BC-304 vs. Imperial Star Destroyer

[Ravroz]

Once the 304's shields are down it is a sitting duck but I do believe that the oddy with it's new shiny zpm and boosted shields could take on a ISD much easier and

Spoiler:

with it's cool new energy weapons a ISD would be fairly easy pickins.

[Mister Oragahn]

All right, a couple things here:

First of all, and I think this has been said:
darth timon seems to think that 'evenly cratered' means that you can't see
any non-cratered area of land. This makes no sense.

You could 'evenly crater' a planet with any number of craters, big or small, as long as they are all equidistant.

And secondly, no one has responded to the issue of the ion-cannons on a SD.
Once Daedelus' shield is down, it's toast.

(oh, and where in blazes did you read that the ships have to lower thier shields to fire! That's insane! No one would build a ship like that! It's not been done in the history of sci-fi!)

I think the EU has a few references as to how the cannons actually fire through small holes in the shields, but this would need confirmation, if you consider the EU canon.

The other point is that when people think ion cannon on an ISD, they either think rebel ion cannon, or tollan ion cannon.

They're nothing of the sort. If that was the case, if they were so powerful as those two examples, engagements between capital ships would only last a few seconds.

There's an easy way to stay clear of the heavier cannons' LOS, for the 304: stau underneath the ISD. The 304's faster, so it will be able to remain there, it will juts need to maneouver inside within that dead angle cone.

[TKG]

I think it bears repeating, ion cannons only work if oyur target uses something like wires with direct physical conduction... if the target uses fully crystalline conduits that's another story.

[darth_timon]

I would like to insist, once more, how it is important to not make mistakes and unintentionally rewrite history.
So let's proceed.

Let's make no mistake here. Wong and Saxton all and only argue that the surface planet is melted to a one meter depth, so basically all is left is a lavfa covered world. They claim that a single ISD can do that in one hour or less.

Let's remember, again, that Dankayo only described the tiny rebel base as being slagged, and defined the rest of the world as evenly crattered, which means much less energy, and not seas of lava.
Let's remember as well that we've seen that the ships were in no urge at all.
As for the city in the Jedi Knight book, again, unspecified amount of time, many ships were involved in the operation, and only the city is glassed, which considerably limits the total amount of energy, and massively reduces the global wattage.

To evenly crater even a world as small as Pluto (17 million km2) with craters of 0.178km in diametre you would need 95505617 18KT bombs. That works out at 1,719,101,106KT- or in other words, 1,719TT. That is simply to crater Pluto, and that is with kiloton-level weaponry.

Using your own estimation of 30 shots per second, and assuming no more than 18KT firepower for all the turbolasers on the ships, and three ships (thus 90 shots per second), that works out at 1,620KT per second. In one hour there are 3,600 seconds- so, 1,620KT x 3,600 = 5,832,000KT, or 5.8GT per hour.

Perhaps a better way to describe it is 0.58TT per hour from three ISDs working in tandem.

At that rate of fire, to crater a Pluto-sized world, it would take three ISDs 2,963 hours. That's 17 weeks.

Obviously this was not the case, and there is a case for Dankayo being bigger than Pluto.

Now lets repeat the exercise. Only this time, lets assume 18MT rather than 18KT. This gives us craters that are 1.7km in diametre.

To crater the surface of Pluto with 18MT weaponry you would need 28,900,000 bombs/shots.

18MT x 28,900,000 = 520,200,000MT. 'Only' 520TT.

Once again, 90 seconds per second x 18MT = 1,620MT per second, or 1.62GT. 1.62GT x 3,600 seconds (1 hour) = 5,832GT- or 5.832TT.

In one day, three ISDs could deliver 139.968TT. It would take them just under four days to completely crater the surface of Pluto.

For a single ISD under the first, 18KT scenario, it would take 51 weeks to evenly crater the surface of Pluto. So you can imagine, with that kind of firepower, how long it would take to crater a world like earth. I think we can both agree that ISDs pack greater firepower than the kiloton range.

For a single ISD under scenario 2, it would take one ISD twelve days to crater the surface of Pluto. This is plainly unreasonable. An ISD is a warship, built for battle, and not intended to be wasted on spending days on cratering a planet, yet we know that the surface of Dankayo was indeed, evenly cratered.

Under scenario 1, a single ISD would take an hour to deliver 1.9GT.

Under scenario 2, a single ISD would take an hour to deliver 1.9TT.

It's not reasonable to think that 3 ISDs would spend more than a day at the very most blasting away at a world to crater it. In fact, a day is not really reasonable, since there is no point to wasting that much firepower on a planet, especially once you've destroyed the main target.

