Explanation or opinion on firepower discrepancy in star wars

[Lunacy1]

Hello all (:

It’s come to my attention that some members of certain forums I read (other than this one) consistently use examples of low-yield firepower for starships and vehicles in the clone wars, to contradict the official allocated max yields for said starships or vehicles, regardless of the fact that we see examples of higher yields (or at least subsidiary evidence for higher yields) within G canon.

For example: multi thousand g accelerations performed by fighters and cruisers in the Battles of Yavin and Endor, Dookus Sail Ship escaping a worlds gravity (supposedly before Yoda could pick up his stick – unless you assume some strange cuts reordering scenes), the asteroids being vaporized by point defence of a star destroyer (or dialled down turbolasers acting as ‘point defence’ given the energy requirements line up with the allocated yields for weapons of that category), the rapid firing gigajoule range blasters of Slave 1 (not the concealed kiloton laser) fragmenting asteroids yet requiring a substantial quantity of hits to lower the shields of a light fighter and causing only localized scorching to the hull (whilst heavier laser cannons quickly lead to outright destruction of even heavier fighters) as well as of course the sheer power requirements for the Death Stars planet destroying super laser and its 100G accelerative capabilities all show far higher energy requirements and all incline far higher yields than those seen in the Clone Wars Animated series – over ruling the WW2 like firepower of heavy turbolasers depicted in parts of the series when battling in atmosphere.

The power required to accelerate ships shown in G canon sets a benchmark for power one thousand times greater than the sustainable firepower suggested by Base Delta Zero operations and the allocated figures from ICS, whilst the firepower of the Slave 1 might even outgun full scale warships if The Clone Wars figures were taken as “what is”. And almost all low end examples are in fact lower than the energy requirements of asteroid vaporization mentioned earlier unless that’s discredited and as some would claim, they were only fragmented.
I understand that due to the nature of Science Fiction and storytelling and perhaps lack of “hard science consideration' it is likely ships will often depict the low-end firepower seen in TCW and future works such as the live series, however hard science and logic driven from the Movies themselves as well as parts of the EU and actual statistics make the high end firepower a nigh certainty.

Im sorry for the length of this post, and for if it was a drag to read lol however I was just wandering what peoples stance on said subjects was here?
My calculations and case studies some time ago have lead me to believe for example, an Imperial Star Destroyer can maintain firepower at a rate of ~6 teratons a second, and perform a base delta zero in a number of hours (going to the extent of slagging upper crusts).
My particular interests and area of study are 40K and Star Wars and when dealing with them, I try to fit all sources into continuity and if they seem wobbly, see if they can be explained in some way.

For example, Rouge Trader and possibly a few novels outright state kiloton yields for “hard hitting macro cannons”, and terajoule lances, however in other parts of the book they are described as “rapid-firing” hardly what I expect from the hundred meter long super heavy macro cannons lining the broadside, but perhaps more what I would expect from the hundreds/thousands of weapons often described as pock marking the whole, or being in concealed banks and suitable for covering large quantities of space with firepower helping narrow down searches for hidden Eldar ships or hindering shield regeneration, whilst the far far fewer city block sized multi-gigaton weapons supply the anti-capital ship firepower.

Could the very low examples of firepower in the Clone Wars be explained?
Consider, in space armour and shields are extremely durable, armour is hundreds/thousands of thousands times strength than steel to withstand the accelerations (through the use of energized tensor fields) and seem to take multi-megaton thermal energies per cubic meter to vaporize (given their substantial resistance to fighter scale kiloton weaponry and torpedoes, and their ability to take light and medium turbolaser gigaton-range firepower without outright destruction, as the armour and shields is super conductive, and places transfers the energy into heat sinks, to later be radiated away… by radiators in the form of invisible and harmless neutrinos.

My theory or rather question then, is there any reason why a ships ability to radiate neutrinos in atmosphere could be handicapped in some way, making the armours shields much more comparable to their raw state (without the extreme enhancements they have in space with energy fields/super-heat sinks) making them susceptible to the more low end firepower and possibly even ground defences and fighters when in atmosphere?
Also consider turbolasers, is it possible that they may be simply unable to release energy bolts beyond a certain energy threshold within atmosphere, because of their reduced heat dissipation or perhaps because there is a lack of vacuum within the barrel itself (maybe gigaton bolts would cause the atmosphere to expand destroying the barrel from the inside out).

Or would it be of your opinions that the lack of high firepower depicted in present and future TV works is simply due to lack of consideration, plot, or cartoon stylization?

Thank you for any feedback XD

[nightmare]

We are only required to make the Clone Wars connect if there's any way to reconcile it. That means not making stuff up, but from what's actually presented in canon. Since there isn't any that we know of, it can simply be ignored. Those light turbolaser hits in the opening scene of ANH flashes out the entire screen; TCW just doesn't measure up to that.

