations (as with the DS
>exhaust port), but they still have to aim and fire themselves. Their
>systems never do it for them. Another example of this is the falcon's
>escape scene from the DS, when they fight off 4 TIE fighters. I'm sure I
>could think of other if I needed, and of course there's no mention of
>anything comparable to Fed style sensors in any SW source book.
I doubt the unfailing accuracy of ST weapons, in ST: Generations, for example,
the Klingon bird of prey missed with approximately half its phasor shots on
the Enterprise, even though they were at point-blank range.
>Actually no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm sorry, I left the middle
>portion of this argument out, just because I thought it was already known,
>and so could be taken as read. The full version is as follows:
> iii) SW weapons will NOT penetrate Fed shields.
Emm why? What makes you think that just because the weapon has the name
'turbolaser' that it is nothing more than a laser in the sense that we
know one? SW tech manuals clearly state that these weapons are _NOT_ lasers.
Is that OK? Can we stop the inane Riker 'lasers can't even penetrate nav
shield' quotes now?
> iiiii) Therefore, Fed weapons will quickly penetrate
> SW shields.
This does not follow, see above.
>They're not nearly powerfull enough, and are of the wrong energy type.
>(eg., turbolasers, which are by definition ineffective.)
Wrong, see above.
>You've got it backwards. It's exactly *because* they're not phased that
>they could never penetrate through any "window," even if their was one,
>which there isn't. Lasers are entirely the wrong form of energy to use
>against a Fed ship's shields, and it's a matter of claer precident and
>canon record that the nav deflector alone makes a Fed ship immune to them,
>nevermind the battle shields thamselves.
Great, fine, Lasers are useless, except that 'turbolasers', despite their
name, are NOT lasers.
>No no no. I mean NO MATTER WHAT. Shields or no shields. Weak spots known
>or not known (which they would be, BTW, after a routine tac scan), it would
>take just as many shots as I said, simply because SW shields are so
>comparatively weak, and also BTW because their hulls are too.
Where do you base your assumption that SW shields are weak? and that their
hulls are also?
>Ah but you're still thinking in terms of SW weaponery, in relation to
>which I'd agree. But a matter-antimatter warhead would detonate with
>the release of too much energy and force for most ships to bear without
>adequate shields.
Matter-AntiMatter _is_ powerful, by definition, but you have no reason to
suggest why an SDs shields would be useless against them.
>P.S.: BTW, I'd like to thank you for your decency in responding to my
>post. It's quite rare for anyone on this group to manage to stick to
>rational debate and an attempt to render valid arguments, as opposed to ad
>hominizing, and groundless dogmatism. If the others in this debate keep
>behaving the way they've been doing so far, you may well end up being
>about the only person I bother replying to.
How could us loyal SW fans stand by without taking up the gauntlet? :-)
D.
--
-=-=[-)-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
dmga...@alf2.tcd.ie | Bwana | http://alf2.tcd.ie/~dmgarvey
"If at first you don't succeed, do, do again!"
- A less well known Yoda saying...
JA. Driscoll
: st...@jane.uh.edu (Chung, Peter W.) wrote:
: >In article <4g9dn5$o...@nntp.hut.fi>, tsal...@vipunen.hut.fi (Timo S Saloniemi) writes...
: >>
: >>>> We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
: >[snip]
: >>
: >>The scene with the damaged USS Odyssey in "Jem'Hadar" (DS9) does not
: >>confirm this. The ship still had full impulse drive but couldn't
: >>outrun the Jem'Hadar "fighters" or their weapons. Reaching a signifi-
: >>cant fraction of c would presumably still take several hours of accele-
: >>ration, and has not been seen in Trek episodes to date.
: >A bit of clarification, the Odyssey, commanded by Captain "Dunzel" Keogh
: >*did not* maneuver, did not move during its battle with the Jem'hedar
: >warships. Only when they decided to retreat did the Odyssey ever even
: >turn. In another post, in ST1:TMP, the E-Nil-upgrade made Warp .5
: >in 1.8 hours, crossing anywhere between 4.2 to 6.2 AUs in that period
: >of time.
: probably including Space-Above and Beyond. Simply put, the feds have no
: opponents and just shoot, never seeming to try to turn, dodge, or
: anything. SW weapons miss alot, but are being fired on small, fast
: moving targets that know enough to dodge. Even if the ST ships could
: dodge SW weapons they are unlikely to do so, this has been seen over and
: over. The most likely situation for a SD fighting a fed ship is for the
: fed ship to park itself at point-blank range (the enterprise has done
: this with vastly more powerful Borg ships and paid the price) and get
: stuck in 10 tractor beams and blasted by 120 guns, while dozens of small
: fighters shoot proton torpedoes at their exposed warp engines. The feds
: have managed to lose the genisis device which could have killed the borg
: and nearly were destroyed by the borg! ST people are just dumb when it
: comes to fighting, even the klingons are brain-dead when it comes to
: fighting. In one episode of DS9 the kingons invade the station by
: beaming onto DS9, and prompty attack with KNIVES!!!! A ten-year old with
: an uzi could have beaten the entire klingon invasion force with enough
: bullets!!!
That's true. The most advanced ST gets in terms of combat is 'evasive
pattern delta omega three'
jim
--
"What an incredible SMELL you've discovered!"
-Han Solo.
JA. Driscoll
: In <Pine.A32.3.91j.960216...@homer28.u.washington.edu> Timothy Jones <time...@u.washington.edu> writes:
: >Because I've seen them firing, and they stink. Example; during the battle
: >of Yavin, fighters who were right on top of each other continually missed
: >for several shots before they hit their targets, and often didn't hit them
: >at all. They make use of HUDs and timing calculations (as with the DS
: >exhaust port), but they still have to aim and fire themselves. Their
: >systems never do it for them. Another example of this is the falcon's
: >escape scene from the DS, when they fight off 4 TIE fighters. I'm sure I
: >could think of other if I needed, and of course there's no mention of
: >anything comparable to Fed style sensors in any SW source book.
Have you tried dogfighting a TIE fighter with your lasers overheating?
Well, okay, neither have I but don't knock 'em t'till you've stood in
their shoes.
(This is getting silly! :) )
: I doubt the unfailing accuracy of ST weapons, in ST: Generations, for example,
: the Klingon bird of prey missed with approximately half its phasor shots on
: the Enterprise, even though they were at point-blank range.
I'll take your word for it.
: >Actually no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm sorry, I left the middle
: >portion of this argument out, just because I thought it was already known,
: >and so could be taken as read. The full version is as follows:
: > iii) SW weapons will NOT penetrate Fed shields.
: Emm why? What makes you think that just because the weapon has the name
: 'turbolaser' that it is nothing more than a laser in the sense that we
: know one? SW tech manuals clearly state that these weapons are _NOT_ lasers.
: Is that OK? Can we stop the inane Riker 'lasers can't even penetrate nav
: shield' quotes now?
I'm a bit sick of this 'will NOT business.
: > iiiii) Therefore, Fed weapons will quickly penetrate
: > SW shields.
: This does not follow, see above.
Absolutely correct. No logical flow at all.
...
: >They're not nearly powerfull enough, and are of the wrong energy type.
: >(eg., turbolasers, which are by definition ineffective.)
Phasers are PHASed light energy, so it is the same energy type.
But don't quote me on that.
Particularly about the USS Defiant's funny phasers.
: Wrong, see above.
: >You've got it backwards. It's exactly *because* they're not phased that
: >they could never penetrate through any "window," even if their was one,
: >which there isn't. Lasers are entirely the wrong form of energy to use
: >against a Fed ship's shields, and it's a matter of claer precident and
: >canon record that the nav deflector alone makes a Fed ship immune to them,
: >nevermind the battle shields thamselves.
No! The turbos will always have some penetration of the shield. And the
shield rotation windows - see Generations. I am not talking about using
turbos to destroy the fed shields. They will quite conveniently leak
straight through.
The idea is that the shields are 'refreshed' in operation - otherwise they
probably wouldn't stay still. (Well, they're funny round things; how do
they keep up with the ships? Whereas SW shields are probably continuously
projected from wherever they are - since they don't need them at anything
near relitavistic speeds)
So the shield is always rotating, and there is a certain - moving - area
where the shield strength is effectively zero - ie where it is about to
refresh(Obviously they'd move that point about so their shields don't have
a literal 'weak spot')
And you're probably right, in a way - the nav deflectors probably would be
better than the combat shields, but nav deflectors are only built to
deflect very small particles - they wouldn't last long against a turbo.
: Great, fine, Lasers are useless, except that 'turbolasers', despite their
: name, are NOT lasers.
: >No no no. I mean NO MATTER WHAT. Shields or no shields. Weak spots known
: >or not known (which they would be, BTW, after a routine tac scan), it would
: >take just as many shots as I said, simply because SW shields are so
: >comparatively weak, and also BTW because their hulls are too.
A routine tac scan that can penetrate shields from long range? Je ne crois
pas!
Besides, they'd be jamming.
Although, I have to admit, ST ships do seem to be able to scan each other
a little easily.
: Where do you base your assumption that SW shields are weak? and that their
: hulls are also?
: >Ah but you're still thinking in terms of SW weaponery, in relation to
: >which I'd agree. But a matter-antimatter warhead would detonate with
: >the release of too much energy and force for most ships to bear without
: >adequate shields.
: Matter-AntiMatter _is_ powerful, by definition, but you have no reason to
: suggest why an SDs shields would be useless against them.
And how much antimatter are we talking about here? Not that I'm
a physicist, but I do know that you could cause a very insignificant(To
the kind of ships we're talking) amount of damage if there was little
enough antimatter. It's just a convenient form for a weapon to take.
: >P.S.: BTW, I'd like to thank you for your decency in responding to my
: >post. It's quite rare for anyone on this group to manage to stick to
: >rational debate and an attempt to render valid arguments, as opposed to ad
: >hominizing, and groundless dogmatism. If the others in this debate keep
: >behaving the way they've been doing so far, you may well end up being
: >about the only person I bother replying to.
Wow! Is this a compliment to me?
: How could us loyal SW fans stand by without taking up the gauntlet? :-)
: D.
: --
: -=-=[-)-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
: dmga...@alf2.tcd.ie | Bwana | http://alf2.tcd.ie/~dmgarvey
: "If at first you don't succeed, do, do again!"
: - A less well known Yoda saying...
--
Jim
pie...@jersey.net
>Timothy Jones (time...@u.washington.edu) wrote:
>
>
>: On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, G. Wayne Calvert wrote:
>
>: > dark...@hawk.phantasy.com (darkness) wrote:
>: > >Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
>: > >: In article <4fc3m5$e...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, James Orr
>: > >: <or...@umich.edu> wrote:
>: > >
>: > >: It should be pointed out that fighters don't appear to be in popular
>: > >: use in Star Trek.* This is no doubt because fighters were proven
>: > >: innefective against most modern starships. A couple thoughts as to
>: > >: why...
>: > >:
>: > >: 1.) Their shields aren't strong enough. By the time they get close
>: > >: enough to Enterprise to do serious damage, Enterprise has already locked
>: > >: its phasers on the little buggers.
>: > >:
>
Only 1 fighter/sec? Didn't you see Conundrum? :)
>: > >: 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
>: > >: the shields.
>: > >:
>??????
On an unshielded ship, that would probably cause massive hull damage. Even better!
>: > >: 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
>: > >: ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
>: > >:
>Yes, but the navigational deflector array would just knock them out of the way...:)
Yup.
>: > >: * The real reason, of course, is that fighter battles are very
>: > >: expensive, but humor me here...=)
>: > >
>: >
>: > That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
>: > We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
>
>Uhh... yes, and there is also the small problem of building a fast, well-armed
>fighter craft without making it a portable bomb... You know how those warp drives
>LOVE breaching...
>
And of course, the marvelous "built not to work" ejection systems. ;)
>: Why is it that hard data is so often met (esp from the SW crowd) with mere
>: analogy? The Feds are not the Germans, nor are their craft the Bismark. If
>: you want the *facts*, here are just a few; and believe me, I'm being
>: *very* nice hee, and holding back more than a few of the more damning ones!
>
>: * Fed sensors are perfectly capable of multi-target acquisition.
>: SW ships are not.
>
>Hmm... let me think... Star Destroyer.... too many guns to ever get all ofthem to
>bear... not vulnerable to fighters... individual gunners...
>Naaaah.
Agreed. Anything that big has got to be able to get more than 1 target.
> : * SW weapons fire travels below LS and quite possibly slower
> : than sound.
>As does ST weapons fire (Excepting photons fired while at warp speed)
>
Phaser fire travels at c. Photons depend on ship velocity, launch velocity, etc..
>: * A Fed ship with warp engines off-line still moves a significant
>: fraction of LS even at the sluggish (for them) speed of, say,
>: one-quarter impulse. This is faster than the very fastest ships
>: from SW, be they fighters or doritos, which move no more than
>: at most several hundred to several thousand miles per hour. In
>: all likelihood, it would appear to be faster than even their
>: very weapons fire! The bolts themselves from blasters and
>: turbolaser batteries would easily be outrun.
>
>Do you know what travelling at lightspeed would DO to a ship of that size?
>Impulse is NOT lightspeed.
It's a decent fraction, though. The acceleration is the reason for the SIF.
>Besides which the ships you see in ST are mainly exploration ships(or based on
>them) and so would be built to go fast to cover the huge empty spaces involved.
>Whereas SW ships are always in civilised systems.
> : * A Fed ship with operational warp drive would certainly make the
> : above point effective, even if you deny it in the context of
>: impluse-only, as presented. Even a low warp velocity of, say,
>: the maximum speed of a classic series freighter (warp 2) would
>: handily leave the very bolts fired by SW ships standing
>: positively still, to say nothing of the sluggish ships themselves!
>
>Yes.... and an SW ship in hyperspace would leave it rocking in its wake...
>
Sure, but they can't fight in hyperspace.
>: * Imperial gunners rely on visual sighting and manual fire-control.
>: They cannot "lock-on," they way Fed ships do, which use highly
>: accurate computer-assisted acquisition. Given the speed of a Fed
>: ship even at low impulse, there is little chance they could be seen,
>: and none at all they could be tracked effectively. And again, if
>: this point be at all controversial at impluse speeds, it
>: definitively ceases to be so when a ship goes to warp.
>
>Oh, so you admit there ARE Imperial Gunners, eh?
>Why do you think they don't have computers?
>Even on the little piddly Millenium Falcon the gunnery systems had some kind of
>computer tracking...
I agree; they've *got* to have at least *some* computer tracking.
> : * A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
>: at least as fast as the best SW fighters, using only their
>: maneuvering thrusters.
>
>uh.... 200kph odd... and that's for Voyager... well, perhaps...
>
Enterprise-D had 500 kph once...
>: * A Fed ship totally incapable of movement has a range advantage
>: that is literally astronomical. It is a matter of canon record
>: and copious precident that SW weapons have a maximum range of
>: (depending on which source you consult) 5 kilometers to
>: several thousand kilometers. A Fed ship can easily lock on to
>: targets several hundred thousand kilometers distant. (And if
>: the tech stats from whatever source aren't enough to convince
>: you of the veracity of this point, refer to common sense,
>: remembering once again that only the Feds have sufficently
>: advanced sensor tech; the imps are on manual...can *you* hit
>: a ship at half a million klicks?)
>
>Yes... But the thing is, SW ships just carry lots of smaller guns.
>I have no doubt the Death Star could shoot something at those kind of distances.
