Shooting down torpedoes

[Warspite]

Have we ever see anyone shooting down a torpedo in Trek? From any race?

[EmperorMing]

Not that I can recall. At least not on screen. The tactic is used on the unofficial novels...

[Stravo]

There was at least an attempt made in TWOK when the Reliant swings around and fires a torpedoe, Kirk orders all power diverted to phasers. Spock says "Too late." I always assumed Kirk meant to try and shoot down the torpedo but did not have enough time.

[Warspite]

There was at least an attempt made in TWOK when the Reliant swings around and fires a torpedoe, Kirk orders all power diverted to phasers. Spock says "Too late." I always assumed Kirk meant to try and shoot down the torpedo but did not have enough time.

That would make sense... Perhaps the only time we hear this.
(Although, in the heat of the moment, Kirk could had made a mistake and said "phasers" instead of "shields".)

I wonder why we never see it, besides the standard "writers are dumb" and "false tension" excuses. Could there be an in-Universe explanation as to why this was never attempted? After all, usually a torpedo runs fairly straight, and at very low fractional-c's. Even with the usual poor targeting standards, a crew can have several seconds before a torpedo impacts, enough time to fire a few shots.

[Uraniun235]

Not a "torpedo", but the Ent-D shot down a Ferengi-launched "missile" launched at the wormhole in TNG "The Price".

[Alyeska]

Voyager shot down one of its own torpedoes once and created an explossion more powerful then either combining the phaser and torpedo together. The logical assumption is the phaser created an interaction with the torpedo the gave it "access" to more power from subspace.

What this means is torpedoes are rarely shot at because its more dangerous to shoot down the torpedo then it is to simply take the hit.

[Warspite]

Voyager shot down one of its own torpedoes once and created an explossion more powerful then either combining the phaser and torpedo together. The logical assumption is the phaser created an interaction with the torpedo the gave it "access" to more power from subspace.

What this means is torpedoes are rarely shot at because its more dangerous to shoot down the torpedo then it is to simply take the hit.

Hum, yes, though if the defending ship shoots the torpedo as soon as detects it, the attacking ship would be the one to suffer... But, okay.

[Alyeska]

Voyager shot down one of its own torpedoes once and created an explossion more powerful then either combining the phaser and torpedo together. The logical assumption is the phaser created an interaction with the torpedo the gave it "access" to more power from subspace.

What this means is torpedoes are rarely shot at because its more dangerous to shoot down the torpedo then it is to simply take the hit.

Hum, yes, though if the defending ship shoots the torpedo as soon as detects it, the attacking ship would be the one to suffer... But, okay.

Given the size of the torpedo and its speed its likely that shooting down the torpedo isn't an option until its closer.

[Gil Hamilton]

Voyager shot down one of its own torpedoes once and created an explossion more powerful then either combining the phaser and torpedo together. The logical assumption is the phaser created an interaction with the torpedo the gave it "access" to more power from subspace.

What this means is torpedoes are rarely shot at because its more dangerous to shoot down the torpedo then it is to simply take the hit.

Why would that be? A photon torpedo is a missile carrying antimatter, which reacts with the casing and machinery of the torpedo to explode violently. Shooting the torpedo in midflight might break the containment and cause the thing to explode, but I don't see why it would be any more powerful than if it exploded normally.

Besides, even if the resultant explosion was more powerful, shooting it down far away from your ship is better than letting it explode directly on top of your ship. Explosive power decreases with distance, since the energy of the blast spreads out at a geometric rate, not to mention the precentage of the explosion that hits you decreases. Even if the bomb was hundred times more powerful if you shoot it with a phaser, it still would be an advantage to shoot it down as far from the ship as possible. If it explodes next to the enemy ship, as Warspite says, so much the better for you.

[Gil Hamilton]

Given the size of the torpedo and its speed its likely that shooting down the torpedo isn't an option until its closer.

It's a brightly glowing target. It's not photon torpedoes are particularly stealthy. Secondly, photon torpedoes don't move that fast, not in any of the battles we've seen at any rate. Even if they did, they are coming straight toward the defending ship anyway, so relatively speaking, the torpedo isn't moving very much. It's much easy to hit something if it's coming directly toward you than if it's moving left or right relative to you.

[Crazedwraith]

In generations didn't worf state hos chances of shooting down a torp? If anyone knows that it'd be a starting point.

[Warspite]

In generations didn't worf state hos chances of shooting down a torp? If anyone knows that it'd be a starting point.

I think he said they only had eleven seconds to target and destroy the torpedo.

Even the torpedo being a small object, it's path is easily predictable, specially for a starship on the defensive, its captain knows the torpedos are coming his way, WWII computers could already compute lead points for airplanes, ST computers have enough resources for such a simple task... I guess we always fall back on the targeting "problem" for ST, no?