So, either A: Just the base was destroyed or B: as per the quote, the surface of Dankayo was indeed evenly cratered and this had to happen within a relatively short span of time, because you don't have three powerful warships spending days at a time on such operations- it isn't practical.

As I proved multiple times, it's foolish, if not literally incorrect, to belive that these operations happen in the timeframes claimed by Saxton and Wong.

You could even add one more gigaton (1000 MT) of energy to the total mix, it would never even remotely ever approach the claims made by our two friends.

Since you used Wong's calculator, let's see what he says to cover a whole city like New york within ground contact fireballs, the only way to create that artificial lava.

With 1 megaton explosion, you get a radius of 700m (1.4 km for the fireball diamter).
This means a surface area of 4,398.2297 m², or 0.004398 km².

New York has a surface area of 171 km² (approx.).

So you'd need basically 38,881 1 MT shots to engulf the whole city into a fictionnal vaporizing fireball. A total of 38.881 GT.

With 10 MT shots, you'd need around 15,119 10 MT shots. A total of 151.19 GT. Notice how the total necessary energy released in such a fashion becomes higher, to cover the same area.

Now let's return to an even lower yield for each shot. Say a Hiroshima level around 15 KT per bolt.
This requires a total of 209,302 15 KT shots. The total energy is 3,139,530 KT, or around 3.1 GT.

We obviously see that the more time they take, and the lower the yields, they stil achieve the same result with much less waste of energy.

At 1 MT per shot, thus 38,881 shots, with a ship having 60 TLs, with each of them, say, able to fire every two seconds (so that makes 30 shots per second), we get a duration of 0.36 hour. That's just slightly over twenty minutes only!

So is that small amount of time still excessive, for a star destroyer from Star Wars, to melt a city of the size of New York, considering what the films have shown thus far?

No. As simple as that.

To destroy one city of the size of New York in twenty minutes with what works out at 38.8GT if we assume your 1MT firepower estimate, works out at
116.4GT an hour. Just for reference.

I don't think you're factoring in the fact that twenty minutes can easily afford the opportunity for people to escape the city- civilians do after all have ships and speeders- if the aim of the game is to kill everyone, you need to hit the target hard- and fast.

If the ships could be used elsewhere, why even send three of them just to slag a remote tiny rebel base?
It doesn't add up, and as I've shown, they were not in an urge at all to blast Dankayo.

The ISDs were there to destroy a Rebel presence and then pummel the planet. There's no practical or logical reason to think they would languidly take their time to pummel Dankayo, when they could have been re-deployed after completing the task of destroying the Rebel base. It is MORE logical to think that the blast of Dankayo's entire surface took place quickly, to either A: prevent any possible escape or B: to send a very clear message to enemies of the Empire.

Plus thousands of kiloton blasts is actually pretty quick to deliver, especially with three ships orbiting a small moon.
Say you have, again, 30 1 KT shots per second, it takes, ahem... 33 seconds only.

And that's for one ship only!

As you see, there is no point reaching absurd numbers as they do.

There's nothing absurd about it. The Empire is a civilisation that built moon-sized planet-destroying battle stations, huge ships, World Devastators, Sun Crushers with nova-inducing missiles, and is an Empire that spans a galaxy. What is absurd is trying to suggest that the biggest warships of this Empire pack firepower that we can match with nuclear weapons of today.

Pluto has an atmosphere, and it's been devalued to a dwarf planet.

Poor Pluto. It deserves better!

Well, obviously, the quickier they want it done, the more energy they need to throw, and actually waste at exponentional rates.
The point is that first, there's no need to waste so much energy, and secondly, again, I have presented proof that there was no urge to ravage Dankayo.

Given that speed is of the essence in such operations, and given the Empire's tendency to make examples of it's enemies (Alderaan for example) it is hardly surprising that they would attack worlds quite viciously.

I've emailed Mr Saxton for further clarification of how he reached his conclusions, but so far no reply. Hardly surprising, seeing as he's a University Professor, and thus very busy, but if he does reply, I shall let you know what he says.

[Mister Oragahn]

To evenly crater even a world as small as Pluto (17 million km2) with craters of 0.178km in diametre you would need 95505617 18KT bombs. That works out at 1,719,101,106KT- or in other words, 1,719TT. That is simply to crater Pluto, and that is with kiloton-level weaponry.

How did you get those numbers?

