On the nature of ion cannons

[GySgt. Hartman]

I was just made aware of the fact that The ICS describe ion cannons as firing

an electrical discharge to disrupt the control circuits of an enemy craft without destroying it.

(p. 20, Y-Wing)

It is clear from the movies that this "electrical discharge" travels at speed well below c. From this follows that the beam must consist of heavy particles, presumably charged ones. This beam of charged particles can be aimed, whereas an "electric discharge" would simply use the way of lowest resistance. In TESB, we see a shot from an ion cannon bypass a transport and hit an ISD - not on his nose, but below the tower.
The hull of the ISD should offer some protection from a simple discharge ( Faraday cage), yet the effect of the it seems to be pretty localized, instead of travelling all over the hull.

How can we reconcile this canon observation with the canon statement from ICS, or is there simply an unlucky choice of words in the ICS?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Does the ICS describe them as traveling at C?

[Illuminatus Primus]

No. Its describes energy weapons (refering to the Acclamator's turbolasers in the image) as c-propogating weaponry.

[GySgt. Hartman]

Does the ICS describe them as traveling at C?

No it does not. I simply wanted to motivate, why I think they fire charged particle beams. This question originates from another thread
But that was not the main question anyway.

[omegaLancer]

Does the ICS describe them as traveling at C?

No it does not. I simply wanted to motivate, why I think they fire charged particle beams. This question originates from another thread
But that was not the main question anyway.

It is not necessary for an ion cannons to fire ions in order to create an electrical discharges or ions. Extreme short impulse laser (Femto to picosecond laser) would produce massive electrical and magnetic fields when striking matter, field strength near what can be found only in Neutron stars.
"MEGAGAUSS IN PICOSECONDS. The item above describes the creation of high fields; this item describes the rapid measurement of high fields. Physicists from the Tata Institute and the Institute for Plasma Research in India have recorded in detail, for the first time, the huge magnetic spike encountered by atoms in a sample bearing the brunt of an intense laser shot. Fields as great as 27 megagauss, roughly 50 million times the strength of Earth's magnetic field, come about very quickly in the following way: the 10^16-watt/cm^2 pump laser beam strikes an aluminum target, the surface layer of atoms is quickly ionized, and a stream of very fast electrons is released into the body of the target, inducing the huge field"

[Connor MacLeod]

I was just made aware of the fact that The ICS describe ion cannons as firing

an electrical discharge to disrupt the control circuits of an enemy craft without destroying it.

(p. 20, Y-Wing)

It is clear from the movies that this "electrical discharge" travels at speed well below c.

True to a certain extent. The Hoth Ion cannon didn't appear to travel at or near c (or at least the visible part didn't, if ion cannons also have a "tracer" part like lasers and turbolasers do.) but they were also clearly relatavistic.

Plus, we also know ion engines can reach relatavistic speeds (indeed, they in fact need to be very close to the speed of light to be even remotely efficient.) so it is reasonable to infer that ion cannons could also impart similar velocities.

From this follows that the beam must consist of heavy particles, presumably charged ones.

Well, they'd HAVE to be charged particles. Neutral partticles aren't quite going to have that sort of effect, I don't think. It doesnt neccesarily need to be heavy particles, though (I presume you mean, heavy ionized atoms.)

This beam of charged particles can be aimed, whereas an "electric discharge" would simply use the way of lowest resistance.

unless the electrical discharged was part of the beam of charged particles.

In TESB, we see a shot from an ion cannon bypass a transport and hit an ISD - not on his nose, but below the tower.

yes.

The hull of the ISD should offer some protection from a simple discharge ( Faraday cage), yet the effect of the it seems to be pretty localized, instead of travelling all over the hull.

Assuming it has nothing to do with penetrating the shields, that may simply be due to the ionization effects, or it may be due to the superconducting nature of SW armor. A beam of charged particles would not behave in that fashion either (it would penetrate fairly deeply and blast out a nice chunk of the hull.)

How can we reconcile this canon observation with the canon statement from ICS, or is there simply an unlucky choice of words in the ICS?

I don't see what the problem is.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The v-120 at Hoth fired multiple blasts in a salvo, along slightly different vectors with recoil incident upon the bolt leaving the barrel. While the second proves nothing, in conjunction with the first, I don't see how that could be consistent with c-propogating/delayed-pulse TL theory.

One difficult problem is that the ions must be confined by something (possibly a small missile or projectile co-incident with the pulse of ions) which keeps flight level and the ions from spreading away from each other as physics demands. Another problem is that sending a blast of ions worth x positive coulombs, will charge the gun/ship with x negative coulomb, resulting in an affinity to return to the gun by the blast.

Also of interest: ships in the recent Jango Fett comics used "solar ionization guns" which ignored shielding.