Why does the SW vs ST debate still exist?

[Crateria]

The more I think about it, being able to fight while traveling faster than light gives Star Fleet an advantage over Imperial ships that cannot be overcome.

In Star Trek we see phasers fired that take several seconds to hit their target. The phasers are fired at warp speed, and accelerate rapidly away from the Enterprise, so phasers must be faster than a star ship at warp. This would give them a range of millions of miles (over 95 million miles for battles at warp 8 assuming only a 2 second range) which seems far greater than the ranges in Star Wars battles.

It seems unlikely that the sublight Imperial ships would know they were under attack until they were hit. And then they would not have the range to fire back.

Also, even if they did fire back, they are firing lasers and Star Fleet ships travel faster than light, so Star Fleet ships fired at by an Imperial ship could simply dodge the Imperial ships' fire. They could even out run it.

It seems difficult to imagine that Imperial ships could hit a Star Fleet ship except by luck.

This assumes Trek ships commonly use warp strafing. Which they don't.

[Cesario]

The more I think about it, being able to fight while traveling faster than light gives Star Fleet an advantage over Imperial ships that cannot be overcome.

In Star Trek we see phasers fired that take several seconds to hit their target. The phasers are fired at warp speed, and accelerate rapidly away from the Enterprise, so phasers must be faster than a star ship at warp. This would give them a range of millions of miles (over 95 million miles for battles at warp 8 assuming only a 2 second range) which seems far greater than the ranges in Star Wars battles.

It seems unlikely that the sublight Imperial ships would know they were under attack until they were hit. And then they would not have the range to fire back.

Also, even if they did fire back, they are firing lasers and Star Fleet ships travel faster than light, so Star Fleet ships fired at by an Imperial ship could simply dodge the Imperial ships' fire. They could even out run it.

It seems difficult to imagine that Imperial ships could hit a Star Fleet ship except by luck.

This assumes Trek ships commonly use warp strafing. Which they don't.

I think once they realize the Empire's got this crippling weakness, they'll be fairly quick to dust off this hundred year old technique.

[Crateria]

I think once they realize the Empire's got this crippling weakness, they'll be fairly quick to dust off this hundred year old technique.

Even if what you say is true (I personally don't know whether the Imp ships could follow the Trek ships and fire at them at warp) why haven't they used warp strafing against guys like the Borg, Cardassians, Klingons or basically anybody else they fight against? Being able to supposedly hit the other guy and not get hit would certainly count for something. Couldn't the opposing powers listed do the same? Are they idiots? Crippled by lack of warp fuel? Or are you making stuff up?

[Cesario]

I think once they realize the Empire's got this crippling weakness, they'll be fairly quick to dust off this hundred year old technique.

Even if what you say is true (I personally don't know whether the Imp ships could follow the Trek ships and fire at them at warp) why haven't they used warp strafing against guys like the Borg, Cardassians, Klingons or basically anybody else they fight against? Being able to supposedly hit the other guy and not get hit would certainly count for something. Couldn't the opposing powers listed do the same? Are they idiots? Crippled by lack of warp fuel? Or are you making stuff up?

You did notice that the Borg, Cardasians, Klingons, and practically everybody else they fight against are capable of using Warp Drive, right?

This tactic has only been noted in canon when dealing with ships that are warp inoperative. Guess what the Empire's ships are.

[Bakustra]

On the other hand, traveling at a hundred times the speed of light (Warp 4) means you're traveling at 30 million kilometers per second. Even with a ninety-five million klick range, they only get three phaser volleys per run (plus potshots from rear-firing phasers while they come around). At warp 8, close to 1000c, they'd be moving at 300 million km/s and probably have to automate firing in order to get off more than one shot, and in the course of a minute, they'd have crossed the distance between the the Sun and the furthest edge of the heliopause of our Solar System. Moving at slower speeds renders them theoretically vulnerable to random fire from the Star Destroyer, but at least would allow them to get off sustained fire. Basically, warp strafing as a tactic relies on the ability of Federation-like vessels to either hurt Star Destroyers significantly with single volley hit-and-runs (or the inability of Imperial sensor officers to quickly calculate likely future trajectories and order fire along them, or the ability of Federation vessels to make tight turns at warp speeds), or to be able to fight evenly with Star Destroyers for at least a limited time period. But that at least explains why warp strafing is a relatively infrequent tactic- it's simply impractical except at low speeds.

[Crateria]

I think once they realize the Empire's got this crippling weakness, they'll be fairly quick to dust off this hundred year old technique.

Even if what you say is true (I personally don't know whether the Imp ships could follow the Trek ships and fire at them at warp) why haven't they used warp strafing against guys like the Borg, Cardassians, Klingons or basically anybody else they fight against? Being able to supposedly hit the other guy and not get hit would certainly count for something. Couldn't the opposing powers listed do the same? Are they idiots? Crippled by lack of warp fuel? Or are you making stuff up?

