ISD vs cloaked mines

[Enola Straight]

Suppose we have an ISD on a regular patrol. It is transversing space along a hyperlane. Someone uses a long-range subspace transporter to beam a field of cloaked mines in the path of the ISD.

The minefield is beamed in place after the ISD uses the navicomp to plot a course and jumped to lightspeed.

Is this a viable tactic?

[Teleros]

I admit I'm no expert on the SW hyperdrive, but from what I've seen you can still hit things / their mass shadows when travelling through hyperspace. So, a few thoughts on it before someone more experienced answers...

However, I find it hard to believe that the normal hyperspace lanes are completely free of matter etc, so ships must be able to either perform minute manoeuvres to evade such objects or be able to go through them, else we'd get ships getting holed left right and centre. The latter option implies that the mass shadow of an object is only a problem for objects of a certain minimum mass.

If the former, then ships must have pretty good gravitational sensors in order to avoid the mass shadows of various tiny objects, so it is likely that the cloaked mines could be picked up by this method (IIRC Star Trek cloaking devices don't shield the object from detection via gravity), and thus avoided.

If they cannot be avoided, then I'd guess it's just a case of calculating the energy of the cloaked mine and comparing it to the shields of the ship. Of course doing that for a ship that's going at several million times the speed of light is going to be fun, but at any rate given the power of Trek weapons I'd say the kinetic energy of the impact is going to be more important than any warhead mounted on the mine.

If the latter, then the ISD (or whatever) would probably be able to plough through them without any problems, depending on the size & mass of the mines, the number it hits and so on. However, I can see this leading to some ludicrous figures for shield strength - it probably has to work for the odd atoms and whatnot zipping around in space, but given how much more massive even a micrometeorite is when compared to a hydrogen atom, I think the idea of minor course corrections is more likely.

[Morilore]

Unless I'm too much mistaken, a mine in real-space wouldn't interact with a ship in hyperspace; the concern with hitting celestial bodies is that their gravitational fields forcibly return the ship to realspace before the ship hits the body, if I'm remembering my SW bullshit physics right.

Is this a viable tactic?

As a way for the Federation to defeat the Empire? No, its a gimmick, and gimmicks like that don't overcome massive industrial and technological disparities. As a way to defeat that one ISD? What magical ability allows the ST force here to figure out what course the ISD is traveling? Ships in hyperspace may outrace Star Trek sensor packets.

[Silver Jedi]

Setting aside for a moment the difficulty of finding the exact route it is going to take, and precicely when, how are the mines going to affect the Star Destroyer if it's in hyperspace? The only way to make them useful is to get a ship with a powerful enough gravity well generator to pull the Destroyer back into realspace, and if you've got that, and a ship close enough to transport the mines (as, right on top of the destroyer's forced exit point) , why not just ambush the destroyer normally? It feels like you're trying really hard to contrive a senario where the mines would be useful.

[Peptuck]

The mines wouldn't even do much damage in realspace. The massive shield shield strength of an ISD alone compared with ST firepower assures that.

[Darth Servo]

It still takes a small amount of time for the mines to detonate. How far away will a ship traveling millions of times the speed of light by then? Even at 1 C, in 1/1000th of a second, the ship will be 300 km away. Not too many mines have a blast radius that big.

[Ted C]

Suppose we have an ISD on a regular patrol. It is transversing space along a hyperlane. Someone uses a long-range subspace transporter to beam a field of cloaked mines in the path of the ISD.

The minefield is beamed in place after the ISD uses the navicomp to plot a course and jumped to lightspeed.

Is this a viable tactic?

Can a ship traveling through hyperspace run into a mine in normal space? It's not like the mines have enough mass to create a gravity well that would pull a ship out of hyperspace. As far as I know, only very massive objects (or technology to create a similar amount of gravity) can threaten a ship in hyperspace.

[Vehrec]

Maybe if these were tachyonic mines that violently disrupted subspace and regular space-time for around a lightyear around them . . . then they might force the Star Destroyer to drop out of Hyperspace to either do some repairs or reset it's hyperdrive and find out just what happened. Alternatively, anything massive enough to damage it while it's in hyperspace is massive enough to trip its failsafe and make it drop to real-space.