[Lancer]

Given the size of the torpedo and its speed its likely that shooting down the torpedo isn't an option until its closer.

It's a brightly glowing target. It's not photon torpedoes are particularly stealthy. Secondly, photon torpedoes don't move that fast, not in any of the battles we've seen at any rate. Even if they did, they are coming straight toward the defending ship anyway, so relatively speaking, the torpedo isn't moving very much. It's much easy to hit something if it's coming directly toward you than if it's moving left or right relative to you.

but the original Galaxy and some other modern Fed ships (Prometheus, Defiant, and Sov aside) have almost no zero-elevation firing arcs facing forward (Intrepid & Galaxy, for example), so you would have to tilt the ship before you could shoot down the incomming torp. By the time you've moved the ship so that the torp is in the firing arc, their torp will still have closed the distance between ships.

[Alyeska]

Why would that be? A photon torpedo is a missile carrying antimatter, which reacts with the casing and machinery of the torpedo to explode violently. Shooting the torpedo in midflight might break the containment and cause the thing to explode, but I don't see why it would be any more powerful than if it exploded normally.

Irrelevent. We have seen from Voyager that when a torpedo is shot down the resulting explossion releases more firepower then either seperate entity contributes. The logical conclussion is that together they form a catalyst that starts another more powerful reaction. Think of nuclear weapons. How much energy is actualy put into the reaction? The spherical detonation charge. Yet the explossion is much more. This is because the intial point is a catalyst for a bigger event. This is the only logical explination for the firepower increase.

Besides, even if the resultant explosion was more powerful, shooting it down far away from your ship is better than letting it explode directly on top of your ship. Explosive power decreases with distance, since the energy of the blast spreads out at a geometric rate, not to mention the precentage of the explosion that hits you decreases. Even if the bomb was hundred times more powerful if you shoot it with a phaser, it still would be an advantage to shoot it down as far from the ship as possible. If it explodes next to the enemy ship, as Warspite says, so much the better for you.

Agreed. The fact that they don't shoot down enemy torpedoes at range indicate two possible answers.

1: Hitting the torpedo is so difficult that the chances of success are minimal so its never tried.

2: Hitting the torpedo is possible, but by the time its possible to do so, the torpedo is already beyond the point where it will do less damage hitting the ship rather then detonating it.

[Ma Deuce]

There was at least an attempt made in TWOK when the Reliant swings around and fires a torpedoe, Kirk orders all power diverted to phasers. Spock says "Too late." I always assumed Kirk meant to try and shoot down the torpedo but did not have enough time.

As I recall, Kirk said "divert all power to phasers" before Reliant launched the torpedo, and Spock said "Too Late" just after it was launched...

In generations didn't worf state hos chances of shooting down a torp? If anyone knows that it'd be a starting point.

Lets think for a moment about how fast Soran's missile would have to be: Worf stated that the missile would take 11 seconds to reach the sun from the planet or the ship. If we assume that Veridian III is the same distance from it's sun as Earth, then the missile would have to attain a speed of +/- 45-c to reach it in 11 seconds. Of course, this is only a ballpark figure which assumes that the missile instantly accelerates to its maximum speed upon launching (obviously incorrect).

It would probably need to remain sub-light until it clears Veridian's atmosphere, then engage a minature warp engine. Therefore, it's possible that most of it's flight time was actually spent in the atmosphere, even if that represented a miniscule fraction of the distance the missile had to travel, meaning it could travel considerably faster than 45-c at warp. Yes, I know it could potentially clear the atmosphere much faster than I stated while still remaining sublight, but I'm trying to maintain a situation so the Enterprise could still potentially intercept it in the time alloted, because I don't think that would happen if the missile was at superluminal speeds for most of it's flight, considering Federation phasers supposedly have a maximum range of 300,000 km, and the range of photons is even shorter.

But then if it was launched from the BoP (remember, I'm still talking about Worf's calculations, which were made at a time when our heros had no idea as to the exact launch point of the missile) it could go to warp instantly... ARGH!! I'm tired of trying to wrap my brain around the skewed logic of that film (which gave us one of the stupidest space battles in the history of Sci-fi)!!

[Sarevok]

In Voyger episode "Human Error" an enemy cruise missile shot down five photon torpedoes fired by Voyger. What is even more impressive is the fact that those torpedoes were travelling at warp speed.

[Gil Hamilton]

In Voyger episode "Human Error" an enemy cruise missile shot down five photon torpedoes fired by Voyger. What is even more impressive is the fact that those torpedoes were travelling at warp speed.

God, they must not only be non-stealthy, but have giant "Hit me!" signs attached to them in bright neon letters.

