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I decided to perform a measurement of the Trade Federation battleship's dimensions after having some doubts about the official length on starwars databnk. I already posted my scaling procedure on strek-v-swars:
+http://www.strek-v-swars.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=188

The diameter of the battleship comes out to be about 5.9km.
Note also that based on ship dimensions the battleship is at least 12.76 times wider than the landing craft so the official figures of 370m for the landing craft and 3170m for the battleship simply cannot be both correct.

This would mean that TF battleahip is roughly 50 times bigger than an ISD and (if they are the same density) about 50 times more massive.

Why not just use the ICS and Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions? the ICS is canon, after all...

I always assumed the TF ship was no bigger than 2 miles in diameter. That's displayed on Jeff Russell's site, and I think it's in the TPM ICS (I don't own it, unfortunately).

Speaking of scaling and strek-v-swars, could you apply your methodology to disprove Weyoun's ISD blunder?

According to the ICS, a Trade Federation Battleship is 3170 meters in diameter.

According to ICS:OT the Executor is eight times as long as an ISD.

Oh, wait.

The point is, even the ICS would be topped by what is seen in the movies. On the other side, i can't comment on the accuracy of Starkillers analysis. If he's right, we have another battle at hand.

FTeik wrote:According to ICS:OT the Executor is eight times as long as an ISD.

OT ITW says almost twelve times.

FTeik wrote:According to ICS:OT the Executor is eight times as long as an ISD.

No, "large". Different.

Oh, wait.

The point is, even the ICS would be topped by what is seen in the movies.

Doesn't really apply. The original ICS firstly did not deal with the Executor, and second, the original ICS was not made concurrent with the movies like all the subsequent ones. The authors of the subsequent ICS (Dr D.W Reynolds and Dr. Saxton) had full access to models, CG etc etc to scale from (see Dr Saxton's interview on TFN.net).

What does the ICS state about the width of the landing craft? If it states 370m then something is clearly wrong as the width of the landing craft is at least 12.7 times smaller than the battleship.

And how is that a problem? Try telling us why in addition to just what.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:And how is that a problem? Try telling us why in addition to just what.

What he's saying is that if the ship is 12.7 times the width of the landing craft, then the ship is 4699m across, if the landing craft is 370m.

4699 does not equal 3170.

Vympel wrote:Doesn't really apply. The original ICS firstly did not deal with the Executor, and second, the original ICS was not made concurrent with the movies like all the subsequent ones. The authors of the subsequent ICS (Dr D.W Reynolds and Dr. Saxton) had full access to models, CG etc etc to scale from (see Dr Saxton's interview on TFN.net).

For the record, Vymp, the OT and TPM ICSs were both written by Reynolds and roughly at the same time, and Reynolds did have access to many of the models and other sources in the Lucasfilm Archive for the OT book.

Ekiqa wrote:

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:And how is that a problem? Try telling us why in addition to just what.

What he's saying is that if the ship is 12.7 times the width of the landing craft, then the ship is 4699m across, if the landing craft is 370m.

4699 does not equal 3170.

Where does the number 12.7 come from and why is it so important? Fuck, is it seriously that hard to fully explain everything you're doing?

Okay, nevermind. I skimmed through his post over at wherever that is, and I think he's not using the best of angles with some shots for scaling purposes.

Okay, nevermind. I skimmed through his post over at wherever that is, and I think he's not using the best of angles with some shots for scaling purposes.

There will be errors of course but not big ones. Maybe it would be good if I repeat and explain my scaling procedure once again.

Trade Federation battleship

First I will start with what I think is a most accurate scaling picture:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/tf ... _width.jpg
Here we see a top down view of the battleship from which we can derive the length ratio between the "arm" of the battleship and it's radius with almost no perspective error. The radius is 947px while the width of the arm is 358px. This means that the ships radius is about 2.645 times greater than the width of the arm or that the width of the ship is 5.29 times greater than the width of the arm.

From this picture:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/arm_width.jpg
we can get a fairly accurate hangar to arm length ratio. According to my measurements the hangar is 90px wide while the arm is 203px wide. This means that the arm is about 2.256 times greater than the width of the hangar. There could be a slight perspective error in this picture but even eyeballing the picture it's clear that the arm is something over two times wider than the main hangar.

Since the arm is 2.256 times wider than the hangar and 5.29 times shorter than the the ship, the ship is 11.93 times wider than the hangar.
Even if we assume that the landing craft is exactly as wide as hangar(which it is not) then 3170m diameter for the battleship yields a 265m width for the landing craft. Alternatively 370m width for the landing craft yields a 4414m width of the battleship. There is no way that both 370m figure for the landing craft and 3170m for the battleship can be correct at the same time.