>Just imagine the pasting the 1701D would get next to an SD... and SW ships could
>fairly easily drop in to close to weapon range...
I'll leave these next few one alone... :)
> : * Fed weapons are literally hundreds if not thousands of times
> : more powerfull than blasters or turbolasers. Again, there's
>: stats that bear this out, but more to the point, there's clear
>: and ovbious visual evidence from the films and the series.
>Hmmm... well, ST weapons seem to make flashy lights on the shields a lot, but in
>terms of damage/sec a full SD turbolaser battery would do better.
> : As an example, remember the battles of Hoth and Endor. Many times,
> : we see bolts hitting the snow, hitting trees, rocks, people, etc.
>: They never do anything close to the kind of damage that even a
>: classic series hand size Phaser I is capable of.
>A Phaser I on setting 16 could destroy a building, but would probably blow up in
>the process. But basicly, hand blasters are just meant to blast people and get 'em
>out of the fight, and phasers are used in much the same way...
>: I have heard,
> : and rejected, the counter-argument that these are not examples
>: of imperial capital ship fire. The RPG stats make it quite
>: clear that capital ship weapons are analogous to the lesser sized
>: ones, except that you double the rating when/if they get
>: applied to non-ship targets. So, since the ineffectual weapons
>: have ratings from roughly 2 dice to 5 dice, and capitol ship
>: weapon damage codes are usually around 4 to 6 dice, that means
>: that capital ship weapons would do about 8 to 12 dice of damage
>: against non-ship targets. That makes them NO MORE than 3 times
>: as destructive as the lesser ones. Three times a little explosion
>: is still not that big a deal; not compared to the power of Fed
>: weapons, the least of which can easily vaporize man-size targets.
>: Add to this the consideration that an unshielded ship can be
>: destroyed by a single Fed photon torpedo, but that SW weapons
>: including proton torps never do unless they hit a reactor core
>: or similar vulnerable spot, and there simply is no comparasin.
>Pro-torps? Look, Photons are NOTHING LIKE protons! a photon torpedo is a capital
>ship weapon; a proton torp is a starfighter weapon!
>Ummmm.... Death Star?
> : * Since SW weapons won't penetrate Fed shields, but *will*
> : penetrate the shields of other SW ships, clearly SW shields
>: are easily pierced by Fed weapons.
>???
>I think you'll find SW shields are just more hull-hugging.
>You're probably thinking of the ion cannon on Hoth.
>Probably a special case.
>As for SW weapons v ST shields... why not? Fed shields are built to deflect
>phased energy or relatively slow projectiles... turbolasers are not phased so
>they would continually penetrate ST shield 'windows'.
Lasers are not phased, but they don't penetrate ST shields... this argument makes
no sense, sorry.
>: This in conjunction with
> : above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
>: indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
>: capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
>: the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
>: photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
>
>IF the ship's shields are down, AND the weak spots are pointed out.
>You have to admit, hitting the front of an SD is unlikely to destroy it... you'd
>probably have to destroy half of it before it blew up.. Whereas ST ships are all
>essential systems.
It's not as easy as was suggested, but I think a starship would win. Now if you
pit fleets against each other, SW wins because of sheer numbers.
ST ships are not all essential systems... they could hit the arboretum... ;)
> : I've heard many denials to the above and other points. What I have not
> : heard and will not hear are actual stats or valid counter-arguments that
>: can disprove any of the above. All I've seen is "We just can't know," or
>Why won't you hear them? can't you face the facts?
>:)
>
>There ARE no facts and figures, by definition...
>Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a 1-to-1 basis
>(When they hit!)
> : "It's just a movie," and other such appeals to ignorance. But ultimately,
>: these last ditch complaints are of no avail. We *do* have more than enough
>: information to make the determination. Appeals to metaphore and invalid
>: analogy are irrelevant. And the fact that this is all sci-fi changes
>: nothing; for the hypothetical nature was never in question to begin with.
>: I can still say what *would* happen if there ever *was* such a conflict.
>: And what would happen is far beyond question or reproach; the imps would
>: not be able to compete with Fed tech. Their would be no contest. The Feds
>: would win. Don't doubt it for a instant.
>
>: THETA SIGMA BAAWA
>
>Well, I always thought this was a silly thread...
>
>Jim
>
>TANGO SIERRA BRAVO
TANG SNAPPLE BEER... yum!
Shawn Dessaigne <<<?!>
/-----------------------------------------------\
| pie...@jersey.net |"I'm a doctor, not an |
|------------------------|escalator." -Dr. McCoy|
|OS/2 Warp, Amiga 500, |----------------------|
|Apple IIgs, Epson QX-10,|1996 All-South Jersey |
|C= VIC-20, TRS-80 CoCo |Wind Ensemble Horn SL |
\-----------------------------------------------/
Chung, Peter W.
>>(When they hit!)
>
>weaponry? Can ST ships do the same as the SDs in ESB? In one episode in the
>original series of Staer Trek the enterprise couldn't even deflect let alone
>examples of Fed ships vs asteroids?
The episode is "Paradise Syndrome" and that asteroid was the size of
the moon -> from Spock's dialogue with McCoy. Since the Star Destroyers
weren't shooting at asteroids "the size of the moon" then, no comparison
can be made. Do Trek weapons exist to destroy something that big?
Yes, it's called "Dreadnought" and her equals...
Chung, Peter W.
>
>> This is why ST would lose any battle with any other sci-fi
>group,
>>probably including Space-Above and Beyond.
>
>bombers...
If it were Kirk, Spock, Sulu or Maxwell in command, they'd all be dead.
If it is a nonamed captain, well...
>> Simply put, the feds have no
>>idea how to fight. They park their ship ten feet away from their
>>opponents and just shoot, never seeming to try to turn, dodge, or
>>anything. SW weapons miss alot, but are being fired on small, fast
>>moving targets that know enough to dodge. Even if the ST ships could
>>dodge SW weapons they are unlikely to do so, this has been seen over
THe only time the TNG+ writers ever got it right was in "The Wounded".
>
> One really painful example of this is in Star Trek II: During
>the Mutara Nebula battle, the Reliant pops up on the Ent's portside,
>Kirk yells for an evasive, and the ship *slowly* heels over to
>starboard--exposing the entire port side to phaser fire (the shot
>where the torpedo room's left side gets roasted "can opener" style),
>and which eventually results in the warp engines going and Spock
>dying.
That's a poor example (not even one at all). Given both parties were
crippled and blind (or very very near-sighted), that was the best the
Enterprise could do, against a less damaged Reliant. And since the
Enterprise was avoiding a collision without shields... hmm.
> Here's a hot question: In "Jem Hadar," why didn't Keough's
>Odessey have a chair for him to sit in? He goes through the entire
>battle standing up!
>
Or why didn't he fire photon torpedoes or move or drop his shields, yadayada..
Stupid writers.
Chung, Peter W.
>In <Pine.A32.3.91j.960216...@homer28.u.washington.edu> Timothy Jones <time...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>
>
>I doubt the unfailing accuracy of ST weapons, in ST: Generations, for example,
>the Klingon bird of prey missed with approximately half its phasor shots on
>the Enterprise, even though they were at point-blank range.
You must have missed the long Defiant discussion. In case you're not
aware, BOP's have a limited firing arc (approx +/- 10 degrees forward)
from its wing-mounted disruptors. Defiant, has a similiar problem.
However, phaser arrays and phaser emitters (TOS/TFS-style) do not have
such a problem. They are the ones with the 99.9% accuracy.
Chung, Peter W.
>Bwana (dmga...@tcd.ie) wrote:
>: In <Pine.A32.3.91j.960216...@homer28.u.washington.edu> Timothy Jones <time...@u.washington.edu> writes:
Speaking of Trek shields, this is what is known of them:
They are broken down into "deflector" + "shield" and aka "force screens"
They can be conformal, bubble or projected around other objects.
They are physical in nature, capable of stopping small bumps ("The Hunted")
to gigantic doors ("Relics") as well as protect against projectile
weapons like photon torpedoes and natural phenomena like subspace
shockwaves ("Undiscovered Country").
They stop most conventional forms of transporter activity.
They protect against radiation, energy weapon discharge.
They have shield frequencies used to see out of (sensor scan) "The Wounded"
and to fire weapons into and out of during combat conditions "Generations".
Some forms provide cloaking options.
They can be used to jam or deceive enemy sensors ("Tomorrow is Yesterday",
"Starship Down")
They can be used to protect against weapons of a faster than light nature,
as in "Journey to Babel", "Elaan of Troyius", "The Motion Picture".
They do not work very well in nebulas.
G. Wayne Calvert
Weapons: I know this laser crap. Don't believe in plasma? Let's look at other proof. In a
recent "VOYAGER" episode, ion cannons were mentioned, and interpreted as a threat. In SW
Turbolasers do much more damage than ions. Second we now have used a laser to shoot down a
short range missle. (for those who don't understand, if we use it now why would an advanced
culture use it?) Plasma has damaged E.
G. Wayne Calvert
Comprehensive Comparison.
weaps: Ion cannons have been mentioned in ST. They were a threat. In SW lasers are many times
more powerful than ion cannons. Plasma has hurt E. SW "lasers" shoot plasma. Plasma is matter,
so it would not have the same impact as a phaser. I've never seen a large phaser destroy a
planet. Yes, hand phasers shoot through stuff, but they have CONTINOUS STREAMS. Lightsabers
seem to do fine at cutting. They work on similar blaster principals. Even if lasers did little
damage, there are so many! The deflector blast is crap. In fact the borg didn't expect, or know
they would do that. They expected something else. They were in fact extra vulnerable. Photon
torps are antimatter. Proton torpedoes have, virtually a concentrated dose of matter. Proton
torps do do damage. What would happen if the two collided? Another problem. If jarring from all
those hits(regardless of damage) downed the shields, the last thing to hope for is a pro torp
to hit a pho torp or two. SD 120 beam weapons, E less than 20 beam weapons. Disrupters occur in
both universes. Why use inferior weapons if you've got something so much better?
Winner: SD
Sub-light: SD manuvers and can go about half a TIE speed. E goes at about almost light. On
thrusters, E goes slow. 1/4 impulse looks about top whack for SD. E does not go fast in battle.
winner:E
supra: SW has almost colonized their galaxy. ST is still exploring thier quadrent.
winner:SD
teleport: the windows thing was convinient wasn't it. SD's can scan with full shields. WINDOWS
ARE NULL. ST uses transporters frequently. SW transporters, are as follows: Expensive,
unreliable, energy guzzling, unefficient, and not useful in most cases. Bounty hunters use
them. As a military vessel, SD doesn't use them because they would rather fit on other things.
shields: SW has planetary versions. Both have personal. Shields seem to block more SW. ST
cloacks are better. SW seem to regenerate faster.
slight winner: SW
Ponder on this proof. I will list more tomorrow. You asked for proof, you've got it!
"It is useless to resist"-Vader
JA. Driscoll
: >
: Only 1 fighter/sec? Didn't you see Conundrum? :)
No, I didn't. So I can't comment.
: >: > >: 2.) Antimatter spread. Blind the fighters before they can get inside
: >: > >: the shields.
: >: > >:
: >??????
: On an unshielded ship, that would probably cause massive hull damage.
Even better!
: >: > >: 3.) When the fighter squadron shows up on sensors, go to warp speed and
: >: > >: ram the little guys. The navigational deflector can take the stress.
: >: > >:
: >Yes, but the navigational deflector array would just knock them out of the way...:)
: Yup.
: >: > That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor, and anti-aircraft guns.
: >: > We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
: >
: >Uhh... yes, and there is also the small problem of building a fast, well-armed
: >fighter craft without making it a portable bomb... You know how those warp drives
: >LOVE breaching...
: >
: And of course, the marvelous "built not to work" ejection systems. ;)
: >: * Fed sensors are perfectly capable of multi-target acquisition.
: >: SW ships are not.
: >
: >Hmm... let me think... Star Destroyer.... too many guns to ever get all ofthem to
: >bear... not vulnerable to fighters... individual gunners...
: >Naaaah.
: Agreed. Anything that big has got to be able to get more than 1 target.
: > : * SW weapons fire travels below LS and quite possibly slower
: > : than sound.
: >As does ST weapons fire (Excepting photons fired while at warp speed)
: >
: Phaser fire travels at c. Photons depend on ship velocity, launch velocity, etc..
Prove it.
: >Do you know what travelling at lightspeed would DO to a ship of that size?
: >Impulse is NOT lightspeed.
: It's a decent fraction, though. The acceleration is the reason for the SIF.
A decent fraction is 1%. That's not a lot of lightspeed.
: >Besides which the ships you see in ST are mainly exploration ships(or based on
: >them) and so would be built to go fast to cover the huge empty spaces involved.
: >Whereas SW ships are always in civilised systems.
: > : * A Fed ship with operational warp drive would certainly make the
: > : above point effective, even if you deny it in the context of
: >: impluse-only, as presented. Even a low warp velocity of, say,
: >: the maximum speed of a classic series freighter (warp 2) would
: >: handily leave the very bolts fired by SW ships standing
: >: positively still, to say nothing of the sluggish ships themselves!
: >
: >Yes.... and an SW ship in hyperspace would leave it rocking in its wake...
: >
: Sure, but they can't fight in hyperspace.
They probably can; remember the Star Wars universe doesn't run on warp
fields; while they are in hyperspace they are to all intents and purposes
still sublight. They're just moving faster. Hence why, in ANH Han solo
bothers losing the Imps in hyperspace.
Of course a practical battle is another question entirely.
And besides - how could something in hyperspace see something at warp?
: >Oh, so you admit there ARE Imperial Gunners, eh?
: >Why do you think they don't have computers?
: >Even on the little piddly Millenium Falcon the gunnery systems had some kind of
: >computer tracking...
: I agree; they've *got* to have at least *some* computer tracking.
: > : * A Fed ship with no engines whatsoever is probably *still*
: >: at least as fast as the best SW fighters, using only their
: >: maneuvering thrusters.
: >
: >uh.... 200kph odd... and that's for Voyager... well, perhaps...
: >
: Enterprise-D had 500 kph once...
Hmm... well, Voyager's pretty nippy for a Fed ship...
: >Yes... But the thing is, SW ships just carry lots of smaller guns.
: >I have no doubt the Death Star could shoot something at those kind of distances.
: >Just imagine the pasting the 1701D would get next to an SD... and SW ships could
: >fairly easily drop in to close to weapon range...
: I'll leave these next few one alone... :)
Good, easier to delete
: >they would continually penetrate ST shield 'windows'.
: Lasers are not phased, but they don't penetrate ST shields... this argument makes
: no sense, sorry.
I've already explained this in my OTHER followup.
: >: This in conjunction with
: > : above considerations of power and destructive potential strongly
: >: indicate that a Fed ship could and probably would destroy any
: >: capital ship of the empire in one to four or five shots, unless
: >: the Feds decided to reduce power to their phasers and/or set
: >: photon warhead yields to an extremely low setting.
: >
: >IF the ship's shields are down, AND the weak spots are pointed out.
: >You have to admit, hitting the front of an SD is unlikely to destroy it... you'd
: >probably have to destroy half of it before it blew up.. Whereas ST ships are all
: >essential systems.
: It's not as easy as was suggested, but I think a starship would win. Now if you
: pit fleets against each other, SW wins because of sheer numbers.
A starship?
: ST ships are not all essential systems... they could hit the arboretum... ;)
: > : I've heard many denials to the above and other points. What I have not
: > : heard and will not hear are actual stats or valid counter-arguments that
: >: can disprove any of the above. All I've seen is "We just can't know," or
: >Why won't you hear them? can't you face the facts?
