Planetary Shield Strength

[SirNitram]

Planetary Shield Strength is an important topic: It allows us to determine if other sci-fi planetkillers can effect important worlds in the Empire. The following is designed to figure out how powerful they are.

In ANH, both SE and Original Recipe, there is a noticable glow around the world, in one, in the indicative 'tendrils' of a shield blocking a shot. Alderaan's planetary shield, mentioned in EU material, is clearly trying to resist the shot, and does so for a period between 1/100th, and 1/10th of a second. To be conservative, we'll use the 1/100th.

1e38J is the delivered firepower, and time resisting is 1/100th of a second.

1e36W is the observed Upper Limit of a planetary shielding system.

Commence the rabid Trekkies coming in to whine...

[Typhonis 1]

And the peeps were asking WHy a DS was built...those lanetary shields are why the only other way is to use spies to bring them down because arent there multiple generators on a plant??

[SirNitram]

And the peeps were asking WHy a DS was built...those lanetary shields are why the only other way is to use spies to bring them down because arent there multiple generators on a plant??

The Thrawn Duology shows there are multiple on the planet, but bringing down one allows such devastation to be wrought you can BDZ through the hole. Of course, some planetary shields may be built with only one emittor.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Not so, SirNitram. As a recently learned (the hard way, ala Mr.Bean), shields, even the planetary sorts, can be overloaded by an overwhelming assault into a small area. The shield cannot react to so many charges coming in at once, and rather than explode trying expend all that energy, simply shuts down to cool off for a bit.

So while 1e36W (or whatever) may be required, more or less, to completley deplete the shileds, ie drain them of there energy, it is simply overkill if you just want to knock out the shield, to bombard a planet.

This type of overwhelming attack needs to be done with reasonbly powerful weaponry, othrwise known as a torpedo sphere. it carries hundreds of proton torpedo tubes, and dozen of heavy TL emplacments. Using said bombardment tactic it can, for a short time, overload shields in a certain area, so surrounding ships can take shots at the shield generator/whatever else they're attempting to destroy.

[SirNitram]

I never claimed you couldn't punch through with enough hits in a localized area, just trying to pin down a maximum for the shield as a whole.

As for Proton Torpedos and their effects on shields, I'm working on that....

[DarkStar]

P
In ANH, both SE and Original Recipe, there is a noticable glow around the world, in one, in the indicative 'tendrils' of a shield blocking a shot.

Where are these in the SE???

[SirNitram]

P
In ANH, both SE and Original Recipe, there is a noticable glow around the world, in one, in the indicative 'tendrils' of a shield blocking a shot.

Where are these in the SE???

Did I say in they were in the SE? Funny, the quoted text doesn't say that. You live up to your nickname again, DumbShit.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Ah I see, well than I guess your simply looking for the raw energy output of the shield, not an effective way to attack it. My mistake.

[Master of Ossus]

And the peeps were asking WHy a DS was built...those lanetary shields are why the only other way is to use spies to bring them down because arent there multiple generators on a plant??

We already covered why they build DS on another thread. That is only part of the reason. The other reason is that a DS would allow one to destroy a heavily-defended, industrial world with far greater ease than assembling a fleet of smaller ships.

[Isolder74]

Planetary Shield Strength is an important topic: It allows us to determine if other sci-fi planetkillers can effect important worlds in the Empire. The following is designed to figure out how powerful they are.

In ANH, both SE and Original Recipe, there is a noticable glow around the world, in one, in the indicative 'tendrils' of a shield blocking a shot. Alderaan's planetary shield, mentioned in EU material, is clearly trying to resist the shot, and does so for a period between 1/100th, and 1/10th of a second. To be conservative, we'll use the 1/100th.

1e38J is the delivered firepower, and time resisting is 1/100th of a second.

1e36W is the observed Upper Limit of a planetary shielding system.

Commence the rabid Trekkies coming in to whine...

Seem reasonable. a planet could easily support the power generators considering the size of the generator on Hoth that would be easy

[Lord Poe]

Well, we know that full planetary shields like Coruscant had can be brought down in less than 24 hours by a fleet of capital ships and smaller dreadnaught ships (Retreat From Coruscant). While the exact number of ships in that story isn't revealed, Admiral Ackbar says in "Before The Storm"
that

pg.137-138: According to Ayddar, the order of battle for Black Sword includes forty-four capital ships which we have not seen nor heard of since the fall of the Emperor. None smaller than a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Three are Super-class vessels.

Drayson whistled. "What do you think of his analysis?"

"I find it indisputable."

"You know that that's more than enough firepower to overwhelm any planetary system in the New Republic," said Drayson. "Coruscant included."

[Isolder74]

Well, we know that full planetary shields like Coruscant had can be brought down in less than 24 hours by a fleet of capital ships and smaller dreadnaught ships (Retreat From Coruscant). While the exact number of ships in that story isn't revealed, Admiral Ackbar says in "Before The Storm"
that

pg.137-138: According to Ayddar, the order of battle for Black Sword includes forty-four capital ships which we have not seen nor heard of since the fall of the Emperor. None smaller than a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Three are Super-class vessels.

Drayson whistled. "What do you think of his analysis?"

"I find it indisputable."

"You know that that's more than enough firepower to overwhelm any planetary system in the New Republic," said Drayson. "Coruscant included."

