See DarkStar get his asteroid calculations kicked.

[DarkStar]

Explain to me how, if the asteroid really was made up of such brittle material, Voyager did so little damage to it.

Let's say, for example, that the entire asteroid was made of olivine. It's a hard material, but not a very dense one, with brittle, conchoidal fracture.

Now, compare this to iron. Iron is a softer material, much higher density, with a jagged, torn fracture.

Now, let's say you fire a bullet at a wall made of olivine. You'll probably end up with a hunk of broken fragments flying away, and might even get cracks running from the point of impact. Do the same to an iron wall, and if the bullet penetrates more than a dent's worth, you'll get torn metal.

Detonate a thermonuclear weapon next to that wall, and the olivine wall will probably shatter. The more resilient iron wall may either tear wide open, or just sit there and melt, et cetera, depending on various factors.

Make sense?

This would assume, of course, that the entire asteroid was olivine, and not nickel-iron with a couple of oddball chunks of olivine. Given the fact that it fragmented in the way it did without vaporizing as expected, that isn't a bad hypothesis. But, then, the Nisu astrophysicist dude mentioned in his transmission that the asteroids were composed of artificial materials . . . whether he was simply finding evidence of the triatium alloy or whether the majority of the asteroid was literally artificial is not clear.

We KNOW that Voyager did not destroy the asteroid. It did not even come close.

Well, a 100m chunk and a smaller, perhaps 50 meter chunk flew toward the planet. Another chunk of about 40 meters flew off to the left. There was also a bunch of other crap flying around, but it's too small (and the vidcap I saw the ep with is too low-res) for me to get much more out of it. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that an extra 50m asteroid's worth of material made it out of the torpedo blast.

If all that is correct, then it means 688,410 m^3 of debris was left over by the torpedo blast. For an asteroid that started out at 13,500,000 m^3, that ain't half bad.

Darkling, DarkStar's site does not explain how the asteroid could have been so brittle, or how a rock that brittle could have taken so little damage from the torpedo. His premise is flawed.

A hard, brittle asteroid is more likely to fragment than a soft, pliable one.

[DarkStar]

No, I have said that Warsies are incapable of deciding one way or the other what an asteroid's composition should be. Some have declared that the asteroids were reddish, and therefore high in iron. Some have declared that they are gray, and therefore high in iron. Some have said that they are dark, and therefore high in iron. Some have said that they are bright, and therefore high in iron.

You say that we can't decide what it's composition is, yet then say we all agree it is largly iron. This is a contradiction and a lie.

No, I did not say you can't decide what it is, I said you disagreed about what it should be, referencing back to Ossus's point about composition from color. Warsies have decided that it is iron, but are unable to decide one way or another whether it should be iron based on color, brightness, and so on.

The only place where we disagree is the color of the asteroids, somethng that can be put down to screen settings and video quality.

NTSC . . . Never Twice the Same Color (or Never The Same Color twice, depending on where you hear it)

As stated, those are the highest canon estimates of observed Star Destroyer firepower.

A complete and total lie, as we have the different bolt intensities in the ROTJ battle from whence we get the 4x and 125x ratios.

You are a plain and simple liar.

Variable intensities, or variable widths, or variable lengths? You have to be exceedingly careful when attempting to scale firepower based on that, which is why I specifically said "observed Star Destroyer firepower". We do not know what the firepower of your larger bolts is, because we haven't observed it hitting anything we know the qualities of. Indeed, if we're talking about the same bolt, we didn't see it hit anything at all.
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/zs/rotj/turrbolt.jpg

As an example, let's take a turbolaser bolt, and let the energy content remain a constant. Double the length, and you halve the firepower. Double the width, and the intensity (i.e. watts/m^2) falls off. Double the intensity, and you actually have a thinner bolt.

Some people point to the huge fat barrels of the heavy cannons, and scale firepower accordingly.