If you still want to try and reconcile it, we already know from the SPHA-Ts that turbolasers have almost no interaction with atmosphere regardless of what must easily be kiloton yield as a lower benchmark. Considering that and the compressed implosion of seismic charges, it looks like they may have some sort of containment field, effectively turning tl bolts into energy bullets. Of course, that idea has been presented before, but it's difficult to make sense of it.

[Havok]

Out side of the Death Star, even the movies don't show the firepower people like to wank out of their pockets for debate.

[Darth Fanboy]

That depends on your take of the Imperial Fleet destroying asteroids during ESB but for the most part, yeah you're right.

[Havok]

That depends on your take of the Imperial Fleet destroying asteroids during ESB but for the most part, yeah you're right.

Yeah, there is that too.

Of course then there are blasters that can't go through ice.

[Connor MacLeod]

I started figuring blasters might be more of a 'neural disruptor' type weapon rather than a heat ray or a 'explosive vaporization' type weapon. although they could have those configurations or settings (some examples would imply it at least). Basically they shoot a more lethal version of a stun, possibly with some thermal side effects. Of course 'effects' of blasters can depend on a great many parameters nevermind what you assume they are. Blasters eject casings too after all, os they could just be space bullets.

Also, the problem with the 'calcs' tends to rest on the assumptions or interpretations made. I mean yeah we only see firepower from the Death Star (the asteroid calcs don't really show GIGATONS do they? At best you gould get maybe low kilotons per gun from that.) but rather the implications behind that.

Nevermind the whole 'blow a planet up' bit or Dodonna's statements (those get argued over to death, esp whether the Death STar blows shit up via brute force or not) simply moving a 160 km (or 900 km) metal moon (or the Executor!) takes a shitload of energy. Even if you don't accept the superhuge accelerations either, that remains true. And unless you believe SW engines use some sort of 'mass reduction' to cheat, that means the brute force application requires shitloads of energy as well (they use reaction thrusters after all..)

[Lunacy1]

Its possible the lower setting blasts of blasters and AT AT firepower at Hoth may be some kind of heavy stun setting explaining away the low visible firepower. but we consistantly see very high power settings from the same guns in the back ground and films them selves: a double digit/multi-hundred megajoule blast from an E-11, vaporizing that grate in the detention block of the Death Star and multi kiloton blasts from the AT AT at the shield generator and multi-gigajoule blasts being used to take out the turrets.
The EU seems to confirm brute force death star DET laser multi thousand G accelerations and the ramifications of such that is hinted/shown in G canon - i never was saying the asteroid vaping was gigatons, i was using that to show higher power than that shown in TCW/lower canon thats all :L

[the atom]

a double digit/multi-hundred megajoule blast from an E-11, vaporizing that grate in the detention block of the Death Star

Holy shit, you do know what a double to triple digit megajoule explosion looks like right? A modern HEAT round used by MBTs is only something like 30-60 megajoules (I think).

[Darth Fanboy]

Of course then there are blasters that can't go through ice.

Well are they shooting at ice monsters?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Lucas never set out to do anything with numbers in at all, really, apart from the occasional "1138". He's not a physicist or an engineer or an ordnance tech, he's rooted in the pulps which knew no more of scientific credibility than the cartoons they basically were elaborations of.

All he's interested in is the story (whether that is any good is another matter), and he and the overwhelming majority of the EU authors are simply not from the hard SF tradition where what can and cannot be done, and why it can and cannot be done, is part and frequently point of the tale.

I am usually one of the big numbers crowd, because I grew up reading that tradition, Clarke, Asimov et al, and I find the human possibilities of a universe where people have that kind of power to play with enormously more interesting than the mystic nonsense that the universe's creator wants me to care about;

but from a storytelling point of view I have to acknowledge that Star Wars was never meant to be hard SF, the numbers are a result of the law of unintended consequences- you honestly think Lucas had the faintest idea what it takes to mass scatter a planet, and what kind of industrial background that implies? Of course not.

The inconsistencies exist because no attempt was made to be consistent, the discrepancies are there because it was no-one's business and watch to be- crepant? [At a guess it actually derives from the latin Crebritas, frequency, closeness in succession- meaning how one thing follows on from another.] The numbers are the part imported after the fact, not the inconsistencies.

I prefer the universe that the numbers imply. I like them because I think they lead to a better story, full of people able to make a difference, than the mixture of monomyth and saturday morning cartoons that constitute the actual director vision.

[Simon_Jester]

I started figuring blasters might be more of a 'neural disruptor' type weapon rather than a heat ray or a 'explosive vaporization' type weapon. although they could have those configurations or settings (some examples would imply it at least). Basically they shoot a more lethal version of a stun, possibly with some thermal side effects. Of course 'effects' of blasters can depend on a great many parameters nevermind what you assume they are. Blasters eject casings too after all, os they could just be space bullets.

They do seem to leave burns, smoking craters in walls, and so on. I always figured they were some kind of energy/beam/whatever weapon, but one that isn't drastically more destructive than normal firearms with at most a few exceptions.