: >:)
: >
: >There ARE no facts and figures, by definition...
: >Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a 1-to-1 basis
: >(When they hit!)
: >
: >: THETA SIGMA BAAWA
: >
: >Well, I always thought this was a silly thread...
: >
: >Jim
: >
: >TANGO SIERRA BRAVO
: TANG SNAPPLE BEER... yum!
: Shawn Dessaigne <<<?!>
: /-----------------------------------------------\
: | pie...@jersey.net |"I'm a doctor, not an |
: |------------------------|escalator." -Dr. McCoy|
: |OS/2 Warp, Amiga 500, |----------------------|
: |Apple IIgs, Epson QX-10,|1996 All-South Jersey |
: |C= VIC-20, TRS-80 CoCo |Wind Ensemble Horn SL |
: \-----------------------------------------------/
--
Ok........
Jim
"What an incredible SMELL you've discovered!"
-Han Solo.
,________________,
/ \
/____________________\
/ zZZZZZZ ZZZZZZz \
_/| ZZZ ___ ZZZ |\_
_/ | __/ \__ \ \_
/ | _/ \_ | \
_/___ | / \ | __\__
/ \ | / |||||| \ | / \
| 000 | \ / |||||||| \ /| 000 |
\_____/___\______||||||||||______/__\_____/
Albert Ko
On Mon, 19 Feb 1996, Simon H. Lee wrote:
> Here's a hot question: In "Jem Hadar," why didn't Keough's
> Odessey have a chair for him to sit in? He goes through the entire
> battle standing up!
>
> --
Well . . .
It was because he couldn't sit down.
1) He forgot his Preparation-H :)
2) He had something stuck up there :)
Timo S Saloniemi
>> Simply put, the feds have no
>>idea how to fight. They park their ship ten feet away from their
>>opponents and just shoot, never seeming to try to turn, dodge, or
>>anything.
> One really painful example of this is in Star Trek II: During
>the Mutara Nebula battle, the Reliant pops up on the Ent's portside,
>Kirk yells for an evasive, and the ship *slowly* heels over to
>starboard--exposing the entire port side to phaser fire (the shot
>where the torpedo room's left side gets roasted "can opener" style),
>and which eventually results in the warp engines going and Spock
>dying.
Some comments:
Perhaps the E can't turn any faster, or accelerate any better, no
matter what its state of disrepair. While 1000g accelerations
are claimed to be possible if not routine in the TNG Tech Manual,
TOS ships haven't shown such dexterity in actual episodes or movies.
The most sterling impulse engine performance we hear of is E-nil
accelerating to .5 c between here and Jupiter, in about a minute
of screen time (if we discount the instances where apparently
warp-incapable vehicles have spanned interstellar distances
within hours or days, and simply say that they weren't really
so warp-incapable after all). Actual accelerations by TOS vessels
may be rather mundane - the SIFs, IDFs, PSFs and other TLAs of
Tech Manual may not be that refined yet.
Also, what was knocked out by Khan in STII was the main engine
core, and that had already been blasted in the first encounter.
Apparently the E had a severe shortage of impulse power as
a result of the first bashing (the main core was the only
energy source operating at the later battle, and had to power
the phasers as well), which might explain part of its
sluggishness (it's still nimble when compared with SW star
destroyers, however).
> Here's a hot question: In "Jem Hadar," why didn't Keough's
>Odessey have a chair for him to sit in? He goes through the entire
>battle standing up!
We saw very little of the actual bridge set. It can't have been the
E-D bridge, which was either in the middle of ST:G shooting or
already bulldozed, but it didn't seem like the standard Battle
Bridge set or TOS bridge, either. Perhaps Keogh had a custom
bridge with built-in effects of wind blowing and cannons
thundering (we did see blackpowder smoke :), the floor swinging
and swashbuckling musical score playing - frigate captains from
the 18th century don't sit in chairs!
Timo Saloniemi!
Timo S Saloniemi
>Sean Fallesen (sfal...@arcturus.oac.uci.edu) wrote:
>: > >That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor,
>: > >and anti-aircraft guns.
>: > >We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
>: >
Actually, next to everybody had radar before WWII. The British just had
a better microwave radar for anti-aircraft work, and a nice big ready
AEW network built on their southern coast. Bismarck probably had a
nicely working surface radar, but against aircraft, I doubt it carried
anything worth the name "fire control radar".
Had the Germans not had good AA radas, though, I might be writing
from Russia instead of independent Finland. German radars saved
our capital from massive Soviet air raids in WWII, enabling us
to fire accurately with our rather ancient AA guns and force
90% of the bombers to turn away.
As for ObTrek: fighters might be a good weapon against cloaked
ships, forcing large capital ships to abandon their prime defences
- by firing weak phaser bolts in all directions, they would force
a cloakship to either a) retaliate, b) raise shields, or c)
maneuver, all of which might reveal its position to other ships.
There could be no "covert response" to fighters - a capital ship
would have to blast away with active sensors to get a firing lock,
making itself highly visible to larger opponents.
Kind of an aggressive "tachyon grid", deployable by single ships
with big hangar decks...
Timo Saloniemi
Jeffrey Kolb
ma...@rovanion.demon.co.uk wrote:
> In message <DMvEE...@uns.bris.ac.uk> JA. Driscoll wrote:
>
> >Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a
1-to-1 basis
> >(When they hit!)
>
> Havn't you just hit on the real comparison that can be made between ST and SW
> weaponry? Can ST ships do the same as the SDs in ESB? In one episode in the
> original series of Staer Trek the enterprise couldn't even deflect let alone
> damage an admittedly large (SD size? :-) ) asteroid. Anyone got any other
> examples of Fed ships vs asteroids?
Nothing from an actual episode, but according to the Star Trek Technical
Manual, a phaser II on setting 16 ought to be able to destroy an asteroid.
If the SD's turbolasers are the same strength as a phaser II, I don't
think the E-D has much to worry about.
Simon H. Lee
>>the Mutara Nebula battle, the Reliant pops up on the Ent's portside,
>>Kirk yells for an evasive, and the ship *slowly* heels over to
>>starboard--exposing the entire port side to phaser fire (the shot
>>where the torpedo room's left side gets roasted "can opener" style),
>>and which eventually results in the warp engines going and Spock
>>dying.
>
>Some comments:
>
>Perhaps the E can't turn any faster, or accelerate any better, no
>matter what its state of disrepair. While 1000g accelerations
>are claimed to be possible if not routine in the TNG Tech Manual,
>TOS ships haven't shown such dexterity in actual episodes or movies.
Okay, I got a bit carried away, sort of ignoring preexisting
damage, but couldn't they have swung the aft end around so it was
FACING the Reliant? That way there would have been a smaller target
area, and the thrusters are working (notice how the Ent does half a
K-turn to pull out when they discover that Genesis is armed).
>> Here's a hot question: In "Jem Hadar," why didn't Keough's
>>Odessey have a chair for him to sit in? He goes through the entire
>>battle standing up!
>
>We saw very little of the actual bridge set. It can't have been the
>E-D bridge, which was either in the middle of ST:G shooting or
>already bulldozed, but it didn't seem like the standard Battle
>Bridge set or TOS bridge, either. Perhaps Keogh had a custom
>bridge with built-in effects of wind blowing and cannons
>thundering (we did see blackpowder smoke :), the floor swinging
>and swashbuckling musical score playing - frigate captains from
>the 18th century don't sit in chairs!
"This is my big dramtic scene! Quick! To the Dramabridge!"
:)
Chung, Peter W.
>Whoa! Time to lay it out and see where we stand!
>
>Weapons: I know this laser crap. Don't believe in plasma? Let's look at other proof. In a
>recent "VOYAGER" episode, ion cannons were mentioned, and interpreted as a threat. In SW
The Voyager episode specifically called the weapons "phased-ion". Anyone
who has followed Treknobabble for a while will be able to say that "phased"
anything automatically makes it "sophisticated", hence "phased-disruptor",
"phaser", "phased-poleron", "phased-ion", etc...
>Turbolasers do much more damage than ions. Second we now have used a laser to shoot down a
>short range missle. (for those who don't understand, if we use it now why would an advanced
>culture use it?) Plasma has damaged E.
Ah, plasma, you mean the Romulan Plasma Torpedo! Boy that was powerful, until
the Feds got their shield tech together -> "Balance of Terror" and "The
Deadly Years".
Chung, Peter W.
>Well, lets lay it out.
>Comprehensive Comparison.
This is getting kinda funny (more to it, I find it interesting how much we
like to compare things). However, I'll help you out with Trek stuff and
the appropriate sources. You can fill in the SW stuff with the appropriate
sources (should be much easier, since there are 4 movies to draw from, plus
countless semicanon book material.) I take no sides, just wish to supply
accurate, and hopefully objective information :)
>weaps: Ion cannons have been mentioned in ST. They were a threat. In SW lasers are many times
The only time "ion" was used with a weapon lately was in Voyager, and they
were called "Phased-Ion" beams in the episode "The Resistance". Plasma
has been used by the Romulans and the Ferengi. The Romulan Plasma Torpedo
("Balance of Terror", "Deadly Years") and the Ferengi Plasma Wave Device
("The Last Outpost", "Dreadnought"). However, their usage was extremely
effective in first encounter or against small relatively unshielded targets.
Against starships, they were not as effective as any other weapon.
Here is a brief (although not too comprehensive list) of known Trek Weapons
and their listed effects:
TOS/TFS Ship Phaser-stun, heat, destroy along with kinetic damage.
FTL, with pulse, continuous fire modes and a tactical range of 100,000km at
warp combat or sublight combat. Extreme range is roughly 5 warp-seconds.
Beam attenuation adjustable to narrow and wide beams, proximity blast also.
"Journey to Babel", "Ultimate Computer", "Balance of Terror", "A Piece of
the Action", "The Motion Picture". Note: Large (not moon-sized as in
"Paradise Syndrome") asteroid was about to be destroyed by phaser fire
in "The Motion Picture", instead a photon torpedo was used.
TNG Phaser-heat, destroy along with kinetic damage.
Light speed only, with continuous beam commonplace and pulse variants and
a tactical range shown at 300,000km. No warp capability. Uses RN-Effect.
"The Wounded", "A Matter of Time", "Conundrum", etc.
TOS Photon Torpedo-high energy gamma and heavy particle radiation, subspace
shock, heat and kinetic damage.
Warp and sublight modes, effective range approx 5 warp-seconds. Not very
powerful compared to TOS-era phasers at close-range. Semi-autonomous with
various power settings and detonation fuses. Anti-matter warhead.
"Elaan of Troyius", "Ultimate Computer", etc.
TFS Photon Torpedo-high energy gamma and heavy particle radiation, subspace
shock, heat and kinetic damage.
Warp and sublight modes, eff. warp range approx 42AU. Fairly powerful
compared to TFS-era phaser at close-range. Semi-autonomous, with
exceptional sublight maneuverability, various power settings and detonation
fuses. Anti-matter warhead. "The Motion Picture", "The Wrath of Kahn",
"The Undiscovered Country".
TNG Photon Torpedo-high energy gamma and heavy particle radiation, subspace
shock, heat and kinetic damage.
Warp and sublight modes, effective range unknown, at least 500km at warp
speed and 300,000km at sublight, with a extreme sublight range of nearly
1 light-day. Semi-autonomous, with exceptional sublight maneuverability,
various power settings and detonation fuses. Anti-matter warhead.
"Encounter at Farpoint", "De-Evolution", "The Wounded", "Redemption II",
etc.
TNG Quantum Torpedo-unknown damage effect, equivalent to if not more powerful
than a photon torpedo explosion.
Known sublight modes, effective range unknown, accuracy less than the
nominal 100% sublight hit rate of photon torpedo. "Defiant", "Paradise
Lost", "Little Green Men".
>both universes. Why use inferior weapons if you've got something so much better?
>Winner: SD
>Sub-light: SD manuvers and can go about half a TIE speed. E goes at about almost light. On
>thrusters, E goes slow. 1/4 impulse looks about top whack for SD. E does not go fast in battle.
>winner:E
Measured speed of the E-nil-upgrade from "The Motion Picture" was Warp .5,
1.8 hours with distance traveled approx 4.2 to 6.2AU or roughly .32c to
5c. It was Earth to Jupiter.
>them. As a military vessel, SD doesn't use them because they would rather fit on other things.
>shields: SW has planetary versions. Both have personal. Shields seem to block more SW. ST
>cloacks are better. SW seem to regenerate faster.
>slight winner: SW
There have been planetary shields "Whom Gods Destroy", "The Motion Picture"
as well as ships with deflectors and shields. Trek nominally does not
have personal shields, although the Klingons come darn close to it.
BTW, SW do have cloaking devices.
G. Wayne Calvert
>In article <2137cc$15203b.360@jeck>, "G. Wayne Calvert" <cal...@twave.net> writes...
>>Whoa! Time to lay it out and see where we stand!
>>
>>Weapons: I know this laser crap. Don't believe in plasma? Let's look at other proof. In a
>>recent "VOYAGER" episode, ion cannons were mentioned, and interpreted as a threat. In SW
>
>The Voyager episode specifically called the weapons "phased-ion". Anyone
>who has followed Treknobabble for a while will be able to say that "phased"
>anything automatically makes it "sophisticated", hence "phased-disruptor",
>"phaser", "phased-poleron", "phased-ion", etc...
>
>>Turbolasers do much more damage than ions. Second we now have used a laser to shoot down a
>>short range missle. (for those who don't understand, if we use it now why would an advanced
>>culture use it?) Plasma has damaged E.
>
>Ah, plasma, you mean the Romulan Plasma Torpedo! Boy that was powerful, until
>the Feds got their shield tech together -> "Balance of Terror" and "The
>Deadly Years".
TNG. DUH! Again, you can't compare SW and ST weapons because they share a word. Just defending
my points. :)
G. Wayne Calvert
Chung, Peter W.
>>>Whoa! Time to lay it out and see where we stand!
>>>
>>>Weapons: I know this laser crap. Don't believe in plasma? Let's look at other proof. In a
>>>recent "VOYAGER" episode, ion cannons were mentioned, and interpreted as a threat. In SW
>>
>>The Voyager episode specifically called the weapons "phased-ion". Anyone
>>who has followed Treknobabble for a while will be able to say that "phased"
>>anything automatically makes it "sophisticated", hence "phased-disruptor",
>>"phaser", "phased-poleron", "phased-ion", etc...
>>
>Science lesson! Ions are atoms, NOT ENERGY! Phasers are energy firing.
Pardon, but what does that have to do with the above argument or that it
was established in the dialogue of "The Resistance" it was not a regular
"ion" weapon, but a "phased-ion" weapon.
And point of interest: There is no known description of what a "phaser"
is made out of. Unless you have a canon source you would like to share.
Point of interest #2: There is "Best of Both Worlds" where one of the anti-Borg
research weapons included a "Plasma-phaser".
>>>Turbolasers do much more damage than ions. Second we now have used a laser to shoot down a
>>>short range missle. (for those who don't understand, if we use it now why would an advanced
>>>culture use it?) Plasma has damaged E.
>>
>>Ah, plasma, you mean the Romulan Plasma Torpedo! Boy that was powerful, until
>>the Feds got their shield tech together -> "Balance of Terror" and "The
>>Deadly Years".