Using your own estimation of 30 shots per second, and assuming no more than 18KT firepower for all the turbolasers on the ships, and three ships (thus 90 shots per second), that works out at 1,620KT per second. In one hour there are 3,600 seconds- so, 1,620KT x 3,600 = 5,832,000KT, or 5.8GT per hour.

Perhaps a better way to describe it is 0.58TT per hour from three ISDs working in tandem.

At that rate of fire, to crater a Pluto-sized world, it would take three ISDs 2,963 hours. That's 17 weeks.

Obviously this was not the case, and there is a case for Dankayo being bigger than Pluto.

Now lets repeat the exercise. Only this time, lets assume 18MT rather than 18KT. This gives us craters that are 1.7km in diametre.

To crater the surface of Pluto with 18MT weaponry you would need 28,900,000 bombs/shots.

18MT x 28,900,000 = 520,200,000MT. 'Only' 520TT.

Once again, 90 seconds per second x 18MT = 1,620MT per second, or 1.62GT. 1.62GT x 3,600 seconds (1 hour) = 5,832GT- or 5.832TT.

In one day, three ISDs could deliver 139.968TT. It would take them just under four days to completely crater the surface of Pluto.

For a single ISD under the first, 18KT scenario, it would take 51 weeks to evenly crater the surface of Pluto. So you can imagine, with that kind of firepower, how long it would take to crater a world like earth. I think we can both agree that ISDs pack greater firepower than the kiloton range.

For a single ISD under scenario 2, it would take one ISD twelve days to crater the surface of Pluto. This is plainly unreasonable. An ISD is a warship, built for battle, and not intended to be wasted on spending days on cratering a planet, yet we know that the surface of Dankayo was indeed, evenly cratered.

Under scenario 1, a single ISD would take an hour to deliver 1.9GT.

Under scenario 2, a single ISD would take an hour to deliver 1.9TT.

It's not reasonable to think that 3 ISDs would spend more than a day at the very most blasting away at a world to crater it. In fact, a day is not really reasonable, since there is no point to wasting that much firepower on a planet, especially once you've destroyed the main target.

So, either A: Just the base was destroyed or B: as per the quote, the surface of Dankayo was indeed evenly cratered and this had to happen within a relatively short span of time, because you don't have three powerful warships spending days at a time on such operations- it isn't practical.

I'll simply skip all that.

The Sernpidal accident proves alone that an ISD would not reach even low gigatons of firepower. Even if it managed to breach that 20 km wide asteroid in a limited time, the book said it would have not enough firepower alone to shoot down the biggest fragments, which would then ravage Sernpidal's surface.
There are numerous references that mention terajoules of firepower, fighters with medium to high kiloton level weaponry (missiles and torpedoes) piercing capital ship shields (which simply means that even the heavy weapons of such capital ships can't be in the gigaton range). There are references which speak about one single ISD only able to turn the surface of a planet to "smoking debris" in a matter of hourS.
This and all other elements, like the very low yields from Darksaber, despite being super weapons fired at max power. Or ROTS novelisation's saying that turbolasers are capable of vaporizing a small town.

Simply put, there are just far more proofs that the yields are limited than those which would support the idea the yields are as extraordinary as you think.
So just how long are you going to continue to evade this load of evidence, really?

Instead of focusing on one single piece, and dismissing the rest, you have to consider that you have to account for the vast majority of elements.

As such, to make sense of Dankayo, if your Pluto related claims were true about the surface area, you just have to remember that the surface being "evenly cratered" doesn't mean that craters are close to each other.

Evenly cratered simply means that the concentration of craters will roughly be the same over the moon's surface. It does not say that the whole surface is entirely, or almost entirely, covered with craters.

To destroy one city of the size of New York in twenty minutes with what works out at 38.8GT if we assume your 1MT firepower estimate, works out at
116.4GT an hour. Just for reference.

What a reference! That's basically admitting that 3 ISDs can't even expel, over one hour, what an Acclamator's single battery could deliver in one shot, according to Saxton.
I didn't check your maths for the moment, I'll return to them later on if necessary.

I don't think you're factoring in the fact that twenty minutes can easily afford the opportunity for people to escape the city- civilians do after all have ships and speeders- if the aim of the game is to kill everyone, you need to hit the target hard- and fast.

I don't intend to repeat myself times and times again. The city in that Jedi book was slagged. That was the only target. Until you prove that the imperials wanted to capture or kill everybody, you're just making stuff up.