Which, as I've said many times, makes sense. If you're buying a handgun for personal defense, you do NOT want something that hits its target like a 155mm artillery shell. Because you may be shooting in self-defense at someone on the other side of a small room, and having that huge blast go off inside the room with you... yeah.

So they're just... like guns, only they go sort of... pew pew.

[scratches head]

Its possible the lower setting blasts of blasters and AT AT firepower at Hoth may be some kind of heavy stun setting explaining away the low visible firepower. but we consistantly see very high power settings from the same guns in the back ground and films them selves: a double digit/multi-hundred megajoule blast from an E-11, vaporizing that grate in the detention block of the Death Star...

Can we really distinguish between "vaporized" and "blew the shit out of it and knocked the fragments down the hole into the garbage masher?" At that point you're reading a lot too much into the special effects.

and multi kiloton blasts from the AT AT at the shield generator and multi-gigajoule blasts being used to take out the turrets.

It's believable that an AT-AT's main guns at "maximum firepower" have nuclear-equivalent firepower. On the other hand, it's also believable that when you shoot holes in a shield generator designed to deflect "any bombardment," it will blow up with a nuclear-equivalent fireball.

Lucas never set out to do anything with numbers in at all, really, apart from the occasional "1138". He's not a physicist or an engineer or an ordnance tech, he's rooted in the pulps which knew no more of scientific credibility than the cartoons they basically were elaborations of.

Although interestingly, when Teleros and (to an extent) I set out to do calcs for the Lensman setting, one of the emblems of pulp, we actually got more consistent results out of that than people seem to be getting out of Star Wars. Arguably too consistent to be coincidence. But then, the author of those novels did have a technical background, and may very well have sat down and figured out in advance what he wanted from beam weapons.

This would have made him unusual for the era, but it's an interesting anomaly.

[nightmare]

a double digit/multi-hundred megajoule blast from an E-11, vaporizing that grate in the detention block of the Death Star

Holy shit, you do know what a double to triple digit megajoule explosion looks like right? A modern HEAT round used by MBTs is only something like 30-60 megajoules (I think).

More like 10-15 MJ. Tungsten 17-20 MJ, USN railgun 33 MJ.

But I think he's right... vapourization is pretty hefty, and it was clearly turned to gas.

[Connor MacLeod]

They do seem to leave burns, smoking craters in walls, and so on. I always figured they were some kind of energy/beam/whatever weapon, but one that isn't drastically more destructive than normal firearms with at most a few exceptions.

Which, as I've said many times, makes sense. If you're buying a handgun for personal defense, you do NOT want something that hits its target like a 155mm artillery shell. Because you may be shooting in self-defense at someone on the other side of a small room, and having that huge blast go off inside the room with you... yeah.

So they're just... like guns, only they go sort of... pew pew.

[scratches head]

I make two distinctions as far as evidence goes: visual gets treated separately from the text at least as far as explaining things. Blasters onscreen are just plain 'weird' so the only rule I have there is 'glowy bolt means shit' - It could be a literal raygun or it could be a projectile weapon - the visuals can frankly go both ways for ground and space weapons depending on your particular example, so the least problematic conclusion seems to be that different kinds of weapons get used and they just (for whatever odd reason) end up looking like similar glowy bolts. We cna be helped a bit in this case that concussion missiles and proton torpedoes in the OT at least look like bolts too.

Most of the ground weapon/small arms examples in the movies are going to be projectiles simply because they tend to be the most often seen (and thus most visually inconsistent.) variations in velocity, effect, etc. Blowing craters in inorganic materials could be attributed to either different ammo/setting (explosive rounds) or something volatile in the materials (won't work in all cases but meh.) People can have a 'different' setting. No reason wasting energy blowing them apart or vaporizing them if you don't have to.

As far as novel and textual evidence goes, they just add 'additional' weapons - I'm nto too sure much evidence for massless beams or particle beams exists in the movies, but I have no problems with the extra material adding them or them being used alongside the funky stuff. It's not like the SW universe is one where 'efficiency' is an overriding motivator (unless it is 'efficiently stealing money from people through crazy ideas and designs.')

Out of universe its all 'raygun' and doesnt need any sort of mental gymnastics to explain.

Can we really distinguish between "vaporized" and "blew the shit out of it and knocked the fragments down the hole into the garbage masher?" At that point you're reading a lot too much into the special effects.

The grate is bloody weird. On one hand it looks melted, but there's no residual glow. There's no shrapnel (so I'm not sure you could say 'blew the hell out of) and I'm not sure you could get a sufficiently low enough blasting to blow that much grating away. I've tried calcing it and it does get pretty heavy. What's more, the hole blasted is not exactly symmetrical in any way, its pretty jagged in the length of bars remaining, which makes it hard for me to believe it was blown away OR vaporized. And there are other obvious problems with total vaporization in such a confined space when you have unhelmeted, and unarmoured people around.

Best I could come up with ever (without 'technobabble damage mechanism' or assuming they line the gratings with incendiary compound) is that the grating is melted and falls inwards. How that energy conducts as it does.