Next examine the following picture:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/hangar_width.jpg
I measured the width of the landing craft as being 361px while the width of the hangar is 386px. This means that the hangar is 1.069 times wider than the landing craft.
Thus the battleship is 12.76 times wider than the landing craft.
Once again there is a perspective error but it only makes the landing craft look that it's wider in relation to the hangar than it really is.

I think it is safe to conclude that the battleship is 12.76 times wider than the landing craft which means that at least one but likely both figures from the ICS are wrong.

Landing craft

Observe the following picture:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/la ... width2.jpg
I measured the heigth of the landing craft as being 71px while the half-width of the craft is 235px. This means that the total width of the craft is 6.62 times greater than it's heigth. The heigth of the landing craft is 84.46 times smaller than the width of the battleship. Any perspective error from this picture will result in underestimation of the width to heigth ratio and consequently the width of the ship.

From the following picture:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/la ... heigth.jpg
we can determine landing craft heigth to STAP heigth ratio. The stap is off in the distance and can not be easily recognized especially on this JPEG picture but anyone with a TPM DVD can easily watch the part of the film in question and see that there really is a STAP flying towards the craft.
Anyway the heigth of the ship is 326px while the heigth of the STAP is 12px. So the STAP is 27.16 times shorter than the landing craft.
We can now easily determine that the STAP's heigth is 2294.5 times smaller than the battleship's width.

Finally we have this picture:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/st ... thedit.jpg
If the battledroid is 1.8m tall than the STAP(actally STAP+battledroid's head and torso) is 2.57m tall.
This means tha the battleship is 5,897m wide.

Conclusion
For a STAP's heigth of 2-2.57m we get a width of the Trade Federation battleship being between 4589m and 5897m.

Kane Starkiller wrote:I decided to perform a measurement of the Trade Federation battleship's dimensions after having some doubts about the official length on starwars databnk. I already posted my scaling procedure on strek-v-swars:
+http://www.strek-v-swars.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=188

The diameter of the battleship comes out to be about 5.9km.
Note also that based on ship dimensions the battleship is at least 12.76 times wider than the landing craft so the official figures of 370m for the landing craft and 3170m for the battleship simply cannot be both correct.

This would mean that TF battleahip is roughly 50 times bigger than an ISD and (if they are the same density) about 50 times more massive.

Hey wow. Ender came up with a similar figure. You should contact him and share your work. You can find him at:

Krousedp (at) truman (dot) navy (dot) mil

Its worth noting that relative to the core ship (which is around 680-700 meters in diameter according to the AOTC: ICS) the Core ship is indeed around 2 miles in diameter. Likewise, scaling the landing craft according to the MTT yields a similar dimension (I got a height of around 60 meters for the landing craft, and a height of around 13-14 meters for the MTT based on battle droids inside the ship and outside towards the end of the movie.)

Furthermore, when I attempted to do the scaling according to your methods, the largest width for the landing ship's wings was only about 406 meters (with most results being closer to the ICS-derived sizes.)

Its worth noting that relative to the core ship (which is around 680-700 meters in diameter according to the AOTC: ICS) the Core ship is indeed around 2 miles in diameter.

Take a look at this frame:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/tf ... _width.jpg
Now any perspective error here is minimal and we can determine with great accuracy the size difference between the "arm" , the core and the total length of the ship. Note that radius of the core ship is 3.38 times smaller than the radius of the entire ship. The 700m figure for the core ship yields a 2367m diameter for the entire ship. Or 3170m figure yields a 937m diameter for the core ship. I don't see how the ICS can be correct here.

Likewise, scaling the landing craft according to the MTT yields a similar dimension (I got a height of around 60 meters for the landing craft,

Well examining this picture:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/la ... width2.jpg
we get at about 397m width for the landing craft using the 60m heigth figure.
Using that number we get a width of the battleship of 5065m.

My own numbers oscilate between 4580m and 5900m depending on wether I use the lowest sensible number for a STAP+droid's torso(2 meters) or use the 2.57m which I derived by scaling the droid.

So we have 4580m, 5065m and 5900m.
The arithmetic mean is 5181m.

