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Seismic Charges against DS1

Posted: 2002-10-18 02:51am
by consequences
Presuming you can get fighters equipped with Seismic charges under the Death Star's shields, would it do them any good? Would it just shake things up, mess up electronic equipment, knock down Turbolaser towers? Is there really any way to tell?

multiple shields

Posted: 2002-10-18 05:43am
by omegaLancer
you really cannot get under the death star shields rays and particles shields

Apparentily the shields that the Fighters penerated in a NH was the magnetic shields, which extended a distant from the deathstar. What the purpose of the magnetic shields is, I donot know..

But the Particle and Ray shields hugs the surface of the Deathstar... The exhaust port had ray shielding but not particle shielding ( Apparentily Particle shields operate in small sections and are independent of Ray shielding) that why a proton torpedoe was able to enter it and target the Core...

So the mines can explode but would have no effect against the Deathstar, which shields where design to withstand the attack of fleets of capital ships.

Posted: 2002-10-18 10:33am
by Spartan
Weg suggest that the DS shields were down as it charged the superlaser. However, that doesn't really matter if the X-wings were able to straff and cause damage. They don't use proton torpedos against the DS surface in the film as I recall (if other source say otherwise some correct me). It could be that the particle shields were up and that the ray sheild were either down or were the mag fieild the passed through. That explains the damage that the laser cannons cause.

So you have to possible scenarios:

1. The particle shields are down: FIRE IN THE HOLE!!! :twisted:
12 GT are over a million times more powerful than the 8 KT an X-wing's LC can dish out.

2. The particle shields are up: They might as well be shooting blanks :shock:
Because is if the particle shields aren't down or are not permeable to fighters they'll never penetrate it.

Honestly, though even if they can get around the shields they only do superficial damage.

Posted: 2002-10-18 12:24pm
by AL
hey those charges would be quite effective against the dsII if the Falcon or Wedge in his x-wing would have fired one inside the main reactors chamber deep inside the DSII

Posted: 2002-10-18 12:29pm
by Spartan
AL wrote:
hey those charges would be quite effective against the dsII if the Falcon or Wedge in his x-wing would have fired one inside the main reactors chamber deep inside the DSII
True, I was thinking of DS1 actually. Sure they could use it of the DS2 reactor, good luck on getting out alive though. :D

Posted: 2002-10-18 12:54pm
by Mr Bean
Acutal since you got the Reactor right there, Hundreds of Yottatons of power/destructive capability then why bother brining the Charges?


FYI unless you duck-tap them on, no way your getting them in an X-Wing or any other fighter

Posted: 2002-10-18 12:56pm
by AL
Mr Bean wrote:Acutal since you got the Reactor right there, Hundreds of Yottatons of power/destructive capability then why bother brining the Charges?


FYI unless you duck-tap them on, no way your getting them in an X-Wing or any other fighter
good point but lets get creative, lets use a homing missile with a seismic warhead attached and we program this homing missile to travel through the shaft to home in on the DS main reactor, no risk to an x-wing or other fighter or the pilot but that would take fun away from the movie

Posted: 2002-10-19 09:42pm
by Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi
The charges could destroy parts of the surface sprawls, but the wouldn't go deep into the hull. The charge is planar, and I seem to think of it as always spreading across the surface.

Posted: 2002-10-19 10:26pm
by Spartan
Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:

The charges could destroy parts of the surface sprawls, but the wouldn't go deep into the hull. The charge is planar, and I seem to think of it as always spreading across the surface.

What surface would that be; in ATOC that planar field sliced through everthing in it path and then violently force the matter away at a 90 degree angle to the plane. All you have to do is align the charge so that the plan is at a 90 degree angle to the DS surface. Only half its planar charge will hit, but it'll do considerable damage. Here Darth Wongs accessment of the SC blast radius:
Quote:

In any case, the SW2ICS quantifies the mines to have roughly 12 gigaton yield, which suggests that the radius of destruction can be as much as 10-30 kilometres at maximum power (although it should be noted that conventional modelling is suspect because of the unusual mechanism of the weapon, and it is difficult to determine the true radius of destruction in the film because of the camera angles used).
Since only half the blast will hit the DS that is 5-15 km of penetration. Maybe not significant damage to the DS1, and even less to DS2. Ofcourse multiple hits in the same area would do extensive damage.