Then again maybe they do line the grates with thermite. I mean the contractor didn't add railings....

It's believable that an AT-AT's main guns at "maximum firepower" have nuclear-equivalent firepower. On the other hand, it's also believable that when you shoot holes in a shield generator designed to deflect "any bombardment," it will blow up with a nuclear-equivalent fireball.

Evil S'tan's old calcs yes, although that depended on fireball diameter and whether or not you believed the fireballs (there were several) could have come from the guns instead of the station, and which fireball. Me, I always thought the first one was the safest bet (fits with the ICS figures for 'MAX FIREPOWER' on guns - bearing in mind that 'max firepower' is not going to be the same as 'typical output' either.)

On the other side of the coin, the TESB novel mentions gunfire from the At Ats ripping people in half but not incinerating them so...

this might also be what Havok referred to with the 'ice' bit.

I should note in ROTJ there's a tree in the background during the ground battle around the bunker that was CGI added in and gets cut down by a blaster bolt IIRC - sort of like the tree Mike calced on the old TLC site, but onyl bigger.

Although interestingly, when Teleros and (to an extent) I set out to do calcs for the Lensman setting, one of the emblems of pulp, we actually got more consistent results out of that than people seem to be getting out of Star Wars. Arguably too consistent to be coincidence. But then, the author of those novels did have a technical background, and may very well have sat down and figured out in advance what he wanted from beam weapons.

This would have made him unusual for the era, but it's an interesting anomaly.

Teleros asked me for help on that too and I recall reading the series at/around that time to get a knowledge of the background, but I don't quite remember it that way. There was a 'sort of' consistency in one sense, but there were some weird problems with side effects (like some of the implied vaporization/cremation of people in certain examples. I remember a few cases where the ground battles were odd/problematic from a firepower perspective - needed some handwaving there to help explain away) same with some of the 'base reducing' examples too I recall. Trying to make sense of the inertialess drive was a pain in the ass, not to mention all the funky power generation tech. Oh and then there were all those bombs and warheads that could get to wacky yields depending on how you interpreted (They could have had planet killer bombs way back as far as triplanetary lol)

Compared to STar Wars, Lensman is MORE internally consistent and with relatively less variation in the conclusions, but it still had a level of 'making sense' to make it all fit. I felt the same way about 40K actually - easier to work with than STar Wars, but there were still tons of inconsistencies (it was just relatively less of a headache to work with.)

[Lunacy1]

The Grate appeared in Brian Young's VIdeo to melt then vaporize in frame-frame irc but yea - secondary effects are limited, though han is armoured who is directly next to the grate.
There ia also craters almost the size of Lukes head vaporized in to the concrete walls at Bespin (multi-megajoule) and EU will support (in rare examples i suppose) multi-hundred megajoule energy blasts on higher setting such as what could be implied by the grate, can Han Solo's blaster totally vaporize a body? Im sure someone was talking about effects from a blaster like that on higher setting but i dont have the source, iirc they wanted to get rid of the body or something.

[Luke Skywalker]

Here’s a rationalization: blaster and turbolaser bolts are really made of particles that, upon hitting a target, detonate via some sort of fusion; ie, they are bombs. And when they miss their target, they are somehow programmed to not detonate, thus explaining why a single stray turbolaser shot did not kill off both ground armies on Geonosis.

Perhaps these bombs are also highly focused and programmed to release their energy in a manner in which it only damages the super-neutronium armor, with minimal atmospheric effects [this doesn’t violate CoE, as the work is being done to melt/vaporize the armor]. Of course, this is a voluntary setting, which allows for wide scale base delta zeros if called for.

Out side of the Death Star, even the movies don't show the firepower people like to wank out of their pockets for debate.

Yes, we do. Try calc’ing the energy required to pass Geonosis’s rings in under ten seconds, or for the Executor and a fleet of imperial star destroyers to circumnavigate Endor in less than a minute.

[Connor MacLeod]

The Grate appeared in Brian Young's VIdeo to melt then vaporize in frame-frame irc but yea - secondary effects are limited, though han is armoured who is directly next to the grate.
There ia also craters almost the size of Lukes head vaporized in to the concrete walls at Bespin (multi-megajoule) and EU will support (in rare examples i suppose) multi-hundred megajoule energy blasts on higher setting such as what could be implied by the grate, can Han Solo's blaster totally vaporize a body? Im sure someone was talking about effects from a blaster like that on higher setting but i dont have the source, iirc they wanted to get rid of the body or something.