That is alot of firepower there. TTHE SUPERS ARE PROBABLY enough to do it

[consequences]

Unfortunately, that series also claimed that a couple thousand ships were more than the empire ever had, so any data it provides is suspect.

[Captain Cyran]

If I may, I have little knowledge in science (hey I'm in high school right now, *prays not to be refered to as a dumb shit who doesn't know what he's talking about) but if you look at Wongs Alderaan page you can see that the planetary shield took at least half if not 2/3's of the Death Star blast before finally collapsing. Make your own conclusions from that if you look at the pictures.

[Ender]

P
In ANH, both SE and Original Recipe, there is a noticable glow around the world, in one, in the indicative 'tendrils' of a shield blocking a shot.

Where are these in the SE???

Did I say in they were in the SE? Funny, the quoted text doesn't say that. You live up to your nickname again, DumbShit.

Much as I enjoy abusing DS ignorance, this time he is correct. Look at the boldened bit.

[SirNitram]

Both the SE and the original have the 'glow' around the planet. Only the original has the shield sparks. I'll even post a link to some pictures of both.

http://www.skayhan.net/Alderaan.htm

[Lord Edam]

I find it odd that this subject purely relating to Star wars is left in the trek-wars forum, wheras some earlier pure SW subjects were moved. ho hum. On to the real point...

If all planetary shields are made up of many smaller elements like the coruscant shield is, then you don't know if ANH shows the entire shield withstanding all the firepower of the superlaser for a short period, or the section(s) hit by the superlaser vanishing right away and the other sections not hit by the SL holding on until the planet itself was destroyed

If you really want to work out what a planetary shield can handle you'd probably be better off working up from torpedo spheres, since they are designed to take out shields.

(and it's all irrelevant if the attackers use focused EM, since in Wedge's Gamble we discover the orbiting mirrors can get enough focused sunlight through the shields to melt buildings and vaporise massive amounts of water - useless in Trek-wars debates, )

[SirNitram]

Hi, Edam.

I've put this here so it can be easily seen for debates with S-8472 and so forth. If the Mods feel it should be moved, I have every faith it'll be moved.

I've been working off the premise that Coruscant's double-layered shield is an oddity, and that even if you have multiple emittors, you have to overload the majority of them to blow through. If you or anyone else has more info on the Alderaan shield, please, I'd love to see it.

As for Torp. Spheres. I'm holding off on discussing those, as the more I look at info on Proton Torpedos, the more they seem to be specialized shield-penetrators, as their damage against shields is always disproportionate to the damage against an unshielded target.

[Ender]

I trust you are factoring in the fact that, like starfighter shields, it seems planetary shields are 2 in 1 deals, they block both Energy and matter instead of just energy or just matter.

[Lord Edam]

I don't think you should start off an investigation of shields by assuming one of the few examples we have of shields is an oddity.

I think the double-layered option is unique to Coruscant (or at least, planets that can afford two layers of shields) but the fact that you can take out a single section of the shield, and only that section, without affecting other sections too much I would keep in until it can be shown to be unique to that planet.

we know from The Hutt Gambit (p56, as Leia approashes Nar Shadda) that their shield system is also made up of sections, and that individual sections can be turned on or off at will to allow ships in and out without affecting the rest of the shield, as is shown very nicely in Dark Empire when Han sneaks into Byss

We know from Wedge's Gamble that taking out one section of the shield is possible without taking out the whole shield, allowing ships to get under the shield (I believe one of the later NJO books offers a similar example for a planet under attack from the YV, can't remember which one though)

It is also the whole point of Torpedo spheres. The spheres concentrate on sections of the shield that are weak, and open up a hole in that section so they can attack the local generator, taking down that section of shield (you'd need to look up torpedo spheres in your RPG books for the full details. Maybe Sheppard has it online).

All the evidence currently seems to point to a number of smaller, weaker shield sections that make up the whole thing and can be taken out individually, rather than all the energy of the shield going to defend against any attack, nomatter which section it is against.

Another possibility is that once defeated the shield take a finite time to collapse - what we see in ANH is not a shield fighting off the superlaser for a short period of time, but the final remnants of the shield that are offering no protection whatsoever dying away.

[une]

Just a question, but isn't having mutiple shields kinda overriden by ROTJ? They had a single shield generator in Jedi that was able to protect a part of Endor as well as the entire Death Star.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Just a question, but isn't having mutiple shields kinda overriden by ROTJ? They had a single shield generator in Jedi that was able to protect a part of Endor as well as the entire Death Star.

1. That was TEMPORARY
2. That wasn't a planetary shield!

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

This is SW tech discussion. Thread moved.

[Isolder74]

Just a question, but isn't having mutiple shields kinda overriden by ROTJ? They had a single shield generator in Jedi that was able to protect a part of Endor as well as the entire Death Star.

And it was very similer to the hoth base set up. why cover the whole planet when you have only one instalation on the surface. waste of energy

[Talon Karrde]

And the peeps were asking WHy a DS was built...those lanetary shields are why the only other way is to use spies to bring them down because arent there multiple generators on a plant??

Consant bombardmant of high firepower can bring down a planetary shield, this is why the debate was started about the Death Stars value. We know the Empire had 25,000 Star Destroyer's built. This was more than enough to take down a planetary shield, but never would the Empire combine all their fleets to make one gigantic fleet so as not to lose control of their system garrisons.