Capital ship warfare

[SWPIGWANG]

but that is with assumptions on a ISD's acceleration charactistics. And the acceleration charactistics laterially, based on its big remass drive at back design, can be change dramically with the orientation.


And there is always the 1st salvo it the attacked have the element of surprise.

[Ender]

Apparentily jamming would render most Forms of FTL tracking useless. But Capital ship can borrow a technique of targeting from the pre WWII surface fleet..

Before the day of radar, spotter planes were used to help in the targeting of enemy capital ship.. All Battleships build in the period between WWI and II were design with Catapult to launch such planes.

In a long range engagement one could deploy long range scouts ( like the imperial Scot tie) to perform in such a role... staying just out side the radius of the opposing force jamming, but with light second, they can direct and coordinate bombardment against enemy fleet via FTL communication.

See the TIE/fc. It is designed to do that.

[Master of Ossus]

but that is with assumptions on a ISD's acceleration charactistics. And the acceleration charactistics laterially, based on its big remass drive at back design, can be change dramically with the orientation.


And there is always the 1st salvo it the attacked have the element of surprise.

Assuming that you could attack one by surprise, it would almost certainly be dead, anyway if we assume relative parity of firepower on both sides. It would certainly be seriously damaged by a complete, surprise attack.

[pellaeons_scion]

Was looking at the number of gun crews for a starship and it got me thinking. Its all well and good having a massive amount of guns on a ship, but how does someone keep control of them all? I mean, a Earth warship has a single ( i think) Fire Control station. As there arnt that many weapons systems to control this would be fairly simple.

But how would SW ships do it? There couldnt be a central fire control, as trying to maintain fire discpline over that many guns would be a huge task. Even if each five gun battery had one commander it would still be difficult. If an ISD or MonCal was engaging multiple small targets that would be an effective way of commanding them.

But what about when they are facing larger opponents? What happens then? There obviously has to be an overriding control point, but I just cant work out where! Surely SW gun crews arnt left to pick and choose targets or target locations on their own? That would be a very strange concept if it was true.

I guess Im trying to work out exactly this would work. IF it was a "battery by battery control" system, each under a single crew commander, that could kind of explain to me the erratic nature of a SW warships fire output that has been seen in the movies. But it cant act like that all the time can it? I dont think it would be very effective if it was.

Just my two creds

[Mr Bean]

Battery By Battery Control refers to 4 HTLs it seems, possibly as Many as Six, Each has redunt back-up systems so that the guners of each HTL can also Indpently Target ALONG WITH the main CIC being able to order Broadsides or the Bridge doing the same thing

Redunancy and before attacking gunners are informed who they are listening to pretty much

IE
In need of Broad-side Captian or Weapons officer is heard saying aim at that XXX and fire

And of course all guns avaible will fire at that

If they can not fire at it they don't hear the commander

In essance there is no diffrence inbetween one Gun firing and Thirty to the people firing

IE just so happens the rest are shooting at that target to

[omegaLancer]

actually old time battle ship had any were from one fire control station to one for each turret ( as in the Iowa class Battleship).. According to Eu and ICS each battery has it own fire control computer, while old WEG and Lucas game had computer for each gun...

[pellaeons_scion]

So they are capable of both methods of firing, either by battery, broadside or independant.

Im envisaging something like this. Battery commanders pick their targets according to either doctorine or level of threat and engage them when possible in a combat situation ( smaller targets). However when a captain requires a larger target engaged, all Battery commanders then take their targeting orders from the chief weapons officer or captain. From then they would follow those orders ( bombard target, disable, harrass etc) until the target is destroyed or theat order is countermanded.

also, another thought. Is most SW starships combat spent mostly beating down shields without causing any phsyical damage? Seems with the power of a HTL, once a shield is down, one or two good shots from a single HTL could take a vessel out of a fight quite rapidly.

[omegaLancer]

Well the main part of the battle would be overloading the shields, but the Armor of Star destroyers can take multiple hits before being breached..

[pellaeons_scion]

Ok so one key part of the battle is bringing down the shields. This Im gathering would primarily be the job of the HTL's firing synchronised broadsides to overload the shields and cause them to collapse. But what then? Does the vessel continue to fire synchronus broadsides at its 2 second intervals, trying to capitalise on the massed damage it can inflict with an all or nothing attack?

Or does it order its gunners to begin to target critical ship components, and engage in counter-battery fire to suppress the firepower of the target vessel and attempt to render the ship incapable of fighting rather than seek total destruction. Could that be a better scenario, for it would seem easier for a warship to strip anothers fighting capacity away than destroy the vessel, considering the effectiveness of starship armor.

Also, for the HTL's dont the ray-shields need to be opened to fire? If thats the case Im guessing gunners would wait for that instant to return fire..

Is their any canon evidence of how this would truly be?

[omegaLancer]

ray shield and particle shields hug the hull. Apparentily the turret laser donot need shield to be drop to fire thru, but to launch missiles and fighters, a star destroyer or capital ship needs to lower their particle shield..

It may be that the turret may lie out side ray shields, since it stated that they are cover in Quadnium armor which is resisted to TL..

