How Do They Do It??

[The Silence and I]

Ok, it's common and accepted knowledge that SW has high GT to low TT weapons and shields and so forth, with even bigger superweapons. But how do they fire any of these weapons?? Even if Turbolasers were actually lasers, the recoil would be staggering!! Despite high mass hulls and powerful engines, I would think they would still spin out of control at insane accels. Clearly they do not, so is the how of this explained anywhere?

[Ender]

First oof there's the fact thte things are massive as hell and thus have huge inertia if the blasts were going to spin them. Then they are engineered and braced to support such weapons,and finallythere is a KJA novel quote out there indicating that they use the inertial compensator or something to spread the recoil across the whole ship so momentum is less of a problem.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Also, lasers should have no recoil at all, while actually firing bursts of plasma-like energy would.

[Darth Wong]

Also, lasers should have no recoil at all, while actually firing bursts of plasma-like energy would.

Actually, lasers have recoil equal to U/c. That's why it's so impressive that the recoil would tear an ISD apart without special bracings; we're talking about a ship which can accelerate at 30 km/s^2 without noticeable deformation, yet it could potentially be shredded by the recoil of its heavy guns.

[The Silence and I]

As I understand it, momentum is momentum. You can spread it accross the entire space frame, but the momentum will still exert a force on the ship. Yes, the hulls are massive, but not that massive. If the compensator is used, would this mean an inability to maneuver while firing? After all, to stop the recoil, the field must extend outside the ship, nullifing the engines. Also, yes, light and lasers have momentum+recoil. Not much, but when talking about hundreds of GT, it becomes a factor.
If something with mass, such as plasma bursts, were used in turbolasers instead, then the recoil problem will only be multiplied.

[Darth Wong]

As I understand it, momentum is momentum. You can spread it accross the entire space frame, but the momentum will still exert a force on the ship. Yes, the hulls are massive, but not that massive. If the compensator is used, would this mean an inability to maneuver while firing? After all, to stop the recoil, the field must extend outside the ship, nullifing the engines. Also, yes, light and lasers have momentum+recoil. Not much, but when talking about hundreds of GT, it becomes a factor.
If something with mass, such as plasma bursts, were used in turbolasers instead, then the recoil problem will only be multiplied.

Let's take a 50 million ton hull and apply (200 gigatons / c) momentum to it: that's 2.8E12 kg*m/s. Divide that by 50 million tons and you get 56 m/s. That's the total recoil, assuming the mass is 50 million tons even though it may be much higher (neutronium-impregnated hull, massive fuel storage tanks, etc).

56 m/s is really not that much, particularly for a ship which can accelerate at 30,000 m/s^2.

[Ender]

If the compensator is used, would this mean an inability to maneuver while firing? After all, to stop the recoil, the field must extend outside the ship, nullifing the engines.

Apparently not. They fire while extending the field beyond the ship and manuvering all the time in NJO.

[Connor MacLeod]

Er.. the compensators won't magically nullify the momentum. The same problem with the shields absorbing momentum I believe - the force transmits the momentum/recoil to the point of generation (the compensators) which in turn HAVE to deal with the momentum (which may be even worse, if the compenstor isn't strongly braced.)

Engines and/or thrusters would be used to counteract the movement generated by the recoil, as Mike said.

Also, remember that the fuel for the Acclamator is orders of magnitude denser than the ship itself (IIRC the Acclamator entry for the ICS, that is), which means that the ship, plus fuel, would mass some 5,050,000,000 tons (5.05e12 KG) using Mike's mass figure above (the ship itself, plus fuel which masses 100x more I believe). Match this up with the acceleration figure of 30,000 m/s^2 and your momentum comes out to 1.515E17 kg*m/s)

A 200 GT turbolaser (say, medium mount) has 2.8E12 kg*m/s - which there are at least sixty of. There are also the six primary turrets (which by size-scaling ratios I estimate to be at least 50x more powerful than the Acclamator TLs) which should have at least 1.4e14 kg*m/s.

Now, in a broadside, only half these guns fire at any one time. 30 TLs and 3 heavy TL turrets I estimate comes out to 5.04e14 kg*m/s^2 - approximately 2-3 orders of magnitude lower than the momentum estimate (acceleration, plus ship's mass) I estimated. The ISD should only have to generate some 30-300 m/s^2 of acceleration to compensate (3 to 30 gees, I think.) The worst momentum might come from all guns (totalling only 1e15 kg*m/s of momentum, roughly.)

Still, what amazes me is that those guns would quite possibly kill the crew were it not for the inertial dampers. In fact, this may be proof enough for extremely dense, massive ships - trhe need to hnadle the recoil of so many multi-teraton/gigaton salvos without killing the crew probably WOULD dictate alot of mass as a good idea (I for one wouldn't trust Inertial dampers totally)

[Boba Fett]

Also, lasers should have no recoil at all, while actually firing bursts of plasma-like energy would.

Actually, lasers have recoil equal to U/c. That's why it's so impressive that the recoil would tear an ISD apart without special bracings; we're talking about a ship which can accelerate at 30 km/s^2 without noticeable deformation, yet it could potentially be shredded by the recoil of its heavy guns.

Yes, Mike is right!

For a scene evidence watch the AT-AT's chin gun.

[His Divine Shadow]

Er.. the compensators won't magically nullify the momentum. The same problem with the shields absorbing momentum I believe - the force transmits the momentum/recoil to the point of generation (the compensators) which in turn HAVE to deal with the momentum (which may be even worse, if the compenstor isn't strongly braced.)

Are we sure about that?

The spreading of the momentum on the entire hull sounds good to me.

[Connor MacLeod]

Are we sure about that?

The spreading of the momentum on the entire hull sounds good to me.

Yes. Momentum is automatically going to act on the entire mass from either recoil or impacts, assuming that the stress of handling the recoil doesnt cause something to fail (be it the bracings holding down a TL or laser cannon, a shield generator, or inertial damper.) You do realize that if the momentum of the recoil is transferred to the ID field, the field generator(s) would be required to withstand it as well (which STILL neccessitates stronger bracings.)

Besides which, tahts not quite how ID's work. They provide force/acceleration for objects inside the field of influence to match the acceleration of the vessel. (IE if the engines propel a ship at 2000 gravities, the ID's provide a matching acceleration of 2000 gravities on the crew, objects inside the ship that may not be str apped or anchored down, etc. - to nullify the effects of inertia.) ID's apparently can also have some limited utility in countering sudden accelerations (in TBH, Boba Fett uses his ship's ID's to kill his forward velocity) - but this would simply mean that the ID's could be used to provide counter acceleration for the movement the recoil of the above-mentioned broadsides would generate.

(IE if you fire a broadside, the ship is going to be moved in teh opposite direction. The ID's could theoretically be used to dampen or counter this sudden movement, but tahts about it.)