There's a not so small problem with that. Most people tend to fixate on the 'explosive' analogues, as if any and every energy weapon that exists somehow will behave like a bomb. Which is pretty effing silly if you ask me because it depends entirely on how the weapon is designed, but that's beside the point. The indisputed problem is that tens or hundreds of megajoules is ALOT of energy and energy just does not vanish. So lets say the grate is vaporized, or holes are blown in concrete. You suddenly have this large volume of very hot metallic (or silicon) gas that is expanding in the immediate vicinity of people who have exposed skin. It represents the very real problem that these people, at the very least, would react to that problem (pain or rapid increases in heat) if not actually getting burned (flash burn wise it only takes like a few hundred to a few thousand kilojoules worth of energy to inflict lethal burns on someone. First degree burns require far less energy.) And tens or hundreds of megajoules is equivalent to heating up a 5x5x5 m volume of air to something like 700-1000K temps, which is sufficed to say, presents some problems to human beings.

Of course context matters, since stuff like this will not neccesarily happen right off the bat and technology can sometimes provide a handwave, but it is a non-trivial problem that has to be dealt with when it comes to numbers.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yes, we do. Try calc’ing the energy required to pass Geonosis’s rings in under ten seconds, or for the Executor and a fleet of imperial star destroyers to circumnavigate Endor in less than a minute.

Uh, he said that aside from the death star no other vessel SHOWS THAT KIND OF FIREPOWER in the movies. Which is entirely correct. Stuff based on engine outputs or ship movement or shit like that (or anything remotely similar) is simply extrapolated and depends on the assumptions made. If we go by movies alone, for all we know ISD firepower is 1/100th the output of the engines, or something like that (and accel for ISDs could be far less than the oft-assumed 'thousands'. various EU sources support those figures of course, but canon evidence is much sparser when it comes to accels.)

Interpretation and implication from evidence is always a much trickier thing to deal with.

[Luke Skywalker]

Uh, he said that aside from the death star no other vessel SHOWS THAT KIND OF FIREPOWER in the movies.

Yeah, and? I’m sure that there’s a G canon source somewhere confirming that Wars ships use ion thrusters, ie reaction drives, so they effectively operate by pushing small particles verryyyyy fast, meaning that their engines use the same basic principle as rail-guns.

Which is entirely correct. Stuff based on engine outputs or ship movement or shit like that (or anything remotely similar) is simply extrapolated and depends on the assumptions made.

Like what? Of course these yields are extrapolated, but no assumptions need to be made here, other than the entire premise of the debate, that the Star Wars universe can be rationalized with RL physics.

If we go by movies alone, for all we know ISD firepower is 1/100th the output of the engines, or something like that

Which would be ridiculous, of course. If turbolasers were less efficient than modern day chemical lasers, they would simply slap rail-guns onto the ships instead, given that their engines shoot out particles at extreme velocities just fine.

Or simply use their engines’ exhaust fume to vaporize enemy ships. After all, but this alternative explanation, every ships’ weaponry and, by extension, shields are inexplicably ten thousand times weaker than their engines.

(and accel for ISDs could be far less than the oft-assumed 'thousands'. various EU sources support those figures of course, but canon evidence is much sparser when it comes to accels.)

The canon evidence for high acceleration is suprisingly packed. Read this, for example:

"The Nubian shot through the hangar doors, ripping past battle droids and laser fire, lifting away from the city of Theed into the blue, sunlit sky. The planet of Naboo was left behind in seconds, the ship rising into the darkness of space, arcing toward a suddenly visible cluster of Trade Federation battleships blocking its way."

Among many other instances, Dooku’s sailboat passes Geonosis’s rings in the time it takes for Yoda to pick up his cane, and Padme to check on her dismembered boyfriend and Obi Wan. An imperial fleet circumnavigates Endor in under a minute. Many of these examples are fairly inescapable, and few “assumptions” are needed.

[nightmare]

Uh, he said that aside from the death star no other vessel SHOWS THAT KIND OF FIREPOWER in the movies. Which is entirely correct.

Well, there is this.

The background ISD in ROTJ, which is a mile long starship that went from looking perfectly fine to that in one hit. The light hits on the Tantive IV are also interesting, because they flash out the screen.

Stuff based on engine outputs or ship movement or shit like that (or anything remotely similar) is simply extrapolated and depends on the assumptions made. If we go by movies alone, for all we know ISD firepower is 1/100th the output of the engines, or something like that (and accel for ISDs could be far less than the oft-assumed 'thousands'. various EU sources support those figures of course, but canon evidence is much sparser when it comes to accels.)

Interpretation and implication from evidence is always a much trickier thing to deal with.

Well, we do have some accel examples in the movies that are quite clear. No microjumps can be assumed since we're talking about the movies and there's no precedent for it. There's the DS1 approach, the Imperial fleet encircling Endor's moon, and the DS1 itself approaching Yavin. Plus all the takeoffs of course, which were confirmed to be that fast by Dooku's takeoff.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yeah, and? I’m sure that there’s a G canon source somewhere confirming that Wars ships use ion thrusters, ie reaction drives, so they effectively operate by pushing small particles verryyyyy fast, meaning that their engines use the same basic principle as rail-guns.

Yeah and I'm sure you can go off and find it then if there is, and then explain what a railgun is supposed to have in common with your gross generalization about reaction drives. This should prove amusing and enlightening if you can pull it off.

