How effective are B-Wings, really?

[Kerneth]

But the B-Wing is slow and unmaneuverable. It's a damn good thing it's well shielded because you be dead real fast.

It's slow and unmanueverable for a "modern" starfighter. It's considerably faster and more manueverable than, for example, a Y-Wing, and it's massively armored and shielded for a starfighter. Plus I should think the way the main body of the aircraft rotates around a central point, though really stupid to think about, probably adds to its ability to avoid getting hit by capital ship anti-starfighter weapons.

A squadron, or even two, of B-Wings couldn't blow a Nebulon-B frigate because the Frigate would be launching TIE Fighters and Interceptors that would shred the B-Wings. A squadron or two of B-Wings with an escort of X-Wings, A-Wings, or E-Wings could probably do the job if the escort could keep the Nebulon B's TIEs occupied while the B-Wings hammered it with torpedos.

[phongn]

ILM pegs the B-Wing as less maneuverable than the Y-Wing, though.

[Illuminatus Primus]

But they didn't list it as official information last I check and since in-movie calcs and making up contradictions will be a bitch, I'll go w/ the EU theory.

Though due to the nature of the B-Wing spaceframe, I'd expect the Y-Wing to be able to be more aggressive in manuvering. That silly slide-color is asking to break down.

[Howedar]

The key term is anti-cap ship fighter torpedoes. The heavy heavy torpedoes used to break the Lusankya's shields could've been in the high-teraton range.

The highest numbers we've seen was 190MT for a torpedo, right? How exactly are you justifying a jump in power of some six orders of magnitude? Certainly anti-capship torpedos would be considerably more powerful, but I hope you have some justification for claiming that they're into the high TT range.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The key term is anti-cap ship fighter torpedoes. The heavy heavy torpedoes used to break the Lusankya's shields could've been in the high-teraton range.

The highest numbers we've seen was 190MT for a torpedo, right? How exactly are you justifying a jump in power of some six orders of magnitude? Certainly anti-capship torpedos would be considerably more powerful, but I hope you have some justification for claiming that they're into the high TT range.

I find it odd someone would use a fighter-launched, anti-fighter missile possessed by a mere bounty hunter as indicative of the firepower of state-of-the-art huge heavy fixed torpedo tubes on massive ships or space stations designed to take down capships.

I find it even odder that someone neglects that the same little patrol craft was using low gigaton range mines rather heavily.

Look at the size of heavy fixed torp tubes on the Acclamator. These things were designed for heavy fixed anti-capship launchers on a space station. The fact eighty of them in an ambush bashed down an Executor's bow shield is proof of high teraton range torpedoes.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I think the Anti-Starfighter role of the Neb-B doesn't play that big of a role against the B-Wing. Since the B-Wing was constructed later than that Neb-B.

More than that: the B-Wing was designed to kill Nebulon-Bs.

[seanrobertson]

I find it odd someone would use a fighter-launched, anti-fighter missile possessed by a mere bounty hunter as indicative of the firepower of state-of-the-art huge heavy fixed torpedo tubes on massive ships or space stations designed to take down capships.

But Howedar didn't say anything about torpedo tubes on capships or space stations. He's thinking about fighter-level craft which, for the most part, face the same kind of space limitations that Slave One does.

I also wouldn't necessarily blow off Fett's weapons simply on the basis that he's a bounty hunter. He could still easily have access to the best military-grade weapons (especially given who he worked for--Tyrannus--and that man's base of operations, a planet that doubles as a big munitions factory ).

I find it even odder that someone neglects that the same little patrol craft was using low gigaton range mines rather heavily.

I don't think Howedar forgot that. He's simply thinking of guided weapons, which the seismic charges are not.

And still, you have to admit, it's still quite a big jump from a gigaton-ranged weapon to something in the hundreds of teratons.

Look at the size of heavy fixed torp tubes on the Acclamator. These things were designed for heavy fixed anti-capship launchers on a space station. The fact eighty of them in an ambush bashed down an Executor's bow shield is proof of high teraton range torpedoes.

Again, with all respect, I don't see where he talked about capship level weapons. He was simply suggesting that it's a big jump to go from a 190 megaton missile to something close to a million times greater than that in the context of roughly the same sized projectiles (if not smaller ones).

[phongn]

But they didn't list it as official information last I check and since in-movie calcs and making up contradictions will be a bitch, I'll go w/ the EU theory.

