BC-304 vs. Imperial Star Destroyer

[fugiman]

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

I have a ton of stock

But once again I go Imperial Star Destroyer and I will leave it at that

[Evil_Genius_McKay]

This is how I would expect the battle to progress-

Odyssey and ImpStar Deuce hyperspace in, both launch their compliment of fighters. The 302s being similar in manueverability to the more atmospheric minded X-Wings will already have a notch against them when engaging the Ties. And without the benefit of the shields the X-Wings sport they will not have much advantage at all. The Ties with superior numbers and advantages in mobility will slowly nock down the 302s. (This assumes that the 302s don't get shields installed using Asgard tech)

Meanwhile the ImpStar II will open up with its heavy turbolaser and ion cannon batteries scoring multiple heavy hits on the Odyssey.

With their shields being rapidly drained and their fighter escort being wiped out the Odyssey has to move in using its superior mobility to take out key systems of the Star Destroyer namely the poorly defended engines in the rear and the shield generators on the bridge section. With cloaking technology it is able to unload its Mk III nukes into key areas of the Star Destroyer through hit and run tactics that the slower guns of the ImpStar have trouble tracking. With most of the nukes used up and possibly not enough damage being done fast enough to the Star Destroyer the Odyssey crew scrambles for new tactics. The ballistic based railguns are doing little damage to the Star Destroyer, but realizing this the Odyssey decides to use the tried and true method of beaming nukes onto the Impstar.

The destroyer has several nukes detonate in sensitive areas causing explosions that tear the Star Destroyer apart from within leaving it nothing but floating debris.

The Odyssey badly wounded and without its fighters limps out of the system to lick its wounds.

[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.

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.

Your numbers are weird.

Crater diameter: 178 m
Corresponding surface area at ground level: 24,884.555 m²

Pluto total surface area: 17 e12 m²

17 e12 / 24884.555 = 683,154,671.64271171415361857987816 shots at 18 KT each.

Thus a total energy:

E = 12,296,784,089.568810854765134437807 KT.

Or roughly 12.296 TT.

You're two orders of magnitude above my estimation.


But 18 KT is rather small for a yield.

Let's start a 5 MT per TL, as an average value.
With 30 cannons firing per second, that's 150 MT per ship/s.

Using your site (Iron Asteroid; 30 meter(s); 20 km/s; Earth - land only), I got an example of a 5 MT explosion due to impact, leaving a 575 m wide crater.

Crater diameter: 575 m
Corresponding surface area at ground level: 259,672.267 m²

17 e12 / 259672.267 = 65,467,137.271826890478845192646236 shots at 5 MT

Thus a total energy:

E = 65.467 TT

Or around 40 hours with 3 ISDs firing a total of 450 MT/s. Mind you, that's an averaged value. HTLs are eventually expected to be able to fire more than 5 MT each.

The numbers above are valid if, of course, you plan to cover the complete surface with craters. Which is a flawed assumption, especially considering that the vaporizing fireballs and destructive air blasts will range well beyond the radius of a crater, for 5 MT shots.

This factor alone would cut the process by many hours, and perfectly fit the EU's "smoking debris" description.

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

It's from Vector Prime. New Jedi Order.

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

Oh crap. I already posted them.

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?

Yes, and? This is just vague as it gets, so please provide specific values or don't bother mentioning this again.

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.

Mos Eisley is a small town. Because it's small. It's a good example.

Besides, small is also used in one of the Original Trilogy's novelisations: it says at one point that the Star Wars galaxy is small. Considering that they've never visited any other galaxy, the quote is only the author's view from the scientific background he had back then, when looking at our own galaxy and its neighbouring partners from the same cluster.

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?

I don't remember claiming any specific number of ships. On the contrary, you were the one assuming a low number of them, eventually only one or two, and I was pointing out, several times, that no number was given, just as much as no timeframe was given either.

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'.

It's circular logic to pretend that Jedi Knight doesn't back it up, since it's the point of contention. I assume a fleet or several ships because of the description of the bombard fleet, and other elements.
But it could be just one ship, sitting there for quite some time, pummeling the city while a Moff is having a party in orbit.

As for Dankayo... it's quantitatively different.

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

Sure. What about you actually move your lazy ass, and do what you deliberatedly denied doing since you joined the debate late? that is, read the frakin damn thread!

You're also splitting hairs about the cratering of Dankayo.

Hell no. I'm just pointing out that you are assuming the highest level of destruction possible, while I'm merely showing that the interpretation can greatly vary, and point to much lower numbers.