>It will make a dent sure enough if it is concentrated. Plasma is matter. It
>has damaged E in
>TNG. DUH! Again, you can't compare SW and ST weapons because they share a
>word. Just defending
>my points. :)
I believe that was the point I was trying to make (indirectly) in my reply..
Hmm, just what argument are you pro or con for? The
reply I made was a clarification of the original "ion" post, which I state
that the weapon was a "phased-ion", and that plasma (on a canonical level)
has been used by Trek ships, however their effectiveness is no greater than
other sophisticated weapons. For further clarification, good episodes to
watch are "The Resistance", "Dreadnought", "The Last Outpost", "Balance
of Terror" and "The Deadly Years".
If there is an episode with further reference to plasma-based weapons being
effective/ineffective against Trek ships, please post.
Chung, Peter W.
[snip]
>>
>Notice no one argues the disrupter argument and cleanly quotes around it.
I must have missed it in the original post. What "disrupter" argument?
And, uhm, does SW have "disruptor" weaponry?
Mark Sinclair
Going by what the manual says that is an 8 metre cubed asteroid. Looking at
ESB the SD is destroying asteroids at least 20 metres across. I'd say the
challenge still stands.
--
Mark Sinclair
Jeffrey Kolb
Peter W.) wrote:
> In article <2147cc$101119.1e2@jeck>, "G. Wayne Calvert"
<cal...@twave.net> writes...
> >st...@rosie.uh.edu (Chung, Peter W.) wrote:
> >>In article <2137cc$15203b.360@jeck>, "G. Wayne Calvert"
<cal...@twave.net> writes...
> >>>Whoa! Time to lay it out and see where we stand!
> >>>
> >>>Weapons: I know this laser crap. Don't believe in plasma? Let's look
at other proof. In a
> >>>recent "VOYAGER" episode, ion cannons were mentioned, and interpreted
as a threat. In SW
> >>
> >>The Voyager episode specifically called the weapons "phased-ion". Anyone
> >>who has followed Treknobabble for a while will be able to say that "phased"
> >>anything automatically makes it "sophisticated", hence "phased-disruptor",
> >>"phaser", "phased-poleron", "phased-ion", etc...
> >>
>
> >Science lesson! Ions are atoms, NOT ENERGY! Phasers are energy firing.
>
> Pardon, but what does that have to do with the above argument or that it
> was established in the dialogue of "The Resistance" it was not a regular
> "ion" weapon, but a "phased-ion" weapon.
>
> And point of interest: There is no known description of what a "phaser"
> is made out of. Unless you have a canon source you would like to share.
The Star Trek Technical Manual, p. 123-125 is rather confusing due to all
the Treknobabble, but I interpret it to mean that a phaser fires energy
beams.
Jeffrey Kolb
wrote:
> Well, lets lay it out.
> Comprehensive Comparison.
> weaps: Ion cannons have been mentioned in ST. They were a threat. In SW
lasers are many times
> more powerful than ion cannons. Plasma has hurt E. SW "lasers" shoot
plasma. Plasma is matter,
> so it would not have the same impact as a phaser. I've never seen a
large phaser destroy a
> planet. Yes, hand phasers shoot through stuff, but they have CONTINOUS
STREAMS. Lightsabers
> seem to do fine at cutting. They work on similar blaster principals.
Even if lasers did little
> damage, there are so many! The deflector blast is crap. In fact the borg
didn't expect, or know
> they would do that. They expected something else. They were in fact extra
vulnerable.
Not true. The borg assimilated Picard, thus knew what the Enterprise was
planning. Locutus made this quite clear. The problem with the deflector
blast, though, is that it took hours to set up. If the Enterprise
encountered a Star Destroyer without warning, they wouldn't have hours.
Whoever won, the battle wouldn't last that long.
Photon
> torps are antimatter.
No. Photon torps are chunks of matter and antimatter slammed together to
create an explosion, analogous to the way an atomic bomb slams two chunks
of uranium together to create a nuclear blast.
Proton torpedoes have, virtually a concentrated dose of matter.
Are they? If they consisted of neutronium (which is what I think you're
implying), they would be called neutron torpedoes and would be very
impractical as weapons -- how would you load them onto the ships???
Proton
> torps do do damage. What would happen if the two collided? Another
problem. If jarring from all
> those hits(regardless of damage) downed the shields, the last thing to
hope for is a pro torp
> to hit a pho torp or two. SD 120 beam weapons, E less than 20 beam
weapons. Disrupters occur in
> both universes. Why use inferior weapons if you've got something so much
better?
> Winner: SD
I'm not sure I agree. Remember, in STIII, Kruge's hand disruptor literally
vaporized his gunner. In ESB, the turbolasers on the Imperial walkers
would merely kill people.
> Sub-light: SD manuvers and can go about half a TIE speed. E goes at
about almost light. On
> thrusters, E goes slow. 1/4 impulse looks about top whack for SD. E does
not go fast in battle.
> winner:E
True.
> supra: SW has almost colonized their galaxy. ST is still exploring thier
quadrent.
> winner:SD
True.
> teleport: the windows thing was convinient wasn't it. SD's can scan with
full shields. WINDOWS
> ARE NULL. ST uses transporters frequently. SW transporters, are as
follows: Expensive,
> unreliable, energy guzzling, unefficient, and not useful in most cases.
Bounty hunters use
> them. As a military vessel, SD doesn't use them because they would
rather fit on other things.
OK.
> shields: SW has planetary versions. Both have personal. Shields seem to
block more SW. ST
> cloacks are better. SW seem to regenerate faster.
> slight winner: SW
Rather vague, but I'll accept it.
> Ponder on this proof. I will list more tomorrow. You asked for proof,
you've got it!
This is not a proof. This is a listing of conclusions, one of which I
disagree with.
> "It is useless to resist"-Vader
"Resistance is futile"-The Borg
Sean Fallesen
On 20 Feb 1996, Timo S Saloniemi wrote:
> In article <Dn17I...@uns.bris.ac.uk> jd5...@irix.bris.ac.uk (JA. Driscoll) writes:
> >Sean Fallesen (sfal...@arcturus.oac.uci.edu) wrote:
> >: > >That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor,
> >: > >and anti-aircraft guns.
> >: > >We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
> >: >
> >Yeah, but the Germans didn't have radar. We did.
Something's screwy here. I didn't say that. I did say that the
Bismarck's radar had little or no impact on the entire hunt, but I never
said the Germans didn't have radar. (In fact, if you want to see some of
the funniest looking radar devices, look at the antennas on their night
fighters. Those things look like bugs!) Just needed to clear this up
(those >>: things can really get confusing!)
*************************************************************************
Sean M. Fallesen
Barney
: In article <19960218....@rovanion.demon.co.uk>,
: ma...@rovanion.demon.co.uk wrote:
: > In message <DMvEE...@uns.bris.ac.uk> JA. Driscoll wrote:
: >
: > >Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a
: 1-to-1 basis
: > >(When they hit!)
: >
: > Havn't you just hit on the real comparison that can be made between ST and SW
: > weaponry? Can ST ships do the same as the SDs in ESB? In one episode in the
: > original series of Staer Trek the enterprise couldn't even deflect let alone
: > damage an admittedly large (SD size? :-) ) asteroid. Anyone got any other
: > examples of Fed ships vs asteroids?
: Nothing from an actual episode, but according to the Star Trek Technical
: Manual, a phaser II on setting 16 ought to be able to destroy an asteroid.
: If the SD's turbolasers are the same strength as a phaser II, I don't
: think the E-D has much to worry about.
But is it actually possible for anything to destroy more than one asteroid
at a time, just because turbolasers can't destroy more than one asteroid
with a single shot doesn't mean that the shot isn't more powerful than a
phaser II just that all the energy is wasted on the single target in both
cases. I dont think I've ever seen the E's shots go through it's first
target and hit anyting else either.
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
!! Barney Lawrence | !!
!! e-mail: bl5...@bristol.ac.uk | Erm... !!
!! web site: http://irix.bris.ac.uk/~bl5770| !!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Steve
>In message <jkolb-20029...@jk395.students.hamilton.edu> Jeffrey Kolb wrote:
>
>>In article <19960218....@rovanion.demon.co.uk>,
>>ma...@rovanion.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>
>>>In message <DMvEE...@uns.bris.ac.uk> JA. Driscoll wrote:
>>>
>>>>Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a
>>1-to-1 basis
>>>>(When they hit!)
>>>
>>>Havn't you just hit on the real comparison that can be made between ST and SW
>>>weaponry? Can ST ships do the same as the SDs in ESB? In one episode in the
>>>original series of Staer Trek the enterprise couldn't even deflect let alone
>>>damage an admittedly large (SD size? :-) ) asteroid. Anyone got any other
>>>examples of Fed ships vs asteroids?
>>
>>Nothing from an actual episode, but according to the Star Trek Technical
>>Manual, a phaser II on setting 16 ought to be able to destroy an asteroid.
>>If the SD's turbolasers are the same strength as a phaser II, I don't
>>think the E-D has much to worry about.
>
>ESB the SD is destroying asteroids at least 20 metres across. I'd say the
>challenge still stands.
>
>--
>Mark Sinclair
In ST2 point blank phaser shots on an unshielded enterprise produced
mostly cosmetic and some internal damage. If the relient hadn't shot the
engineering section the enterprise would not have been too badly damaged.
Concentrated photon torpedo and phaser fire from the enterprise, also at
point blank range on an unshielded ship, managed to knock half of a warp
engine off of it's target. Rather unimpressive. The SD's weapons are
able to destroy large chunks of solid rock with one hit, while fragile,
unarmored, components of fed ships can withstand concentrated phaser
fire. These examples are all on unshielded targets, removing a large
unknown. Judging from the movie effects it would take a couple of
seconds of phaser fire or a direct phiton torpedo hit to destroy an
X-wing or other shielded fighter. Tie fighters are much easier to
destroy, of course. On "encounter at farpoint" tasha describes a
planetary bombardment from the alien as being "heavy", meanwhile only
small wooden structures are being destroyed. A SD would have wiped the
city from the planet's surface in seconds.
Chung, Peter W.
>In message <jkolb-20029...@jk395.students.hamilton.edu> Jeffrey Kolb wrote:
>
>>In article <19960218....@rovanion.demon.co.uk>,
>>ma...@rovanion.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>
>>>In message <DMvEE...@uns.bris.ac.uk> JA. Driscoll wrote:
>>>
>>>>Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a
>>1-to-1 basis
>>>>(When they hit!)
>>>
>>>Havn't you just hit on the real comparison that can be made between ST and SW
>>>weaponry? Can ST ships do the same as the SDs in ESB? In one episode in the
>>>original series of Staer Trek the enterprise couldn't even deflect let alone
>>>damage an admittedly large (SD size? :-) ) asteroid. Anyone got any other
>>>examples of Fed ships vs asteroids?
>>
>>Nothing from an actual episode, but according to the Star Trek Technical
>>Manual, a phaser II on setting 16 ought to be able to destroy an asteroid.
>>If the SD's turbolasers are the same strength as a phaser II, I don't
>>think the E-D has much to worry about.
>
>Going by what the manual says that is an 8 metre cubed asteroid. Looking at
>ESB the SD is destroying asteroids at least 20 metres across. I'd say the
>challenge still stands.
Wow, talk about delayed Net propagation :)
Anyways, the episode someone originally posted to was "Paradise Syndrome"
and the asteroid was "the size of Earth's moon". The Enterprise, already
stressed out at running the engines at Warp 9, uses its deflectors (that's
right, deflectors, not any weapons) at it and only manages to nudge the
moon-sized asteroid "0.013 degrees" off its original path. At that point,
Spock risks shooting the asteroid in half with phasers fire, but since
the engines were already burning up, he ended up burning out the Warp core.
And, no they didn't destroy the "moon-sized" asteroid.
There is "The Motion Picture" where the E-nil-refit is caught in a
wormhole and Kirk was tempted to shoot a large asteroid in the E's path.
Unfortunately, the phasers were off-line, but a single photon torpedo
vaporized the asteroid. Either way, the indication is that Trek weapons
are able to destroy at least reasonably-sized asteroids.
JA. Driscoll
: In article <4ga88u$c...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, sh...@cornell.edu (Simon H. Lee) writes...
: >
: >> This is why ST would lose any battle with any other sci-fi
: >group,
: >>probably including Space-Above and Beyond.
: >
: > Hmm...the Enterprise beset by about 80 Chig fighters and
: >bombers...
: If it were Kirk, Spock, Sulu or Maxwell in command, they'd all be dead.
: If it is a nonamed captain, well...
Maxwell... who is maxwell?
I have to agree that Kirk could pull it off... But then Kirk could
probably take out a fleet of Star Destroyers in a StarFleet shuttle, just
so long as he had someone to command!
: THe only time the TNG+ writers ever got it right was in "The Wounded".
: >
: > One really painful example of this is in Star Trek II: During
: >the Mutara Nebula battle, the Reliant pops up on the Ent's portside,
: >Kirk yells for an evasive, and the ship *slowly* heels over to
: >starboard--exposing the entire port side to phaser fire (the shot
: >where the torpedo room's left side gets roasted "can opener" style),
: >and which eventually results in the warp engines going and Spock
: >dying.
: That's a poor example (not even one at all). Given both parties were
: crippled and blind (or very very near-sighted), that was the best the
: Enterprise could do, against a less damaged Reliant. And since the
: Enterprise was avoiding a collision without shields... hmm.
Actually, I think the original Enterprise WAS that bad. And besides, the
1701-D doesn't turn a lot better before going to warp...
: > Here's a hot question: In "Jem Hadar," why didn't Keough's
: >Odessey have a chair for him to sit in? He goes through the entire
: >battle standing up!
: >
: Or why didn't he fire photon torpedoes or move or drop his shields, yadayada..
: Stupid writers.
Yeah, well if you look, everything about the inside of that ship looked
second-rate... not quite sure why... maybe its the way the crew all looked
like they had 'we are extras' stamped on their foreheads.
--
JA. Driscoll
: >In <Pine.A32.3.91j.960216...@homer28.u.washington.edu> Timothy Jones <time...@u.washington.edu> writes:
: >
: [snip]
: >I doubt the unfailing accuracy of ST weapons, in ST: Generations, for example,
: >the Klingon bird of prey missed with approximately half its phasor shots on
: >the Enterprise, even though they were at point-blank range.
: You must have missed the long Defiant discussion. In case you're not
: aware, BOP's have a limited firing arc (approx +/- 10 degrees forward)
: from its wing-mounted disruptors. Defiant, has a similiar problem.
: However, phaser arrays and phaser emitters (TOS/TFS-style) do not have
: such a problem. They are the ones with the 99.9% accuracy.
No! No! Not the Defiant! We all know that all the Defiant is is something
cool and Star Warsey for Commander Sisko to play with... It was doubtless
made up as an excuse to change the (fighting) rules for ST... how could
the Feds come up with a ship that wastes Jem'Hadar fighters so fast when
they can toast a Galaxy class vessel?
Anyway, the BOP he is talking about is right in front of the Enterprise,
facing it, at very close range.
JA. Driscoll
: In article <2137cc$15203b.360@jeck>, "G. Wayne Calvert" <cal...@twave.net> writes...
: >Whoa! Time to lay it out and see where we stand!
: >
: >Weapons: I know this laser crap. Don't believe in plasma? Let's look at other proof. In a
: >recent "VOYAGER" episode, ion cannons were mentioned, and interpreted as a threat. In SW
: The Voyager episode specifically called the weapons "phased-ion". Anyone
: who has followed Treknobabble for a while will be able to say that "phased"
: anything automatically makes it "sophisticated", hence "phased-disruptor",
: "phaser", "phased-poleron", "phased-ion", etc...