(http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/chron/isdguns1.gif vs. where ever the gun is in this: http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbrooklyn/Isd15.jpg which fired this: http://www.skayhan.net/images/Asteroid/ ... sitesm.jpg)

Well, we don't know the intensity of what's coming out of there, and so far I haven't seen anyone try to figure out the intensity of the bolt in the ROTJ pic above. You could compare it to these:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/by/flcpass2.gif

Or these:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/by/bigblt3.jpg
(Which may also be these: ) http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/by/smlblt1.gif

Or these:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/by/bigbolt.gif

Of course, all of that assumes that turbolaser bolt intensity, width, and so on act more or less like laser intensity, width, etc., which I would expect to be the case but may not be, since we still don't quite know what turbolasers are all about.

[Master of Ossus]

DarkStar, why didn't that piece of material fracture during the 100MT+explosion? It makes no sense. Even if there was iron between that particular piece and the torpedo when the torpedo hit, we should be able to expect considerable force to be transmitted through the asteroid, fracturing such a brittle piece into smaller pieces (splinters). If Chakotay was able to crack the thing open like a geode then we would expect to see that it would have already been broken apart if the blast was anywhere near as massive as you claim it was. Now, I have no problems with estimates based on this incident in the very low MT to high kiloton range, but to say that this is an example of a 100+MT blast is absurd. If the weapon fired could not shatter rock that was as brittle as Chakotay demonstrated then the weapon could not possibly have been as powerful as you are saying.

Now, iron or nickel are fairly dense materials that are fairly soft, but the fragment of the asteroid that we saw has nothing to do with that. It clearly demonstrates no metalic qualities, which are necessary for your calculations to be scaled properly. Further, your assertion that parts of the asteroid were vaporized because we cannot see them in the aftermath of the torpedo attack is flawed because we can easily see that parts of the asteroid were hollow. It is likely that other parts of the asteroid were also hollow, and that they were not completely made up of material. That would explain why there is so little material left over. This is especially pertinent because the asteroid's FRAGMENTS were hollow. This indicates a substantially lower volume and mass for the asteroid than the ones that your faulty assumptions would provide us with.

Having made these assumptions, you come back and tell us that because the asteroid was not vaporized is irrelevent. This appears to be inconsistent with your overall position on SW, which holds that because the HTLs that we have visual record of have not been shown as firing in the movies on a target whose properties are known, we cannot assume that they have higher firepower. If you apply that policy to SW, for consistency's sake you should also apply that for ST and say that because the asteroid was not vaporized and we do not know its properties then we cannot reach conclusions based upon what we see.

Now, if the torpedo was as powerful as you are saying it is, we would expect to see the asteroid completely fragmented. We should be seeing what Harry Kim was expecting, which involved fragments of no more than a centimeter across. Instead we see that there were likely many fragments the size of beach balls or larger, and at least three reasonably substantial chunks of asteroid. All of these might have been hollow, as we know that Voyager was unable to detect the asteroid's cavities. Alternatively, both Chakotay's estimate and Kim's estimate might have been based on a largely hollow asteroid.

I really don't see how you can propose such high weapons figures based on this particular incident. If anything, the torpedo's impact appears to have done spectacularly little damage. In fact, going off of Mr. Robertson's estimates, the torpedo was really doing almost no more damage to the asteroid than a coffin sized bit of metal fired at that speed. Further, your position is inconsistent. Please revise your page on this matter.

[DasBastard]

MoO: I am very surprised that you have not attacked the very weakest part of the page: the ridiculous scaling job of the torpedo wrt Voyager. Given that Voyager's total height (including the 'saucer') is ~65m, there is no way in hell that the torp is more than 2m across. Which means that DarkStar's linear values are out by a factor of at least 5 and his asteroid mass figures are out by a factor of at least 125. Which means that his yield figures are similarly 125 times too large.

End result: the events of 'Rise' put an upper limit of about 1MT on the yield of Voyager;s torps.

Another one bites the dust.

Commence Trekkie whining.

