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I'm a bit confused at the numbers people are crunching out about the power of the weapons used in Star Wars.

If the weapons are that powerful then it must be concluded that shields on a ship must be strong enough to withstand such hits. Okay, that makes sense.

But when a shield is down, shouldn't the ship be vaporized in practically one hit by a turbolaser? I guess the material of the ship is built to at least absorb or dissipate part of the power of the blast. But then that would mean that anything short of a big bad blaster should not have any effect on the hull or any or part of a ship? How did Darth Vader cut through the doors of the Tantive IV short of a mini-nuclear blast?

So really, what is the point of a snub nose fighter?

And if snub nose fighters can actually take on a capital ship, then wouldn't they be able to effectively vap armies and cities by themselves?

Fighters have never had a role of taking down capital ships. BTW Snubfighters refer to the X-Wing.~Jason

Exactly why would you expect the inside doors of a ship to be a strong as the armor on the outside?
As for the material for the ships, aren't they just really really strong anyways. You'll blow it up eventually, but not with fighters' guns.

I think that they can carry anti-cap ship torpedoes though. Somebody will have to verify that though.

neoolong wrote:Exactly why would you expect the inside doors of a ship to be a strong as the armor on the outside?
As for the material for the ships, aren't they just really really strong anyways. You'll blow it up eventually, but not with fighters' guns.

I think that they can carry anti-cap ship torpedoes though. Somebody will have to verify that though.

Some fighters can, the warheads are gigaton range.

I suspect the physical protection of Star Wars ships is based more around retaining hull integrity and subdivision as opposed to actually preventing hits from doing damage with thick armor, since that may be fairly impossible. The main purpose of the armor is much like the incremental armoring of a pre Jutland Dreadnought, it's meant to keep lighter weapons from tearing up the ships structure. This might also explain why some NR warships are so powerful despite being much smaller then Imperators, they don't haul around the same huge mass of armor of somewhat dubious value and relay on the all or nothing protection of shielding.



As for snub fighters, there main role seems to be to guard aginst other snub fighters and bombers, which if allowed to attack uncontested might mass enough missiles to threaten capital units. Because of their size and speed they can launch warheads from close range, where point defenses have less time to destroy them. Basically there a very light screen perhaps more like the torpedo boats and destroyers of WW1 then the fighters and bombers of WW2.

There low cost and production times mean they get used quite heavily simply because they can be risked in action while the disrupted galactic war machine gun sustain heavy losses of capital ships.

If the EGTW&T is to be believed, force pikes are very effective tools for slicing through bulkheads. It did appear as though Vader's team was using some sort of drill or what not to carve their way through the door, so it is a plausible explanation.


Plus, I was under the impression that sometimes energy from a laser blast could leak through shields causing damage to a ship's hull. Kind of like how stuff was blowing up on the Falcon despite the fact that its shields were still up whenever TIEs were firing on it.

Even if not, the armor on capships is still is effective at absrobing stafighter attacks. And in the ICS, a Acclamator with scorch marks on its armor reads the description of having "enemy fusion rockets barely scoring the super-dispersive neutronium armor". How powerful these rockets are, no one can tell, but if they're anywhere near as close as some of the missiles Star Wars vessels usually throw around, it's no slight feat for only a ship's armor to have protected against them.

Trytostaydead wrote:I'm a bit confused at the numbers people are crunching out about the power of the weapons used in Star Wars.

If the weapons are that powerful then it must be concluded that shields on a ship must be strong enough to withstand such hits. Okay, that makes sense.

But when a shield is down, shouldn't the ship be vaporized in practically one hit by a turbolaser? I guess the material of the ship is built to at least absorb or dissipate part of the power of the blast. But then that would mean that anything short of a big bad blaster should not have any effect on the hull or any or part of a ship? How did Darth Vader cut through the doors of the Tantive IV short of a mini-nuclear blast?

Not everything is covered in the heavy armor you know.

The basic building materials are so far beyond what should be capable of materials science there is some funky stuff infolved that we can't account for. This comes straight for the stresses we see them handle. THe armor itself is huge, has superconducting properties (can resist atleast 100 kt without anything more then superficial damage) and has neutronium in certain parts presumbaly to act as heat sinks.

And even then unshielded hits fuck it up royally, as we see in ROTJ when an ISD gets a HTL shot to the bear hull.

So really, what is the point of a snub nose fighter?

And if snub nose fighters can actually take on a capital ship, then wouldn't they be able to effectively vap armies and cities by themselves?

Snubbies are good because the pack torps. Aside from making it so that shields must be evenly distributed in a fight so they can't land hits agaisnt the hull (thus depriving an advantage), torpedos are high wattage devices, making it much easier to overcome the shielding threshold.

And yes, they should be able to lay waste to cities. See the comments abouve their funky building materials above. Htose multi KM skyscrappers that are spindly as all hell need soem weird stuff to stand up.

Trytostaydead wrote:But when a shield is down, shouldn't the ship be vaporized in practically one hit by a turbolaser? I guess the material of the ship is built to at least absorb or dissipate part of the power of the blast. But then that would mean that anything short of a big bad blaster should not have any effect on the hull or any or part of a ship? How did Darth Vader cut through the doors of the Tantive IV short of a mini-nuclear blast?

You don't need high strength armour plating on the inside of a ship. You might have some in vulnerable areas such as fuel or munitions storage but that's about it. The doors and walls in crew quarters for instance will be made with the cheapest materials they can get away with, and they'll be basically just strong enough to meet whatever regulations they have to. Thus the majority of interior walls & doors can be blasted open with explosives and shot up with standard issue blasters, but you can't do the same to the outside hull. Same thing with today's ships, you can shoot at the hull with a gun or throw hand grenades at it and not do any damage, but once you get inside you can shoot holes through the doors and cause some blast damage with the grenades.

aerius wrote:
You don't need high strength armour plating on the inside of a ship. You might have some in vulnerable areas such as fuel or munitions storage but that's about it. The doors and walls in crew quarters for instance will be made with the cheapest materials they can get away with, and they'll be basically just strong enough to meet whatever regulations they have to. Thus the majority of interior walls & doors can be blasted open with explosives and shot up with standard issue blasters, but you can't do the same to the outside hull. Same thing with today's ships, you can shoot at the hull with a gun or throw hand grenades at it and not do any damage, but once you get inside you can shoot holes through the doors and cause some blast damage with the grenades.

I see the concept of bullheads and subdivision have escaped you. While some walls and doors inside of a vessel are basically junk most are strongly built and often of armor grade materials to allow for the containment of damage and flooding, in space the risk of atmospheric pressure loss would demand an even greater bulkhead system. You can pump water leakage out but your not going to get back air that's vented into deep space.

Point taken. Yes I do know about bulkheads and compartmentalization, I just left that out for simplicity and to help illustrate the difference between interior and exterior walls.