The quote says the surface was evenly cratered. Not part of the surface, not the area around the base, the surface- implying complete surface.

No. That's where you fail. There's no implication as the surface in its entirety. If you look at a battlefield that's been bombarded, if you see plenty of smoking holes, you'll say that the whole battlefield has been bombarded. However, it certainly does not mean that every single square meter is now a smoking hole.

Let's use M. Wong's nuclear calculator here.

While a 5 MT impact is ought to only leave a 575 m wide crater, it's going to produce a 3.6 km large fireball, with an air blast of 20 psi ranging up to a radius of 5.9 km.

That alone should prove that you do not need to clamp a crater to each other. You don't even need to have one every two crater diameters. The fireball itself is 6.2 times larger than the crater itself, and that fireball is ought to vaporize everything. The very destructive and lethal air blast is 20.5 times wider than the crater!

You have no proof whatsoever that this took a long time, or that there was any justification for it taking a long time.

I'm not claiming it took absurd times either, mind you.

Moreover, if you are saying that the surface was not completely cratered, then the onus is on you to prove that.

No, because you are the one enforcing the highest, wanked out and non conservative interpretation of the event.

You might want to verify the definition of "evenly".

Besides, I don't see the point cratering the whole surface, and then send mop-up teams to find captives or information.
Makes no sense to try to cause the maximum damage as possible, only to send team to recover stuff after that.
Or is it, again, the glaring stupidity of the Imperial navy?
I doubt that.

No, it's once again telling that whatever part of the surface really got cratered, there was just no point wasting time and firepower bombarding the whole surface when the plan was just to destroy the base, apparently, and capture people and retrieve informations.

But that is the very non sense you're trying to defend. That's appaling.

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.

An estimation that is off by e2, and which assume total craterization of the moon.

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.

You may consider the fact that the Imperials recovered datapacks among the ruins of the rebel base.
Mh, well, we already knew that since one guy survived (agent ZNT-8?), at least, not all of the base got destroyed.
Of course, if weapons had been in the hundreds or thousands of gigatons, hiding 30 km beneath the surface would have not helped the rebel at all. Everything would be completely hyper compressed, burnt, melted or vaporized, depending on the closeness to the surface.

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.

You are doing it on purpose or what? Prove that the goal was to kill everybody. Oh, I see. You can't. Thank you.

The Empire would not destroy the city so thoroughly unless they intended to kill everyone in it.

Ah, says who again?

Think about it logically, instead of dismissing it along irrelevant lines.

Lol. You're inventing mission orders out of the blue.

We know that the city, and only the city, was glassed. Nothing more.

Thusly, the only logical, sensical, reasonable and smart conclusion to formulate, is that the goal was to glass the city. Nothing more.

Anything else is pure invention.

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.

Modern day Earth does not come with thousands of warships, mounted with weapons which can continuously fire concentrated bolts worth of hundreds if not many thousands of kilotons, at fast rates, from large distances.

Rate of fire or not...

So I'm the one dismissing stuff, but you can arbitrarily neglect the very advantage of concentrated ROFs. Way to go!

... you are arguing that even the heaviest guns of an ISD are no better than our own modern day nuclear weapons.

Which way, exactly? A nuke maybe powerful, but it takes a heck of a machinery to even launch just one, and it's slow, not very focused, and exists in limited numbers.

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.

Huh. Please, I've provided my views on HTLs, and I do believe they're largely capable of many tens or hundreds of megatons of firepower... even if it actually remains to be proved.

The estimations I used for these latest pages were averages.

You are attributing this level of firepower to a civilisation that can build planet-destroying weaponry.

Apples and oranges. You're mentionning a one shot wonder, working on funky mechanics.
It is particularily dishonest to make a leap and consider that it's just a TL on steroids.

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.

I ignore it because in the frakin films, the Slave-I never ever displays that level of firepower (main energy cannons? they don't even range in the gigajoules; for a yardstick, 4.184 terajoules = 1 kiloton), not even its super duper space mines of doom.

So get your facts straight, learn a thing or two about the canon hierrachy, and come back later when you'll be more informed, and less willing to deny a vast bulk of data I provided.

[Evil_Genius_McKay]

As immensely powerful as an ImpStar is far less than the Odyssey has proven successful against them in the official Star Wars canon. I've been a Star Wars fan far longer than Stargate so I'm slightly biased towards it, but having read as much stuff on Star Wars as I have I still think that the Odyssey would win, but not by much.