AFAIK, the EU puts the B-Wing as slower and less maneuverable, doesn't it? That's what I remember from BTM MGLT readings.

[Howedar]

[quote="seanrobertson"]*snip*quote]Thanks sean, and you are correct on all counts. I'm not saying that high TT range missiles are necessarily impossible, just that claiming such an increase is somewhat rash unless there is more evidence.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I find it odd someone would use a fighter-launched, anti-fighter missile possessed by a mere bounty hunter as indicative of the firepower of state-of-the-art huge heavy fixed torpedo tubes on massive ships or space stations designed to take down capships.

But Howedar didn't say anything about torpedo tubes on capships or space stations. He's thinking about fighter-level craft which, for the most part, face the same kind of space limitations that Slave One does).

Evidently you did not read. His post was in response to my comment about heavy torpedoes used to crack the Lusankya's shields--these were heavy weapons launched from considerable-size freighters that had been intended for very heavy, fixed-point, anti-capital ship work.

The Acclamator's use of torpedoes against extremely hardened ground targets suggests they are more powerful than its turbolaser emplacements.

Thus we have an example of heavy torpedoes greatly in excess of a dozen batteries of 600 GT weapons.

The existance of high TT-range missile weapons is a neccessity due to the simple fact that the Lusankya's shields were torn down by heavy torpedoes.

[Illuminatus Primus]

But they didn't list it as official information last I check and since in-movie calcs and making up contradictions will be a bitch, I'll go w/ the EU theory.

AFAIK, the EU puts the B-Wing as slower and less maneuverable, doesn't it? That's what I remember from BTM MGLT readings.

The EU says the B-Wing is faster and more manuverable than the Y-Wing.

[phongn]

But they didn't list it as official information last I check and since in-movie calcs and making up contradictions will be a bitch, I'll go w/ the EU theory.

AFAIK, the EU puts the B-Wing as slower and less maneuverable, doesn't it? That's what I remember from BTM MGLT readings.

The EU says the B-Wing is faster and more manuverable than the Y-Wing.

Damn it. I much prefer to go with ILM's chart, but looks like I'll have to concede here.

[Howedar]

*snip*

Um, whoops. I knew that, really I did. I was just, erm, testing you.

*squints*
*eyes shift left, right, left, right again*

[seanrobertson]

Evidently you did not read.

Evidently your personality transplant was rejected :p

Yeah, I'm kidding you here a little bit, but it irritates the piss out of me when someone whips that out: "if you'd read what I told you, dummy, you'd know what I was talking about!"

The rest of this isn't leveled directly at you, Primus, but I've got to say it:

Being told such things is especially a pisser when you're far from a newbie and you're a person who makes a geniune effort at being polite to others in spite of a potentiaal disagreement; e.g., "with all respect." It's kinda like slapping someone in the face after they go outta their way to be decent--nevermind the arrogance.

But I understand you're not being a dick; it's simply typical method of operation around here for some regulars to voice irritation at people (including those of us who've known Michael for many years, even before this website existed) who are confused by some vaguerism, have missed a part of a thread, etc. I suppose that's alright to some extent, but I think a person should be precise enough that there is very little room for confusion about what they say.

Enough of that...back to the point.

This is what I saw in Howedar's post:


The key term is anti-cap ship fighter torpedoes. The heavy heavy torpedoes used to break the Lusankya's shields could've been in the high-teraton range.


Yes, "anti-capship fighter torpedoes." I looked and looked, and I didn't see anything about Acclamators or battlestations with torpedo tubes in the thread (aside from your "heavy heavy" reference below, which I'll talk about in a moment).

So instead of telling me I didn't read what you wrote, you should be a little more careful about assuming that I:

A--know what "heavy heavy" entails, especially when I would consider even 1 teraton weapons in that category; i.e. "...a totally outfitted B-Wing could probably mount 1 teraton weapons as maximum"...

B--remember, line by line, the exact details of the Super Star Destroyer Lusankya's shield loss. I'm just now reading those details at Wayne's site.

I will grant that I should have some idea of the thread's subject matter prior to posting. That's a given. If I comment on an argument that is partly based in said SDD's fate, I should know something of that too (I thought I did...I remembered the 80 torpedo thing. Oh well).

