Star Destroyer Related~

[Johnston]

Ok...

This question has been biting at me for some time..
Why are there no apparent Antimissile/fighter systems on Star Destroyers? As evidenced in Tyrant's test, even New Republic Gunships have antimissile octets! Why then not an Star Destroyer?

Can someone elaborate more on "auto-targeting" guns?
What guns are these? Are they turbolasers? How was he able to circumvent the turbolasers gun crews if so? Also, in Iron Fist, gun emplacements are also hinted to be "auto-targeting". Im confused here....

Lastly, are the guns on capital ships fixed? Or does the placement of guns differ with individual ships?

[Master of Ossus]

The defensive weapons on the ISD you allude to are the point defense weapons. Essentially they are only designed to target missiles, and they automatically do so. I'm not sure who the "he" is that you were referring to, and how "he" was able to bipass them, however these weapons are not powerful enough to pose a serious threat to military-grade shields, even on starfighters.

[Johnston]

The "He" is Nil Spaar, evil Viceroy of the Yevetha....

Now, if the Intimidator's "Auto-targeting" batteries were enough to wipe out the transports carrying Nzoth's garrison, why then werent the Lusankya's own batteries capable of dealing with a mere EIGHTY incoming vampires???

Even an 21st Century Ticonderoga CG can deal with incoming vampires of more than 60 or more easily....

Big big big headache....

[Johnston]

More thoughts...

Additionally, a TIE Interceptor is shot down during the Yevetha's attack on Polneye by a "Auto-targeting antifighter battery".

It is alluded that this gun is fitted on to a Victory-class Star Destroyer.

If mere Victories have AM batteries, why not Imperators?

Intimidator is stated in Shield of Lies to be typical of "late-class" Supers, with an aditionnal shield tower, so perhaps the AM batteries are also typical...

But why would the Empire design their latest warship (by latest, i mean after the Battle of Yavin), to not have Antimissile defenses? If after Yavin, the Death Star was destroyed by a single Proton Torpedo, wouldnt that make the Empire sit up and take notice of the threat starfighters pose?

Has anyone noted that if Star Destroyers possesed a system comparable to 21st century Phalanx CIWS or even CADS-1 CIWS, the events of Rogue Squadron: The Bacta War, are totally IMPOSSIBLE?

Yeah right, take on a SSD with freighters, starfighters, an War Cruiser and Star Destroyer...

Way too many SDs have been destroyed by starfighters than turbolasers....

[Illuminatus Primus]

Short Answer: Stackpole is an idiot.

Long Answer: The frieghters were firing high-speed anti-ship heavy capship cracking torpedoes meant for mounting on space stations. It was ambushed. The Lusankya WAS NOT a warship. It was reconfigured to be hidden under Coruscant and was prepped as a prision, a stash for Palpatine's treasures, and his personal getaway ship. It had to lift kilometers of bedrock and cityscape over every inch of its hull and tear through the integrity, to escape. Design sacrifices were made for this. It also was partially crewed by Thyferran conscripts.

[Johnston]

Well well. But KDY cant be an Idiot right?
Perhaps the Yevetha retrofitted AM batteries onto their ships after years of studying how the rebellion fought SDs....

But still, if Lusankya didnt have these Antimissile guns, then what about Corrupter? Why is it that this appears to be a HUGE oversight? You wont find a single respectable US warship without some form of system expressly designed to shoot down aircraft and missiles. Somehow, NOT a single SD anywhere in the books ive read has dedicated Anti-missile defenses, but the New Republic even fits them on gunships! Also in Bacta War, it is alluded that antimissile/fighter drills are practiced regularly for the better gun crews.

SSD Razor's Kiss, as evidenced in Iron Fist, also has such auto-guns, possessed of sufficient firepower to destroy the attachments to the yard upon command. Later, in the battle with Mon Remonda, Razor's Kiss also fires on the rebel fighters. But what with? Zsinj couldnt possibly have smuggled enough crew for even the barest skeleton crew.

What does that leave us with? auto-guns.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Different qualities and kinds of torpedoes. Perhaps cheaper dumber ones are easier to fire en masse but are easily shot down. High-tech and more expensive weapons are like Jango's missile in AOTC and harder to field en masse but very difficult to shoot down.