[Gil Hamilton]

Irrelevent. We have seen from Voyager that when a torpedo is shot down the resulting explossion releases more firepower then either seperate entity contributes. The logical conclussion is that together they form a catalyst that starts another more powerful reaction. Think of nuclear weapons. How much energy is actualy put into the reaction? The spherical detonation charge. Yet the explossion is much more. This is because the intial point is a catalyst for a bigger event. This is the only logical explination for the firepower increase.

Well, it's confounding to me, but if Voyager says something happens, who am I to argue?

Makes you wonder why other races don't shoot them down, though, since they use distruptors, not phasers.

Agreed. The fact that they don't shoot down enemy torpedoes at range indicate two possible answers.

1: Hitting the torpedo is so difficult that the chances of success are minimal so its never tried.

Well, going by evilcats comment, they must be really easy to intercept if a cruise missile intercepted five of them travelling at warp.

2: Hitting the torpedo is possible, but by the time its possible to do so, the torpedo is already beyond the point where it will do less damage hitting the ship rather then detonating it.

That would depend on the geometry of the battle. Damage from spherical explosions drops off quickly with distance. I suppose at the incredibly short ranges that StarTrek battles are fought, it would be dangerous to shoot them, assuming the above is true. But even if we take the bog standard 64 megaton photon torpedo and assume that a phaser, though some sort of quantum subspace ramen noodleon field, makes the blast increase by three orders of magnitude (making it a 64 gigaton blast), is the Federation ship shoots it down 10 kilometers away, then the blast, by the time it gets to them, will only have an intensity of about 50 tons per square meter (someone check my math on that, but I think I did it right). This compares favorably indeed with letting the 64 megatton photon torpedo his you and 10km is not a long distance in a space battle.

[Ted C]

Have we ever see anyone shooting down a torpedo in Trek? From any race?

TNG "The Price": Worf uses the Enterprise's phasers to shoot down a Ferengi "missile" (functionally indistinguishable from a torpedo) fired at the wormhole.

[Lancer]

Irrelevent. We have seen from Voyager that when a torpedo is shot down the resulting explossion releases more firepower then either seperate entity contributes. The logical conclussion is that together they form a catalyst that starts another more powerful reaction. Think of nuclear weapons. How much energy is actualy put into the reaction? The spherical detonation charge. Yet the explossion is much more. This is because the intial point is a catalyst for a bigger event. This is the only logical explination for the firepower increase.

Well, it's confounding to me, but if Voyager says something happens, who am I to argue?

Makes you wonder why other races don't shoot them down, though, since they use distruptors, not phasers.

disruptors are pretty much indistinguishable from phasers. Supposedly, phasers use "fast" nadions, which are more efficent but take up more room (the "elegant" approach), whereas disruptors use "slow" nadions that aren't as efficent, but take up much less room (allowing a "brute force" approach). For all intents and purposes, the two are indistinguishable in terms of the NDE.

Agreed. The fact that they don't shoot down enemy torpedoes at range indicate two possible answers.

1: Hitting the torpedo is so difficult that the chances of success are minimal so its never tried.

Well, going by evilcats comment, they must be really easy to intercept if a cruise missile intercepted five of them travelling at warp.

2: Hitting the torpedo is possible, but by the time its possible to do so, the torpedo is already beyond the point where it will do less damage hitting the ship rather then detonating it.

That would depend on the geometry of the battle. Damage from spherical explosions drops off quickly with distance. I suppose at the incredibly short ranges that StarTrek battles are fought, it would be dangerous to shoot them, assuming the above is true. But even if we take the bog standard 64 megaton photon torpedo and assume that a phaser, though some sort of quantum subspace ramen noodleon field, makes the blast increase by three orders of magnitude (making it a 64 gigaton blast), is the Federation ship shoots it down 10 kilometers away, then the blast, by the time it gets to them, will only have an intensity of about 50 tons per square meter (someone check my math on that, but I think I did it right). This compares favorably indeed with letting the 64 megatton photon torpedo his you and 10km is not a long distance in a space battle.

Perhaps the "lag-time" that it takes for the phaser array to fire is long enough (observed to be about a second on the E-D) that by the time the phaser array shoots, the torpedo is already close enough that shooting it would only damage the ship further.

[Gil Hamilton]

TNG "The Price": Worf uses the Enterprise's phasers to shoot down a Ferengi "missile" (functionally indistinguishable from a torpedo) fired at the wormhole.

But was it? Do we know they are the same scale and have the same drive components as photon torpedoes? Besides, if it was a photon torpedo, shouldn't the same sort of cataclysm that Alyeska describes have happened when the phasers and the torpedo undergo some huge technobabble reaction?