[Admiral Piett]

Greetings all

I am new to this board but have been reading the posts with interest. As someone who loves the mammoth size and power of the capital warships in starwars, particularly the ISD and VSD, I have been always puzzled by one thing.

That thing being actual ship to ship engagements.

I guess what Id like to ask, is if anyone has an idea on how these battles would be conducted. Would they be similar to WW1 and WW2 surface ship warfare, with the main participants exchanging massive broadsides?
If so, considering that each ISD battery consists of 5 guns, would their be an overall weapons officer acting as firecontrol?

Also, when engaging targets, would those broadsides be simultaneous or staggered to reduce recoil. The reason I ask this is I was thinking of the firepower of the heavy guns of a capital ship, and how much recoil it would produce. Wouldnt it put a massive strain on the ships hull integrity?

Any answers are welcome. I guess the real reason Im curious about this is that the movies only ever seem to show light turbolasers and blaster cannon in action, which is more like the anti-aircraft guns of a warship ( fast fire rates, independant targeting, no synchronicity in fire control etc)
thanks

We do not know if turbolasers generate a significant amount of recoil.
In anycase a star destroyer,unlike most of battleships,seems unable to concetrate the fire of the main batteries (those heavy turbolasers on the sides of the supestructure) in one direction.

[pellaeons_scion]

No, it seems it can only concentrate at most 1/2 of its TL batteries in an arc at any given time.

As far as the recoil, I believe there was a quote from a novel, I forget which one, describing how the guns of a warship required great amounts of recoil compensation against multi-megaton explosions, that without this the ship would be a victim of its own lethal firepower.

That implies some sort of recoil going on with the HTL's

Ill try and dig up the novel reference.

[Master of Ossus]

No, it seems it can only concentrate at most 1/2 of its TL batteries in an arc at any given time.

As far as the recoil, I believe there was a quote from a novel, I forget which one, describing how the guns of a warship required great amounts of recoil compensation against multi-megaton explosions, that without this the ship would be a victim of its own lethal firepower.

That implies some sort of recoil going on with the HTL's

Ill try and dig up the novel reference.

It's in the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy. I think that Boba comments on it.

In any case, an ISD appears to be able to concentrate a great number of its TL's on a target in front of it and slightly above it, relative to the ship's axis, of course.

[pellaeons_scion]

Thanks Master (no pun intended)
So it appears the optimum attacking position for a ISD is 5-25 degrees above horizontal.

I know I asked this before, but does anyone know or have created a 3d CGI movie of an ISD in full combat? I have seen some (BIASED) movies on spacbattles, but they seem to ignore any and all current knowledge of them.

So, assuming that the recoil is a problem, perhaps there is a limit to how many full broadsides can be fired, or could that tactic be specifically to either overload a shield or obliterate a defenceless target. Also for every broadside fired, wouldnt accuracy be reduced. What I mean is that amount of recoil might easily create targeting inaccuracies as the violent shocks shake loose or damage circuitry or components.

[pellaeons_scion]

Doh.<edit>

What I mean by a limit of broadsides was a limit of how many could be fired before risking internal damage to your own vessel.

[Connor MacLeod]

No, it seems it can only concentrate at most 1/2 of its TL batteries in an arc at any given time.

As far as the recoil, I believe there was a quote from a novel, I forget which one, describing how the guns of a warship required great amounts of recoil compensation against multi-megaton explosions, that without this the ship would be a victim of its own lethal firepower.

That implies some sort of recoil going on with the HTL's

Ill try and dig up the novel reference.

It's in the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy. I think that Boba comments on it.

In any case, an ISD appears to be able to concentrate a great number of its TL's on a target in front of it and slightly above it, relative to the ship's axis, of course.

Its the Infamous "slave ship" quote involving starship laser cannons requiring bracing and recoil dissipation casings capable of withstanding explosions in the gigaton range. Page 248 of the novel "slave ship" - Kuat of Kuat is watching the KDY workers installing weapons onto Imperial warships.

Check out Curtis Saxton's "novel references" page for the quote, or check Mike's "beam weapons" page.

[omegaLancer]

Slave ship states that the bracing for the turbo laser are design to withstand the recoil of gigaton explosions..Without these bracing the firing of the battery would actually rip the ship apart..

The fact that Each Turbolaser battery has it own targeting computers, these computers would be design to take the recoil into accounts, this would be similar to the analog computers used by WWI and WWII battleships that allow guns to target another ship..

These hand crank machine took input of wind velocity, ship speed ( both the firing and targeting ship) the pitch and roll of the ship and the recoil of the main gun, and the angle that guns were to elevatored inorder to come up with a targeting solution.. They also control varies firing systems to move the gun turrets... so if recoil was not a problem to this primative system it would not be a problem to advance targeting computer..

Since the various novel show ISD's throwing up walls of fire and firing broadsides after broadsides, in a rapid manner, the recoil doesnot seem to offer a limitation on the performance of the weapon, the biggest limiting factor is the massive heat build up of turbolaser and ion batteries, where the heat buildt up can actually take them off line or damage the cannon itself.

[Admiral Piett]

The majority of battleships could concentrate the fire of all their main guns on a single targets.A star destroyer may be able to concentrate all his heavy weapons on a target above it but this seems more an unwanted consequence rather than a precise choice.