But what does a SSD have to do with any of this? It IS a B-Wing thread. Why would anyone be talking about anything other than fighter-scale protorps? For our purposes, _The Kryptos Trap_ is irrelevant. Since 60 of the 80 torpedoes in total were fired from non-fighter sources, it's totally subjective to determine anything other than an upper-limit from that book...why bring it up, of all things? It's apropos nothing.

The Acclamator's use of torpedoes against extremely hardened ground targets suggests they are more powerful than its turbolaser emplacements.

This, I'm familiar with...

And yes, probably. What about it?

Thus we have an example of heavy torpedoes greatly in excess of a dozen batteries of 600 GT weapons.

200 GT x 3 cannons/battery? 3 shots/sec.? Did I miss another ambiguous reference here?

The existance of high TT-range missile weapons is a neccessity due to the simple fact that the Lusankya's shields were torn down by heavy torpedoes.

Yeah, yeah--I understand that.

But I ask again, what does all that have to do with fighter-level weaponry?

You said:

His [Howedar's] post was in response to my comment about heavy torpedoes used to crack the Lusankya's shields--these were heavy weapons launched from considerable-size freighters that had been intended for very heavy, fixed-point, anti-capital ship work

Are you sure?

Howedar: How exactly are you justifying a jump in power of some six orders of magnitude? Certainly anti-capship torpedos would be considerably more powerful, but I hope you have some justification for claiming that they're into the high TT range.

"Anti-capship torpedoes" only makes sense in the context of fighter-launched weapons; we've never heard, for example, of VSDs launching "anti-fighter torpedoes." (Anything used for planetary bombardment OUGHT to be of fair use against huge starships, too.)

So I think you're misreading his question somewhat. He might've been confused in which range you were thinking about--a fighter's teraton or few versus a capship's hundreds--which I can see. In that sense, you are right; you weren't saying fighter-level torps were that powerful, sure enough (even if you're throwing us by bringing up Lusankya killers in a B-Wing thread).

But even if, in confusion, Howedar said six orders of magnitude where he should've said 4, we're still looking at a potential jump from 190 megatons to a ~teraton. Does four orders of magnitude require much less justification than six?

The most ridiculous thing is, I don't necessarily think that such a torpedo's yield is that far "out of whack" with similar devices we've seen in the canon. But if the only justification of that power is that they might've helped those freighters down the SSD's shields (by how much? A thousandth of a percent? One percent?), we should look somewhere else for better proof IMO.

[Howedar]

My thoughts, only expressed better and at greater length. Have you been reading my mind, sean?

[Connor MacLeod]

But they didn't list it as official information last I check and since in-movie calcs and making up contradictions will be a bitch, I'll go w/ the EU theory.

AFAIK, the EU puts the B-Wing as slower and less maneuverable, doesn't it? That's what I remember from BTM MGLT readings.

The EU says the B-Wing is faster and more manuverable than the Y-Wing.

That depends on which source you use.

[Connor MacLeod]

The key term is anti-cap ship fighter torpedoes. The heavy heavy torpedoes used to break the Lusankya's shields could've been in the high-teraton range.

The highest numbers we've seen was 190MT for a torpedo, right? How exactly are you justifying a jump in power of some six orders of magnitude? Certainly anti-capship torpedos would be considerably more powerful, but I hope you have some justification for claiming that they're into the high TT range.

The missile deployed in AOTC IIRC was a concussion missile, not a proton torpedo. Depending on your source, some concussion missiles are equal to certain fighter-scale proton torpedo tubes, while others are 1/3 the yield of a torpedo. Given the extreme manuverability and ease of tracking of said missile, it was clearly meant for anti-fighter/dogfighting use - IE targets that are fast and manueverable, not the large, slow targets like a frigate or cruiser.

Remember the seismic charges as well.. those are clearly GT range weapons, and they aren't all that large comparatively speaking. B-wings are rated as carrying CAPITAL grade warheads, not fighters, and the SWTJ rates them with more raw firepower than most corvettes (and corvettes can have around half a dozen to a dozen or more TL turrets, eah of whcih is probably GT range itself.)

And there ARE the centerpoint calcs.. although those are more BDZ-like benchmarks rather than specific measures of firepower.

[Howedar]

I know. I know they are maneuverable. But still, at least 4 orders of magnitude. Needless to say, thats a goddamn big jump.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Sorry for the confusion; I believed you were suggesting torpedoes in general should be limited to basically canon 190 MT unless we had "good reason" to think otherwise.