Like what? Of course these yields are extrapolated, but no assumptions need to be made here, other than the entire premise of the debate, that the Star Wars universe can be rationalized with RL physics.

LOL. so you're assuming that any hypothetical energy-consuming weapon a SW ship might consume can automatically take the full output of the reactors without problem with magically perfect efficiency? Remember, movies-only deprives us of alot of those useful tidbits from the ICS and such.

Which would be ridiculous, of course. If turbolasers were less efficient than modern day chemical lasers, they would simply slap rail-guns onto the ships instead, given that their engines shoot out particles at extreme velocities just fine.

I can't wait to see you justify this assertion.

Or simply use their engines’ exhaust fume to vaporize enemy ships. After all, but this alternative explanation, every ships’ weaponry and, by extension, shields are inexplicably ten thousand times weaker than their engines.

I'm pretty sure engine exhausts, while they can move very fast potentially are not nearly as collimated as a beam weapon requires for any effective range. I'm assuming you're going by the old 'Kzinti Lesson' standby, which was dealt with by Atomic rockets here. Nevermind that you actually haven't clarified what KIND of exhaust velocity (or parameters) we're dealing with - did you konw there's a wide range based on various parameters? Shocking isnt it?

The canon evidence for high acceleration is suprisingly packed. Read this, for example:

"The Nubian shot through the hangar doors, ripping past battle droids and laser fire, lifting away from the city of Theed into the blue, sunlit sky. The planet of Naboo was left behind in seconds, the ship rising into the darkness of space, arcing toward a suddenly visible cluster of Trade Federation battleships blocking its way."

For crying out loud did you even bother looking at the numbers? how many 'seconds' is seconds? That can techincially mean anyhwere from 2 seconds to 59 seconds (or 119 if you consider 'one minute' to not be the same as 'minutes.') If we assumed 25 seconds from ground to low orbit (EG outside the atmosphere) and assuming around 150 km or so for atmosphere (I'm too lazy to doubl echeck and its not going to make a huge diff calc wise) we get.. 48 gees. Which is not exactly trivial for acceleration, but its far from the hundreds or thousands of gees typically atributed to star wars.

Moreover, it doesn't address the fact that we know repulsors exist, and they may be involved in getting a ship ot orbit. Indeed from the SW novelization we know repulsors can work some distance out from a planet.

Among many other instances, Dooku’s sailboat passes Geonosis’s rings in the time it takes for Yoda to pick up his cane, and Padme to check on her dismembered boyfriend and Obi Wan.

A ship that uses a magical solar sail to propel itself and has no thrusters of any kind except in the AOTC ICS (which are, I might add, nowhere near as powerful as the movie proclaims.) Another potential case where Repulsors are involved, nevermind the possibility that the two scenes are not continuous.

An imperial fleet circumnavigates Endor in under a minute. Many of these examples are fairly inescapable, and few “assumptions” are needed.

Maybe you should try running your own numbers and math and regurgitating other people's work? I find it hilarious that you somehow think I am totally unaware of these facts or am somehow new to this. (Here's a hint, my name actually crops up in quite a few places on Mike and Curtis's sites pertaining to SW stuff. I've known about this crap for years.)

[Connor MacLeod]

The background ISD in ROTJ, which is a mile long starship that went from looking perfectly fine to that in one hit. The light hits on the Tantive IV are also interesting, because they flash out the screen.

The one problem with that is we dont really know enough about the reactors or the internal ship design to totally dimsiss the possibility of something volatile on the ship contributing to the destruction. Starships, esp Star Wars ships, are not exactly inert targets.

Well, we do have some accel examples in the movies that are quite clear. No microjumps can be assumed since we're talking about the movies and there's no precedent for it. There's the DS1 approach, the Imperial fleet encircling Endor's moon, and the DS1 itself approaching Yavin. Plus all the takeoffs of course, which were confirmed to be that fast by Dooku's takeoff.

Do you have some calcs on hand for Endor? Dooku's takeoff I already dealt with, and I've messed around with Yavin to know that it depends entirely on the timeframe and distances you work with. hell I'm pretty sure D13 went off on some argument about the problems in tht source (I argued the topic with him over that.)

[nightmare]

The background ISD in ROTJ, which is a mile long starship that went from looking perfectly fine to that in one hit. The light hits on the Tantive IV are also interesting, because they flash out the screen.

The one problem with that is we dont really know enough about the reactors or the internal ship design to totally dimsiss the possibility of something volatile on the ship contributing to the destruction. Starships, esp Star Wars ships, are not exactly inert targets.

I've certainly considered that, but while starships has dangerous stuff aboard in the form of warheads, power cells and reactors which may be fail-deadly while hit by ordnance, they are are also not unprotected. It's still a mile long starship going from fine to kablooey in one shot. Sure, we can't say that the tl bolt caused all of that, and we don't really know how much energy it would take to do it in the first place. But it's a start.