The ISDs were there to destroy a Rebel presence and then pummel the planet. There's no practical or logical reason to think they would languidly take their time to pummel Dankayo, when they could have been re-deployed after completing the task of destroying the Rebel base. It is MORE logical to think that the blast of Dankayo's entire surface took place quickly, to either A: prevent any possible escape or B: to send a very clear message to enemies of the Empire.

I already adressed the false escape argument many times.

The Imperials never deployed their fighters, bombers or whatever else they had then, to forbid enemy ships from going away. They only did so after they slagged the rebel base, for mopup operations.
Even more, if you'd care to read, the book itself says that all rebel ships managed to escape. Just how many times will I need to repeat it?

There's nothing absurd about it. The Empire is a civilisation that built moon-sized planet-destroying battle stations, huge ships

The capacity to build and assemble ships at a large scale is totally irrelevant to the technology about power production.
Let's call that "point A".

World Devastators

Seen once, disappeared after that. A one time wonder, which worked on principles which are apples and oranges to all other ships the Empire used.

Sun Crushers with nova-inducing missiles

One single experimental ship.

and is an Empire that spans a galaxy.

See "point A".

What is absurd is trying to suggest that the biggest warships of this Empire pack firepower that we can match with nuclear weapons of today.

No, because their weapons are concentrated, because they can fire for longer times, and many many times.

In the end, even if it sounds absurd to you, there's the simple fact that it actually fits with movie evidence, as simple as that.

I've emailed Mr Saxton for further clarification of how he reached his conclusions, but so far no reply. Hardly surprising, seeing as he's a University Professor, and thus very busy, but if he does reply, I shall let you know what he says.

1. He rarely replies.
2. He already said where he got his numbers from. http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWICS.html
3. If you search for it, and follow the links I gave, you won't need to restart the whole thing. Many people already went through this. Please pay attention to their work, nevermind their side actually.

[fugiman]

I'm so glad I started this thread

[TKG]

are you sure you dont have stock in asprin Fugiman; 'cause this thread is causing lots of headaches.

[Phantom6]

But, since ISD's (All SW tech really) has to drop their shields to fire that will

I wasn't aware they had to drop sheilds to fire, are you sure thats a fact?

I'm almost certain I heard it in the original trilogy. I think it had to do with the death star but I took it to mean ALL SW tech had that limitation.

[Jimbo-DR]

I'm almost certain I heard it in the original trilogy. I think it had to do with the death star but I took it to mean ALL SW tech had that limitation.

I don't remember hearing that. Can someone give us a quote?

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

I think the EU has a few references as to how the cannons actually fire through small holes in the shields, but this would need confirmation, if you consider the EU canon.

I'll check that, but I have sure-fire (no pun intended) proof that they can fire through (their own) shields;
I direct your attention to the space battle above Coruscant. (Ep. III, beginning)

The other point is that when people think ion cannon on an ISD, they either think rebel ion cannon, or tollan ion cannon.

They're nothing of the sort. If that was the case, if they were so powerful as those two examples, engagements between capital ships would only last a few seconds.

There's an easy way to stay clear of the heavier cannons' LOS, for the 304: stay underneath the ISD. The 304's faster, so it will be able to remain there, it will juts need to maneuver inside within that dead angle cone.

Yes, and while they stay under there, the SDs main cannon blow them to pieces. (see Ep. IV, the main shots come from under the SD).
(but you are right in that the ion cannon on an SD are nothing like Tollan cannons, which don't even act like real ion cannons, and they are far smaller than the Rebel one on Hoth. however, the SDs have several, and concentrated blasts should take down their shields)

As I recall SW ion cannons dont actually damage shields, they simply deny the systems of a target operating power for a a time based on the power of the gun in relation tot he size and power of the target. If my memory holds true, then the Ions may not work at all.
The possible reasons for Ion cannons not working come from the fact that most stargate ships dont necessarily use hard wiring, they use alternative methods that may not allow the forcefully applied ions to block and nullify electrical impulses. Until theres a clear picture of how power is moved about ships like the Odyssey, theres no way to say if an ion cannon will do anything more then irritate McKay or something.

I direct your attention tho the SD over Hoth.
Do you honestly think it had its shields down? That'd be suicidal!
(also, if crystal tech works like they say, ion cannon should be able to affect it)

I don't remember hearing that. Can someone give us a quote?

No one said that. As a matter of fact, in Ep. VI, the deflector shield appears to be still up when the Death Star fires.

[TKG]

I direct your attention tho the SD over Hoth.
Do you honestly think it had its shields down? That'd be suicidal!

Not to sound snarky or anything but you may want to reread my comments I never said anything of the sort nor did I imply such.

