Imperial era Airborne assault

[NoogDeNoog]

Okay, I am trying to accept the fact that all of these capital ships can enter and exit the atmosphere because of how powerful their engines are. Please tell me this, how do they land on the ground? It seems impossible to me to land a Nebulon-B frigate, not to mention an ISB, VSD, rebel assault frigates, bulk cruisers, interdictor cruiser, and the escort carrier. The link to the pic I post above, shows a Corellian corvette with it's landing gear attached to the engines, that seems like a problem to me. Wouldn't the landing struts have to be massive to support the weight of these huge vessels? Wouldn't they just sink into the ground on anything other than a heavily prepared landing field?

[fractalsponge1]

I doubt that any capital ship with landing gear can really "land" as in stop, and completely power down, without external support, unless they're just going to sink into the ground. Lucrehulks core ships with their specially prepared repulsor-lined landing pits would probably be more like it (ICS says the landing gear aren't rated to support the ship for very long without repulsor support from the ground or the ship); my interpretation is that the feet are probably more as a precaution against repulsorlift glitches more than anything else.

Again, I don't think anyone is arguing all capital ships operate routinely in atmosphere, just that they could if they wanted to, and if they didn't really care too much about environmental effects on the planet.

[Transbot9]

Well, Acclamators have landing gear shown in AotC. It probably wouldn't be too much different for other Star Destroyers. Mon Calamari ships can probably land in an aquatic environment (if not every capital ship) as the only requirement would be that it can float. Granted, some planets don't have oceans. Nor do all planets have a conveniently located flat spot to land a capital ship.

BTW, I can't believe people forgot about the Action VI transports. It's slightly shorter than a Corvette, but still big enough to carry a number of AT-ATs. Heck, it wouldn't be hard for the empire to have ISD variants that could carry a small number of these instead of the typical fighter force.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Okay, I am trying to accept the fact that all of these capital ships can enter and exit the atmosphere because of how powerful their engines are. Please tell me this, how do they land on the ground? It seems impossible to me to land a Nebulon-B frigate, not to mention an ISB, VSD, rebel assault frigates, bulk cruisers, interdictor cruiser, and the escort carrier. The link to the pic I post above, shows a Corellian corvette with it's landing gear attached to the engines, that seems like a problem to me. Wouldn't the landing struts have to be massive to support the weight of these huge vessels? Wouldn't they just sink into the ground on anything other than a heavily prepared landing field?

I would say that the ships you mention don't land on the ground, but rather hover on repulsor power. Just because a given ship can operate within an atmosphere, even at a very low altitude, doesn't mean it has to be able to land.

None of the ships you mention are intended to do anything that would require them to land on the ground, such as loading or unloading a large amount of troops or cargo quickly, so they don't have that capability.

[NoogDeNoog]

Well that is convenient.

[Simon_Jester]

Source, for where it says repulsorlift drives are expensive, structurally cumbersome/unfeasible, and not nearly universal? If there is one, I'd really like to know.

They may be easy to install and still not installed in vehicles that don't have an obvious need for them. Even if they only take up, say, 2 to 3% of the overall hull volume, that's 2-3% of hull volume not dedicated to weapons, shield generators, or other things useful in a space battle. Taking out the repulsorlifts would be a perfectly reasonable design compromise to make in a space superiority craft of any size.

I doubt that any capital ship with landing gear can really "land" as in stop, and completely power down, without external support, unless they're just going to sink into the ground. Lucrehulks core ships with their specially prepared repulsor-lined landing pits would probably be more like it (ICS says the landing gear aren't rated to support the ship for very long without repulsor support from the ground or the ship); my interpretation is that the feet are probably more as a precaution against repulsorlift glitches more than anything else.

There's an additional problem, which is the hull plan. A Nebulon-B, for example, is singularly unsuited to landing anywhere, unless you balance it in on its side. It doesn't really matter where you put the landing gear; it's still going to be ridiculous unless you have a specialized docking cradle.

Again, I don't think anyone is arguing all capital ships operate routinely in atmosphere, just that they could if they wanted to, and if they didn't really care too much about environmental effects on the planet.