[Master of Ossus]

MoO: I am very surprised that you have not attacked the very weakest part of the page: the ridiculous scaling job of the torpedo wrt Voyager. Given that Voyager's total height (including the 'saucer') is ~65m, there is no way in hell that the torp is more than 2m across. Which means that DarkStar's linear values are out by a factor of at least 5 and his asteroid mass figures are out by a factor of at least 125. Which means that his yield figures are similarly 125 times too large.

End result: the events of 'Rise' put an upper limit of about 1MT on the yield of Voyager;s torps.

Another one bites the dust.

Commence Trekkie whining.

To be honest, I didn't give a damn. But you're right, his scaling is grossly incorrect.

[DasBastard]

It's pretty typical that he would scale off of the last possible frame in which both the torp and Voyager are visible, and are furthest apart - thus generating the largest possible amount of error, which in turn allows the greatest fudging of the values.

Anyone with half a brain (or without ulterior motives) would scale when the torpedo is as close to Voyager as possible, to minimize the uncertainty.

Of course, doing so does not easily allow the inflation of the torpedo's size by a factor of 5, which is of course why Scooty-Doo didn't do it that way.

[Master of Ossus]

It's pretty typical that he would scale off of the last possible frame in which both the torp and Voyager are visible, and are furthest apart - thus generating the largest possible amount of error, which in turn allows the greatest fudging of the values.

Anyone with half a brain (or without ulterior motives) would scale when the torpedo is as close to Voyager as possible, to minimize the uncertainty.

Of course, doing so does not easily allow the inflation of the torpedo's size by a factor of 5, which is of course why Scooty-Doo didn't do it that way.

What are the pixel counts for your scaling? I'm getting a torpedo a little less than a meter across.

[DasBastard]

What are the pixel counts for your scaling? I'm getting a torpedo a little less than a meter across.

Torpedo: <= 7 pixels (depending on what intensity I draw the line at, I get anywhere from 3 to 7) .

Deflector height: 53 pixels.

Deflector height scaled from Voyager's 343-m length: 16 m.

Torpedo size scaled from deflector dish: <= 2.1 m.



Signing off for the night.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Hey if the ESB asteriod is always changing color it must be Irridium from Hammer's Slammer's verse.

Gee that would meen that it would need much more energy to vape then previously calulated.....

[CmdrWilkens]

<snip>
If all that is correct, then it means 688,410 m^3 of debris was left over by the torpedo blast. For an asteroid that started out at 13,500,000 m^3, that ain't half bad.<snip>

One thing here though if we take you given dimensions

The entire point of the episode is that they expected to vaporize an iron-nickel asteroid of 390 x 210 x 210 meters.

Then we assume ellipsoidal shape (you can see rounding at both end, additionally we have no clue, from the episode, of depth only width). In other words if we assume a less generous shape in order to be conservative we arrive at the forumla for ellipsoidals V=4/3 pi (x*y*z) which yields 9,005,375 m^3 which is a significant chunk smaller than you claim with corresponding decreases in total requisite energy.

In fact for a pure iron asteroid your absolute max for total vaporizaiton would now be down to 122 MT (damn where DID that 192 MT you quoted me on ASVS go?). Now do I believe any of these numbers are realistic yield estiamtes? Hell no.

My point with all this has been to demonstrate that you specifically used an asteroid shape you have no proof for which was the most generous to you. You have only 2D pictures of the asteroid (the ESB one rotates so we can analyze in 3 dimensions) which means we have no real clue about the 3rd dimension. I understand you were somewhat generous with torpedo size estimation but using a cylinder without real proof that it is close to a cylinder does dramatic change to the highest order estimates (drops yours by 70 MT from what you quoted me). Correspondingly the low end estimates of the situation drop as well. If they were expecting (as Kim was) extreme fragmentation we are only talking about hundred KT range. Basically you've taken some incredibly generous asusmptions about the entire affair (not the least of which is your obvious preference for believe in the infalliability of the Voyager crew when it comes to scientific analysis)

[Lord Poe]

What are the pixel counts for your scaling? I'm getting a torpedo a little less than a meter across.

