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If they're comparable to an ISD II's main turrets; you're looking at 118 times the firepower distributed over the guns across surface of the vessel.

They seem awfully scattered and randomly placed to be weapons emplacements. Wouldn't they be placed in batteries rather than scattered all over the hull?

Each turret is a battery; there are eight guns if they're comparable to the ISD II weapons.

They just look like randomly patterned squares to me.

You have to realize that out-of-film photos are not actually canon; they're not in the film.

So when viewing examples of stuff used to make the film, representative materials, intent does come into mind--in the film, what were these bumps, which were perhaps intentionally unclear supposed to convey?

I don't know. You notice that they're not symmetrical on the sides of the ship. The shot of the fantail demostrates that. There might be equal numbers of guns on both sides, but if they aren't places symmetrically it means that the Executor has a better broadside on one side. This is fairly undesirable, especially on a ship that large and hard to maneuver. I'd think it would be better to have uniform coverage.

I saw that a few days ago. Pretty cool.

But a Saxton update is always cool.

It may be that the batteries are distributed according to the most likely approach angles; IIRC, many of them were clustered around the bridge's end of the ship. It would make sense to have the heavier firepower surrounding the bridge as to protect it better.

As for the seemingly random distribution, well, it's easier for the model-maker to just toss the bumps on than to carefully place them... makes it more visually interesting as well. In "real life", of course, there's probably a reason for the random distribution; possibly it allows for concentrated firepower along various different vectors?

In "real life", of course, there's probably a reason for the random distribution; possibly it allows for concentrated firepower along various different vectors?

Yes, making it suicide to use those vectors, guaranteeing that anyone who knows about the ship design or can even read a sensor scan will never use those vectors, meaning that they will attack on other vectors, which translates to those guns never seeing antiship action. Better to place them so that you're screwed no matter which angle you attack from.

Rogue, you do realise that those would correspond to the heavy turbolasers: the ones that can dish out teratons of firepower, don't you?

Those are the guns that you'd use to blow the shit out of stuff. The smaller batteries are virtually invisible at that scale.

There are probably plenty of guns in the "city" area of the SSD-- they're just not detailed enough to really see.

Also, I think it would've been a smarter move to have the hull blisters (if they're actually HTL batteries) swivel; while we can't see it on the model, of course, it would make sense to allow them to have a traversing capability. That way, while certainly they would be able to focus the MOST firepower on some vectors, they'd still be able to fire with at least part of their guns on other vectors. It wouldn't make any sense for them to be fixed positions... IIRC from the original ICS book, the HTL turrets on the ISD could traverse (although only the foremost one could do so to any degree... but then, the idea was to use them for mainly broadside fire, I guess).

They could all traverse, just due to the terraces and being placed close to each other they could only turn maybe across a range of 100 degrees.

The front turret could face dead-ahead, and the guns could elevate and depress to an extent as well.

The ISD II turrets could rotate in 360 degrees, and presumably their guns could turn straight up.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Rogue, you do realise that those would correspond to the heavy turbolasers: the ones that can dish out teratons of firepower, don't you?

Those are the guns that you'd use to blow the shit out of stuff. The smaller batteries are virtually invisible at that scale.

Yeah, but the Executor's big enough for you to put a good sized cruiser in a lightly defended quarter and stay away from the big clusters flanking the bridge. Granted, that probably enough firepower in the bow quarter to do a Calamari cruiser anyway, but since when does the Empire settle for "just enough" instead of "massive overkill," hmm?

Those guns have virtually 360 degree coverage, since they can also traverse. There are no safe angles.

It'd be nice if you'd stay on the same page as IP and I for a change.

I agree the blister placement is odd, but I refer you to my intent argument.

The "true", "in-universe" Executor probably has real turrets in place of bumps, and they're probably uniform.

Alternatively, this out-of-universe Executor model could be said to represent the ship after combat; perhaps some of her guns were destroyed, breaking the placement symmetry.

Some guns could also be retracted below the hull, as well.

Perhaps the turrets are that unevenly spread as to not hinder each other (the ISD could only use its first two heavy turrets to fire to the front as long as the ship didn´t moved nose-down).

That doesn't make sense; they're not ISD I-type turrets for sure, and even then they'd only hinder their rotation if placed directly side-by-side.

The question is why are they not bilaterally symmetrical.

The question is why are they not bilaterally symmetrical.

As one of you said earlier, battle damage... but the model shows nothing such.

I think it's not too unreasonable (given the SSD's HUGE size) that the turrets can retract under the hull; this would likely make maintenance easier, and if it's automated, I wouldn't be too surprised if they'd do this in the middle of battle. Even with a few turrets pulled down, they'd still have 20-30 others to fill in... and there are likely buttloads of LTL's as well.

Elheru Aran wrote:

The question is why are they not bilaterally symmetrical.

As one of you said earlier, battle damage... but the model shows nothing such.

I think it's not too unreasonable (given the SSD's HUGE size) that the turrets can retract under the hull; this would likely make maintenance easier, and if it's automated, I wouldn't be too surprised if they'd do this in the middle of battle. Even with a few turrets pulled down, they'd still have 20-30 others to fill in... and there are likely buttloads of LTL's as well.

I like that the most so far.

That's the actual effects model isn't it? Then even in the movie, those aren't turrets, but raised squares. After all, what you see is in the movies is what's actually there, right? You aren't suspending disbelief if you deny visuals, after all.

Gil Hamilton wrote:That's the actual effects model isn't it? Then even in the movie, those aren't turrets, but raised squares. After all, what you see is in the movies is what's actually there, right? You aren't suspending disbelief if you deny visuals, after all.

But the problem is you cannot distinguish bumps from turrets in the film. You do not suspend disbelief with visuals which are not inside the canon. This is why when dealing with effects models out-of-universe you must take into account what features are intended to represent at the level of visual precision in the canon, which is where you're suspending disbelief.

The actual effects model is only authoritative in terms of seeing it in the film; afterall, when you're suspending disbelief, the affects model does not exist--the 17.6 kilometer-long Executor does.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:But the problem is you cannot distinguish bumps from turrets in the film. You do not suspend disbelief with visuals which are not inside the canon. This is why when dealing with effects models out-of-universe you must take into account what features are intended to represent at the level of visual precision in the canon, which is where you're suspending disbelief.

The actual effects model is only authoritative in terms of seeing it in the film; afterall, when you're suspending disbelief, the affects model does not exist--the 17.6 kilometer-long Executor does.

Of course the 17.6km Executor does. Complete with appropriately scaled up raised squares, which the model shows. Do those bumps look like turrets to you, in the movie or on the model, or raised panels? I don't think you can tell what, exactly, they are. It's never said. Saying that they are turrets is guessing, is it not?

Gil Hamilton wrote:Of course the 17.6km Executor does. Complete with appropriately scaled up raised squares, which the model shows.

Can you tell that they're just raised squares in the only known movie shot?

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/by/bumps1.jpg

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/by/bumps2.jpg

Gil Hamilton wrote:Do those bumps look like turrets to you, in the movie or on the model, or raised panels? I don't think you can tell what, exactly, they are. It's never said. Saying that they are turrets is guessing, is it not?

Yes; it is guessing.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Can you tell that they're just raised squares in the only known movie shot?

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/by/bumps1.jpg

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/by/bumps2.jpg

They sure look like raised panels to me.

Yes; it is guessing.

Then how can we say that they are turrets? They can clearly be seen to have featureless on the model. It's not like they magically sprouted barrels and such when the movie was shot.