As long as they have repulsors, this is true. However, a capital ship trying to land on ion drives would be in trouble, because it would have to balance its way down on its own (nuclear fireball-range) exhaust plume.

Well, Acclamators have landing gear shown in AotC. It probably wouldn't be too much different for other Star Destroyers. Mon Calamari ships can probably land in an aquatic environment (if not every capital ship) as the only requirement would be that it can float. Granted, some planets don't have oceans. Nor do all planets have a conveniently located flat spot to land a capital ship.

The catch is that not every Star Destroyer must have landing gear. There are good reasons not to bother with it in a setting where surface-to-orbit transport is cheap and easy. Acclamators are designed as assault transports, and they are much smaller than the space superiority star destroyer designs... both of which make giving them landing gear a better idea.

Landing in oceans is somewhat more plausible, but it makes it impossible to disembark most kinds of troops.

[PainRack]

Inserting capital ships into the atmosphere does raise the interesting issue of airborne stormtroopers attack....


Afterall, with a capital ship holding station above you, you really shouldn't need to worry about firepower or logistics.

[fractalsponge1]

Source, for where it says repulsorlift drives are expensive, structurally cumbersome/unfeasible, and not nearly universal? If there is one, I'd really like to know.

They may be easy to install and still not installed in vehicles that don't have an obvious need for them. Even if they only take up, say, 2 to 3% of the overall hull volume, that's 2-3% of hull volume not dedicated to weapons, shield generators, or other things useful in a space battle. Taking out the repulsorlifts would be a perfectly reasonable design compromise to make in a space superiority craft of any size.

Fair point, but what kind of space superiority craft is never going to be called upon to maneuver in orbital space as a matter of course? Did we see Tyrant (in Hoth orbit), constantly turn to burn away from the planet with its ion drive to maintain its blockade station? Like I said before, even starfighters, which are going to have much lower tolerances for the additional weight and space required by "superfluous" equipment, have repulsorlifts.

There's an additional problem, which is the hull plan. A Nebulon-B, for example, is singularly unsuited to landing anywhere, unless you balance it in on its side. It doesn't really matter where you put the landing gear; it's still going to be ridiculous unless you have a specialized docking cradle.

[/quote]

If it's going to mostly float on repulsors power, then you wouldn't even need a docking cradle, just have some of the material material lining the lucrehulk docking bays in AOTC on a field somewhere.

[bz249]

Fair point, but what kind of space superiority craft is never going to be called upon to maneuver in orbital space as a matter of course? Did we see Tyrant (in Hoth orbit), constantly turn to burn away from the planet with its ion drive to maintain its blockade station? Like I said before, even starfighters, which are going to have much lower tolerances for the additional weight and space required by "superfluous" equipment, have repulsorlifts.

We are talking about acceleration in the range of 1g... maneuvering thrusters should easily handle such situations. (not that I am saying an ISD can not have repulsorlift, it is a jack of all trades troopbattlecarrier afterall)

[Galvatron]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Lusankya.

[NoogDeNoog]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Lusankya.

"Before jettisoning the lift cradle "

I guess they really can't get out of a gravity well by themselves? or are they, like west end games, wrong too.

[Batman]

Yeah. I mean Star Wars spaceships routinely fail to get out of a gravity well, and when they DON'T they take eons to do so. Oh wait.

[Simon_Jester]

There are definitely plenty of examples of Star Wars ships that can hover off a planet without using reaction drives; even a 1g reaction thruster would cause serious trouble when fired from a multimillion ton ship. If a Star Wars power needs a large capital-weight ship that can use repulsors for atmospheric flight, it can surely find or build one.

Actually landing to deploy troops may be trickier, because that requires landing gear and boarding ramps in addition to the repulsors. There are few confirmed examples of large ships with landing gear.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Lusankya.

"Before jettisoning the lift cradle "

I guess they really can't get out of a gravity well by themselves? or are they, like west end games, wrong too.

