! Oh my Bob ST has Fighters! And Guns and stuff

[tharkûn]

"But the Romulans also never developed tactical shields, and they were already IN an arms race with the Federation. Had the technology been available, someone would have tried to create it. Clearly the energy requirements for such a system are well beyond the limits of ST technology, or ST shields face insurmountable technical problems while trying to shield planets, as I suggested in my previous post. "
Its quite possible (and likely) that the energy, technological concerns with building a theatre sheild would not be viable for the feddies. Its also possible that the reprocussions of investing in such technology is not worth it. For instance let's assume that the Romulans have a smaller economic base than the feddies. Now the feddies are pumping out starships like there is no tommorrow. How many warbirds would you sacrfice for 1 planetary sheild? Especially if it just invites the feddies to invest in a technology which penetrates the sheild. You get limited return on your part and you scare the heck out of your opponent ... who might decide to attack before your superdefense is up.


"They still did not have the time or the resources to do that, X-Wings do not carry turbolasers, proton torpedoes (the ones I assume that you are talking about) actually have yields in the hundreds of megatons (ref. AotC ICS, RotJ Novelisation, etc.) and the rebels did not know where the Imperials were coming from. It is clear that Echo Base was under attack from multiple directions, and that the Alliance simply did not have the resources to defend such a base for so long. "
I was being conservative ... fine let them be megatonne ... you can still crater all possible approaches. The important thing is not the yeild (save that it crater the ground) its that you take a nice flat plane and make a steep cratered landscape. Its pretty damn obvious which route(s) AT/AT's have to take to hit the sheild generator ... ones across flat solid ground. So don't leave flat solid ground.

The point is not to hold Hoth indefinately, its just to keep the sheild up so you can load more supplies and not have to run the blockade in a risky manner. I'm talking about holding out for another 3-4 hours, not another 3-4 days.

"They did not. Did you see ONE Calamari Cruiser or a similarly powerful warship in orbit around Hoth other than Vader and his SSD/ISD force? "
I saw numerous ships with enough energy to go from ground to break orbit. Let's assume they weigh 100,000 kg a peice. And let's say we want them to go up to oh say 20km away from the planet's surface before hyping out. U = mgh. U = 100,000 kg * 20,000 m * 9.8 m/s/s. In other words 1.176 * 10 ^ 10 joules. The Rebs do have excessively more than enough energy laying around to melt the ice ... just run your engines against the ice (and if possible fire retros and primaries simultanious to dump more energy into the ice without getting out). You don't need gigatonne TL's to melt some ice, you just need something that's inefficient and bleeds heat.

Frankly an ISD is excessive overkill.

"Flying outside of the theatre shield required that the shield be deactivated, as was clearly shown on camera. It can be assumed that re-entering the shield ALSO would have required that the shield be lowered. AT-AT's might have armor that is nearly impervious to X-Wing fire, as well as the weapons that the ground troops/T47's were carrying at the time. To easily destroy AT-AT walkers, X-Wings require proton torpedoes (which were likely in extremely limited supply during the Battle of Hoth) (ref. Isard's Revenge), and Imperial infantry forces carry weapons that are specifically designed to shoot down starfighters doing battle in the atmosphere. "
I wouldn't, I'd fly around the inside of the sheild perimetre. I was just noting that the speed of an X-wing would be more than sufficient to circumnavigate the planet if need be ... flying circles around an AT-AT is ridiciously easy.

As for killing an AT-AT ... you can do it with today's bombs. AT-AT's have enough potential energy that they can kill themselves. Remember when they are tying up the legs the Rebs are putting *no* energy into the system. The AT-ATs all die from their own gravitational potential energy. You just need to blow the ground out from under their feet and let gravity do the rest.

Imperial forces do not carry special weapons, at least not that I've seen. We saw one tripod mounted gun in TESB that is carried in multiple components (cannot be fired on the move). All ariel kills I recall seeing were downed from AT-AT fire while flying straight at their heads ... if you say the imps had *any* AA weapons besides the AT-ATs ... show me the clips (or at least describe the scene). Even if they did have say a stinger missile, they are all *facing the wrong way*, all guns are aiming forward you come in at some supersonic speed take a low angle shot at the ground beneath the AT-AT and turn around and fly away without ever going into an imperial's line of fire. Imperial AA was nonexistant at Hoth, a glowing example of tactical stupidity.

