X-wing firepower in RotJ

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-01-16 10:09pm

Anyone care to do any calcs on this screen capture? I lost the original video and the ability to recapture it, but the capture is pretty interesting:

xwingblast.jpg

As I recall, 3 bolts were fired (the first one or two created the white explosion on the left frame). The size of the explosion seems to be interesting, considering it was from fighter weapons.

In the right frame, the results of the blasts can be seen, right above the X-wing. (The big explosion to the right is the TIE fighter seen on the left, and was attacked by the Falcon.) The resulting fireball seems roughly as big as the X-wing itself, maybe slightly smaller (the fighter is closer to the camera than the fireball), and a black scorch mark or hole can be seen surrounding the fireball.

Basically, my question is: what kind of information can be gleaned from this scene? I don't have the scaling skills necessary to run any calcs, but I'm guessing that the level of destruction is greater than what we see from Luke's strafing run on the first Death Star. I'm also hoping this scene is less controversial than the Death Star scene.

By the way, this scene is from the same scene where, on the letterbox edition, something that appears to be a proton torpedo or other missile weapon impacts the starboard tower globe. This impact, as I recall, has a slightly smaller explosion than the X-wing's attack. Perhaps the shields around the globe are still active while the shields covering the face of the unidentified ship (doesn't appear to be an ISD-I or II, or the Executor) are overloaded, as the torp hits after the X-wing's attack, and does not appear to do significant damage. (Though I don't have the widescreen version and thus have limited resources, though it is clear from the images on SWTC that the torp hits after the bolts have hit.)

Also, anything that could be gleaned from ywingboom.jpg might be interesting, as well. The flash in the top frame is from a Y-wing crashing into the Star Destroyer. The latter two frames show the destruction of the Y-wing after the initial flash. Comments on this one? I'm guessing the intial flash is from the Y-wing's payload, or perhaps some effect from the ISD's shields.

I'm more interested in the X-wing, though.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-01-20 11:53pm

*bump*

Nothing? Anyone even remotely interested in this?

Sardaukar · Post by **Sardaukar** » 2003-01-21 12:44am

I agree, this thread isn't getting enough attention.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-01-21 03:57am

Mad wrote:*bump*

Nothing? Anyone even remotely interested in this?

I'm very interested...unfortunately, I'm not skilled in this art. Perhaps someone with a bit more intelligence should take a look at it.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-01-21 05:21am

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/bang.html

This is the relevant page for handling explosions.. but I dont know much yet to actually make comparisons. I can try scaling the explosions when I get time, though.

Offhand, I'm guessing its low to mid megaton's worth of an energy release.. based on what we know about Fighter capabilities.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-01-21 05:22am

Robert Treder wrote:
Mad wrote:*bump*

Nothing? Anyone even remotely interested in this?
I'm very interested...unfortunately, I'm not skilled in this art. Perhaps someone with a bit more intelligence should take a look at it.

It doesnt take much to do scaling work, and Saxton's page has done the rest.

Boba Fett · Post by **Boba Fett** » 2003-01-21 05:43am

As for the Y-wing that rams the SD...

The big blue flash is produced by the Y-wing ramming through the particle shield of the SD.

Then the comes the explosion when the Y-wing really crashes to the SD.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-01-21 11:42am

Connor MacLeod wrote:http://www.theforce.net/swtc/bang.html

This is the relevant page for handling explosions.. but I dont know much yet to actually make comparisons. I can try scaling the explosions when I get time, though.

Problem is, the majority of the information currently available on that page deals with atmospheric explosions. I didn't see much that would help out an analysis of an explosion in space.

Aside from the explosion, there's also the fire and blackness (either scorching or a hole) behind the fire that could offer clues on how much armor was destroyed. And from there, we can figure out how much work the bolts did against the armor.

Boba Fett wrote:As for the Y-wing that rams the SD...

The big blue flash is produced by the Y-wing ramming through the particle shield of the SD.

Then the comes the explosion when the Y-wing really crashes to the SD.

I'm disinclined to believe that the blue flash is the particle shields. Shield effects in SW are mostly invisible, with a few exceptions. When TIEs run into a Mon Cal, we don't see the same blue flash. And the fighter wasn't going fast enough for us to see such a huge flash.

The flash might be armed torpedoes exploding, or an initial explosion from the fighter's main reactor. I don't think the fighter got through the ISD's shields. I agree that the smaller explosion is probably the remainder of the Y-wing exploding, but I think it's exploding against the shields, not the hull.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-01-22 05:50am

I had always assumed that the Y-wing never made it through the shields, but to be honest, I never really noticed the big blue flash.

But the final small explosion definitely looks like it isn't on the hull, but a bit farther out. But looks can be deceiving, eh?

Boba Fett · Post by **Boba Fett** » 2003-01-22 08:18am

Mad wrote:
Connor MacLeod wrote:
Boba Fett wrote:As for the Y-wing that rams the SD...

The big blue flash is produced by the Y-wing ramming through the particle shield of the SD.

Then the comes the explosion when the Y-wing really crashes to the SD.
I'm disinclined to believe that the blue flash is the particle shields. Shield effects in SW are mostly invisible, with a few exceptions. When TIEs run into a Mon Cal, we don't see the same blue flash. And the fighter wasn't going fast enough for us to see such a huge flash.