You did notice that the Borg, Cardasians, Klingons, and practically everybody else they fight against are capable of using Warp Drive, right?

Then why don't they use it more often then? They might get a lucky shot off and cripple the enemy even if they run the risk of the reverse being true. Entire fleets would be torn to ribbons in an instant. If the Feds won't do it their enemies will.

Unless they won't. For a variety of reasons, maybe as listed above. Or they're hardly the enemies you make them out to be.

EDIT: Or what the person above me wrote. That works too.

[Cesario]

I'm sure if the Empire has a Jedi running the fire-control, they'll have no problem predicting the likely arcs the Federation ship may approach on. Too bad about that whole "exterminating all of them" policy they enacted, huh?

And of course, the tactic relies on the implicit assumption that the enemy is actually vulnerable, even a little, to your guns. Otherwise, tactics are irrelevant and you have to start wondering why the other guy is bothering to treat this like a war in the first place.

Fortunately, harassment is sufficient vulnerability for that to work, even if we assume shielded Star Destroyers are really as invincible as the wankers believe. Since launching fighters, sending out landing craft, and the like will mean vulnerable targets that aren't protected by those omnipotent shields.

[Stofsk]

edit: re: bakustra's post

This was implied in TOS interestingly enough. In 'Journey to Babel' and 'Elaan of Troyius' the Enterprise comes under fire from another space craft travelling at faster warp velocities relative to it. In both examples, the orion ship and the klingon ship seemed to only fire one volley off before moving away and then coming back for another strafe.

The D7 is either a match for the Constitution-class or slightly less powerful, so I always thought that the klingon ship was just toying with the Enterprise because it knew that they couldn't engage their warp drive (or their whole plan hinged on sabotaging the Enterprise and trying to force them to go to warp and thus destroy themselves, thereby not being in any technical violation of the Organian Peace Treaty; when that didn't work they kinda didn't know what to do so just went with the single volley strafe idea). The orion ship IIRC however was called a scout ship or something smaller than the Enterprise- Spock mentioned how the power utilisation curve was higher than expected but then surmised that this was because the crew was on a suicide mission and thus could devote 100% of their fuel to the attack.

[Bakustra]

I'm sure if the Empire has a Jedi running the fire-control, they'll have no problem predicting the likely arcs the Federation ship may approach on. Too bad about that whole "exterminating all of them" policy they enacted, huh?

And of course, the tactic relies on the implicit assumption that the enemy is actually vulnerable, even a little, to your guns. Otherwise, tactics are irrelevant and you have to start wondering why the other guy is bothering to treat this like a war in the first place.

Fortunately, harassment is sufficient vulnerability for that to work, even if we assume shielded Star Destroyers are really as invincible as the wankers believe. Since launching fighters, sending out landing craft, and the like will mean vulnerable targets that aren't protected by those omnipotent shields.

That's why I offered my disclaimers- because it's nowhere near a sure thing that the Empire has good enough computers to be able to predict attack arcs with, at best, under a minute of data, or that the Federation has to make broad turns while at warp. Also, there's a big difference between "Photon torpedoes bear the same relationship to Star Destroyers that WWII torpedoes did to WWII destroyers" (which would tip the balance in favor of the Federation massively. Like, they could win the war with ease massively.) and "Photon torpedos can hurt Star Destroyers on par with their own weapons" (which makes things fairly equitable).

[mutanthamster]

Hello all. Rather new here, though some of you might know me from Spacebattles. I just have to ask one question: why, after all these years, does the SW vs. ST debate still persist? The horrific economic and brute force disparity has been settled time and time again. I've always loved Star Trek, yet when put on a strict versus debate with Star Wars, it just doesn't work. Why must the ST fans keep coming back for more punishment?

Now that the thread seems to have petered out, the answer to the original post seems clear. Several posts point out the clear advantage of Star Fleet ships in battle because of warp strafing and the response from some of the Star Wars side of the argument is simply not to accept that it happens. It's hardly persuasive. No wonder Star Trek fans are unconvinced.

[Boeing 757]

Hello all. Rather new here, though some of you might know me from Spacebattles. I just have to ask one question: why, after all these years, does the SW vs. ST debate still persist? The horrific economic and brute force disparity has been settled time and time again. I've always loved Star Trek, yet when put on a strict versus debate with Star Wars, it just doesn't work. Why must the ST fans keep coming back for more punishment?

Now that the thread seems to have petered out, the answer to the original post seems clear. Several posts point out the clear advantage of Star Fleet ships in battle because of warp strafing and the response from some of the Star Wars side of the argument is simply not to accept that it happens. It's hardly persuasive. No wonder Star Trek fans are unconvinced.