It just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Check out this image:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/ship_widthedit.jpg
This image shows a Trade Federation battleship. The width of the ship is 434px, the width of the arm is 100px and the width of the sphere is 97px.
If we use the 700m diameter for the sphere we get a 3132m for ship's width.
[ace ventura]Like a glove.[/ace ventura]

This picture on the other hand shows us completley different sphere to width ratio:
+http://www.geocities.com/idesdjurdja/tf ... _width.jpg

BUT this is a frickin' Droid Control ship not a standard battleship.
Furthermore we never saw a landing craft inside a battleship, for all we know they could be exiting the landing bay sideways thus enabling a 280m hangar to launch a 370m+ landing craft.

CONCLUSION:
Trade Federation battleship width:3170m
Trade Federation core ship:700m

Droid control ship width:~5.2km
Droid control ship sphere:~1.53km

Kane Starkiller wrote: CONCLUSION:
Trade Federation battleship width:3170m
Trade Federation core ship:700m

Droid control ship width:~5.2km
Droid control ship sphere:~1.53km

The TPM:ICS shows a Droid Control Ship (even with Landing Crafts in the hanger) and states that it is the one with the 3km length. Just saying.

EDIT: BTW, from the cross-section in the ICS, a Landing Craft does leave the ships by simply going forward -- no weird turning or anything.

BUT this is a frickin' Droid Control ship not a standard battleship.
Furthermore we never saw a landing craft inside a battleship, for all we know they could be exiting the landing bay sideways thus enabling a 280m hangar to launch a 370m+ landing craft.

Take a look at the shots of Anakin flying his N-1 Fighter in the DCS' hangar. You can see several landing craft within.

Kane Starkiller wrote:[snip]

You ought to send all your work to that guy Ender above, and especially to Dr. Saxton.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

Kane Starkiller wrote:[snip]

You ought to send all your work to that guy Ender above, and especially to Dr. Saxton.

Yes, Kane is very good at scaling. I've seen his work over at strek-vs-swars, and I'm really impressed by the way he's able to find useful images for scaling.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

Kane Starkiller wrote:I decided to perform a measurement of the Trade Federation battleship's dimensions after having some doubts about the official length on starwars databnk. I already posted my scaling procedure on strek-v-swars:
+http://www.strek-v-swars.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=188

The diameter of the battleship comes out to be about 5.9km.
Note also that based on ship dimensions the battleship is at least 12.76 times wider than the landing craft so the official figures of 370m for the landing craft and 3170m for the battleship simply cannot be both correct.

This would mean that TF battleahip is roughly 50 times bigger than an ISD and (if they are the same density) about 50 times more massive.

Hey wow. Ender came up with a similar figure. You should contact him and share your work. You can find him at:

Krousedp (at) truman (dot) navy (dot) mil

I did. However, that was only from a few images that were at an angle. most of the other views consistently show a diameter of approx. 3170 meters. This is especially true if you use the long range views seen during the holoconference after the escape.

The REAL interesting thing is that the gun count is horrendously wrong. There should really be an additional 18-24 quad turrets.

Ender wrote:I did. However, that was only from a few images that were at an angle. most of the other views consistently show a diameter of approx. 3170 meters. This is especially true if you use the long range views seen during the holoconference after the escape.

That's what I'm finding. Especially since the Core ship (which can be independently scaled in AOTC, and presumably was verified by Curtis when he put it into the ICS) supports it.

The REAL interesting thing is that the gun count is horrendously wrong. There should really be an additional 18-24 quad turrets.

Really? How'd you figure this out? And was this for the DCS itself or the battleships in general?

Connor MacLeod wrote:

Ender wrote:I did. However, that was only from a few images that were at an angle. most of the other views consistently show a diameter of approx. 3170 meters. This is especially true if you use the long range views seen during the holoconference after the escape.

That's what I'm finding. Especially since the Core ship (which can be independently scaled in AOTC, and presumably was verified by Curtis when he put it into the ICS) supports it.

During the short bursts my laptop was working during this cruise, I accomplished a lot for my planned website. Lots of scaling, a complete engine discussion (heavy on real world physics), and some heavy duty proof from ESB and ROTJ that would make bobby cry. When I get settled, I'll update the usual crowd.

The REAL interesting thing is that the gun count is horrendously wrong. There should really be an additional 18-24 quad turrets.

Really? How'd you figure this out? And was this for the DCS itself or the battleships in general?

Battleships specifically, though it can't be ruled out for the DCS (I personally doubt it though, it would risk shooting its antenna off). I went through the escape scene basically frame by frame and found evidence of rows of turrets either DWR missed or were added afterwards, and traced back where shots came from. The things is still weak for its size, but it deserves far more respect then it gets.