Just to be technical, disruptors already are phased. And Sw Ion cannons
look about as phased as phased can be.
: >Turbolasers do much more damage than ions. Second we now
have used a laser to shoot down a
: >short range missle. (for those who don't understand, if
we use it now why would an advanced
: >culture use it?) Plasma has damaged E.
: Ah, plasma, you mean the Romulan Plasma Torpedo! Boy that was powerful, until
: the Feds got their shield tech together -> "Balance of Terror" and "The
: Deadly Years".
Still is powerful, isn't it? a lot better than disruptors, anyway.
Which is an intereting point: Roms don't seem too interested in firing
Plas-torps nowadays, despite their coolness!
JA. Driscoll
: Jeffrey Kolb (jk...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
: : In article <19960218....@rovanion.demon.co.uk>,
: : ma...@rovanion.demon.co.uk wrote:
: : > In message <DMvEE...@uns.bris.ac.uk> JA. Driscoll wrote:
: : >
: : > >Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a
: : 1-to-1 basis
: : > >(When they hit!)
: : >
: : > Havn't you just hit on the real comparison that can be made between ST and SW
: : > weaponry? Can ST ships do the same as the SDs in ESB? In one episode in the
: : > original series of Staer Trek the enterprise couldn't even deflect let alone
: : > damage an admittedly large (SD size? :-) ) asteroid. Anyone got any other
: : > examples of Fed ships vs asteroids?
: : Nothing from an actual episode, but according to the Star Trek Technical
: : Manual, a phaser II on setting 16 ought to be able to destroy an asteroid.
: : If the SD's turbolasers are the same strength as a phaser II, I don't
: : think the E-D has much to worry about.
: But is it actually possible for anything to destroy more than one asteroid
: at a time, just because turbolasers can't destroy more than one asteroid
: with a single shot doesn't mean that the shot isn't more powerful than a
: phaser II just that all the energy is wasted on the single target in both
: cases. I dont think I've ever seen the E's shots go through it's first
: target and hit anyting else either.
Yeah, and those asteroids were probably a hundred metres or so across...
And the TLs were probably running low-power so they could fire more often.
:
: --
: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
: !! Barney Lawrence | !!
: !! e-mail: bl5...@bristol.ac.uk | Erm... !!
: !! web site: http://irix.bris.ac.uk/~bl5770| !!
: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
--
Chung, Peter W.
>ma...@rovanion.demon.co.uk (Mark Sinclair) wrote:
>>In message <jkolb-20029...@jk395.students.hamilton.edu> Jeffrey Kolb wrote:
>>
>
>In ST2 point blank phaser shots on an unshielded enterprise produced
>mostly cosmetic and some internal damage. If the relient hadn't shot the
You missed the point of Reliant's attack. Kahn explicitly stated that
he "wanted to rob [Kirk's] ship of power, then when the Reliant swung
around would take their [Kirk's] life" (paraphrasing). If you check your
own argument, you'll notice that the badly damaged Enterprise, operating
on emergency power alone, fired phaser shots that did similiar levels of
damage as Reliant's initial fire that were from an undamaged, fully operational
ship.
[snip, I'm only here to clear up misinformation]
>fire. These examples are all on unshielded targets, removing a large
In another post, the Enterprise-nil-refit has destroyed a fairly large
sized asteroid in "The Motion Picture" with a single photon torpedo. Kirk
originally intended to use phasers, but they were off-line at the time.
In "Paradise Syndrome", the E-nil faced an asteroid the "size of Earth's
moon" and only deflected it off its path minutely ("0.013 degrees") and
attempted to split it open with phaser fire, however due to the high warp
speed necessary to get the E-nil to the interception point, the engines
were unable to take the strain and eventually burned out.
[snip]
Jeffrey Kolb
ma...@rovanion.demon.co.uk wrote:
> In message <jkolb-20029...@jk395.students.hamilton.edu> Jeffrey
Kolb wrote:
>
> >In article <19960218....@rovanion.demon.co.uk>,
> >ma...@rovanion.demon.co.uk wrote:
> >
> >>In message <DMvEE...@uns.bris.ac.uk> JA. Driscoll wrote:
> >>
> >>>Just think... in ESB SD turbolasers were destroying asteroids on a
> >1-to-1 basis
> >>>(When they hit!)
> >>
> >>Havn't you just hit on the real comparison that can be made between ST
and SW
> >>weaponry? Can ST ships do the same as the SDs in ESB? In one episode in the
> >>original series of Staer Trek the enterprise couldn't even deflect let alone
> >>damage an admittedly large (SD size? :-) ) asteroid. Anyone got any other
> >>examples of Fed ships vs asteroids?
> >
> >Nothing from an actual episode, but according to the Star Trek Technical
> >Manual, a phaser II on setting 16 ought to be able to destroy an asteroid.
> >If the SD's turbolasers are the same strength as a phaser II, I don't
> >think the E-D has much to worry about.
>
> Going by what the manual says that is an 8 metre cubed asteroid. Looking at
> ESB the SD is destroying asteroids at least 20 metres across. I'd say the
> challenge still stands.
Yes, but shouldn't the Enterprise's own phasers be much more powerful than
the hand phasers?
Matuse
>In ST2 point blank phaser shots on an unshielded enterprise produced
>mostly cosmetic and some internal damage. If the relient hadn't shot the
Kahn deliberatly underpowered the phasers to NOT destroy the ship
outright, because he wanted to gloat. Later on, neither he nor the E had
the power to fire full-power shots.
Yesterday's Enterprise: A single main phaser shot obliterates a battlecruiser
Wrath: A volley of weakened phaser shots does...well, watch the movie to see,
easier than describing :)
Generations: a SINGLE torpedo completely obliterates the warbird.
Wrath: a SINGLE torpedo does mediocre damage (at best).
So he fiddled with the warhead yield, since the 80 year span might mean
slightly larger, and more accurate torpedos, but the basic weapon remains
the same.
> Concentrated photon torpedo and phaser fire from the enterprise, also at
>point blank range on an unshielded ship, managed to knock half of a warp
>engine off of it's target. Rather unimpressive.
Following the first battle, both ships were severly weakened. Try putting
nearly-dead batteries in a mag-light, and then try and claim that
maglights are inferior flashlights.
> Judging from the movie effects it would take a couple of
>seconds of phaser fire or a direct phiton torpedo hit to destroy an
>X-wing or other shielded fighter.
Oh please. X-wings exploded like confetti if you so much as blink at them
wrong, same as TIEs.
>On "encounter at farpoint" tasha describes a
>planetary bombardment from the alien as being "heavy", meanwhile only
>small wooden structures are being destroyed. A SD would have wiped the
>city from the planet's surface in seconds.
If YOU were the one being bombarded, you would tend to inflate your
opinion of it as well. A klingon ship was able to instantly purge all
life from a planet in a matter of seconds in a TNG episode. Don't give me
no bullshit about firepower buddy.
--
"I accept"
"To accept is to yield"
"To yield is to allow oncoming traffic the right of way"
David Zeiger
: Kahn deliberatly underpowered the phasers to NOT destroy the ship
: the power to fire full-power shots.
[snip]
: So he fiddled with the warhead yield, since the 80 year span might mean
: slightly larger, and more accurate torpedos, but the basic weapon remains
: the same.
Amount of available power should have absolutely no bearing on the
possible "power" of a photorp attack, since the "power" is based on
warheads.
There is absolutely no reason for Kirk to be doing anything other than
shooting to kill, so we should assume that the Enterprise's torps in
TWOK were at full yield.
IIRC, in the first volley, the Enterprise hit the Reliant with a
torp just aft of the bridge area. The torp made a big hole, shook
the ship a little, and caused a couple of consoles to blow up (then
again, *breathing* on a Starfleet ship causes consoles to blow up :-).
In short, the Enterprise's torps acted like big cannonballs.
Since, as you said above, the basic weapon hasn't changed, we can
presume that the E-D had bigger, guided cannonballs.
--
David Zeiger dze...@netcom.com
Bert's Antsucker, when aroused, emits the distinct odor of
creamed spinach, according to Murray Wertnew.
--Abrell's and Thompson's Actual Facts
Steve
>In article <4gg6vg$1c...@hearst.cac.psu.edu> Steve <sec...@psu.edu> writes:
>>In ST2 point blank phaser shots on an unshielded enterprise produced
>>mostly cosmetic and some internal damage. If the relient hadn't shot the
>>engineering section the enterprise would not have been too badly damaged.
>
>outright, because he wanted to gloat. Later on, neither he nor the E had
>the power to fire full-power shots.
>
I saw the movie, but I didn't see Khan say "reduce phaser power please,
I just want to wing him."
>Yesterday's Enterprise: A single main phaser shot obliterates a battlecruiser
After pelting him with full spreads of photon torps.
>Wrath: A volley of weakened phaser shots does...well, watch the movie to see,
> easier than describing :)
>
>Generations: a SINGLE torpedo completely obliterates the warbird.
A warbird is a very small ship, with a crew of around 30. ST ships are
also very unstable, one problem with their warp core and BOOM. (see
enterprise in Generations) This means that a photon torp hit on an
unshileded ship the size of the falcon would likely destroy it.
Note: not one panel exploded on one SW ship in the entire trilogy
>Wrath: a SINGLE torpedo does mediocre damage (at best).
>
Which is interesting. A photon torpedo is a missile (which are obsolete
for capital ships in SW) which does not rely on the ships power. The
torps of weakened ships are just as strong as the torps on full power
ships.
>So he fiddled with the warhead yield, since the 80 year span might mean
>slightly larger, and more accurate torpedos, but the basic weapon remains
>the same.
>
Right, a weak weapon. Looking at this movie it would take 50-100 of
these to destroy an unshielded ISD. The newer ones could probably destroy
an unshielded ISD in 25-50 shots, if they are twice as powerful. An ISD
is likely to raise shields, however.
>> Concentrated photon torpedo and phaser fire from the enterprise, also at
>>point blank range on an unshielded ship, managed to knock half of a warp
>>engine off of it's target. Rather unimpressive.
>
>Following the first battle, both ships were severly weakened. Try putting
>nearly-dead batteries in a mag-light, and then try and claim that
>maglights are inferior flashlights.
>
See above point on the weakness of a photon torp and independance from
ship condition. If a weakened man throws a hand-grenade at you, it blows
up just as hard. (or as weakly, as the case may be)
>> Judging from the movie effects it would take a couple of
>>seconds of phaser fire or a direct phiton torpedo hit to destroy an
>>X-wing or other shielded fighter.
>
>Oh please. X-wings exploded like confetti if you so much as blink at them
>wrong, same as TIEs.
>
Those were the much more powerful SW weapons destroying the fighters.
Using this as a benchmark the TIE blasters have at least as much punch as
the reliant's phasers. Luke's fighter took multiple hits and still made
it back to base, due to his shielding.
>>On "encounter at farpoint" tasha describes a
>>planetary bombardment from the alien as being "heavy", meanwhile only
>>small wooden structures are being destroyed. A SD would have wiped the
>>city from the planet's surface in seconds.
>
>If YOU were the one being bombarded, you would tend to inflate your
>opinion of it as well. A klingon ship was able to instantly purge all
>life from a planet in a matter of seconds in a TNG episode. Don't give me
>no bullshit about firepower buddy.
>
If you were an experienced warrior like Tasha you wouldn't exagerate
based on fear. She never seemed like such a frightened rabbit.
Matuse
>Matuse (mat...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: Kahn deliberatly underpowered the phasers to NOT destroy the ship
>: the power to fire full-power shots.
>
>: So he fiddled with the warhead yield, since the 80 year span might mean
>: the same.
>
>possible "power" of a photorp attack, since the "power" is based on
>warheads.
Yes, and (if you read not very carefully) I said that he FIDDLED WITH THE
WARHEAD YIELD. We can do this today on our nukes...by varying the way the
reaction occurs, you can get from a very very small yield, to full power.
>There is absolutely no reason for Kirk to be doing anything other than
>shooting to kill, so we should assume that the Enterprise's torps in
>TWOK were at full yield.
And thats why the 2 torpedos that hit the reliant in the nebula blew the
shit out of that crosswalk thing on top, and blew off an engine nacelle
respectively...more than cosmetic damage.
>IIRC, in the first volley, the Enterprise hit the Reliant with a
>torp just aft of the bridge area.
I don't know which Wrath of Khan you watched, but the first retaliation
by the E consisted of nothing but phasers.
>In short, the Enterprise's torps acted like big cannonballs.
Since its obviously been several years since you've seen the movie,
please refrain from making an ass out of yourself like this.
Chung, Peter W.
>Matuse (mat...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: Kahn deliberatly underpowered the phasers to NOT destroy the ship
>: outright, because he wanted to gloat. Later on, neither he nor the E had
>: the power to fire full-power shots.
>
>[snip]
>: So he fiddled with the warhead yield, since the 80 year span might mean
>: slightly larger, and more accurate torpedos, but the basic weapon remains
>: the same.
>
>Amount of available power should have absolutely no bearing on the
>possible "power" of a photorp attack, since the "power" is based on
>warheads.
That depends. First, a photon torpedo is loaded with antimatter and matter
reactants for the warhead prior to launch. Unlike the analogy to a modern
day Mk48 torpedo, a photon torpedo *does not* carry a "warhead" in its
casing. It is "injected" only prior to an immediate launch. Since the
antimatter is bleeded from the warp power systems, and Kahn severely damaged
them, it is very possible that the photon torpedoes may not have been
loaded with antimatter reactants.
>
>There is absolutely no reason for Kirk to be doing anything other than
>shooting to kill, so we should assume that the Enterprise's torps in
>TWOK were at full yield.
That is a faulty assumption. Remember they are fighting *in a Nebula
without shields*. Any explosion causes not only the normal radiation
damage (gamma and heavy particles), subspace shock and heat, but also
an extra shockwave is propagated due to gaseous pressures from the Nebula.
With all those things factored in, Kirk couldn't have been so stupid to
"shoot to kill" because at the very ranges he was fighting in, the destruction
of the Reliant would have meant the destruction of the Enterprise itself.
Frankly, the only time in the movies we have seen the Enterprise "shoot
to kill" was in ST6:TUC (and the asteroid kill in the wormhole effect of
ST1:TMP).
Chung, Peter W.
>Chung, Peter W. (st...@jane.uh.edu) wrote:
>: In article <Dn1BA...@news.tcd.ie>, dmga...@tcd.ie (Bwana) writes...
>: >In <Pine.A32.3.91j.960216...@homer28.u.washington.edu> Timothy Jones <time...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>: >
>: [snip]
>
>No! No! Not the Defiant! We all know that all the Defiant is is something
>cool and Star Warsey for Commander Sisko to play with... It was doubtless
>made up as an excuse to change the (fighting) rules for ST... how could
>the Feds come up with a ship that wastes Jem'Hadar fighters so fast when
>they can toast a Galaxy class vessel?
I agree. The Defiant is the epitome of getting 2 ships on the same
screen duking it out. I do disagree with the "ease" that the Galaxy-class
vessel lost, but thats for another day.
>Anyway, the BOP he is talking about is right in front of the Enterprise,
>facing it, at very close range.
Yes, but the times that it missed were when the E-D makes a leisurely
turn to get out of orbit, and the BOP circles to get behind the E-D
(a tactical mistake, but hey, its the writers' fault). During that
maneuver, that's when the BOP missed (twice at least).