Remember in the Black Fleet Crisis, the New Republic's member territory was widdled down to the Core Worlds mostly, and their offensive fleets had been widdled down to five or so rather weak forces. It is reasonable to assume these forces were stocked with lower tech cheaper weapons that while easy to get en masse, were easy for cap ship auto guns to paste across vacuum.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Ranges and reaction times for the Corrupter.

First, the ECM environment. The Star Destroyer is putting out such a ridiculously high amount of intentional and/or unintentional interference that the lock-on range by a fighter-radar on a 900m long target falls to 2.5km. As a comparison, the Russians claim that their newer fighter radars can pick up a 3m^2 RCS (a non-stealthy fighter like the Su-27) at perhaps 180km. A destroyer can be picked up at 300km. Even accounting for possible hyperbole ...

No doubt the fighters themselves are also using ECM. Blanking out the main search radar would be tough for a fighter. But they are probably trackbreaking and juking too fast for the auto targeting system. The sensor is probably on antistarfighter mode now, which apparently only even attempts to engage targets larger than 4m (In the case of the Corellian Quad Laser.) I guess smaller ones are treated as "clutter" or background return and deleted. It must be in the scan zone 1.5 seconds for it to lock on, suggesting a minimal track time of 1.5 seconds for a firing solution. As a comparison, the SA-15 takes at least 5 seconds.

Now, from the setup, the firing range was probably between 2500 and 3000m, absolutely point blank. Now the crews really have their work cut out for them.

The missile might be absolutely tiny (like the ones that fitted in the 2m wide DS port.) If the effective size (return cross section) is smaller than 4m, the current antistarfighter mode might not even track it, instead filtering it out as a spurious return. So now you have to find and push the button that switches it to antimissile mode, so it'd track that sucker after all. I guess they do have an antimissile mode...

Even after the system switches to antimissile mode, remember the 1.5 second track time. The computer has to cancel its attack on the current target (probably an inbound X-Wing,) designate the missile and shoot, ALL before the missile hits. If the missile's closure is above say 2km/s or so, you might not have any time before the missile hits.

Maybe that's why they risk their asses coming so damn close to the Star Destroyers - it is the only way to avoid a withering antimissile barrage...

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Because Stackpole is a dumbass who thinks X-Wing is a accurate representation of SW fighter combat.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I seriously doubt standard torp range is really 2.5 km.

[phongn]

Maybe that's why they risk their asses coming so damn close to the Star Destroyers - it is the only way to avoid a withering antimissile barrage...

"Trench Run Disease" was designed to take advantage of the lack or ineffectiveness of effective close-in (really close in) defenses of an ISD, so this seems reasonable.

[phongn]

Even an 21st Century Ticonderoga CG can deal with incoming vampires of more than 60 or more easily....

There is also a large difference between SS-N-19 (analogous to the fixed-installation proton topedos) and the Penguin (analogous to the light proton torpedos) antiships missiles. A Tico could swat down Penguins all day but would have much more trouble with a swarm of SS-N-19s.

[Ender]

I seriously doubt standard torp range is really 2.5 km.

Especially since we saw a range counter of 10 K in ANH, and if that was just to the vent and it would have had to go to the core theres an extra 80 K to be added onto that.

[Johnston]

Ok, so Stackpole is an idiot.
Lusankya was a stripped down SSD.

I think we're agreed on that.

This still leaves some of my questions unanswered.

What exactly are these auto-targeting batteries reffered to in Iron Fist and Before The Storm? From the stated text, these batteries have enough firepower to blow a fleet of transports away, and to free the Razor's Kiss from an KDY shipyard.

How was it possible that the Razor's kiss could have fired on the Rebels shortly after it was hijacked? Or did Zsinj stop somewhere to put more crew on it?

Perhaps since the New Republic has less ships, so they put antimissile defenses on even small combatants.... also because they themselves know of the damage small "insignificant" starfighters can do. While the Empire, in it's heyday, didnt bother about "puny rebel" starfighters.

what are the antifighter and antimissile drills that the Captain of ISD Avarice refers to in Bacta War? It would seem these are standard for better/standard turbolaser crews (but ommitted for rush conscripts).

Last of all, why didnt the designers of the Executor class see the threat posed by "mere" starfighters? After loss of a Battle Station to an X-wing, i'd like to think they'd sit up and take notice. Has anyone stop and thought that if Executor possessed a CIWS comparable to that carried by a 21st century Kirov Class CGN, those 2 A-wings might have been damaged or destroyed?