The flash might be armed torpedoes exploding, or an initial explosion from the fighter's main reactor. I don't think the fighter got through the ISD's shields. I agree that the smaller explosion is probably the remainder of the Y-wing exploding, but I think it's exploding against the shields, not the hull.

I don't think after the explosions of several proton torpedos anything would remain from the Y-wing...

But anything can happen!

Darth PhysBod · Post by **Darth PhysBod** » 2003-01-22 06:21pm

http://man1ac0.tripod.com/Y-wing1.txt
http://man1ac0.tripod.com/Y-wing2.txt
http://man1ac0.tripod.com/Y-wing3.txt
http://man1ac0.tripod.com/Y-wing4.txt

If you look at the first two frames and compare the Y-wing width to the ISD hull you can see the Y-wing appears to ~twice as wide as it should (Y-wing width 6m, ISD superstructure between centreline and edge ~150m) had it hit the hull. We could make a guestimate based on its observed speed in the prior scene. It takes ~1 second to fully traverse Executors brim trench from top to bottom i.e somewhere around 100m/s. It carries on for a further 3 seconds before exploding, but it would have had to travel ~twice as far to have hit the hull. i.e it exploded somewhere around 300m off the hull, possibly from hitting the shields.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-01-22 08:37pm

Boba Fett wrote:I don't think after the explosions of several proton torpedos anything would remain from the Y-wing...

But anything can happen!

Well, a directed explosion wouldn't necesarially destroy the entire fighter, just everything in front of the torpedoes. The rest could be heavily damaged, but intact enough to crash against the shields.

Evil S'tan wrote:i.e it exploded somewhere around 300m off the hull, possibly from hitting the shields.

I simply took for granted that it most likely hit the shields.

I thought the size of the blue flash was interesting. I don't know if anything can be done to figure out a possible yield on the flash given that it's in a vacuum, but I figured it'd be worth a shot.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-01-30 05:11pm

*bump*

Someone did some rough scaling for the hole, and got about a terajoule per shot by the X-wing (about a 6-7 meter diameter for the hole caused by the blasts). Not as high as I had hoped, but he was aiming to be conservative. Hopefully he'll redo his scalings since he lost them during the ICQ conversation. If not, I guess I'll have to let this thread die until I can find somebody who wants to do them.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-02-02 03:39am

Actually I just redid them

Basically I used two scaling cues: the X-wing, and the globes. According to Curtis, the globes are roughly ~43 meters in diameter IIRC, and scaling wise appear to be 57 pixels in diameter.

The X-wing appears to be 17 pixels "wide" and is roughly 11 meters across

Note that its difficult to acquire accurate figures so there is some variance, but they appear to be roughly accurate.

going by the globes, each pixel is roughly .75 meters.

By the X-wing, each pixel is roughly .65 meters.

the "hole" appears to be 14 pixels in diameter (if assuming a sphere and assuming we are seeing it from an angle - not impossible.) Keeping hte following assumptions in mind yields a diameter between 9 and 10 meters across.

Now as I said, its a very rough estimate. Its possible the whole is not circular (maybe more ovoid, or not). If so the "long" dimension remains the same, but the "width" (the second radius - the narrower part of the ovoid) becomes about 7 pixels across, yielding a range of 4.6 to 5.3 meters in diameter.

Either way, they're still very rough figures, and as Mad said, there are assumptions involved. Make of it what you will

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-02-02 01:19pm

Connor MacLeod wrote:Actually I just redid them

Basically I used two scaling cues: the X-wing, and the globes. According to Curtis, the globes are roughly ~43 meters in diameter IIRC, and scaling wise appear to be 57 pixels in diameter.

The X-wing appears to be 17 pixels "wide" and is roughly 11 meters across

Note that its difficult to acquire accurate figures so there is some variance, but they appear to be roughly accurate.

going by the globes, each pixel is roughly .75 meters.

By the X-wing, each pixel is roughly .65 meters.

the "hole" appears to be 14 pixels in diameter (if assuming a sphere and assuming we are seeing it from an angle - not impossible.) Keeping hte following assumptions in mind yields a diameter between 9 and 10 meters across.

Now as I said, its a very rough estimate. Its possible the whole is not circular (maybe more ovoid, or not). If so the "long" dimension remains the same, but the "width" (the second radius - the narrower part of the ovoid) becomes about 7 pixels across, yielding a range of 4.6 to 5.3 meters in diameter.

Either way, they're still very rough figures, and as Mad said, there are assumptions involved. Make of it what you will

So what's the energy rating for holes of those sizes?

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-02-02 06:29pm

Er.. Ya can't do vaporization/melting calcs given the diameter?

I mean I can but..

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-02-02 10:51pm

well anyhow.. assuming the 4.6 meter figure is hemispherical (it vaporizes a half-sphere out of the hull) and iron composition, the volume affected is roughly 201,448 kg.

To melt: 2.58e11 joules

To vaporize: 1.53e12 joules

If its ten meters in diamter, its 4,139,227 kg.

To vaporize, it requires 3.15e13 joules

to melt, it requires 5.3e12 joules.