Joe Schulte
: opinion of it as well.
Sure, except Yar wasn't the one being bombarded. Nice try, though.
: A klingon ship was able to instantly purge all
: life from a planet in a matter of seconds in a TNG episode. Don't give me
: no bullshit about firepower buddy.
Yes, using biochem warfare, I believe. I thought we were taking about
surgical strikes, not having a ship do something suicidal/completely
unrealistic to take out a planet.
(BTW, that biochem weapon wouldn't do anything to the SD's crew)
David Zeiger
: Yes, and (if you read not very carefully) I said that he FIDDLED WITH THE
: reaction occurs, you can get from a very very small yield, to full power.
Khan did that--I have *no* problem wiht Khan doing that. Kirk did
not do that. What *possible* reason could Kirk have for lowering the
yield on his torps?
: And thats why the 2 torpedos that hit the reliant in the nebula blew the
: shit out of that crosswalk thing on top, and blew off an engine nacelle
: respectively...more than cosmetic damage.
Ohhh, blew out the crosswalk thing on top. God knows, the Reliant can't
survive without it's crosswalk thing. Face it, the damage done by that
shot was a result of the *location* of the shot. I can do serious
damage to a car with a single bullet, *if* the bullet hits the right
place.
But, let's go and see whatthe actual physics of the situation say. I
know that real physics tends to be anathema to Trekkers, who prefer
their "Heisenberg compensators" and such, but still, I tend to find it
somewhat useful.
Photon torps are antimatter warheads that do damage by matter conversion.
Simple E=mc^2 conversion. So the calculation is so simple, I'll even
bow to your unsupported assertion above, and give you a variety of
yields.
Antimatter amount: 0.5 kg
Total matter converted to energy: 1.0 kg
Energy released: 90,000,000,000,000,000 Joules
Antimatter Amount: 1.0 kg
Total matter converted to energy: 2.0 kg
Energy released: 180,000,000,000,000,000 Joules
Antimatter Amount: 1.5 kg
Total matter converted: 3.0 kg
Energy released: 270,000,000,000,000,000 Joules
The shot to the engine has to be discounted, because the engine
*contains* antimatter, which may have been released from magnetic
containment by the force of the blow.
Which leaves us with the crosswalk shot. There is no way you can
seriously suggest that that shot represented the release of
9x10^16 Joules of energy.
Bringing this back the the E-D, I seem to recall some quote from the
ST tech manual stating that the capacity of the E-Ds shields was
something like 400 MJoules/s (I might be wrong on the numbers, but
I *think* the magnitude is about right). With that, I see that
an antimatter warhead containing 4.44x10^-6 grams of antimatter
will take down the shields of the Enterprise-D. (and I have to be off
by 6 orders of magnitude before we even get to *grams* of antimatter)
Thus it is obvious that there is *no* way that ST photon torps
can actually be matter/antimatter warheads. ("Scientists at
Fermilab report that they accidentally shot down the Enterprise
yesterday. 'It wasn't our fault!' one scientist claimed, 'We
told them not to get too close to the antipriton beam!'"
: Since its obviously been several years since you've seen the movie,
: please refrain from making an ass out of yourself like this.
Since you obviously can't even perform the most simple of physics
calculations, please refrain from making an ass of yourself like this.
--
David Zeiger dze...@netcom.com
The first fence was built some 7,000 years ago and consisted of
a single board.
Christian Bynum
In article <Dn6D0...@uns.bris.ac.uk>, jd5...@irix.bris.ac.uk (JA.
Driscoll) wrote:
> Chung, Peter W. (st...@jane.uh.edu) wrote:
> : sh...@cornell.edu (Simon H. Lee) writes...
> -- SNIP --
> : > Hmm...the Enterprise beset by about 80 Chig fighters and
> : >bombers...
>
> : If it were Kirk, Spock, Sulu or Maxwell in command, they'd all be dead.
> : If it is a nonamed captain, well...
>
> Maxwell... who is maxwell?
> I have to agree that Kirk could pull it off...
One word: corbomite.
- -- CB
Christian Bynum, Sc.M. E-mail: cu...@u.washington.edu
Department of Epidemiology WWW: http://lynx.fhcrc.org/~cbynum/
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Chung, Peter W.
>: >
>: >> This is why ST would lose any battle with any other sci-fi
>: >group,
>: >>probably including Space-Above and Beyond.
>: >
>: >bombers...
>
>: If it were Kirk, Spock, Sulu or Maxwell in command, they'd all be dead.
>: If it is a nonamed captain, well...
>
>Maxwell... who is maxwell?
Capt Maxwell, is the slightly insane CO of the USS Phoenix(Nebula-class)
who ran amuck in the Cardassian space, interdicting weapons movement and
destroying key strategic outpost(s). Picard's E-D was working with
the Cardassian government and provided the ship's prefix code to lower
the Phoenix's shields so a Cardassian warship could intercept Maxwell.
The Phoenix took an unshielded phaser hi, promptly moved out of enemy
weapon range and destroyed the Cardassian with a single volley of photorp(s).
So far, in the TNG+ era, he is the only one who has demonstrated any
sense of basic combat skills.
[snip]
>
>Actually, I think the original Enterprise WAS that bad. And besides, the
>1701-D doesn't turn a lot better before going to warp...
In "Encounter at Farpoint", the E-D did make that really tight banking
turn when it needed to go 180. It dropped out of warp, banked 180 and
then shot into warp again. The most impressive maneuver (and sadly,
not shown again I think).
>: > Here's a hot question: In "Jem Hadar," why didn't Keough's
>: >Odessey have a chair for him to sit in? He goes through the entire
>: >battle standing up!
>: >
>
>: Or why didn't he fire photon torpedoes or move or drop his shields, yadayada..
>: Stupid writers.
>
>Yeah, well if you look, everything about the inside of that ship looked
>second-rate... not quite sure why... maybe its the way the crew all looked
>like they had 'we are extras' stamped on their foreheads.
They should have been all wearing red shirts :)
Matuse
>: Yes, and (if you read not very carefully) I said that he FIDDLED WITH THE
>: WARHEAD YIELD. We can do this today on our nukes...by varying the way the
>: reaction occurs, you can get from a very very small yield, to full power.
>
>Khan did that--I have *no* problem wiht Khan doing that. Kirk did
>not do that. What *possible* reason could Kirk have for lowering the
>yield on his torps?
Assuming he did, it might have been to do enough damage to cripple but
not outright destroy..maybe he wanted to be able to salvage the ship, or
capture khan alive.
>: And thats why the 2 torpedos that hit the reliant in the nebula blew the
>: shit out of that crosswalk thing on top, and blew off an engine nacelle
>: respectively...more than cosmetic damage.
>
>Ohhh, blew out the crosswalk thing on top. God knows, the Reliant can't
>survive without it's crosswalk thing.
Well do YOU know what is inside that bridge thing? I don't. Maybe the
main life support systems are there, who the hell knows.
>Photon torps are antimatter warheads that do damage by matter conversion.
>Simple E=mc^2 conversion. So the calculation is so simple, I'll even
>bow to your unsupported assertion above, and give you a variety of
>yields.
You presume that the transformation of anti-matter to energy is 100%
efficient. I highly doubt that. Maybe 70% at best, and space is not the
best medium for transfering heat/shock (which are major outlets for energy).
>Antimatter amount: 0.5 kg
>Total matter converted to energy: 1.0 kg
>Energy released: 90,000,000,000,000,000 Joules
I'm curious about what authoritative source you have that describes what
the amount of warhead material is located inside a torpedo.
>The shot to the engine has to be discounted, because the engine
>*contains* antimatter, which may have been released from magnetic
>containment by the force of the blow.
There is no antimatter inside the nacelles. Much of the force of that
torpedo was wasted by blasting the engine off at the joint instead of
being absorbed by the body of the vessel.
>Which leaves us with the crosswalk shot. There is no way you can
>seriously suggest that that shot represented the release of
>9x10^16 Joules of energy.
No, thats what YOU suggested.
>Thus it is obvious that there is *no* way that ST photon torps
>can actually be matter/antimatter warheads.
No, whats obvious is that you have a working knowledge of their weaponry
that approaches nil. For that matter, no one else knows either really.
>: Since its obviously been several years since you've seen the movie,
>: please refrain from making an ass out of yourself like this.
>
>Since you obviously can't even perform the most simple of physics
>calculations, please refrain from making an ass of yourself like this.
Nice attempt to duck, but the fact still remains that you claimed that
the enterprise used torpedos on the reliant in the initial battle: and
they didn't. Just accept the fact that you are wrong and move on with
your life.
David Zeiger
: Assuming he did, it might have been to do enough damage to cripple but
: capture khan alive.
In other words, you have no source, and are only claiming that Kirk
powered down the torps because your argument falls apart otherwise.
Besides, if, as you assert, it *was* in the second volley, there is
no way that the extremely crippled Enterprise would be shooting
to wound. He has a couple of hundred cadets to protect, remember?
: Well do YOU know what is inside that bridge thing? I don't. Maybe the
: main life support systems are there, who the hell knows.
By the technical data on the Reliant-class given by the old FASA stuff
(not authoritative by any means, but it makes sense, and I don't believe
it's been contradictive), the crosswalk-thing was a support for the
weapons, which were mounted outside the main hull, so that more of
the hull space could be devoted for research areas (since it was
primarily a research ship).
: You presume that the transformation of anti-matter to energy is 100%
: efficient. I highly doubt that. Maybe 70% at best, and space is not the
: best medium for transfering heat/shock (which are major outlets for energy).
Could you please display a *little* more ignorance? Matter/antimatter
annhilation is 100% efficient BY DEFINITION. There is no such thing
as "free antimatter" (in this universe, anyway). ALL antimatter is
annhiliated in the explosion. 100% conversion. Extremely simple,
high-school level physics.
: I'm curious about what authoritative source you have that describes what
: the amount of warhead material is located inside a torpedo.
Aer you suggesting that there are fractions of a gram? My sources
are, again, the old FASA stuff, and recollections of the last 10 times
this argument has come around.
: There is no antimatter inside the nacelles.
Then where the hell is it, and what are the nacelles for? Window
dressing?
: Much of the force of that
: torpedo was wasted by blasting the engine off at the joint instead of
: being absorbed by the body of the vessel.
Fine. It still means that the engine shot is not a reliable gauge
of torpedo power.
: Nice attempt to duck, but the fact still remains that you claimed that
: the enterprise used torpedos on the reliant in the initial battle: and
: they didn't. Just accept the fact that you are wrong and move on with
: your life.
Excuse me? I didn't duck the question. I accepted I was mistaken,
and moved on. Because IT DOESN'T MATTER. First volley, second
volley, same difference in terms of ability to fire full-power
torps.
Just accept the fact that volley trivia is the *only* thing you are
right about, and move on with your life.
--
David Zeiger dze...@netcom.com
The worst novel ever written was Smekkert's 1934 effort "A Potato
for Beverly."
Matuse
>: Assuming he did, it might have been to do enough damage to cripple but
>: not outright destroy..maybe he wanted to be able to salvage the ship, or
>: capture khan alive.
>
>In other words, you have no source, and are only claiming that Kirk
>powered down the torps because your argument falls apart otherwise.
If he didn't, it makes the torpedos inconsistant with everything else
we've seen in the show/movies. Pretty simple really.
The torpedos should have done X, a probable reason they did not is Y.
Following?
>Besides, if, as you assert, it *was* in the second volley, there is
>no way that the extremely crippled Enterprise would be shooting
>to wound. He has a couple of hundred cadets to protect, remember?
I saw no faults in his strategy. Except for the genesis explosion (which
he had no way of predicting) Kirk a) did not expose the crew to further
danger, and b) saved the ship for capture/salvage/taking khan alive.
>: Well do YOU know what is inside that bridge thing? I don't. Maybe the
>: main life support systems are there, who the hell knows.
>
>By the technical data on the Reliant-class given by the old FASA stuff
>(not authoritative by any means, but it makes sense, and I don't believe
>it's been contradictive),
In other words you agree: No one really knows.
>the crosswalk-thing was a support for the
>weapons, which were mounted outside the main hull, so that more of
>the hull space could be devoted for research areas (since it was
>primarily a research ship).
The phaser emitters were on the far wings of the ship...that enourmous
structure would be unnecesary for that (and nowhere near that large if it
WAS needed).
>: You presume that the transformation of anti-matter to energy is 100%
>: efficient. I highly doubt that. Maybe 70% at best, and space is not the
>: best medium for transfering heat/shock (which are major outlets for energy).
>
>Could you please display a *little* more ignorance? Matter/antimatter
>annhilation is 100% efficient BY DEFINITION.
You may quote the relevant physical laws dealing SPECIFICALLY with this
situation at your leisure.
M/A-M explosions are 100% efficient? The regulated energy of the M/A-M in
a starship's engines doesn't approach 100% (as described in several TNG
episodes, so don't bother trying to refute this), why should a torpedo
suddenly gain perfect efficiency?
>There is no such thing
>as "free antimatter" (in this universe, anyway). ALL antimatter is
>annhiliated in the explosion. 100% conversion. Extremely simple,
>high-school level physics.
Interesting how a high-school physics text would be an authority on
something that doesn't exist.
>: I'm curious about what authoritative source you have that describes what
>: the amount of warhead material is located inside a torpedo.
>
>Aer you suggesting that there are fractions of a gram?
Yes, they go under clever names such as "microgram" or "nanogram" or
"picogram" among others.
Torpedos are only slightly larger than man-sized, yet house the warhead
material, the magnetic bottle used for holding the material, and a warp
engine with all its attendant features. Pretty full.
>: There is no antimatter inside the nacelles.
>
>Then where the hell is it, and what are the nacelles for? Window
>dressing?
Nacelles are like wings for guiding the subspace "bubble" created by the
engines. You know that pulsing blue thing in main engineering? Thats the
M/A-M reactor chamber.
Timo S Saloniemi
>Matuse (mat...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: outright, because he wanted to gloat. Later on, neither he nor the E had
>: the power to fire full-power shots.
>
>possible "power" of a photorp attack, since the "power" is based on
>warheads.
And photon torpedo warheads draw directly from the ship's power
source. You can't store a maximum-yield warhead in a torp for
the duration of the mission - you have to load the bugger just
before battle, from the energy you have got.
>There is absolutely no reason for Kirk to be doing anything other than
>shooting to kill, so we should assume that the Enterprise's torps in
>TWOK were at full yield.
Given that the only time she fired torps, she was at point-blank
range, Kirk would probably use MINIMUM-YIELD torps instead. As for
why Kirk used torps at all, these probably gave Khan less response
time - had Khan had even minimal shields in the final shootout
(Kirk couldn't tell for sure because of the nebula's inerference),
phasers would not have drilled through the Reliant's photorp
launcher before Khan launched an aft torp, obliterating
the Enterprise.
>IIRC, in the first volley, the Enterprise hit the Reliant with a
>torp just aft of the bridge area.
The first time the E used torps was in the point-blank shot that
crippled the torp launcher of the Reliant. The second shot
jettisoned the nacelle that had been destroyed by phaser fire a
second earlier.
>The torp made a big hole, shook the ship a little, and caused a
>couple of consoles to blow up (then again, *breathing* on a
>Starfleet ship causes consoles to blow up :-).
That was phaser fire.
>In short, the Enterprise's torps acted like big cannonballs.
That much is true.
Timo Saloniemi
.sigless and proud of it!