Torpedo: <= 7 pixels (depending on what intensity I draw the line at, I get anywhere from 3 to 7) .

Deflector height: 53 pixels.

Deflector height scaled from Voyager's 343-m length: 16 m.

Torpedo size scaled from deflector dish: <= 2.1 m.

Actually, the VGR episode "Ashes to Ashes" shows a torpedo much more clearly:

[DarkStar]

DarkStar, why didn't that piece of material fracture during the 100MT+explosion? It makes no sense. Even if there was iron between that particular piece and the torpedo when the torpedo hit, we should be able to expect considerable force to be transmitted through the asteroid, fracturing such a brittle piece into smaller pieces (splinters).

Olivine, for example, doesn't splinter. That's a different sort of fracture. Once a conchoidal fracturing occurred, the remaining fragment's survival would be pretty much guaranteed, unless it happened to be in the middle of the vaporized area, or one of the molten-looking pieces floating off.

Now, iron or nickel are fairly dense materials that are fairly soft, but the fragment of the asteroid that we saw has nothing to do with that.

No duh. However, nickel-iron is what they were expecting when they expected to vaporize the asteroid.

This appears to be inconsistent with your overall position on SW, which holds that because the HTLs that we have visual record of have not been shown as firing in the movies on a target whose properties are known, we cannot assume that they have higher firepower.

No, we can assume they have a higher firepower all day long . . . I would hope they do . . . but we can't be sure just how much higher. On the other hand, Chakotay and Kim clearly state that they thought the asteroid was iron-nickel, and that it should've been vaporized, with any remaining fragments being no more than 1cm in diameter.

There is a profound difference between these statements of expected effect, and expectations of effect based on scaling efforts with gun barrels.

Please revise your page on this matter.

I see no need, though I may make addenda at the bottom referring to your claims in order to clarify the issues involved. (I would say "idiot-proof", but frankly I'd have asked the same questions, too, if I hadn't already played around at webmineral.com and related sites in regards to other issues.)

[DarkStar]

MoO: I am very surprised that you have not attacked the very weakest part of the page: the ridiculous scaling job of the torpedo wrt Voyager.

I did not scale off the torpedo casing, but the flashy shimmer area and the central glow. The torpedo glow increases dramatically upon exit from the torpedo tube, then remains constant. Thus, I selected the final frame in which the torp was visible, and assumed that it was being fired toward the observer.

This way, I did not incur the obvious error of scaling off of the glow as the torpedo came out of the tube, and yet still managed to give a lower limit value to the torpedo as it appeared in the last moments the Voyager reference point was available.

[DarkStar]

Then we assume ellipsoidal shape (you can see rounding at both end, additionally we have no clue, from the episode, of depth only width). In other words if we assume a less generous shape in order to be conservative we arrive at the forumla for ellipsoidals V=4/3 pi (x*y*z) which yields 9,005,375 m^3 which is a significant chunk smaller than you claim with corresponding decreases in total requisite energy.

Actually, no. As I make reference to on the site, I have used something lower than the median value for the asteroid's width . . . it's depth is similar. Therefore, I have arrived at a figure which should approximate the true value, even including the slight rounding at the bottom, and more substantial rounding at the top.

In fact for a pure iron asteroid your absolute max for total vaporizaiton would now be down to 122 MT (damn where DID that 192 MT you quoted me on ASVS go?).

I used Wong's calculator, inputting as the size of the asteroid a sphere with the same volume as that which I have calculated.

[Robert Walper]

I'd like to mention that whatever the outcome, calcs for Voyager blowing up this asteroid, in whatever fashion, should not be taken as a maximum yield for photon torpedoes. We're merely establishing a lower limit of the torpedo's yield in this specific instance. I've seen no evidence that the Captain ordered a maximum yield torpedo to destroy this asteroid. After all, if a group of heavily equipped people want to level a building, and their portable rocket launchers(ie: lower yield weaponry) aren't doing the job, it's highly unlikely they'll immediately switch to their portable nuclear warhead launcher.

