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We've seen capital-scale missiles do huge damage to an SSD as proof they're effective. You'd think that the range advantage would make them worth using, kill a target from outside its gun range and you don't have to take damage yourself. But why is the Victory-class the only ship I can think of that actually uses them in large numbers? The only reason I can think of that makes any sense is the difficulty in supplying a fleet with reloads in a long campaign, but that doesn't seem like too high a price to pay. Is there something I'm missing here?

Actually, most official sources claim that that missiles are short-range weapons. It's also been shown that if you fire them from a distance, they can be intercepted with cannon fire. The WOTC sourcebook Starships of the Galaxy explains that capital ship missiles are very expensive, and they can only be carried in limited amounts, as opposed to turbolasers, which have practically unlimited ammo. However, there are a number of capital ships that make heavy use of missiles and torpedoes, such as the VSD, Providence-class destroyer/carriers, and Warrior-class gunships.

The Broadside-class cruiser in Empire at War will be a missile corvette.

Dammit! Nearly an hour of my sleep time wasted looking for the dammed quote and I can't find it. Somewhere in Mike's site there is a quote from an EU novel about a group of Rebel fighters planning an attack against a Star Destroyer. A character commented about the need to avoid releasing the torpedoes too early or else Imperial gunners would have time to track and shoot the torpedoes down. Perhaps missles aren't used because it is rather easy to intercept them.

Nearly an hour of my sleep time wasted looking for the dammed quote...

A sure sign that I have an addiction to SD.net

For the most part, missiles in SW pack alot of punch for their size but they're much shorter ranged. I think this makes them similar to WW2 era torpedoes (well and modern torpedoes too, really.)

The reason missiles aren't seen very often is the power output needed to accelerate them at any reasonable speeds, with a warhead massive enough to dent something like an ISD (or bigger) is IMMENSE. Think about it. An ISD has a shield output somewhere in the E24-e25 watt range, for just hte dissipation rate. Heat sink rate is at LEAST as large (e24-e25 joules/sec.) In most respects, that translates into some hundreds of millions or billions of kg worth of annihilation reactant - meaning (effectively) that your missile is going to mass at least that much.

Now, accelerate that much mass by thousands of gees, much less 10,000+gees, by an ion drive. Imagine how much power is needed.. (assume 1e9 kg x 1e4 m/s^2 accel) - the KE needed is somewhere in the e20-e21 watt range, at LEAST. Multiply that by a 30 second acceleration...)

And you need more than just one (say a couple dozen.) And what about reloads? And so on and so on..

Basically... at the ranges SW combat usually occur at, missiles are at best shortt range weapons more useful for smaller ships (think torpedo boats.)
Larger ships are usually better off with turbolasers or ion cannons.

Really long-ranegd "light minute" missile duels you see in shows like Andromeda or read about in the Honor Harrington novels aren't remotely practical with a reaction drive (which is why Andromeda and the Honorverse use "cheats" to get around the energy problem!)

Jim Raynor wrote:Actually, most official sources claim that that missiles are short-range weapons. It's also been shown that if you fire them from a distance, they can be intercepted with cannon fire. The WOTC sourcebook Starships of the Galaxy explains that capital ship missiles are very expensive, and they can only be carried in limited amounts, as opposed to turbolasers, which have practically unlimited ammo. However, there are a number of capital ships that make heavy use of missiles and torpedoes, such as the VSD, Providence-class destroyer/carriers, and Warrior-class gunships.

The expense and limited ammunition issues make sense, but not the range issue. Why would a physical object be limited to short range? In space, there's nothing to slow/stop the missile, so the only range limit is the quality of your targeting sensors. And to some degree, the amount of fuel that can be carried, but Star Wars capital ships aren't exactly known for dramatic evasive maneuvers that need tons of fuel to track.

Dammit! Nearly an hour of my sleep time wasted looking for the dammed quote and I can't find it. Somewhere in Mike's site there is a quote from an EU novel about a group of Rebel fighters planning an attack against a Star Destroyer. A character commented about the need to avoid releasing the torpedoes too early or else Imperial gunners would have time to track and shoot the torpedoes down. Perhaps missles aren't used because it is rather easy to intercept them.