Not only was the Lusankya one of those ships that was never intended to be on the ground, it was also burried under who knows how many cubic kilometers of city. Yet it still made orbit, albeit with the help of some specialized equipment.

Not exactly the best example.

[Sky Captain]

Any ship as powerful and durable as Star Wars ships are supposed to be, could easily lift off from terrestrial planet - for that you need to pull a bit over 1 G off acceleration and those ships are said to be capable of several thousands G`s so no problem there. I think it`s more to do about avoiding environmental damage than any technical incapability. It might simply be that using reaction drives inside atmosphere is forbidden for large ships and only those equipped with antigravs are allowed to descend to surface on habitable worlds.

[Simon_Jester]

There is one problem with taking off from planets on conventional drives. Large ships generally have a fixed axis of thrust, with (by all appearances) little in the way of thrust vectoring. While their straight-line acceleration may be incredibly high, that only helps them on a planet if they can take off and land by balancing on their exhaust nozzles. Which would be impractical for something the size of an ISD.

The real question is whether something as energetic as a star destroyer reaction drive capable of accelerations of >1g will damage the terrain the ship is trying to land on badly enough that your landing field ends up becoming a puddle of lava... which the ship sinks into and gets stuck in.

[Sky Captain]

There is one problem with taking off from planets on conventional drives. Large ships generally have a fixed axis of thrust, with (by all appearances) little in the way of thrust vectoring. While their straight-line acceleration may be incredibly high, that only helps them on a planet if they can take off and land by balancing on their exhaust nozzles. Which would be impractical for something the size of an ISD.

There should be also some sort of attitude thrusters for maneuvering which could possibly be used to hover. If main engines are capable of several thousand G acceleration then having an attitude thrusters capable of pulling 2 - 3 G is certainly possible.

The real question is whether something as energetic as a star destroyer reaction drive capable of accelerations of >1g will damage the terrain the ship is trying to land on badly enough that your landing field ends up becoming a puddle of lava... which the ship sinks into and gets stuck in.

That I guess would be the biggest issue for a ship hovering on reaction drives and trying to land. Although I doubt there would be any lava lake at all directly under the ship, most likely exhaust would just vaporize, carve out and blow away the bedrock material creating a big crater where flat terrain used to be few seconds ago making it impossible to do a normal landing. For an observer watching from safe distance it might look like a continuous nuclear explosion crossed with supervolcanic eruption. My best bet for large ships would be an ocean landing if antigravs are inoperable. Just brake with thrusters to slow down from orbital velocity while coming down and cut thrust before hitting water (so you don`t blow away your water cushion and hit bedrock).

[NoogDeNoog]

2 questions.

1. When you guys are talking about this acceleration in terms of 1000's of G's, wouldn't that many G's kill you? I don't really understand how you guys mean that.

2. When Han Solo made a quick get away from Mos Eisley, why wasn't everything incinerated? or was it?

[Norade]

2 questions.

1. When you guys are talking about this acceleration in terms of 1000's of G's, wouldn't that many G's kill you? I don't really understand how you guys mean that.

2. When Han Solo made a quick get away from Mos Eisley, why wasn't everything incinerated? or was it?

Wow, you come in here to debate and don't even know your shit... Would it kill you to do some research instead of expecting us to educate you? I guess not...

To address question 1, they have internal dampeners so they can survive well in excess of 5,000G's. Think of it like equalizing pressure when diving, they make sure that you never feel more than one G or so, unless you want to (some fighter jockeys like to feel the maneuvers they pull.

To address point 2, he was likely using repulsors and keeping acceleration low, I don't know the exact numbers for the scene, but I doubt he pulled away at anywhere close to maximum acceleration. Also, his craft would weigh literally orders of magnitude less than one of the larger vessels being talked about here and would require much less energy even at maximum thrust.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Wow, you come in here to debate and don't even know your shit... Would it kill you to do some research instead of expecting us to educate you? I guess not...

You could at least attempt to be cordial, not everyone is as well versed with the SW universe as we and I was under the impression we were trying to make a more welcoming atmosphere in order to promote new membership. It's not like he intentionally came in here spouting nonsense.