Do you have some calcs on hand for Endor? Dooku's takeoff I already dealt with, and I've messed around with Yavin to know that it depends entirely on the timeframe and distances you work with. hell I'm pretty sure D13 went off on some argument about the problems in tht source (I argued the topic with him over that.)

Dooku's ship may have odd propulsion, but it's consistent with what we see in other takeoffs (Tatooine, Besoin), and repulsors are just way too slow. They've never demonstrated propulsion faster than barely supersonic, and that's with book backing.

I don't bother much with the accs calcs, but let's see. As for Yavin, 51 seconds from when we first see the X-Wings to the Death Star 1's magnetic field. While there's wiggling, we can establish a low end from it. Mike's old stuff lists 400 000 km, and believe it or not, Darkstar puts it at 453,615 km (it's just like him to use an exact figure for an estimate). We have to make some assumptions there, of course. Say we see them lined up halfway with Yavin, so that would make it 200000 km in 51 seconds, including necessary deacceleration, so that's 200 MM in 25.5 seconds, or 7 843 137 m/s. Which makes 307574 m/s2, or 31364 g's. That's a lot of wiggle room.

But to the Endor calcs. It takes 68 seconds for the Imperial fleet to appear from the rebels first jumping in. Curtis Saxton based his estimate from the viewscreen in the bunker at 189 km in 92 frames for a mean of 49 km/s. Mike's estimate is a little higher at 60 km/s. Detailed study of the frames have shown that the fleet accelerates (duh).

What's really damning is that the rebels didn't notice the imperial fleet coming around even when they first turned around. From when Ackbar get the report that enemy ships have appeared to when we see the imperial fleet, it takes approximately two to four seconds, and we're talking by the end of deaccleration. That leaves estimating the distance. That's tricky in the appearance scene since the imperial fleet is high up enough that we don't see the planet.

I could use the 68 seconds figure for a half-orbit, but the requirement for that is pretty low. I know the usual calcs for Endor is based on that display screen. Still, I guess it's worthwhile to put a low end to it. We'll assume Endor's moon is of Earth-size. I'll assume the Imperial fleet is orbiting at an altitude of 2000 km, since that's the limit for what's considered low orbit. That gives us a radius of 6371 + 2000 = 8371 km. Half the circumference is 26298,272 km. Relative initial velocity is 0, and end velocity is 0. That's a mean velocity of 773 kms per second. Not shabby at all for a 19 km ship, although not impressive for the terms we're spreaking.

I'll have to dig a bit for Endor specific calcs based on the display. I have a meeting today and tomorrow, so no promises, sorry.

[nightmare]

Ghetto edit - while the X-Wings weren't at relative zero velocity as they reached the magnetic field, they were deaccelerating in order to pass it and while I can't know how slow they were going, there's plenty of wiggle room.

[Simon_Jester]

a double digit/multi-hundred megajoule blast from an E-11, vaporizing that grate in the detention block of the Death Star

Holy shit, you do know what a double to triple digit megajoule explosion looks like right? A modern HEAT round used by MBTs is only something like 30-60 megajoules (I think).

More like 10-15 MJ. Tungsten 17-20 MJ, USN railgun 33 MJ.

But I think he's right... vapourization is pretty hefty, and it was clearly turned to gas.

[groans]

This is really stupid, you know? Nothing else in the scene supports that. If the blasters were that destructive then nobody should have made it out of that firefight alive.

Doesn't it make more sense for the grating to be blown to bits and blasted down the duct? Or, y'know, made of some cheap-shit plastic that's fairly strong, but isn't actually meant to survive personal beam weapon fire and so dissolves into a pile of ash very easily when shot at?

The grate is bloody weird. On one hand it looks melted, but there's no residual glow. There's no shrapnel (so I'm not sure you could say 'blew the hell out of) and I'm not sure you could get a sufficiently low enough blasting to blow that much grating away. I've tried calcing it and it does get pretty heavy. What's more, the hole blasted is not exactly symmetrical in any way, its pretty jagged in the length of bars remaining, which makes it hard for me to believe it was blown away OR vaporized. And there are other obvious problems with total vaporization in such a confined space when you have unhelmeted, and unarmoured people around.

Best I could come up with ever (without 'technobabble damage mechanism' or assuming they line the gratings with incendiary compound) is that the grating is melted and falls inwards. How that energy conducts as it does.

Then again maybe they do line the grates with thermite. I mean the contractor didn't add railings....

It's believable that an AT-AT's main guns at "maximum firepower" have nuclear-equivalent firepower. On the other hand, it's also believable that when you shoot holes in a shield generator designed to deflect "any bombardment," it will blow up with a nuclear-equivalent fireball.

Evil S'tan's old calcs yes, although that depended on fireball diameter and whether or not you believed the fireballs (there were several) could have come from the guns instead of the station, and which fireball. Me, I always thought the first one was the safest bet (fits with the ICS figures for 'MAX FIREPOWER' on guns - bearing in mind that 'max firepower' is not going to be the same as 'typical output' either.)