As for fighter torpedoes, I personally believe most fighters have modular torpedo magazine/launcher pods that can be switched out depending on the mission profile and the torpedoes/missiles neccessary.

In the comics we have seen X-Wings with expanded fuselages, and I believe this is an example.

However, I do not believe any fighter-mounted weapon exceeds a teraton or two. I believe we must get up to that, at least, due to the B-Wing's ability to destroy frigates unsupported.

[seanrobertson]

Sorry for the confusion; I believed you were suggesting torpedoes in general should be limited to basically canon 190 MT unless we had "good reason" to think otherwise.

It's okay man. Sorry to come down on you so hard.

And Adam:

Centerpoint calculations? Please elaborate

[hvb]

If we assume that the 4 single and 2 twin mounted LTLs on the corellian corvette are the same size and firepower as the ISDs LTLs, and that their firepower is around the 50 GT Mr Bean mentioned in his analysis of the ISDs weapons loadout, we get:

"Corvette FP =< B-Wing fighter FP" (12 torps + nickles): > 33 GT/torp.

This would of course be peak firepower, as the torpedos are gone in one flushing of the launchers, while the corvette still has the LTLs to take on other threats (the flexibility factor again).

33 GT is 175 times as powerful as the 190 MT, but if we assume those to have been anti-fighter, and accept that 'vette FP ~ B-W FP, this does not look too unreasonable.

(I would round up to a 38 GT yield, for a nice round factor 200 in increase, munchkin that I am )

[Illuminatus Primus]

But they also need to be able to take down Nebulon-B's unsupported. A pair of squadrons, conservatively, but this is why I said, up to 1 TT. Probably more like a few 100 GT.

[Connor MacLeod]

The centerpoint calcs were just something I did based on the claims that the containment reactor for centerpoint were equal to a "proton torpedo going off at least once per second" IIRC. The energy of centerpoitn was assumed to be equivalent to moving a planet-sized body at least at one meter per second (ignoring a slew of other factors, such as duration, travel through hyperspace and the energy requirement of opening a planet-sized "tunnel" through such, etc.) and using a very generous one-year timeframe for the "per second" part (it couldnt have been longe rthan a year, but it was in reality less than that, no more than 3 months.. could have been even weeks).

Of course, we dont know the exact type of torpedo either, so theres no reason to ass ume it would be a fighter-scale one neccesarily. It simply was meant to show the fact that there ARE much higher yield warheads.

As for the Corvette reference, assuming it only refers to "instantaneous" firepower of a Corvette" relative to the B-wing is the conservative assumption, particularily if we're assuming "total" firepower on the B-wing's part. The majority of the offensive punch would obviously be in the Torpedoes, but it can only launch a couple torpedoes at any one time. This still suggests firepower well into the mid to high GT range, possibly low TT range (depending on the strength of the TLs, the Corvettte in question, and the number of "shots" it can fire before refueling.) If we compare "instantaneous" B-wing firepwoer vs "isntantaneous" corvette firepower, and assume the vessel is armed like a Corellian Corvette, then we get approximate torpedo values in the hundreds of gigaton range.

[hvb]

If we change my assumption above from the total torpedo load to only an (instantatious) twin launched pair, then the >33GT per torpedo would become >200GT apiece.
(The firepower from guns and ions would be even more negligible of course.)
This is 3 orders of magnitude (plus 10% extra for good measure) over the 190MT anti-starfighter torps, and start to sound excessive.

If we now try to dice it in another way:
Assuming it is not one, but a squadron of 12 B-wings, that have the same instantanious firepower, then we have >17GT per warhead (24 in a co-ordinated launch). This is approximately a factor 100 over the 190MT, which sounds more reasonable, so if the quote is ambiguous about it being a single B-wing or a squadron of them that equivates a corvette in firepower, then I would rather go with ~19GT, for conservativeness' sake.

(so what is the exact phrasing of that quote? I don't seem to find it in this thread.)

[Illuminatus Primus]

I think 200 GT is fine. After all we still have to have fighter torpedoes (and keep in mind, these are probably BIG torpedo magazines w/ missiles the size of a small human) that can hurt the armor of heavier vessels like Victory-class and Imperator-class Destroyers, while being able to take out Nebulon-B-class frigates unsupported.