Page 1 of 2
yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-20 11:47pm
by Chardok
The weapons officer (I don't know the name) CLEARLY STATES that the phase Cannon on Enterprise has a MAXIMUM YEILD of 80 GigaJoules.
Hope this helps....
Posted: 2003-08-20 11:48pm
by Sektor31
Is this on overdrive or normal capacity?
Posted: 2003-08-20 11:54pm
by Chardok
He doesn't say, he just says it has a MAXIMUM yield of 80 GJ
Posted: 2003-08-21 03:19am
by kojikun
thats both impressive and pathetic depending on whos point of view youre looking from. thatll light 1,000 100W lightbulbs for about a day, but its under 2000kg of TNT.
Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-21 04:12am
by Chris OFarrell
Chardok wrote:The weapons officer (I don't know the name) CLEARLY STATES that the phase Cannon on Enterprise has a MAXIMUM YEILD of 80 GigaJoules.
Hope this helps....
In one episode. In a previous episode they quoted 500GW. Or 5TW on overload.
Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-21 04:21am
by NecronLord
Chardok wrote:The weapons officer (I don't know the name) CLEARLY STATES that the phase Cannon on Enterprise has a MAXIMUM YEILD of 80 GigaJoules.
Hope this helps....
That's most interesting. Isn't it amazing how rapidly earth develops. The likes of thee Lissians (TNG Conundrum) have been in space much longer, but can only manage a few feeble megawatts on their disruptors.

Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-21 04:46am
by ClaysGhost
Chris OFarrell wrote:Chardok wrote:The weapons officer (I don't know the name) CLEARLY STATES that the phase Cannon on Enterprise has a MAXIMUM YEILD of 80 GigaJoules.
Hope this helps....
In one episode. In a previous episode they quoted 500GW. Or 5TW on overload.
One's an energy and the other two are power figures. It would just indicate that the minimum discharge time is 80GJ/500GW = 0.16 seconds, or 80GJ/5TW = 16 milli-seconds on overload (assuming that maximum yield can be used with an overload, which I suppose may or may not be true).
Posted: 2003-08-21 06:21am
by TurboPhaser
In 'Silent Enemy', Reed said the Phaser Cannons had a max output of 500GigaJoules, NOT GigaWatts.
Later on they apparently said the max was 80 GJ. How the FUDGE can the producers screw things up so badly?? Honestly, even ENT's own contunity is beginning to crack, let alone what ENT has done for the contunity for the whole of Trek.
The honestly cannot remember what they said for the Phaser's from one season to the next?
Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-21 07:12am
by Chris OFarrell
ClaysGhost wrote:Chris OFarrell wrote:Chardok wrote:The weapons officer (I don't know the name) CLEARLY STATES that the phase Cannon on Enterprise has a MAXIMUM YEILD of 80 GigaJoules.
Hope this helps....
In one episode. In a previous episode they quoted 500GW. Or 5TW on overload.
One's an energy and the other two are power figures. It would just indicate that the minimum discharge time is 80GJ/500GW = 0.16 seconds, or 80GJ/5TW = 16 milli-seconds on overload (assuming that maximum yield can be used with an overload, which I suppose may or may not be true).
My bad, I meant Joules.
Of course giving a figure in Joules for a constent beam weapon appears rather stupid, but hey...
Posted: 2003-08-21 08:13am
by NecronLord
It would appear that the Enterprise posesses 6.25(Yeah, I know) 80 GJ 'Phase Cannons' and a full volley is a 500 GJ broardside. It certainly doesn't fire its weapons for .16 seconds.
How many are shown on the model?
Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-21 09:26am
by ClaysGhost
Chris OFarrell wrote:
Of course giving a figure in Joules for a constent beam weapon appears rather stupid, but hey...
If the weapon is run off a capacitor or storage buffer, it would make sense to state the maximum reserve.
NeconLord wrote:
It certainly doesn't fire its weapons for .16 seconds.
Firstly, that would be a minimum firing time rather than the only possible firing time, and secondly the calculation is flawed anyway since the figures are all energies, it seems.
Posted: 2003-08-21 11:02am
by Grand Admiral Thrawn
NecronLord wrote:It would appear that the Enterprise posesses 6.25(Yeah, I know) 80 GJ 'Phase Cannons' and a full volley is a 500 GJ broardside. It certainly doesn't fire its weapons for .16 seconds.
How many are shown on the model?
It only had two in Silent Enemy.
Posted: 2003-08-21 12:23pm
by Master of Ossus
Incidentally, in last night's ENT, there was a part when Reed had a phase pistol and he was calling out settings to figure something with it out. They were increasing the power, but he was calling it out in joules, not watts. He started "low" with less than 10MJ's, and worked his way up to 11MJ's before whatever the hell he was waiting for happened. Every time he increased the energy, the beam visibly changed, increasing in both width and intensity. From this incident, we can deduce two things:
1. Phase cannons are not directly scalable. If they were, then the main weapons of the ENT would be substantially more powerful, because even their highest settings are allegedly less than 50 times as great as phase pistols that are man portable. Using the 80GJ figure, the cannons are only EIGHT times as powerful as a modified phase pistol. This would be impossible for a weapon that was directly scalable (ie. 1:1 increase in power:volume), and even more impossible for a weapon that increased exponentially in power as the volume rose (like modern firearms and SW weapons).
2. What we call power is in fact stated in "joules" in the future. This probably means that what we call "energy" is stated in terms of watts. Many people have suspected this all along, but this incident makes it so blatantly obvious (or Reed so utterly incompetent), that I see no other recourse. They actually have changed the scientific scale, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom.
Posted: 2003-08-21 01:46pm
by Solauren
Nah
the writers just don't know joules from watts
Much better explaination
Posted: 2003-08-21 04:17pm
by CorSec
Solauren wrote:Nah
the writers just don't know joules from watts
Much better explaination
Occam's razor would suggest that this is the most probably explanation.
(Despite my many years I only recently had this explained to me.)
Posted: 2003-08-21 09:15pm
by paladin
kojikun wrote:thats both impressive and pathetic depending on whos point of view youre looking from. thatll light 1,000 100W lightbulbs for about a day, but its under 2000kg of TNT.
That reminds me of the Trektard that claimed SW weapons were in the watt range. That's ship mounted weapons!
Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-21 09:30pm
by Grand Admiral Thrawn
NecronLord wrote:Chardok wrote:The weapons officer (I don't know the name) CLEARLY STATES that the phase Cannon on Enterprise has a MAXIMUM YEILD of 80 GigaJoules.
Hope this helps....
That's most interesting. Isn't it amazing how rapidly earth develops. The likes of thee Lissians (TNG Conundrum) have been in space much longer, but can only manage a few feeble megawatts on their disruptors.