David Zeiger
: I saw no faults in his strategy. Except for the genesis explosion (which
: danger, and b) saved the ship for capture/salvage/taking khan alive.
Suuuuure... A crippled ship with no shields and a crew of cadets is
going to shoot to wound, never mind the fact that the ship is crewed
by geneticlly engeneered supermen, led by one of the greatest military
genuises humankind has ever known.
: The phaser emitters were on the far wings of the ship...that enourmous
: structure would be unnecesary for that (and nowhere near that large if it
: WAS needed).
But the torp rack was hanging from it (it wasn't connected to the
dish from the bottom). Add the power conduits and any loading
mechanisms and whatever, and it's feasable. In any case, it would
be the last place they would put vital, ship-crippling, components.
: You may quote the relevant physical laws dealing SPECIFICALLY with this
: situation at your leisure.
Sure. E=mc^2
: M/A-M explosions are 100% efficient? The regulated energy of the M/A-M in
: a starship's engines doesn't approach 100% (as described in several TNG
: episodes, so don't bother trying to refute this), why should a torpedo
: suddenly gain perfect efficiency?
The key word above is *regulated*. An atomic bomb is a *lot* more
efficient than a fission reactor. The 30% loss above would
presumably be the power required to keep the M/A-M reaction from
causing the ship to go *boom*.
I'll go real slowly, so you can follow...
When a particle meets its antiparticle, the two annhiliate each other
completely, E=mc^2. 100% conversion to energy (it's part of the
*definition* of antimatter).
The universe is composed pretty much entirely of matter (as a result of
Higgs boson decay, but if you don't understancd basic antimatter,
theoretical particle physics is right out).
As a result of the two above statements, antimatter undergoes
near-instentaneous annhiliation as soon as it is created, unless it
is somehow prevented from interacting with the rest of the universe,
such as via a magnetic bottle of some sort. (a really *big* hunk
of antimatter might survive a while in the vacuum of space, but
the density of hydrogen out there is enough to wipe even it out
after a while).
If you *do* place the antimatter in a magnetic bottle, anything that
is ever let out will instentaneously be annhiliated, 100% conversion.
PHoton torps release the entirety of their antimatter payloads on
impact.
Therefore, photon torps have 100% efficiency.
: Interesting how a high-school physics text would be an authority on
: something that doesn't exist.
Are you claiming that antimatter doesn't exist? Gee, you better go
tell the particle physicists that, since they are *using* it at
Fermilab, CERN, and SLAC (how do you think they managed to *discover*
the top quark, anyway?). And you better tell the nuclear physicists
that, since, among other things, Beta- decay involves the creation
of an antineutrino, and Beta+ decay involves the creation of a
positron (antielectron). And you better go tell the cosmologists
that, since it's rather integral to *their* experiments as well.
We have observed antimatter, we have created antimatter, I think
it's a pretty good bet to say that it exists.
: Torpedos are only slightly larger than man-sized, yet house the warhead
: material, the magnetic bottle used for holding the material, and a warp
: engine with all its attendant features. Pretty full.
And? 1.5 kilograms isn't all that much. Particularly if it is a
dense material. 1.5 kg of neutronium would be so small, you would need
an electron microscope to see it (at least).
: Nacelles are like wings for guiding the subspace "bubble" created by the
: engines. You know that pulsing blue thing in main engineering? Thats the
: M/A-M reactor chamber.
Perhaps in TNG. Not in TOS or the movies. There were several instances
in TOS that they were contemplating saving the ship from a runaway
M/A-M reaction my jettising the nacelles. The whole point of
sticking them out there was to keep them as far away from the body of
the ship as possible, in case of a mishap.
But I'll have to remember this one. Wings, eh? Sounds like something
they pulled off of 19th century ether ships...
--
David Zeiger dze...@netcom.com
Samuel "F.B." Morse devised his famous "code" in order to communicate
with the spirit of his dead woodpecker, "Clifford."
Chung, Peter W.
>Chung, Peter W. (st...@rosie.uh.edu) wrote:
>: In article <2137cc$15203b.360@jeck>, "G. Wayne Calvert" <cal...@twave.net> writes...
>: >Whoa! Time to lay it out and see where we stand!
>: >
>: >Weapons: I know this laser crap. Don't believe in plasma? Let's look at other proof. In a
>: >recent "VOYAGER" episode, ion cannons were mentioned, and interpreted as a threat. In SW
>
>: The Voyager episode specifically called the weapons "phased-ion". Anyone
>: who has followed Treknobabble for a while will be able to say that "phased"
>: anything automatically makes it "sophisticated", hence "phased-disruptor",
>: "phaser", "phased-poleron", "phased-ion", etc...
>
>Just to be technical, disruptors already are phased. And Sw Ion cannons
>look about as phased as phased can be.
To be even more technical, there hasn't been any canon evidence to show
that SW Ion Cannons are phased.
>
>: >Turbolasers do much more damage than ions. Second we now
> have used a laser to shoot down a
>: >short range missle. (for those who don't understand, if
> we use it now why would an advanced
>: >culture use it?) Plasma has damaged E.
>
>: Ah, plasma, you mean the Romulan Plasma Torpedo! Boy that was powerful, until
>: the Feds got their shield tech together -> "Balance of Terror" and "The
>: Deadly Years".
>
>Still is powerful, isn't it? a lot better than disruptors, anyway.
>Which is an intereting point: Roms don't seem too interested in firing
>Plas-torps nowadays, despite their coolness!
The Plasma torps haven't been in use since "The Deadly Years" as far as
I remember. By then the E-nil already had shields that could take
multiple hits from the Romulan Plasma Torpedo. At some point prior
to Narenda III ("Yesterday's Enterprise"), the Romulans equipped their
ships with photon torpedoes, as said in the episode. Whether they are still
in use today is unknown, although in "The Die Is Cast", Warbirds can be
seen bombarding the planet with green sparkly balls.
On the whole, disruptors are the primary weapons of the Klingon and Romulan
forces, with phasers on older ships as primary or secondary weapons.
Chung, Peter W.
>: If YOU were the one being bombarded, you would tend to inflate your
>: opinion of it as well.
>
>Sure, except Yar wasn't the one being bombarded. Nice try, though.
Hmm. "Encounter at Farpoint". I'll have to look that one up.
>
>: A klingon ship was able to instantly purge all
>: life from a planet in a matter of seconds in a TNG episode. Don't give me
>: no bullshit about firepower buddy.
>
>Yes, using biochem warfare, I believe. I thought we were taking about
>surgical strikes, not having a ship do something suicidal/completely
>unrealistic to take out a planet.
A plasma fire in the atmosphere if I remember correctly wiping out all
traces of life.
>(BTW, that biochem weapon wouldn't do anything to the SD's crew)
Probably not, since a SD nor a DS has an external atmosphere. On a surgical
strike level, A Klingon ship has gunners marginally better than a bunch
of Imperial gunners, while a Fed and Romulan ship typically has excellent
fire-control systems. I'll comment more as soon as I know exactly what the
debate is about :)
Chung, Peter W.
>mat...@netcom.com (Matuse) wrote:
>>In article <4gg6vg$1c...@hearst.cac.psu.edu> Steve <sec...@psu.edu> writes:
>>>In ST2 point blank phaser shots on an unshielded enterprise produced
>>>mostly cosmetic and some internal damage. If the relient hadn't shot the
>>>engineering section the enterprise would not have been too badly damaged.
>>
>>outright, because he wanted to gloat. Later on, neither he nor the E had
>>the power to fire full-power shots.
>>
>
>I just want to wing him."
Then you must have seen the same amount of "cosmetic" damage the Enterprise
did to the Reliant when Kirk lowers the Reliant's shields when they did
say that the Enterprise "had a few shots" and "were not enough against
Reliant's shields" and that the Enterprise was practically powerless in
space. Even Reliant's photon torpedo strike to the Enterprise (prior to
Kahn gloating at Kirk) didn't do much in the way of blowing stuff off.
And in the Mutara Nebula (great battle) the Reliant is stated to be less
damaged, capable of "outgunning and outrunning" the Enterprise. Fortunately
the Reliant had her photon controls damaged, or the Enterprise would not
have made it to the Nebula. Inside the Nebula, the Number One reason
for Kirk not firing full power torpedoes was the atmospheric propagation of
a very large explosion, namely when a starship blows up. Without shields and
having to literally "feel one's way" through the Nebula, the options to
outright destroy a ship at point-blank range is not as open as you think.
>
>>Yesterday's Enterprise: A single main phaser shot obliterates a battlecruiser
>
>After pelting him with full spreads of photon torps.
No disagreement there.
>>Wrath: A volley of weakened phaser shots does...well, watch the movie to see,
>> easier than describing :)
>>
>>Generations: a SINGLE torpedo completely obliterates the warbird.
>
>A warbird is a very small ship, with a crew of around 30. ST ships are
>also very unstable, one problem with their warp core and BOOM. (see
>enterprise in Generations)
Or Odyssey in "Jem'Hedar" or Yamato in "Contagion". It seems that almost
every Galaxy-class ship made is a Pinto. (I'm waiting for the USS Venture
to get destroyed in a catastrophic explosion :) )
In any case, other non-Galaxy-class ships have faired remarkably well in
battle, without suffering from a Warp Core Breach (unless it was a Borg
cube shooting at them.)
>This means that a photon torp hit on an
>unshileded ship the size of the falcon would likely destroy it.
Who knows?
>Note: not one panel exploded on one SW ship in the entire trilogy
Then again, not one person manning the station was "the expendable
ensign of the week" :)
>>Wrath: a SINGLE torpedo does mediocre damage (at best).
>>
>
>Which is interesting. A photon torpedo is a missile (which are obsolete
>for capital ships in SW) which does not rely on the ships power. The
>torps of weakened ships are just as strong as the torps on full power
>ships.
A photon torpedo relies on the Antimatter and Matter reactants injected
into it prior to launch. If the bleed-off from the AM tanks are damaged
or cutoff due to some critical hit, then the photon torpedo won't be
anywhere as powerful as a full yield, antimatter loaded one. Also, they
have made distinctions to the type of photon torpedoes (Type or Mark I thru
VI) as well the "Microphoton torpedoes" the runabouts carry. It would
be likely, the size of the ship's powerplant and the amount of AM fuel carried
by a ship can affect the amount of AM fuel used to arm a photon torpedo.
(Essentially, a photon torpedo from a Maquis fighter isn't anything compared
to a photon torpedo from a Nebula-class starship, assuming all ships undamaged.)
Episodes for reference: ST2:TWoK, "Redemption", "Caretaker", "Jem'Hedar",
"Dreadnought".
[snip, arguments removed]
>
>See above point on the weakness of a photon torp and independance from
>ship condition. If a weakened man throws a hand-grenade at you, it blows
>up just as hard. (or as weakly, as the case may be)
See above points on the relationship of the ship's capability as well
condition directly affecting the yield of a photon torpedo. Your analogy
is more appropriate if the Trek ships in TWoK were using excusively
fission weapons, since they are not adjustable, nor do they depend on the
condition of the firing ship.
[snip, merits of TIES and X-Wings and Reliant's phasers ignored, since I
don't really care about that stuff.]
Chung, Peter W.
>: Yes, and (if you read not very carefully) I said that he FIDDLED WITH THE
>: WARHEAD YIELD. We can do this today on our nukes...by varying the way the
>: reaction occurs, you can get from a very very small yield, to full power.
>
>Khan did that--I have *no* problem wiht Khan doing that. Kirk did
>not do that. What *possible* reason could Kirk have for lowering the
>yield on his torps?
So the Reliant's point-blank explosion doesn't take out the Enterprise
which is unshielded and subject to heat, radiation and overpressure from
ths explosion in the Nebula.
>
>: And thats why the 2 torpedos that hit the reliant in the nebula blew the
>: shit out of that crosswalk thing on top, and blew off an engine nacelle
>: respectively...more than cosmetic damage.
>
It would appear that the Enterprise increased power somewhat, at least to
the equivalent of firing on auxiliary power to at least wound the Reliant.
>Ohhh, blew out the crosswalk thing on top. God knows, the Reliant can't
>survive without it's crosswalk thing. Face it, the damage done by that
>shot was a result of the *location* of the shot. I can do serious
>damage to a car with a single bullet, *if* the bullet hits the right
>place.
From the targets the Enterprise picked, the Reliant's photon torpedo
launcher, and warp nacelle, it is more than likely that Kirk had no intention
of destroying the Reliant. If he did, the targets would have been right
up the impulse deck, which would destroy the intermix chamber and rupture
the AM tanks and destroy the Reliant.
>But, let's go and see whatthe actual physics of the situation say. I
>know that real physics tends to be anathema to Trekkers, who prefer
>their "Heisenberg compensators" and such, but still, I tend to find it
>somewhat useful.
Is this meant to be sarcasm. It's funny since Trek does not always follow
accepted physics.
>Photon torps are antimatter warheads that do damage by matter conversion.
>Simple E=mc^2 conversion. So the calculation is so simple, I'll even
>bow to your unsupported assertion above, and give you a variety of
>yields.
I'll save you the trouble. 1.5kg AM + 1.5 kg M = a 64 Megaton explosion
assuming 100% energy conversion.
[snip]
>
>The shot to the engine has to be discounted, because the engine
>*contains* antimatter, which may have been released from magnetic
>containment by the force of the blow.
Not so, the older cylindrical nacelles were the ones that contained AM
tanks, the newer nacelles (movies on) do not contain any AM at all since
they started using the vertical cores.
>Which leaves us with the crosswalk shot. There is no way you can
>seriously suggest that that shot represented the release of
>9x10^16 Joules o
You're right it doesn't.
>Bringing this back the the E-D, I seem to recall some quote from the
>ST tech manual stating that the capacity of the E-Ds shields was
>something like 400 MJoules/s (I might be wrong on the numbers, but
>I *think* the magnitude is about right). With that, I see that
>an antimatter warhead containing 4.44x10^-6 grams of antimatter
>will take down the shields of the Enterprise-D. (and I have to be off
>by 6 orders of magnitude before we even get to *grams* of antimatter)
The TNG:TM is semi-canon, however there is a section that describes the
surge capacity of the shields at 473,000 MW, with 7 generators in parallel
with a continuous output of 2688MW and a maximum primary energy dissipation
rate in excess of 7.3x10^5 kW and each generator can temporarily store
up to 750,000 MJ each with 4 backup generators with only a 65% capacity
each. That would put the shield capability of a Galaxy-class ship at
being able to "absorb" up to 5,250,000 MJ and energy bleed off (re-radiated
out into space so the shields can take more hits) at 7.3x10^5 kW. (page 138)
Some of this is verified in Yar's conversation with some fella in "Yesterday's
Enterprise". (Something about the heat dissipation rate is several times
better allowing the E-D to hang longer in a firefight...)
Of course, since the TM is "semi-canon" and several years old, it's data
maybe (and in some cases already) obsolete.
[snip]
Brian Quirt
> Matuse (mat...@netcom.com) wrote:
> : Assuming he did, it might have been to do enough damage to cripple but
> : not outright destroy..maybe he wanted to be able to salvage the ship, or
> : capture khan alive.
>
> In other words, you have no source, and are only claiming that Kirk
> powered down the torps because your argument falls apart otherwise.
>
> no way that the extremely crippled Enterprise would be shooting
> to wound. He has a couple of hundred cadets to protect, remember?
>
carrying the Genesis device. What could it do if it blew up? Watch the film.
Got to go, 1 minute.