AT-ATs are big enough that you could literally mount artillery guns on them that fire nuclear warheads if you wanted to, using 20th century weapons, so I don't think it's out of line to posit that as peak yield.

On the other side of the coin, the TESB novel mentions gunfire from the At Ats ripping people in half but not incinerating them so...

This wouldn't be a problem if AT-ATs had a reasonable (i.e. huge) number of antipersonnel guns on the flanks like they should; it wouldn't add much weight and would make the things a lot more defensible and viable in close combat. As it is... sigh.

Although interestingly, when Teleros and (to an extent) I set out to do calcs for the Lensman setting, one of the emblems of pulp, we actually got more consistent results out of that than people seem to be getting out of Star Wars. Arguably too consistent to be coincidence. But then, the author of those novels did have a technical background, and may very well have sat down and figured out in advance what he wanted from beam weapons.

This would have made him unusual for the era, but it's an interesting anomaly.

Teleros asked me for help on that too and I recall reading the series at/around that time to get a knowledge of the background, but I don't quite remember it that way. There was a 'sort of' consistency in one sense, but there were some weird problems with side effects (like some of the implied vaporization/cremation of people in certain examples.

Possibly true, although from what I remember, I think it hung together at least as well as Star Wars as a whole, and probably better than some Star Wars individual works. DeLameters are nearly always presented as being insanely destructive except when specifically dialed down, and so on.

I remember a few cases where the ground battles were odd/problematic from a firepower perspective - needed some handwaving there to help explain away) same with some of the 'base reducing' examples too I recall. Trying to make sense of the inertialess drive was a pain in the ass, not to mention all the funky power generation tech. Oh and then there were all those bombs and warheads that could get to wacky yields depending on how you interpreted (They could have had planet killer bombs way back as far as triplanetary lol)

Compared to STar Wars, Lensman is MORE internally consistent and with relatively less variation in the conclusions, but it still had a level of 'making sense' to make it all fit. I felt the same way about 40K actually - easier to work with than STar Wars, but there were still tons of inconsistencies (it was just relatively less of a headache to work with.)

Inertialess drive is impossible to interpret in reasonable physical terms. Power generation methods come out as being roughly efficient enough to explain how their beam weapons can run. Bombs and warheads are a whole 'nother category... but then, that's true in real life, with the largest bombs being something like a billion times more destructive than the largest vehicle-mounted artillery. And we could build even bigger bombs than that if we really wanted to.

Dooku's ship may have odd propulsion, but it's consistent with what we see in other takeoffs (Tatooine, Besoin), and repulsors are just way too slow. They've never demonstrated propulsion faster than barely supersonic, and that's with book backing.

Supersonic speed would carry you up to something that visually resembles the edge of space in a matter of minutes if you can fly straight up at the same speed you fly around on the level. Normal aircraft obviously cannot do this, but an antigravity-powered thingamabob?

[Lunacy1]

u suddenly have this large volume of very hot metallic (or silicon) gas that is expanding in the immediate vicinity of people who have exposed skin.

Of course context matters, since stuff like this will not necessarily happen right off the bat and technology can sometimes provide a hand-wave, but it is a non-trivial problem that has to be dealt with when it comes to numbers.

I can see the problem there and can see no 'hand wave

Best I could come up with ever (without 'technobabble damage mechanism' or assuming they line the gratings with incendiary compound) is that the grating is melted and falls inwards. How that energy conducts as it does.

Given man-whole like mass and iron composition — that would still require double digit\MJ

The one problem with that is we dont really know enough about the reactors or the internal ship design to totally dismiss the possibility of something volatile on the ship contributing to the destruction. Starships, esp Star Wars ships, are not exactly inert targets.

I think it was almost certainly the reactor what caused the ships total vaporization. However in the process i think that bolt could have also (observe the size of the fireball upon penetration) hundreds of thousands/millions of cubic meters of hull to do so (given the cross sections of the region in ICS/doubled with that being the most heavily armoured region of the ship)

Only through using EU/statistics to fill the blanks does this 100% reach gigaton/teraton level firepower from the bolt (as kiloton point-defense and max power kiloton lasers do only minor scorching/localized damage respectively, and armour can supposedly with stand reasonable barrages of gigaton turbo-lasers).

Note the firepower achieved by the slave ones blasters (giga joule range) note that this cannot out right penetrate the shields of/or destroy Obi Wan's Interceptor (and said weapons are given triple digit gigajoules EU). Consider that X-Wings are far heavier fighters than the interceptor and note that even tie fighter lasers are capable of blowing them away within a lock-on, suggesting much heavier firepower (hundreds gigajoules-terajoules). Consider the damage these might cause to ships - and the quantity of material destroyed by the heavy turbo-laser bolt destroying the star destroyer.

Cross reference the suggested figures with ICS statistics.
I would say you can suggest the gigatons teratons from G canon alone but not claim it to be "obvious" or outright as it requires dancing around a bit. When cross referenced to the studied/canon extrapolated figures, its like 'confirmation' or given context.