1. When you guys are talking about this acceleration in terms of 1000's of G's, wouldn't that many G's kill you? I don't really understand how you guys mean that.

Coruscant has trillions of lving bodies on it, extremely low-end numbers are at ~3 trillion, by all means the planet should have succumbed to heat death from all the vast amounts of living bodies and technology giving off stupendous amounts of waste heat. Ships in Star Wars are more often than not capable of travelling from one side of a 120ly galaxy to the other in hours and time dilation does not occur. It's called 'suspension of disbelief', what we see is how it is, we are to assume that they have overcome these problems because they aren't a factor.

2. When Han Solo made a quick get away from Mos Eisley, why wasn't everything incinerated? or was it?

Repulsorlifts.

[Norade]

Wow, you come in here to debate and don't even know your shit... Would it kill you to do some research instead of expecting us to educate you? I guess not...

You could at least attempt to be cordial, not everyone is as well versed with the SW universe as we and I was under the impression we were trying to make a more welcoming atmosphere in order to promote new membership. It's not like he intentionally came in here spouting nonsense.

...and mockery of stupid people. I rest my case.

[Ritterin Sophia]

...and mockery of stupid people. I rest my case.

And? So? Therefore? The information we gve him was making him unsure of his preconcieved notions about the Star Wars Universe, so he asked a question like any intelligent person would, and then you attacked him for asking honest questions. You're literally looking for a fight.

[Norade]

...and mockery of stupid people. I rest my case.

And? So? Therefore? The information we gve him was making him unsure of his preconcieved notions about the Star Wars Universe, so he asked a question like any intelligent person would, and then you attacked him for asking honest questions. You're literally looking for a fight.

Given that even a cursory knowledge of the universe and a quick read of the main page would have cleared this up I see no reason why my comment was unjustified. Any glance through a book or 2 in the EU or simply observing the movies would also have cleared it up and given the name of the site I would expect such basics to be common knowledge. So please get off your high horse and allow me to enjoy my mockery of stupid people starting with Noog and now moving to you.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Given that even a cursory knowledge of the universe and a quick read of the main page would have cleared this up I see no reason why my comment was unjustified. Any glance through a book or 2 in the EU or simply observing the movies would also have cleared it up and given the name of the site I would expect such basics to be common knowledge. So please get off your high horse and allow me to enjoy my mockery of stupid people starting with Noog and now moving to you.

I like how you assume everyone reads the main site to begin with. NEWSFLASH DUMBASS: Most people who join don't happen upon SDN because of the TvW debate anymore and the EU is the fucking source for the whole idea that it takes weeks and months to get from one part of the galaxy to the other. Are you this fucking stupid? Why don't you point out exactly what he said that was so stupid?

[Norade]

Given that even a cursory knowledge of the universe and a quick read of the main page would have cleared this up I see no reason why my comment was unjustified. Any glance through a book or 2 in the EU or simply observing the movies would also have cleared it up and given the name of the site I would expect such basics to be common knowledge. So please get off your high horse and allow me to enjoy my mockery of stupid people starting with Noog and now moving to you.

I like how you assume everyone reads the main site to begin with. NEWSFLASH DUMBASS: Most people who join don't happen upon SDN because of the TvW debate anymore and the EU is the fucking source for the whole idea that it takes weeks and months to get from one part of the galaxy to the other. Are you this fucking stupid? Why don't you point out exactly what he said that was so stupid?

No shit most people wouldn't come her for that debate anymore, but most people here would still have passing knowledge of it. As far as stupidity watch the Death Star attack run from launch to the start of breaching the shields and tell me that it doesn't require massive G's to be pulled. Tell me what any of this has to do with hyperspace and taking weeks to cross a galaxy? This is about him assuming that Wars ships can't pull multi-thousand G acceleration because it doesn't feel right and not even knowing the basics of a universe he had been talking about on a site where, by name alone, such knowledge should be assumed, for not realizing that a ship designed for atmosphere might not be easily design in atmosphere inspite of various topic in this forum, OSF and SLAM on the subject. Did I name enough stupidity there for you?