Posted: 2002-10-19 10:41pm
by HemlockGrey
Assuming the charge can blow away the armor and penetrate the shields.

Question, though. Don't 'seismac charges' rely on sound? Seems so from the movie. And ain't there no sound in space?

Posted: 2002-10-19 11:01pm
by Spartan
Cyril wrote:
Assuming the charge can blow away the armor and penetrate the shields.

Question, though. Don't 'seismac charges' rely on sound? Seems so from the movie. And ain't there no sound in space?
.

No, actually seismic can mean vibrations moving through solid matter (ie rock, asteroids, etc.). As Mike says on the site the SC is most likely a aerospace-to-surface weapon, the DS definitely counts as a surface.

The sound hear the detonations in ATOC, the same way we do in the other films. Its the computers aboard the starships (probably Obi-Wan’s) providing audio feedback to the pilot. There are many EU references to such systems.

Oh, they penetrate alright if 2KT laser cannons will, then 12 GT most certainly will. They most likely won't do enough damage to be significant; if they could then DS1 would have had much better anti-fighter defenses

Posted: 2002-10-20 06:17pm
by consequences
Even if it only screws up the Surface installations, it would still be useful, sice all of the Death star guns are Surface installations. If necessary, strap the seismic charge to the fighter, send it in under remote, ram the hull and detonate.

Posted: 2002-10-20 06:29pm
by Darth Yoshi
And waste a perfectly good fighter?

Posted: 2002-10-20 06:46pm
by consequences
I'm presuming that the exhaust ports have been sealed somehow, so you have to kill the Death Star the hard way.

Posted: 2002-10-21 09:58am
by hvb
Spartan:
the 8 KT an X-wing's LC can dish out


Sounds a bit low (my guess, based on volume & TIE guns, is ~½ order of magnitude larger), what source?
Since only half the blast will hit the DS that is 5-15 km of penetration.
it says radius of destruction, so don't reduce to half, it would 10-30 km (if the structure is not able to absorb the damage, which it undoubtably is :P ).

Posted: 2002-10-21 12:04pm
by Spartan
hvb wrote:
Spartan:
Quote:
the 8 KT an X-wing's LC can dish out


Sounds a bit low (my guess, based on volume & TIE guns, is ~½ order of magnitude larger), what source?
X-wings have (4) laser cannons, SW2ICS states heavy fighter laser cannons are rated at 2 kt. Therefore an x-wing can dish out 8 kt when all (4) cannon are fired simultaneously as seen in ANH. Your volume qualification is in error Slave1 has several times the volume of an X-wing, and yet she only mounts 2 kt laser cannons. Volume in not a consideration anyway, because TIE's should have more power avalible to weapon since they don't have to power shields.
Quote:
Since only half the blast will hit the DS that is 5-15 km of penetration.

it says radius of destruction, so don't reduce to half, it would 10-30 km (if the structure is not able to absorb the damage, which it undoubtably is ).
Whose talking about radius of destruction I was talking about how far the planar "cutting" disc would penetrate the DS after a surface detonation. The detonation I describe has the disc expanding with the "edge" aligned to the DS surface. Obviously if the SC expands uniformly 10-30 km in every direction; then half of it expands away from the DS. Hence the disc can only penetrate 5-15 km. Their is no way of knowing how effective the SC would be against the DS structure; 5-15 km is the upper limit of penetration.

Posted: 2002-10-21 12:35pm
by Darth Wong
Keep in mind that the DS structure is made of materials which have many orders of magnitude greater strength than rock; the radius of destruction may be significantly smaller as a result.

Posted: 2002-10-21 02:15pm
by Yossarian
It would've been a good weapon to knock out the turbolasers to help the
fighters reach the exhaust port

Posted: 2002-10-21 02:24pm
by consequences
Suppressing surface fire was the general purpose I had in mind for them, I just wasn't sure about the viability. I'm almot certain the DS main armor belt would stop the Seismic Charge cold.

Posted: 2002-10-21 02:27pm
by Stormbringer
consequences wrote:Suppressing surface fire was the general purpose I had in mind for them, I just wasn't sure about the viability. I'm almot certain the DS main armor belt would stop the Seismic Charge cold.
Between sheilds and heavy armor the seismic charges would be the next best thing to useless.