[Darth Fanboy]

A similar strategy was used by Zsinj against the New Republic in the first Wraith Squadron book.

The Empion mine (a portmanteau of EMP and Ion) was a deep-space mine designed to pull ships from hyperspace and disable them.

The mine consisted of five components: an array of sensors to detect ships in hyperspace; a gravity well projector to pull them from lightspeed; an electromagnetic charge to disable electronics; an ion projector to disable vessels; and a hyperwave transceiver to report detonations to the minelayer.

I don't believe we ever see these mines work against anything larger than an X-Wing though, so I have no idea how many it would take to have any effect on an ISD. Assuming the Federation even has the ability to replicate these components (and their propensity for technobabblewank), even then I wouldn't be confident that they have the technology to create the necessary firepower to take down the ISD's shields.

[consequences]

A similar strategy was used by Zsinj against the New Republic in the first Wraith Squadron book.

The Empion mine (a portmanteau of EMP and Ion) was a deep-space mine designed to pull ships from hyperspace and disable them.

The mine consisted of five components: an array of sensors to detect ships in hyperspace; a gravity well projector to pull them from lightspeed; an electromagnetic charge to disable electronics; an ion projector to disable vessels; and a hyperwave transceiver to report detonations to the minelayer.

I don't believe we ever see these mines work against anything larger than an X-Wing though, so I have no idea how many it would take to have any effect on an ISD. Assuming the Federation even has the ability to replicate these components (and their propensity for technobabblewank), even then I wouldn't be confident that they have the technology to create the necessary firepower to take down the ISD's shields.

The grav well generator would be the deal breaker here, also for the concept of mines pulling ships out just by being there. No one would waste a grav well generator on an expendable platform if they could just jettison a load of ball bearing into a hyperspace lane.

[Connor MacLeod]

Those mines would only work if the sensors can detect and trigger BEFORE the target reaches or even passes the mine (further accounting for the speed at which the effect spreads out.). Even then, its possible that if its sufficiently further awaY (or the nav computer and sensor apparatus are good enough) that the ship in hyperspace may redirect course (though nto definite.)

Generally though, this would require active FTL sensors nearly as good (if not better) than what SW uses for hyperspace travel (And probably as fast as/faster than the hyperdrive.) to have any real chance of success.

Edit: I daresay that those mines might have something to say about the compactness and capabilities of SW sensing apparatus, and their potential in things like satellites or probes.

[Swindle1984]

Barring the difficulty of detecting the incoming Star Destroyer and detonating before it passes by, barring the difficulty of any Star Trek technology having any effect (or even awareness of) on hyperspace, barring the fact that objects in realspace and hyperspace do not interact EXCEPT for large gravity wells, there's also the problem that a Star Destroyer could just plow through an entire minefield like the one at the Bajoran wormhole without noticing.

This idea is a failure from every possible vantage.

[Darth Wong]

Do the math. Let's say the initation sequence takes one nanosecond: if the ship is traveling at (for example) 100 ly/hr, that's roughly 2.6E14 m/s. This, in turn, means that from the moment of impact with the nose of the ship to the moment it passes the rear of the ship, only 6E-12 seconds would pass. I don't see any reason why the ship wouldn't just fly right through it without injury even if it goes off.

Particle interactions are limited at very high relative velocities: at a high fraction of c, you can pass antimatter through solid matter and almost none of it will even react.

Of course, all of this is assuming they can actually make this happen in the first place: a highly questionable premise.

[Darth Yoshi]

Can a ship traveling through hyperspace run into a mine in normal space? It's not like the mines have enough mass to create a gravity well that would pull a ship out of hyperspace. As far as I know, only very massive objects (or technology to create a similar amount of gravity) can threaten a ship in hyperspace.

When the crew Talon Karrde was with found the Katana Fleet, their ship nearly destroyed itself in a collision as they jumped to hyperspace. I don't remember if they hit a Katana ship, or a nearby comet, though.