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

Then how do you think it was knocked out if ion cannon don't affect shields?

[darth_timon]

How did you get those numbers?

The surface area of Pluto came from here: http://milan.milanovic.org/math/engl...s/titius9.html

I got the diametre of a crater caused by an 18KT event from http://janus.astro.umd.edu/astro/impact/. A 0.178km crater is caused by the impact of a 10m asteroid hitting the surface at 11km/s.

Would you care to tell what book/reference you get the Sernpidal accident from?

Would you also care to provide references to your claim that kilton-level weaponry can pierce capital ship shields?

And whilst you're quoting ROTS, would you also care to explain how it was that Grevious came to slaughter billions? Whole worlds burned at his command, remember? Plus, define 'small town' for us. Whilst for at it, consider what it means to vapourise a town even the size of say, Hertford, England.

Also, whilst you're at it, you have said that many ships carried out the operation in 'Jedi Knight'. Would you care to provide a reference for that claim? The quote in question I provided does make any mention of numbers whatsoever, yet you take that to mean 'many' ships. Your assumption of large fleets is just that- an assumption. One that does not fit in with Dankayo and is not backed up by 'Jedi Knight'.

So, if you want me to start looking at your other examples, provide proof of them. Something I can verify.

You're also splitting hairs about the cratering of Dankayo. The quote says the surface was evenly cratered. Not part of the surface, not the area around the base, the surface- implying complete surface. You have no proof whatsoever that this took a long time, or that there was any justification for it taking a long time. Moreover, if you are saying that the surface was not completely cratered, then the onus is on you to prove that. Finally, as per my analysis of the firepower needed to evenly crater the surface of even a world like Pluto, it should be noted that the lower the firepower, the more total firepower is needed to complete the task. It is therefore more wasteful to sit there and fire off many kiloton shots than it is megaton shots.

You also keep coming back to the mop-up example as the be-all and end-all of that example. The book makes it clear that the the Empire did a number on Dankayo, therefore there is no reason that the mop-up was anything other than an extreme precaution. This leaves option B: that the Empire pummelled Dankayo to serve as an example to others- an example that would not be very impressive if it took days to complete.

The City in 'Jedi Knight' was turned into lava. Which, given the ease of availability of spacecraft to civilians, would HAVE to be done quickly to prevent anyone escaping the city. Twenty minutes would afford the possibility of escape for some of those civilians. The Empire would not destroy the city so thoroughly unless they intended to kill everyone in it. Think about it logically, instead of dismissing it along irrelevant lines.

Your casual dismissal of the Empire's capabilities does not change the fact that you are trying to charge a galactic civilisation with the ability to travel across a galaxy with possessing weaponry that is no better than modern day earth. Rate of fire or not, you are arguing that even the heaviest guns of an ISD are no better than our own modern day nuclear weapons. That, on a one-shot basis, a HTL is no better than what the United States or Russia could launch with a nuke or two. You are attributing this level of firepower to a civilisation that can build planet-destroying weaponry. That is absurd, no what way you spin it.

You also ignore Slave Ship, which mentions gigaton-level recoil for turbolasers- recoil that required Star Destroyers to be fitted with bracking systems to prevent their own destruction every time they fire.

[Evil_Genius_McKay]

Even though I love Star Wars, I'm going to have to say the Odyssey would win because of superior shields and manueverability. The ImpStar has strong shields but in its own universe the MC90 cruiser's shields are still better than the a star destroyers and to me the Asgard shields would be better than the shields on an MC90 Mon Cal Crusier. I think in firepower the Star Destroyer is going to have it, but the Odyssey's manueverablity trumps that. Star Destroyers are weak against strike craft and if the 302's took out the ImpStar Tie Fighter compliment they are going to have some serious trouble on their hands. Not to mention them being able to beam explosives on board. Star Destroyers have shields to protect them from energy weapons and ballistic threats, but we have no clue if they prevent beaming or not.

It is true that in Empire Strikes Back a Star Destroyer's bridge was destroyed by an asteroid but that was probably after numerous hits degrading the shields. It is unknown whether the entire ship was destroyed either.

[TKG]

Then how do you think it was knocked out if ion cannon don't affect shields?

"they simply deny the systems of a target operating power for a a time based on the power of the gun in relation tot he size and power of the target." -Me!

if you cant get power to the sheild generators, because all your electrical pathways are nullified how do you expect to use your sheilds or guns or maneuvering for that matter? the best weapons and sheilds in the galaxy dont mean a thing if you cant get power to 'em to use 'em.