Defiant's armor against projectiles

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Vympel
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Defiant's armor against projectiles

Post by Vympel »

I've never heard this incident discussed before, but I thought it was pretty funny - I'm just watching the episode now.

In Starship Down (Season 4), the Defiant is hunted by two Jem'Hadar ships while hiding in a gas giant's atmosphere - at one point, the Jem'Hadar launch two "torpedoes" (never seen again, as far as I know) at the Defiant - the ship manages to dodge the first.

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Now, these torpedoes are said to be closing "fast". The second torpedo is described as still closing - we don't see it hit - but the range is called out as it gets closer.

At 26:17-18, the miscellaneous crewman calls out the range as 100m - then 75m, then 50m, then impact at 26:27. In other words - it took about 10 seconds for the torpedo to fly 100m - or 36km/h (I'm sure one could estimate it more accurately, but who cares - its starting range and the time it hit are good enough).

(It's of course even worse when you consider the angle the torpedoes approached from)

The results? The torpedo didn't detonate. It did, however, show up wedged in the wall of the mess hall - where Quark and his Karemma associate try and disarm it.

Image

What would the consistency of Defiant's armor be, really? Butter? :lol:
Last edited by Vympel on 2008-01-04 07:40pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Stark »

Maybe it uses space explosives to force a super crystal penetrator through the ablative armour (which as I'm sure you're aware is super advanced stuff).

:D
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Post by Vympel »

*continues watching*

Here's where O'Brien thinks it hit:

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Post by Thanatos »

Why does it have a gigantic light bulb for a warhead?
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Post by Stark »

It's clearly a supercrystal kinetic penetrator, otherwise it wouldn't have penetrated the ablative armour in one shot, would it? :lol:
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Post by Thanatos »

So a 40 watt bulb and some plastic can penetrate their armor? :P
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Post by Stark »

Dude it's a CRYSTAL look at it! Crystals, as you know, have bizarre and special properties allowing them to do virtually anything! :)

The best part for me is that the crystal is BLUNT. Best penetrator ever, and the internal luminence makes it seem quite low mass too. Low mass, low speed, blunt... :)
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Post by Thanatos »

The best part for me is that the crystal is BLUNT. Best penetrator ever, and the internal luminence makes it seem quite low mass too. Low mass, low speed, blunt... Smile
The only thing better is a fluffy pillow apparently. :lol:
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Post by Vympel »

Thanatos wrote:Why does it have a gigantic light bulb for a warhead?
OOU? Because they figured the audience was too stupid to figure out when the torpedo had been disarmed. :)
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Post by harbringer »

Of more interest is since the defiant is purpose designed as a warship what does this say about the hull's on galaxy intrepid and so on?.
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Post by Oskuro »

All I can think of when looking the pics is Quark saying:

"Odo, look! Someone stuck a giant dildo through our hull!"
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Post by FA Xerrik »

Well it's glowy and smoky so it must be really hot, probably melted it's way through the hull :roll:

What ended up happening to this thing, anyways? Was it meant to detonate and simply fail to do so?
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Post by Vympel »

FA Xerrik wrote:Well it's glowy and smoky so it must be really hot, probably melted it's way through the hull :roll:
From watching the episode you'll get the opposite impression - the thing acts like it's been coated with dry ice.
What ended up happening to this thing, anyways? Was it meant to detonate and simply fail to do so?
Yeah, it was merely faulty. Quark disarms it with a random guess as to which component to pull out of the conveniently accessible insides.
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Post by Bounty »

FA Xerrik wrote:Well it's glowy and smoky so it must be really hot, probably melted it's way through the hull :roll:

What ended up happening to this thing, anyways? Was it meant to detonate and simply fail to do so?
The dude on the right was the Karemma arms dealer who sold that make of torpedo to the Dominion. He admits it's just crap merchandise.
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Post by Kamakazie Sith »

This is what you get when you have writers that are in love with WW2 battles, but don't do any research. That being said did you factor in the Defiants possibly direction and speed before they started evasive action?

This brings up a small rant of mine. WW2 tributes do not belong in space combat. It makes the battles slow, and unimaginative.
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Post by Ritterin Sophia »

Vympel wrote:*continues watching*

Here's where O'Brien thinks it hit:

-snip pic-
Did anyone else but me have to take a double take? In the second picture the torpedo looks like it hit towards the back of the starboard drive section (at least that's what I think it is, someone correct me if I'm wrong), in the third O'Brien's pointing towards the front of the ship.
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Post by Bounty »

General Schatten wrote:
Vympel wrote:*continues watching*

Here's where O'Brien thinks it hit:

-snip pic-
Did anyone else but me have to take a double take? In the second picture the torpedo looks like it hit towards the back of the starboard drive section (at least that's what I think it is, someone correct me if I'm wrong), in the third O'Brien's pointing towards the front of the ship.
The second picture is the Defiant dodging the first torpedo.
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Post by Ritterin Sophia »

Bounty wrote:
General Schatten wrote:
Vympel wrote:*continues watching*

Here's where O'Brien thinks it hit:

-snip pic-
Did anyone else but me have to take a double take? In the second picture the torpedo looks like it hit towards the back of the starboard drive section (at least that's what I think it is, someone correct me if I'm wrong), in the third O'Brien's pointing towards the front of the ship.
The second picture is the Defiant dodging the first torpedo.
My bad, that looked like a hit. I need to get to bed, I pulled another all-nighter.
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Post by montypython »

That torpedo sort of reminds me of a Boron tipped torp from one of the SW stories, don't remember which one though.
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Post by Kuja »

montypython wrote:That torpedo sort of reminds me of a Boron tipped torp from one of the SW stories, don't remember which one though.
Shadows of the Empire.

Though it must be said that the Imperial version functioned marginally better, taking out four Y-wings in one pop. :wink:
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Post by Academia Nut »

Quick note Vympel, you screwed up the speed by an order of magnitude, it should be 36km/h. Not that is all that less pathetic, seeing as how that's the approximate speed of a good Olympic sprinter.

And I now have this image of a guy running at the Defiant and doing a flying kick that carries him through the hull.

This incident should definitely be filed under the "didn't do the fucking math" category.
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Post by Balrog »

FA Xerrik wrote:Well it's glowy and smoky so it must be really hot, probably melted it's way through the hull :roll:
Even if that were so, Quark and his buddy wouldn't be standing so close to something that would be giving off tremendous heat and not feel the effects.
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Post by Jark »

What if it went through a window? Doesn't the Defiant have windows?
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Post by Bounty »

Jark wrote:What if it went through a window? Doesn't the Defiant have windows?
It has lit sections on the insides of the nacelles, but those aren't spaced right to be windows. The rest of the hull has none, neither in the exterior shots, or on any of the interior sets.
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Post by FA Xerrik »

Balrog wrote:Even if that were so, Quark and his buddy wouldn't be standing so close to something that would be giving off tremendous heat and not feel the effects.
Granted. I was attempting to go for the sarcastic approach there, since clearly anything that could melt through the "ablative armor" would be far too hot to be standing around as Quark and this lanky fellow are doing.

Actually, do we know how the ablative armor might affect an impact like this? The U.S.S. Odyssey showed Starfleet vessels are pretty weak against kinetic impact, after all. Perhaps that weakness, and/or the funky ablative properties of the Defiant's armor plate, could at least partly explain this incident. I'm not up to par on my DS9 lore though, so I honestly have no idea if something like this even makes sense.
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