Brian Quirt
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Brian Quirt | "In the universe, matter tells space how to curve and space|
| cy856 | tells matter how to move. The "Heart of Gold" told space to|
|_____________|_get knotted and made a blur of the stars." Douglas Adams___|
Timothy Jones
On 18 Feb 1996, Chung, Peter W. wrote:
> In article <Pine.A32.3.91.960218...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu>, Albert Ko <a-...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu> writes...
> >
> >On Fri, 16 Feb 1996, Timothy Jones wrote:
> >
> [snip]
> >
> >Manuals that Lucas doesn't consider real canon. You also have to remember,
> >fighters don't
> >go top speed when fighting half the time! 110 kps is not that fast,
> >especially when compared to fractions of c.
My sources are the RPG's, (which Lucas has never said aren't canon) and
the tech manuals (which obviously are canon), as well as a wealth of
visual evidence (which is about as canon as one can get. And whether the
craft are flying at their top speeds or not (which we know they are at
least some of the time, as there has been more than one instance of "full
throttle" being called for in the films), I still know what their top
speeds are, and that they conform as I've deliniated.
> Good point. Here is a project someone can perform (since I'm working at the
> moment), but someone could time how long and how far it took the rebel
> fighters in Star Wars (A New Hope) to leave the planet and engage the
> DS-1.
Since the film did a time wipe, one cannot use a stopwatch. Furthermore,
we don't know just how far they had to fly to get to the DS-1. OTOH, we
*do* know that there are definite top speeds listed for all involved
craft, and that those stats conform as I've deliniated them. But if you
still want to time something decisive, time how long it takes for weapons
fire to cross the various landscapes from the films, or to cross the
length of a SD, which is 1.6 km, or down a short stretch of hallway inside
the DS-1 in ANH, or down-and-across the shaft where Luke and Leia were
standing in ANH. In all cases, the distance was extremely short by
astronomical standards, and in all cases, you'll find it takes about a
second or two. All this coupled with the descriptions of the weapons and
the composition of their discharge makes it unambiguously clear that SW
weapons fire moves well below LS and quite possibly below the speed of
sound. Therefore, I reiterate my previous findings, that any Trek vessel,
even at a modest impluse speed -- and most definitely at warp -- would
outrun the very weapons fire from any SW craft. And noone's going to tell
me their ships are faster than their own weapons fire!
> [super snip]
> >
> >> > I don't even think a Starbase could "repel that kind of
> >> > firepower".
> >>
> >> But what are you basing this on?
> >
> >Basing on the assumption (which may or may not be true and will never
> >really know) that the "superlaser" is not your standard laser
So why is it called a laser? And even if it's special somehow, what does
that do to alter the previously established facts about it's max range,
the fact that Fed sensors would detect the power buildup, and that it
would then de disabled by Fed weapons fire which it could neither avoid
nor shield against?
> >and the
> >output of energy needs to be incredible (not even a Trek ship can
> >vaporize a planet by itself)
That is not conclusive evidence of the weapon's efficacy vs Fed shields,
which are not to be equivocated with a planetary atmosphere.
> Well, with the recent Voy episode concerning "Dreadnought", it does appear
> that even a 3rd-world power can (and built) a "long-range-cruise-photondrone"
> capable of destroying a "small moon". It was loaded with a 1000kg AM/1000kgM
> warhead. Given that, a 1st-world power like the Feds or Roms or Klingons
> could come up with something far more powerful and since the device was
> a little bigger than 2/3rd's Voy's warp nacelle, it would be very portable.
> So instead of 3 runabouts, 2 "Dreadnoughts" would be interesting :)
And bear in mind that there have been instances in Trek of planetary
devastation, including the Tox U'Taht, the genesis device from STs II and
III, and trilithium as used by Dr. Soren in ST: Generations. And while Fed
ships cannot normally actually detonate planets, they can singlehandedly
devastate the surface of one if they chose. It would take an imperial
armada to do the same, given their conventional weaponery.
> >> > However, I feel the AM is the reason why SW tech is the way
> >> > it is and ST tech is so. That is the major disadvantage of SW, where the
> >> > power comes from.
> >>
> >> The AM? What's that? If you mean Amplitide Modulation, I fail to see how
> >> that applies.
> >
> >Anti-Matter! The major source of power for all Fed ships.
Thank you for clairifying that.
> Not taking sides, however, even in TOS times, the crew has been amazed by
> ships running on "ion-power" from that fairly bad TOS-episode ("Who?s Brain")
Not really. They were just amazed that the particular culture they'd
encountered would have it. I don't think we can judge so exactly the
nature of Scotty's feelings in that instance. And it would still be a
rather clumsy basis for judging comparative tech.
> however, the ship was only capable of sublight speeds. Antimatter and
> Forced-Quantum Singularity-based ships will tend to have smaller and lighter
> power systems capable of putting out the same amount of power that more
> conventional systems of larger and bulkier size can put out.
And such output would be far more energy efficient. This may seem like an
extraneous boast, but it has severe importance. It means that, for a ship
using less efficient power systems to match the performance of another
vessel, even if they have comperable tech, they would have to do a lot
more work in terms of fuel expendenture and committment of energy, and
would therefore have to have weapons and other systems that are actually
capable of handeling that much power. This alone would give any Fed ship a
decided advantage in terms of actual performance.
TSB
Timothy Jones
On Mon, 19 Feb 1996, Bwana wrote:
> In <Pine.A32.3.91j.960216...@homer28.u.washington.edu> Timothy Jones <time...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>
> >Because I've seen them firing, and they stink. Example; during the battle
> >of Yavin, fighters who were right on top of each other continually missed
> >for several shots before they hit their targets, and often didn't hit them
> >at all. They make use of HUDs and timing calculations (as with the DS
> >exhaust port), but they still have to aim and fire themselves. Their
> >systems never do it for them. Another example of this is the falcon's
> >escape scene from the DS, when they fight off 4 TIE fighters. I'm sure I
> >could think of others if I needed, and of course there's no mention of
> >anything comparable to Fed style sensors in any SW source book.
>
> I doubt the unfailing accuracy of ST weapons, in ST: Generations, for example,
> the Klingon bird of prey missed with approximately half its phasor shots on
> the Enterprise, even though they were at point-blank range.
First, the Klingons are not the Feds. And second -- and more to the point
-- Trek is not SW. Remember, Trek vessels (from many races) have
sophisticated battle computers, as well as highly trained helmsmen that
are specifically grilled on evasive maneuvering while at the academy, and
then throughout their career. Just because a *TREK* vessel can ofttimes
evade weapons fire from another *TREK* vessel does not detract from their
capabilities. I remind you again of the speeds and distances involved when
it comes to Fed ships. Ship's systems can sometimes take a small amount of
time to adjust to sudden changes; this is why, for example, the inertial
dampeners don't absorb all the force of a weapons hit or other unforseen
occurance, while they *do* compensate for most maneuvers and speed
changes. I remain firm on the point that nothing in SW would even phase
them.
> >Actually no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm sorry, I left the middle
> >portion of this argument out, just because I thought it was already known,
> >and so could be taken as read. The full version is as follows:
>
> > iii) SW weapons will NOT penetrate Fed shields.
>
> Emm why?
This has been dealt with a lot. They aren't powerfull enough, and are of
entirely the wrong type of energy to affect Fed shields; this is
especially the case for lasers -- i.e., turbolasers -- which we know for a
fact won't even penetrate a Fed ship's nav deflector, much less their
battle shields, because Riker said it in just so many words. This is a
matter of canon record and copious precident. This is why the Feds
switched to phasers in the first place; that and the fact that phasers are
far more energy efficient. It's all in the manuals and series. All this,
in addition to the evidence (again, both in the manuals and the series)
which clearly illustrate the fact that Fed weapons are hundreds if not
thousands of times more powerfull than those in SW, makes it inescapable
that SW shields would take but a second or two of phaser fire, and even a
single photon torpedo would devastate an imperial ship; two or three would
destroy it.
> What makes you think that just because the weapon has the name
> 'turbolaser' that it is nothing more than a laser in the sense that we
> know one?
So what is it? A toaster? If it's not a laser, why call it one? Besides,
the manuals make it clear what SW weapons fire is composed of.
> SW tech manuals clearly state that these weapons are _NOT_ lasers.
Where? I think you mmay be thinking of blasters, which are particlebeam
weapons. But the turboLASERS, are just that.
> Is that OK? Can we stop the inane Riker 'lasers can't even penetrate nav
> shield' quotes now?
As soon as they're acknowledged.
> > iiiii) Therefore, Fed weapons will quickly penetrate
> > SW shields.
>
> This does not follow, see above.
Yes it does. See above.
> >They're not nearly powerfull enough, and are of the wrong energy type.
> >(eg., turbolasers, which are by definition ineffective.)
>
> Wrong, see above.
Not wrong. See above.
> >You've got it backwards. It's exactly *because* they're not phased that
> >they could never penetrate through any "window," even if their was one,
> >which there isn't. Lasers are entirely the wrong form of energy to use
> >against a Fed ship's shields, and it's a matter of claer precident and
> >canon record that the nav deflector alone makes a Fed ship immune to them,
> >nevermind the battle shields themselves.
>
> Great, fine, Lasers are useless, except that 'turbolasers', despite their
> name, are NOT lasers.
Look, the only thing that tacking on "turbo" does to them is make thhem
fire faster because of their "advanced" (by SW standards) cooling systems.
They are fundamentally still lasers however, and *this* IS what the
manuals say. BTW, it's also what Han said in ESB, when in the asteroid
field:
[wham!]
Han: "That wasn't a *LASER* blast, something hit us!"
> >No no no. I mean NO MATTER WHAT. Shields or no shields. Weak spots known
> >or not known (which they would be, BTW, after a routine tac scan), it would
> >take just as many shots as I said, simply because SW shields are so
> >comparatively weak, and also BTW because their hulls are too.
>
> Where do you base your assumption that SW shields are weak?
See above.
> and that their hulls are also?
Again, from the RPG books and tech manuals. For instance, in Cracken's Guide,
it says that the windows on SW ships are made of transparasteele; which
is obviously by definition just transparant steele. It is unlikely that
any ship would have windows which are substantially weaker than the hull
of the ship. Therefore, the hulls are not likely to be more than, say, a
few times stronger than ordinary steele. And noone's going to tell me
that's a match for tritanium alloy!
> >Ah but you're still thinking in terms of SW weaponery, in relation to
> >which I'd agree. But a matter-antimatter warhead would detonate with
> >the release of too much energy and force for most ships to bear without
> >adequate shields.
>
> Matter-AntiMatter _is_ powerful, by definition, but you have no reason to
> suggest why an SDs shields would be useless against them.
Yes I do. Because I can gague the amount of punishment they take from SW
weapons before collapsing, and adjust for the astounding difference in
destructive potential of a Fed pho torp. Fed weapons are hundreds if not
thousands of times more powerfull than those of SW. Again, there are
stats that bear this out, but all you really need is to watch the films
and series. For example, individual SW proton torps could only damage
buildings and other unportected structures. A single Fed pho torp will
destriy most capital ships w/o shields, and on max yield, can devastate a
substantial amount of surface land. Blasters and tirboLASERS cannot drill
into the crust of a planet or disable unshielded capital ships with one
or two shots like phasers can, nor do they vaporize man-sized targets as
even a classic series hand pahser I would. Rocks, snow patches, trees,
people, ships, walls, etc. Phasers are far more destructive against all
these and more than any conventional SW weapon.
> >P.S.: BTW, I'd like to thank you for your decency in responding to my
> >post. It's quite rare for anyone on this group to manage to stick to
> >rational debate and an attempt to render valid arguments, as opposed to ad
> >hominizing, and groundless dogmatism. If the others in this debate keep
> >behaving the way they've been doing so far, you may well end up being
> >about the only person I bother replying to.
>
> How could us loyal SW fans stand by without taking up the gauntlet? :-)
That alibi only goes so far...
> D.
TSB
Timothy Jones
On 22 Feb 1996, Chung, Peter W. wrote:
> In article <Dn6DC...@uns.bris.ac.uk>, jd5...@irix.bris.ac.uk (JA. Driscoll) writes...
> >Chung, Peter W. (st...@jane.uh.edu) wrote:
> >: In article <Dn1BA...@news.tcd.ie>, dmga...@tcd.ie (Bwana) writes...
> >: >In <Pine.A32.3.91j.960216...@homer28.u.washington.edu> Timothy Jones <time...@u.washington.edu> writes:
> >: >
> >: [snip]
> >
> >No! No! Not the Defiant! We all know that all the Defiant is is something
> >cool and Star Warsey for Commander Sisko to play with... It was doubtless
> >made up as an excuse to change the (fighting) rules for ST...
Yes and no. If you recall, it was an new warship designed in response to
the Borg threat. In other words, no rules needed to be changed. They could
have made a ship like this anytime. The reason that hadn't is simply that
Starfleet isn't about war. Kira expressed suprise when she first learned
about the Defiant. She said "I thought Starfleet didn't believe in
warships?" She did *not* say she didn't think they could make them.
> >how could
> >the Feds come up with a ship that wastes Jem'Hadar fighters so fast when
> >they can toast a Galaxy class vessel?
They only did *that* because there were so many of them, and one of them
ramed. And BTW, Jeh'Hadar "fighters" are about the size of the Millenium
Falcon, and possess tech that is comparable to the Fed's.
> >Anyway, the BOP he is talking about is right in front of the Enterprise,
> >facing it, at very close range.
>
> Yes, but the times that it missed were when the E-D makes a leisurely
> turn to get out of orbit, and the BOP circles to get behind the E-D
> (a tactical mistake, but hey, its the writers' fault). During that
> maneuver, that's when the BOP missed (twice at least).
And let's not forget the E had been taken by suprise, their shields
penetrated by a clever trick. No doubt those first couple of hits did some
significant damage. In other words, these were not normal circumstances.
TSB
Timo S Saloniemi
>On 20 Feb 1996, Timo S Saloniemi wrote:
>> In article jd5...@irix.bris.ac.uk (JA. Driscoll) writes:
>> >Sean Fallesen (sfal...@arcturus.oac.uci.edu) wrote:
>> >: > >That's what the Germans of WW2 thought. Radar, heavy armor,
>> >: > >and anti-aircraft guns.
>> >: > >We all know what happened to the Bismarck. :)
>> >: >
>> >Yeah, but the Germans didn't have radar. We did.
>
> Something's screwy here. I didn't say that. I did say that the
>Bismarck's radar had little or no impact on the entire hunt, but I never
>said the Germans didn't have radar. (In fact, if you want to see some of
>the funniest looking radar devices, look at the antennas on their night
>fighters. Those things look like bugs!) Just needed to clear this up
>(those >>: things can really get confusing!)
>
> Sean M. Fallesen
Yup. Sorry if it seemed like my reply was directed at you - I intended
to make a general reply and did see that JA. Driscoll was the actual
misguided one.
And those multi-dipole contraptions in Messerschmitt Bf.110s and the
like really do look interesting. But the same configuration can be
seen in many "modern" helicopters of the eastern block, used as
primitive weather radars or elint equipment. Some of the most modern
"Helix" variants (big ASW choppers with coaxial rotors - they are
really something that seems more advanced and practical than its
western counterparts) still have those chicken-wire-and-forks
thingies on their noses.
Anybody interested in speculating about the properties of Trek
"subspace antennas"? We have seen the Argus Array and the
observatory in the Armagosa system (Nth Degree/Parallels and
ST:G), and they look really alien...