What I think alot of people are forgetting is that the Federation is dedicated to exploration and peaceful contact. They are so passive in fact, they will pass up an "apparent" option to wipe out their greatest foe, the Borg (ref: STTNG "Hugh"). Mike Wong actually makes an excellent point regarding how stupidly passive this action is.

I find it highly unlikely the Federation has it's exploration vessels bristling with maximum payload of maximum yield torpedoes. These weapons must be armed, and could very well be armed with an exisiting anti-matter supply meant more for the warp engines. Their onhand supply of torpedo fuel could be extremely limited for exploration ships, especially if you're cut off from proper resupply facilities, like Voyager.

Federation ships in my opinion are capable of large scale destruction and combat roles, however, they must be preped beforehand in order to do so, like in incidents such as "Best of Both Worlds", the Dominion war, etc. From what I've seen, virtually all low end calcs for torpedoes are done in non-combat situations, or situations where combat wasn't anticipated(hence, not preped beforehand, Fed's are passive babies after all).

Imperials vessels on the other hand, are designed primarily for combat. They are heavily armed from the start, they don't have "passive" missions. Undoubtably the most passive mission an ISD would have is checking out a area, with the intention of either scaring or beating the shit out of any would-be enemies. Their idea of diplomcy is "Base Delta Zero".

I think when calculating torpedo yields, one must consider the Federation ship's status: Were they expecting combat within a timeframe allowing weapons being fully armed? Are they prepared for combat, as in torpedoes previously loaded with anti-matter instead of draining their engines to get it? Did or do they have a supply base in which to get to true battle mode, such as Voyager?

Just some thoughts...

[DasBastard]

This way, I did not incur the obvious error of scaling off of the glow as the torpedo came out of the tube, and yet still managed to give a lower limit value to the torpedo as it appeared in the last moments the Voyager reference point was available.

ROFLMAO!!!!

You call a 5x overestimation a "lower limit"? That's classic.

[Darth Wong]

This way, I did not incur the obvious error of scaling off of the glow as the torpedo came out of the tube, and yet still managed to give a lower limit value to the torpedo as it appeared in the last moments the Voyager reference point was available.

ROFLMAO!!!!

You call a 5x overestimation a "lower limit"? That's classic.

Also notice how Fuckstar claims he's trying to avoid the "obvious error of scaling off of the glow" as the torp comes out even though this particular kind of error would actually increase the perceived size of the torp, thus bringing it closer to his own exaggerated figure (and thus showing that the real figure is even farther away from his bullshit number).

[Master of Ossus]

I'd like to mention that whatever the outcome, calcs for Voyager blowing up this asteroid, in whatever fashion, should not be taken as a maximum yield for photon torpedoes. We're merely establishing a lower limit of the torpedo's yield in this specific instance. I've seen no evidence that the Captain ordered a maximum yield torpedo to destroy this asteroid. After all, if a group of heavily equipped people want to level a building, and their portable rocket launchers(ie: lower yield weaponry) aren't doing the job, it's highly unlikely they'll immediately switch to their portable nuclear warhead launcher.

What I think alot of people are forgetting is that the Federation is dedicated to exploration and peaceful contact. They are so passive in fact, they will pass up an "apparent" option to wipe out their greatest foe, the Borg (ref: STTNG "Hugh"). Mike Wong actually makes an excellent point regarding how stupidly passive this action is.

I agree on all points here. I don't think that those were maximum yield torpedoes, nor do I believe that the Federation exists primarily as a military body. It is more of an exploration party. I have no problems in assuming that other, more powerful examples of torpedo use can be found, but I also see no evidence that the torpedo fired in "Rise" was anything to boast about in terms of firepower. It seemed pretty laughable. More like a kiloton than one hundred fifty megatons.