"Even if the rebel forces HAD managed to hold the Imperial ground forces off on Hoth, what then? Vader and his fleet would have received reinforcements, and eventually the Alliance would have fallen under a siege it could not hope to break or outlast. The rebels at the time did not have adequate resources to break through a blockade, and they needed to escape as quickly as they could."
First off Vader's fleet is rubbish ... its a prime target to mass your local forces against and apply the advantages of high speeds relative theatre width. If you can get more ships their faster (I.e. most of the Mon Cals from ROTJ) you leave Vader's Fleet a pile of scrap metal. If you can't get enough ships to let n squared dominate, use hit and runs. Have the Hoth Ion cannon nail an imp ship, hype in, broadside, hyp out. Vader can't stay in orbit ... eventaully that ion cannon will disable most of his ships and the Rebs can leave at his convenience.

All of that is of course a gamble (abeit decent ones) that the imps don't have a huge fleet in the area. Personally I'm looking to hold out for another 3-4 hours (I mean the ground battle was idiotically quick) and have time to send the transports up "safely" one at a time.

[SirNitram]

The Federation built a theatre shield.

Really. In Kirk's adventures, he once came across a prison world, and got inside(With a Hot Alien Chick, duh). The Enterprise was able to go to the edge of the shield and pump enough energy into the shield to drop it, just long enough for a shuttle to sneak in.

That the Federation seems to have lost this technology completely by the 24th century is just proof of their incompetency.

[Crayz9000]

The Federation built a theatre shield.

Really. In Kirk's adventures, he once came across a prison world, and got inside(With a Hot Alien Chick, duh). The Enterprise was able to go to the edge of the shield and pump enough energy into the shield to drop it, just long enough for a shuttle to sneak in.

Well, in TNG Season 1, Episode 17 "Where the Bough Breaks", the Aldeans had a planetary shield, as well as a planetary cloaking device. However, the Aldeans had developed that technology thousands of years before and had hidden themselves from the rest of the galaxy. They may or may not have given their technology to the Federation; at the end of the episode, they had to re-learn most everything due to complacency and stagnation.

[Crayz9000]

Oh, I should add to that:

The Aldean planetary shield was also far from perfect. It interfered with their planet's ozone layer, allowing ultraviolet radiation through to the point where most of the population became sterile.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

The Federation built a theatre shield.

Really. In Kirk's adventures, he once came across a prison world, and got inside(With a Hot Alien Chick, duh). The Enterprise was able to go to the edge of the shield and pump enough energy into the shield to drop it, just long enough for a shuttle to sneak in.

That the Federation seems to have lost this technology completely by the 24th century is just proof of their incompetency.

Do you mean With Garth (the guy who can change into people) or with THE MIND HURTING CHAIR™

[John Clark]

TACTICAL ANALYSIS OF HOWEDAR'S SIG::>>>>>Unofficial SD.net Evil Warsie Asshole #2<<<<<::

Yep... you're a whole lot of #2, all right...

[SirNitram]

TACTICAL ANALYSIS OF HOWEDAR'S SIG::>>>>>Unofficial SD.net Evil Warsie Asshole #2<<<<<::

Yep... you're a whole lot of #2, all right...

Is the little troll thinking himself clever for mocking the Warsie Assholes?

[John Clark]

Hey... you open yourself up to it when you label yourself "Evil". You're practically hanging a "kick me" sign on your own back.

[Shadow]

The Federation science outpost in "Gambit" had a shield.

[Mr Bean]

The Federation science outpost in "Gambit" had a shield.

Was it Ground or Space based?
Was it Theater(IE protected a Region from Space attacks) Ground(Shielded from the sides Or both?

If it was in space big deal but from your words I'm guessing it was ground based

Could the Transport in?

[Shadow]

Was it Ground or Space based?
Was it Theater(IE protected a Region from Space attacks) Ground(Shielded from the sides Or both?

If it was in space big deal but from your words I'm guessing it was ground based

Could the Transport in?

It was ground based, and protected from transporters and orbital attacks.

[Mr Bean]

It was ground based, and protected from transporters and orbital attacks

Gocha

One question Did anyone lanuch and attack from Space or was it just visuals(Ie shield sparkly glow above)

[Shadow]

Gocha

One question Did anyone lanuch and attack from Space or was it just visuals(Ie shield sparkly glow above)

It was stated that there was a shield, but it was never seen. It was not attacked because Riker convinced them to lower their shields.

[Mr Bean]

It was stated that there was a shield, but it was never seen. It was not attacked because Riker convinced them to lower their shields.

Gocha