[Darth Ruinus]

I thought ships could interact with the real world, wasn't there a comic where 3 ISDs in hyperspace slam into the Executor?

[Teleros]

Yes, but IIRC they were coming out of hyperspace when they slammed into the Executor's shields.

[Teleros]

Sorry for the double post, but here's the link to the comic, via Saxton's site: Link

[Darth Nostril]

When the crew Talon Karrde was with found the Katana Fleet, their ship nearly destroyed itself in a collision as they jumped to hyperspace. I don't remember if they hit a Katana ship, or a nearby comet, though.

The ship hit the mass shadow of a large comet on the way out, blowing the main hyperdrive and nearly wrecking the rest of the ship on the spot. Five of our crew were killed in the collision, and another three died of injuries before we could limp back to civilization on the backup hyperdrive

[Teleros]

Hmm, I wonder what the least massive object is that can blow out a hyperdrive like that - cloaked mines might not work, but scattering a few suitably massive objects in busy hyperspace routes might work as a terrorist tactic. If a "large comet" can do it, you could even make it out of junk .

[fusion]

Hmm, I wonder what the least massive object is that can blow out a hyperdrive like that - cloaked mines might not work, but scattering a few suitably massive objects in busy hyperspace routes might work as a terrorist tactic. If a "large comet" can do it, you could even make it out of junk .

That "large comet" is probably more than 500 miles in diameter (gravity then is even barely noticeable). Have you ever seen Star Trek drag/move any thing that is remotely that big?

[Darth Wong]

Hmm, I wonder what the least massive object is that can blow out a hyperdrive like that - cloaked mines might not work, but scattering a few suitably massive objects in busy hyperspace routes might work as a terrorist tactic. If a "large comet" can do it, you could even make it out of junk .

Hyperspace routes aren't going to be like modern roads. It's a well-travelled and "known safe" route between two areas, but it doesn't have defined edges. You're not going to be able to mine something that's thousands or tens of thousands of kilometres wide with any realistic expectation of hitting anything, unless you use a truly gigantic number of mines.

Also, I notice no one acknowledged my previous post. What's the matter, you people don't understand math?

[Stark]

Is this a viable tactic?

Is it viable to know where a ship is headed AFTER it leaves, and then move mines into position BEFORE it arrives at millions times lightspeed, in sufficient quantity to do anything over the exact emergence point you learned about through magical intelligence?

Are you serious? Given perfect intel and a massive pre-prepared minelaying operation, it might work. It's absurd.

[Stark]

GHETTO - oh, was he suggesting they put mines in the path of a ship in transit, not at the exit point? That's even more ridiculous.

[Ender]

Also, I notice no one acknowledged my previous post. What's the matter, you people don't understand math?

The level of math required to figure out tachyonic interactions? No, I don't. As I understand it with tachyonic-baryonic interactions the issue is field interactions not particle interactions. The mine would cause a portion of the ISD's own mass to shed energy in the collision as it accelerates towards infinity. And I have no idea how one would calculate that.

[Enola Straight]

Hmm, I wonder what the least massive object is that can blow out a hyperdrive like that - cloaked mines might not work, but scattering a few suitably massive objects in busy hyperspace routes might work as a terrorist tactic. If a "large comet" can do it, you could even make it out of junk .

That "large comet" is probably more than 500 miles in diameter (gravity then is even barely noticeable). Have you ever seen Star Trek drag/move any thing that is remotely that big?

In Deja Q (ST:TNG) and asteroid/moon threatens to crash into a populated planet, the Enterprise wraps a warp field around the moon and uses the tractor beam to nudge it into one orbit more before crashing.

I suppose tractor tech has improved somewhat since then.


BTW, I assume that SW communications are obscenely fast; the transmission propagation velocity is faster than the hyperspace velocity of the ship.

Someone at point A (a planet, starbase, or another ship)sends a coded message that an ISD was pointed in so-and-so direction when they went to lightspeed, thus, point B is "over there", so someone has a few seconds to a few minutes to beam a field of mines in the line between A and B.