I find it highly unlikely the Federation has it's exploration vessels bristling with maximum payload of maximum yield torpedoes. These weapons must be armed, and could very well be armed with an exisiting anti-matter supply meant more for the warp engines. Their onhand supply of torpedo fuel could be extremely limited for exploration ships, especially if you're cut off from proper resupply facilities, like Voyager.

I have to disagree, here. Voyager was going on a combat mission against the Maquis when it left. If SF was able to modify any ships to make them ready for combat, then they should have upgraded Voyager's weapons and shields, too. While I don't think that the torpedo used in this incidents was the most powerful weapon available to SF, I do think that Voyager was one of their more combat-capable ships. If it were not, it would be an example of stupidity on the part of the Federation command. In one episode it is stated that the number of torpedoes they have is limited (curiously, they fire many more torpedoes than that during the series). If fuel was the limiting factor, then we should have heard them talking about fuel. Their limiting factors were probably the number of torpedoes, and the amount of AntiMatter they could produce.

[Master of Ossus]

This way, I did not incur the obvious error of scaling off of the glow as the torpedo came out of the tube, and yet still managed to give a lower limit value to the torpedo as it appeared in the last moments the Voyager reference point was available.

ROFLMAO!!!!

You call a 5x overestimation a "lower limit"? That's classic.

Also notice how Fuckstar claims he's trying to avoid the "obvious error of scaling off of the glow" as the torp comes out even though this particular kind of error would actually increase the perceived size of the torp, thus bringing it closer to his own exaggerated figure (and thus showing that the real figure is even farther away from his bullshit number).

[sarcasm] But guys, don't you see that you're making Trek more powerful. Now you're saying that an even smaller torpedo can do 100+MT of damage [end sarcasm]

DarkStar this is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard from you. Essentially you're saying that you took a frame with a torpedo a significant distance from Voyager (thus making your scaling subject), and now you defend your scaling as a lower limit? WTF? Even with DasBastard's estimates (measuring seven pixels when I got three), your figures are still exaggerated. Now, when he correct the asteroid size for your erroneous figures we find that the firepower required to force it to crack is laughable. Voyager should have been able to do a hell of a lot more damage than that to an asteroid that size and made of such fragile materials.

[DarkStar]

This way, I did not incur the obvious error of scaling off of the glow as the torpedo came out of the tube, and yet still managed to give a lower limit value to the torpedo as it appeared in the last moments the Voyager reference point was available.

ROFLMAO!!!!

You call a 5x overestimation a "lower limit"? That's classic.

Also notice how Fuckstar claims he's trying to avoid the "obvious error of scaling off of the glow" as the torp comes out even though this particular kind of error would actually increase the perceived size of the torp, thus bringing it closer to his own exaggerated figure (and thus showing that the real figure is even farther away from his bullshit number).

Idiot. The torpedo glow increases dramatically after it exits the tube . . . Voyager is only 344 meters long, so we're talking less than 150 meters travelled after it leaves the tube until it leaves the frame including Voyager. Your argument is that I should ignore this brightening, even though it's been seen since "Encounter at Farpoint" as a common quality of torpedoes of the TNG era, and even occurs in the TOS-era movies.

[DarkStar]

Voyager should have been able to do a hell of a lot more damage than that to an asteroid that size and made of such fragile materials.

Aww, hell, you're Degan reborn in this thread . . . I've given you the educational opportunity, but you have ignored it.

[Mr Bean]

I've given you the educational opportunity

Thanks Darkstar but frankley we all already knew how to ignore everything but our own voice

Its called Denial and though you seemed well versed in its intricises I don't think anyone realy wants a lesson here

[TheDarkling]

This is just an idle theory but couldnt the tech in the asteriod be a SIF field as well as nav or whatever else it was.

This would explain why they thought the torp would destroy the asteriod (we have no evidence it was hollow) but also why it didmnt break the brittle asteriod it actually was.