I just don't buy that the Odyssey's shields would be knocked down so quickly when the Millenium Falcon a freighter and many other vastly smaller ships than a Star Destroyer are able to absorb at least a few hits from one. The impstar can decimate a planet's surface like Grand Admiral Thrawn did to Bfash in Heir to the Empire but most planets decimated by Impstars had no shielding. The planets that do have shielding stand pretty well against them.

The Impstar does have an over-whelming 60 turbolaser and 60 ion cannons and 72 fighters.

If Odyssey didn't beam nukes aboard or do something very cunning they would be in trouble fast.

[Mister Oragahn]

They could just fire many nukes at the same spot, and create a wide gap, and that's all they need to finish off the ISD.

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

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.

Good grief, he's at it again.
Did you even read my post? To evenly crater the surface, you only need equidistant craters, and you could have that with a measly 6 craters.

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.

What kind of a wierdo are you! Who cares if it took days! I'd still be scared ou someone who could blockade and destroy my planet!

[darth_timon]

Good grief, he's at it again.
Did you even read my post? To evenly crater the surface, you only need equidistant craters, and you could have that with a measly 6 craters.

To evenly crater the ENTIRE planet's surface, all several million square kilometres of it, you only need six craters? Those would have to be BIG craters caused by huge firepower.

What kind of a wierdo are you! Who cares if it took days! I'd still be scared ou someone who could blockade and destroy my planet!

If it took days then you'd have ample time to escape (don't forget that many civilians in Star Wars have their own ships). The threat of death from bombardment is somewhat negated when you have plenty of time to escape.

[Hypochondriac]

[QUOTE=darth_timon;6777677]To evenly crater the ENTIRE planet's surface, all several million square kilometres of it, you only need six craters? Those would have to be BIG craters caused by huge firepower.


All depends on how you define evenly: Equal or identical in degree, extent, or amount

With the definition two craters the same size on the surface could be called evenly cratered.

[IcyNeko]

IN order to do that kind of damage, you'd need to chunk out significant portions of the planet. You'd run a clear risk of fracturing the planet with that kind of firepower.

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

You don't get it, do you?
All that is required by the exact words is that the craters be equidistant.
It does not say that the whole surface is covered.
That's reading into it.

[darth_timon]

You don't get it, do you?
All that is required by the exact words is that the craters be equidistant.
It does not say that the whole surface is covered.
That's reading into it.

The quote says that Dankayo's surface was evenly cratered. Not part of the surface, not the equator or any other specific region, but the surface, implying entire surface.

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

You still don't get it.
To evenly crater a surface (no matter how big), the craters must simply be equidistant.
Equidistant craters could be thousands of miles away and still be equidistant.
(as a matter of fact, 6 craters is generous; you could do it with two. One at each pole.)

[darth_timon]

You still don't get it.
To evenly crater a surface (no matter how big), the craters must simply be equidistant.
Equidistant craters could be thousands of miles away and still be equidistant.
(as a matter of fact, 6 craters is generous; you could do it with two. One at each pole.)

By 'evenly cratered' it is not only assumed that the ENTIRE planet's surface is covered in craters, but that the craters overlap too, otherwise coverage would not be total. Two massive overlapping craters, one at either poll, would require massive firepower (and would it even be possible for the craters to overlap enough to cover the entire planet's surface? No, because they won't overlap at every point)

[Mister Oragahn]

By 'evenly cratered' it is not only assumed that the ENTIRE planet's surface is covered in craters, but that the craters overlap too, otherwise coverage would not be total. Two massive overlapping craters, one at either poll, would require massive firepower (and would it even be possible for the craters to overlap enough to cover the entire planet's surface? No, because they won't overlap at every point)

No. You assume that, because you just can't see the thing differently.

When I say my T-shirt is wet, it doesn't necessarily mean it's completely wet. In fact, in most of the case, it's used in the exact contrary situation.

If a T-shirt is dirty, because it as lump of ketchup on it, about every single human will automatically say that the T-shirt is dirty, even if only 3 cm² are covered with ketchup.
It does not refer to the T-shirt in its entirety.

We could come with billions of examples like that, simply because when people refer to the state of "something", they don't necessarily, and in fact rarely refer to the complete and absolute total state of the entirety of this "somethng", but speak in averages, as a whole.

Plus, taking the moderate interpretation of the event makes the event fit the already vast majority of elements from various sources.

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

I don't think even Mr. Oragahn understands what I'm saying:
You can 'evenly crater' a planet with two craters because they're equidistant.
'Evenly cratered' has absolutely no bearing on how much of the surface is covered, as long as the craters are at equal intervals.