Likewise, there are folks (like me) on here who remain unconvinced of the likelihood of a Trek ship warp-strafing an enemy, owing to 1) it being never shown, besides perhaps in one episode back in the 60s, and 2)lack of ability in targeting objects while during FTL-travel, never mind objects traveling at sublight speeds.

Also, even should this ability exist, what good exactly do you believe that it could do, in light of the fact that a UFP ship can spend its whole inventory of weapons and not even expect to put a dent in a SW ship?

[mutanthamster]

Likewise, there are folks (like me) on here who remain unconvinced of the likelihood of a Trek ship warp-strafing an enemy, owing to 1) it being never shown, besides perhaps in one episode back in the 60s, and 2)lack of ability in targeting objects while during FTL-travel, never mind objects traveling at sublight speeds.

Also, even should this ability exist, what good exactly do you believe that it could do, in light of the fact that a UFP ship can spend its whole inventory of weapons and not even expect to put a dent in a SW ship?

This sums up why the Star Wars superiority is not accepted. Star Trek does show warp strafing is effective, but this is simply denied. Also, why should a bald statement a Star Fleet ship cannot damage an Imperial ship be accepted.

[Batman]

That'd be the part where
a) Warp strafing has never been demonstrated (not implied, but actually demonstrated) and wasn't used in countless situations where it would have saved their bacon, and
b) a Clone Wars Era glorified troop transport has a canonical firepower of 200GT per battery (possibly per barrel) vs photon torpedoes being single figure MT. Maybe.

[Cesario]

So, Batman, when would this tactic have been useful when they didn't use it exactly? If the number of times was countless, surely you can point to some examples, right?

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Even if we assume parity in offensive and defensive capabilities and allow warp strafing in all combat, how is that enough to leave the outcome open or in the favor of Trek? It would in the case of a "x ships from one side duel y ships from other side, no retreats, FIGHT" scenario, but this thread is talking about the larger forms of conflict such as Federation vs Empire. The polities of Wars are too spread out for almost anyone in Trek to threaten over a timescale shorter than decades (which plays into the hands of Wars's superior industry), so that puts the Wars side on the offensive footing.

Even if warp strafing makes Trek ships entirely immune to attack, the Wars ships can use their superior speed to simply avoid combat where possible, ignore it when they can't, and focus on destroying things without warp drives. Even ignoring the potential to hold civilian populations hostage, they can destroy starbases and other infrastructure until the opposing ships become incapable of resupply.

If we assume the usual wormhole scenario for the crossover, that leaves the Trek side capable of defensive victory by securing/destroying the wormhole, but I thought that was always considered a possibility?

[Bakustra]

If SW ships can go to hyperspace quickly enough to avoid combat, why don't they do that every time in the movies?

Star Trek ships go to warp very quickly on a regular basis, but SW ships always take time to plot a course or dump their garbage and other stuff before doing it.

On the other hand, it only seems to take a few minutes for small ships like the Falcon to jump- they're able to get away within a couple minutes of launch at Tatooine and not too much longer at Bespin, counting the time spent to repair the hyperdrive. I mean, it's possible that the necessary work was being done before takeoff by Han and Chewie at Tatooine, since they knew where they were going, and the same might apply for Bespin, since they knew where the Rebel rendezvous point was, but I dunno. Maybe it's related to the size of the vehicle?

[Boeing 757]

So, Batman, when would this tactic have been useful when they didn't use it exactly? If the number of times was countless, surely you can point to some examples, right?

Funny--neither the Klingons nor the Dominion used warp strafing when they attacked DS9...which is likely THE best kind of situation that a warp-drive equipped ship could find itself in while attacking a stationary target. Yet they fought using impulse. Mind explaining why they didn't warp-straf when they would have had an EXCELLENT chance thereby to do so? Also, what about how the Scimitar dropped out of warp to attack the Ent-E in Nemesis? Shouldn't Shinzon just have stayed in warp if doing so gives his ship an advantage, even if the Ent-E had a functioning warp-drive? And of course, there are a few episodes whereby Voyager has lost warp drive and the opposing threat of the weak hadn't switched over to warp to press home its advantage. And I don't have episode names on me right now, but that's only the TIP of the iceberg.

This sums up why the Star Wars superiority is not accepted. Star Trek does show warp strafing is effective, but this is simply denied. Also, why should a bald statement a Star Fleet ship cannot damage an Imperial ship be accepted.

Oh, please DO go back in your cage. There is absolutely nothing to show for it that ST ships can fire at STL targets while at warp. Worse yet, that battle in "Elaan of Troyius" is HARDLY the best example for what you're trying to prove. Spock was after all reporting the closing distance between the E-Nil and the Klingon ship in hundreds of kilometers over several seconds. And the visuals clearly show the Klingon ship traveling at sublight velocities. If any thing, that episode goes to show that warp-strafing is some thing which is done while being slower than light.