[Gil Hamilton]

disruptors are pretty much indistinguishable from phasers. Supposedly, phasers use "fast" nadions, which are more efficent but take up more room (the "elegant" approach), whereas disruptors use "slow" nadions that aren't as efficent, but take up much less room (allowing a "brute force" approach). For all intents and purposes, the two are indistinguishable in terms of the NDE.

When did we hear this? I don't think I've ever heard of nadions on the shows before, let alone fast nadions and slow nadions. Or how disruptors work.

Perhaps the "lag-time" that it takes for the phaser array to fire is long enough (observed to be about a second on the E-D) that by the time the phaser array shoots, the torpedo is already close enough that shooting it would only damage the ship further.

Mathematics, my friend. For the most part, any sort of distance away from the shield is better than the torpedo exploding on top of them. After all, 10km (if I did my math right) turns the explosion of a 64 gigaton bomb into an explosion with an intensity at that distance of 50 tons per square meter, which is much better than 32 megatons hitting the ship any way to slice it.

[Lancer]

TNG "The Price": Worf uses the Enterprise's phasers to shoot down a Ferengi "missile" (functionally indistinguishable from a torpedo) fired at the wormhole.

But was it? Do we know they are the same scale and have the same drive components as photon torpedoes? Besides, if it was a photon torpedo, shouldn't the same sort of cataclysm that Alyeska describes have happened when the phasers and the torpedo undergo some huge technobabble reaction?

Perhaps the difference was in the warhead. The phasers definitely have an interaction with a M/AM charge, but who's to say that a different type of explosive, for example, tricolbalt, wouldn't be as reactive when hit with a phaser blast?

[Gil Hamilton]

Perhaps the difference was in the warhead. The phasers definitely have an interaction with a M/AM charge, but who's to say that a different type of explosive, for example, tricolbalt, wouldn't be as reactive when hit with a phaser blast?

Who knows? We don't even know what it was the the Ferengi shot at the wormhole, or even if it was the same size and shape as a photon torpedo.

[seanrobertson]

Alyeska,

Are you sure you're not thinking about the time VGR ejected and blew up one of her antimatter storage pods? And do you remember anything else about the episode?

Shifting gears, I don't think "Generations" is very meaningful. IIRC, Soran's missile had a mini-warp drive, something that'd make it stand out on sensors like a sore thumb. Hitting it might not be at all representative of shooting down a STL weapon of comparable size.

To my knowledge, that leaves "The Price" and "Genesis" as most worthy of further investigation. I'll have to look into "The Price," but I can say this of "Genesis":


Worf brags about the ship's improved tactical systems, including torpedoes with 11% higher yield and "improved guidance systems." Riker rolls his eyes at all this; Picard just seems bored, and wants Worf to get on with a demonstration. (Aside: Picard and Riker's lack of interest amused me. Would they have been so flippant about firepower the next time they were bow to bow with a Warbird, I wonder?)

Worf shoots a torpedo spread at nearby asteroids. Two torpedoes hit their mark, but the third malfunctions, hauling ass deeper into the asteroid field.

Worf tries unsuccessfully to trigger the torpedo's detonator, so Riker orders a phaser lock. Worf reports the torpedo's already out of phaser range (26 sec. after it was fired). Riker mocks Worf. Picard decides to take a shuttle after the torpedo.

With a good gauge of those torpedoes' acceleration, we could figure out what sort of range we're looking at. Pending those numbers, it'd seem Trek ships don't employ much in the way of point-defense because the "window" in which they can target a torpedo is quite narrow.

To illustrate what I mean, say you can't get a phaser lock on something 15 km away or more; it's too far out for sensors to pinpoint, so you'd miss altogether. (Shuttles and even big capships have been missed at closer ranges, so as weak as that sounds it's not without precedent.)

OTOH, if your enemy closes to close range before firing (<8-10 km?), your reaction time will be shit like in "TWOK"--plenty close to get a solid lock, but without the time to make good on it. Thus, the torpedo would have to be somewhere between 10-15 km if you hoped to intercept it, especially in the heat of battle.

In fairness, that might be overlooking two things:

1--the torpedo in "Genesis" was maneuvering wildly, unlike any other photorp I can think of. If it was moving in a straight line like the Ferengi missile in "The Price," perhaps it wouldn't be so hard to lock onto?

2--the fact that starships typically employ a single weapons emitter, barring torpedo tubes, in most fights. A starship might actually have a better shot (hahaha...ugh ) at successful point-defense than the above would suggest, but it's wasteful in a slugging match, where nailing the enemy directly is a safer way to use your weaponry.

It'd definitely be interesting to know ranges involved in "The Price." That incident might not be a reflection of what a ship could do in combat, but it could be a better example of shooting the standard non-maneuvering torpedo.