This way we keep but pieces of evidence intact instead of setting up what was supposed to happen aganist what did in effect having the torp stated at one level yet demonstrated at another.

I do assume that we agree that Voy's crew should know about their weapons yield.

Thus going off the crew estimation we get a yield and then explain why that yeild isnt shown (SIF field, Gamma radiation (do trek torps release gamma radiation and not one of those trek radiations which we dont nkow the properties of), DS brittle materials etc).

Anyway just a guess

[DasBastard]

Interpreting the events is quite simple:

1) the crew of Voyager did not expect the torpedo to completely vapourize the asteroid (and it didn't)

2) based on proper scaling and tons of canon evidence for the true size of photorps (i.e. ~2 m on its longst axis),we know that the asteroid measures at most 75m on its longest axis by ~ 40m - giving a total volume on the order of 100,000 m^3.

3) the energy required to vape 100,000 m^3 of nickel-iron is ~1.5MT

Therefore, even accounting for 50% losses to omnidirectional energy release, the torpedo fired could not possibly have yielded more than 3 megatons.

Given that the fragmentation energy for a rock of that size is ~1kT, we can state with that the events of 'Rise' indicate that the yield of the torpedo is between 1kT and 3MT.

[Robert Walper]

I agree on all points here.

Right on...if I keep this up, perhaps I'll evolve from "moronic simpleton" to just "simpleton".

I don't think that those were maximum yield torpedoes, nor do I believe that the Federation exists primarily as a military body. It is more of an exploration party. I have no problems in assuming that other, more powerful examples of torpedo use can be found, but I also see no evidence that the torpedo fired in "Rise" was anything to boast about in terms of firepower. It seemed pretty laughable. More like a kiloton than one hundred fifty megatons.

It also doesn't make sense to argue too heavily for this instance, I believe it is commonly accepted that photon torpedoes have variable yields. So Voyager simple fired a torpedo they felt was the right yield to destroy the asteroid with minimum fuel for the torpedo(hence theri confusion). They are stranded, so they're not going to use fuel like there's no tomorrow.

I have to disagree, here. Voyager was going on a combat mission against the Maquis when it left.

Point taken. I'm suprised I actually didn't mention this myself, since it's a good reason why Voyager would have a fancy weapon like a "tri-cobalt" device they used to destroy the CareTaker array.

If SF was able to modify any ships to make them ready for combat, then they should have upgraded Voyager's weapons and shields, too.

Well, perhaps upgraded is not the word I'd chose, but for sure that all their weaponry is setup for combat mode and shields are at peak efficency, etc.

If we were to conclude that Voyager was upgraded to a small warship status, that might change some of my perceptions regarding it's actions and defenive capabilities in the Voyager series. Though it was still subject to proper resupply problems, etc.

While I don't think that the torpedo used in this incidents was the most powerful weapon available to SF, I do think that Voyager was one of their more combat-capable ships.

Undoubtably, hence one of the reasons they didn't do too bad against the Borg. I actually find it quite amusing that Voyager, orginally equipped as a combat vessel, and with it's shield strength multiplied by a factor of ten(STVOY "The Q and the Grey") still got swatted easily by the first cube it truely encountered (STVOY "Scorpion", a cube locks on a tractor beam, completely disabling Voyager's shields, and beams Janeway off the bridge).

If it were not, it would be an example of stupidity on the part of the Federation command.

However, I don't think it would either the first of last example of it...

In one episode it is stated that the number of torpedoes they have is limited (curiously, they fire many more torpedoes than that during the series).

I would guess that if Voyager was equipped as a combat role vessel, it's equipment could included small facilities to build more torpedoes on hand.

If fuel was the limiting factor, then we should have heard them talking about fuel. Their limiting factors were probably the number of torpedoes, and the amount of AntiMatter they could produce.

Actually, the anti-matter was the "fuel" I was referring to, my mistake for bad clarification.