Several, actually.

Enlighten me, then.

Please. Fucking prove it.f

How about the fact that a 20years old troop transport has not one, but several turbolaser batteries rated at 200 gigatons? And these are further more DWARFED by the huge-ass HTLs on an Imperator-class star destroyer? Last time that I checked, photon torpedoes are megatons on that scale. A whole fucking fleet of Federation ships could take an Acclamator on, and not hope even to bring down its shields (which are also rated at 15 teratons, to boot) after they've exhausted all their torpedoes.

[Bakustra]

I see you are unfamiliar with DXIII's line of argument. He argues that the ICS numbers are inconsistent with the movies as shown, and so just repeating them endlessly is not actually addressing him. Secondly, saying that the heavy guns on an ISD are obviously more powerful than the ones on an Acclamator is fallacious. The two vessels have entirely different roles, and so should not be blindly compared in terms of the raw firepower they carry.

EDIT: This sounds kinda disparaging to DXIII, so let me clarify that I have a great deal of respect for his arguments.

[Bakustra]

According to Wookieepedia:

Power output

* Peak (reactor): 2 × 10^23 W
* Peak (shields): 7 × 10^22 W

Which looks about right. Of course, that doesn't tell us what "peak power" means. Does it represent the average dissipation capacity of the shield in W? Maybe. But that doesn't quite jive with other incidents. Or does it represent a peak dissipation capacity beyond which the shielding structures are damaged, but the actual minimum to knock down the shield is much lower?

[Metahive]

The Acclamator was not just a glorified troop transport, for the first phase of the Clone War it was the Republic's main warship. But it's true, at no point does an Acclamator fire shots that cause demonstrably 200 GT worth of damage, they never even fire in the live-action movies at all. If they had this sort of firepower they could wipe out whole droid armies by themselves whenever they choose to parade-march unprotected into battle like they did on Malastare, but it's not done. This happens all the time in the CG Clone Wars series. One example, the CIS has the orbit over Christophsis under control for most of the time the battle rages on below, yet they never even think about turning their warships around and blast the small, unprotected republican contingent from above and it's not like they're overly concerned about collateral damage.
If one can take the fact that Trek isn't always using its fancy tactics and technology when it would be useful as evidence that said tactics and technology are non-existent, then, well, one can turn the tables around quite easily.

[Connor MacLeod]

People focus too much on the existence of Warp Strafing as a concept, and not enough in discussing the actual mechanics of what it involves. The latter is the more important, since it's not the fact it exists that is the point of contention, but that certain Trekkies have, in the past, portrayed it as an unbeatable, game winning super tactic that noone can ever, ever beat. You can have warp strafing independent of the "unbeatable, comic book game winning tactic" angle.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Even if we accept warp-strafing as "the great equaliser" in tactical combat, St and th eFederation are going to lose the strategic contest.

as Grandmaster Jogurt said, the major military, industrial and political hubs of the Empire/OR/NR/GFFA are spread apart tothe point where warp drives will be hopeless. As a result, the best Starfleet could hope to achieve would be a defensive stalemate. Yes, they might be able to warp-strafe their way through an Imperial fleet, but not before that fleet blows some starbases out of the sky, or drops a few very nasty turbolaser bolts on a city or three, whereas ST ships have no real chance at striking back at Imperial targets.

Starfleet would have no choice but to stand on the defensive and hope to have enough time between attacks to repair the damage. In short, they might win every battle but still lose the war.

[Metahive]

[...]but that certain Trekkies have, in the past, portrayed it as an unbeatable, game winning super tactic that noone can ever, ever beat.

You mean like "200 GT, instawin, lol"? I could do without either.

Warp-strafing sounds like an interesting tactic, an analogue to the hit'n run tactics used by american fighter planes against the more maneuverable yet slower japanese ones. The Orion ship in Journey to Babel seemingly did use such a tactic against the Enterprise, but it's said that it was guzzling fuel like made while doing so and therefore never supposed to make it back home.

[Bakustra]

That also could explain how relatively small proton torpedoes and concussion missiles are able to break through starship shields- they're nukes or antimatter warheads which can punch through.

[mutanthamster]

If I were a Star Fleet weapons engineer, I would not be that interested in the yield of my weapons, because it would not be the main source of their power. If you annihilate matter/antimatter the energy would be equal to mc2. Pretty powerful. But if you could shoot the same mass at warp speed many times than the speed of light then the energy would be equal to 1/2mv2, which is a lot higher. The faster you can go when you fire your weapons the faster the weapon is, so fighting at top speed gives you a lot more power. Maybe in later series of Star Trek weapons technology had advanced so much more that they just did not need to fire at top speed.