Didn't they have shields that could not withstand a few bullets?
Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-22 01:13am
by TurboPhaser
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:NecronLord wrote:Chardok wrote:The weapons officer (I don't know the name) CLEARLY STATES that the phase Cannon on Enterprise has a MAXIMUM YEILD of 80 GigaJoules.
Hope this helps....
That's most interesting. Isn't it amazing how rapidly earth develops. The likes of thee Lissians (TNG Conundrum) have been in space much longer, but can only manage a few feeble megawatts on their disruptors.

Didn't they have shields that could not withstand a few bullets?
Yes. The Lysians had under 10 Kilojoule shielding.
Posted: 2003-08-26 10:23am
by greenmm
Master of Ossus wrote:Incidentally, in last night's ENT, there was a part when Reed had a phase pistol and he was calling out settings to figure something with it out. They were increasing the power, but he was calling it out in joules, not watts. He started "low" with less than 10MJ's, and worked his way up to 11MJ's before whatever the hell he was waiting for happened. Every time he increased the energy, the beam visibly changed, increasing in both width and intensity. From this incident, we can deduce two things:
1. Phase cannons are not directly scalable. If they were, then the main weapons of the ENT would be substantially more powerful, because even their highest settings are allegedly less than 50 times as great as phase pistols that are man portable. Using the 80GJ figure, the cannons are only EIGHT times as powerful as a modified phase pistol. This would be impossible for a weapon that was directly scalable (ie. 1:1 increase in power:volume), and even more impossible for a weapon that increased exponentially in power as the volume rose (like modern firearms and SW weapons).
80 GJ = 80,000 MJ. So the phase cannons apparantly deliver
8000 times the energy of a phase pistol.
Which makes sense, in a way, if you consider the phase pistols comparable to a standard pistol, and the phase cannons comparable to an MBT's main gun.
2. What we call power is in fact stated in "joules" in the future. This probably means that what we call "energy" is stated in terms of watts. Many people have suspected this all along, but this incident makes it so blatantly obvious (or Reed so utterly incompetent), that I see no other recourse. They actually have changed the scientific scale, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom.
As was suggested already, the simpler explanation is that B&B made a layman's mistake (as most laymen think energy and power are the same thing).
I guess we could assume they meant the phase pistols have a 10 MW power rate, and the phase cannons 80 GW. Actually, though, that's not too bad for the phase pistols, with only needing a 1 to 10 millisecond pulse to have the same on-target energy as a typical rifle bullet...
Posted: 2003-08-26 11:17am
by NecronLord
Master of Ossus wrote:He started "low" with less than 10MJ's,
Many times the power of a TNG phaser rifle...

Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-26 11:49am
by Grand Admiral Thrawn
TurboPhaser wrote:
Yes. The Lysians had under 10 Kilojoule shielding.
Fear .50 calibre rounds!
Stupid writers.

Posted: 2003-08-26 03:18pm
by greenmm
NecronLord wrote:Master of Ossus wrote:He started "low" with less than 10MJ's,
Many times the power of a TNG phaser rifle...

Ah, so
that's how progress and timeline continuity works: whichever shows is last, has the most powerful items and technology...
*aims at
Enterprise writers*

Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-26 03:25pm
by NecronLord
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:TurboPhaser wrote:
Yes. The Lysians had under 10 Kilojoule shielding.
Fear .50 calibre rounds!
Stupid writers.

Even Worse, they had a multi megajoule weapon on their ship, but KJ shields on their command centre...

Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-26 05:18pm
by greenmm
NecronLord wrote:Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:TurboPhaser wrote:
Yes. The Lysians had under 10 Kilojoule shielding.
Fear .50 calibre rounds!
Stupid writers.

Even Worse, they had a multi megajoule weapon on their ship, but KJ shields on their command centre...

Sound like the "tin can" battlecruisers the British Navy had prior to WW2...
Re: yield of enterprise's "Phase Cannon"
Posted: 2003-08-27 07:04am
by TurboPhaser
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:TurboPhaser wrote:
Yes. The Lysians had under 10 Kilojoule shielding.
Fear .50 calibre rounds!
Stupid writers.

Hehe, yes. Say what you will about Photon Torp yields, it isnt suprising that a single torp coulda killed their Command Centre. Methinks the Lysians woulda had better protection with old fashioned armour plating.