totally random question

[Enforcer Talen]

could a sw ship mount lightsabers to stop turbolaser blasts?

I can just picture some diallente moving through the ether with 40 100m long lightsabres. . .

[Master of Ossus]

No. Lightsabers are too narrow to block turbolasers. They cannot even stop starfighter weapons fire for that reason, as shown in "Jedi Under Siege."

[Enforcer Talen]

if they were made wider?

[Master of Ossus]

if they were made wider?

[shrugs]I suppose it's possible. Gorc's lightsaber from "Jedi Knight" was a lot wider than most others. Remember, though, that making lightsabers is enormously difficult, and requires craftsmen with some knowledge of the Force. Also, the more the design differs from the standard, the more difficult it becomes to acquire parts, and to manufacture the weapon.

[Darth Servo]

could a sw ship mount lightsabers to stop turbolaser blasts?

I can just picture some diallente moving through the ether with 40 100m long lightsabres. . .

Whats wrong with shields?

[Enforcer Talen]

everybody does it -rolls eyes- if you've got money, why not spend it on a capital sized light saber?

[Ender]

Because you couldn't fire through it like it appears you can a shield. Your shots would come straight back at you.

[Sea Skimmer]

I don't think it would be practical, there most be energy handling limits and you'd need a fuckload of them for it to work.

[Darth Wong]

Remember that unlike a prescient Jedi Knight, a starship computer cannot predict weapons fire before it happens, so this defense system would be utterly useless against a close-in enemy where there's no time to react.

Moreover, the movement of all physical systems can be modelled using the 2nd order damped spring-mass control-function equations, and a huge lightsabre will present great difficulties for a control system. It is infeasible on many levels; the rise time, overshoot, and settling time would be very high, much too high to react to weapons fire unless you have a very long time to react.

[Enforcer Talen]

hm. so even having mounds of money wouldnt make it worth it. pity.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Pity? I think it would look really stupid! It would be essential useless, for both defense and attacking enemy ships (lightsabers cannot penetrate shields, see TPM). Plus it would look reaaaaaalllllllyyyy stupid.

[Enforcer Talen]

hey, rich people can do things like that =p

[Shinova]

Instead of a lightsaber, a force-amplifier would be nicer so that you could throw starfleets around, but I'm deviating at the moment.

And no, the lightsaber probably won't be viable.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I also think that if you made a lightsaber bigger, it would require tremendous amounts of energy to run continuously, especially since TL blasts are more powerful than blaster blasts when scaled down.

Also, it would be unwieldy and hard to maneuver.

[Isolder74]

I don't think this will work. It is harder to scale up something than you might think. Have you ever wondered why they don't built artilery sized machine guns. It cause while the principle works well with small arms it become unworkable at this size. Anyway the ship with this huge lightsaber would only be only useful if it was a mobile suit gundam piloted by a Jedi Knight.