Two ideas here:

1) These were fighter-scale missiles, so maybe they sacrificed engine power for evasive maneuvers to put a useful warhead on a small missile. A starfighter torpedo might have this limit, but a larger capital-scale missile could carry both good engines and a useful warhead.

2) Capital ship gunnery can't be all that effective, as starfighters are still useful. A starfighter is a much larger target than a missile, so if capital ships can shoot down missile swarms so easily, starfighters would be suicide.

The reason missiles aren't seen very often is the power output needed to accelerate them at any reasonable speeds, with a warhead massive enough to dent something like an ISD (or bigger) is IMMENSE. Think about it. An ISD has a shield output somewhere in the E24-e25 watt range, for just hte dissipation rate. Heat sink rate is at LEAST as large (e24-e25 joules/sec.) In most respects, that translates into some hundreds of millions or billions of kg worth of annihilation reactant - meaning (effectively) that your missile is going to mass at least that much.

Yes, it's a large number, but there is canon evidence showing missiles can carry a large enough warhead to do that much damage. And I'm not sure what the point of the antimatter mass is, as I'm pretty sure Star Wars technology can produce greater energy/mass ratios than antimatter.

And not only can missiles in general carry it, but useful warheads can be made small enough to be carried by a starfighter. So there's a definite upper limit on how big a missile warhead has to be to cause damage to a capital ship.

And you need more than just one (say a couple dozen.) And what about reloads? And so on and so on..

We have canon evidence of practical missile systems in use against capital ships, and with the ability to carry reloads. So obviously they're small enough for it to be possible.

Basically... at the ranges SW combat usually occur at, missiles are at best shortt range weapons more useful for smaller ships (think torpedo boats.)
Larger ships are usually better off with turbolasers or ion cannons.

Why would they be short range? What is going to limit the range of a physical object in space?

Really long-ranegd "light minute" missile duels you see in shows like Andromeda or read about in the Honor Harrington novels aren't remotely practical with a reaction drive (which is why Andromeda and the Honorverse use "cheats" to get around the energy problem!)

Not necessarily light-minute ranges, but Star Wars battles seem to often involve very short ranges. You'd think that any improvement on those ranges would be a huge benefit to the side that develops it.

Capital ship gunnery can't be all that effective, as starfighters are still useful. A starfighter is a much larger target than a missile, so if capital ships can shoot down missile swarms so easily, starfighters would be suicide.

Starfighters can maneuever and evade. Missiles cannot. They will go in straight at the ship, which will make it easy to simply pick them off.

Blackjack Simmons wrote:

Capital ship gunnery can't be all that effective, as starfighters are still useful. A starfighter is a much larger target than a missile, so if capital ships can shoot down missile swarms so easily, starfighters would be suicide.

Starfighters can maneuever and evade. Missiles cannot. They will go in straight at the ship, which will make it easy to simply pick them off.

Well, they could be programmed to evade, but that would shorten their range.

Not to mention increase the cost. It's not that missiles are ineffective, it's that turbolasers, in the end, are simply more effective.

lPeregrine wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote:Actually, most official sources claim that that missiles are short-range weapons. It's also been shown that if you fire them from a distance, they can be intercepted with cannon fire. The WOTC sourcebook Starships of the Galaxy explains that capital ship missiles are very expensive, and they can only be carried in limited amounts, as opposed to turbolasers, which have practically unlimited ammo. However, there are a number of capital ships that make heavy use of missiles and torpedoes, such as the VSD, Providence-class destroyer/carriers, and Warrior-class gunships.

The expense and limited ammunition issues make sense, but not the range issue. Why would a physical object be limited to short range? In space, there's nothing to slow/stop the missile, so the only range limit is the quality of your targeting sensors. And to some degree, the amount of fuel that can be carried, but Star Wars capital ships aren't exactly known for dramatic evasive maneuvers that need tons of fuel to track.

Umm, even drifting at a slow 500 m/s with the missile pulling 100,000Gs fired from a lightsecond out, 24.7 seconds will pass and the original target will be 12.4 kms away from the missile. Thus delta V is important to keep the missile on target, thus the ability to carry fuel limits it. Further, longer you burn, easier you are to detect, tartget and destroy. It thaks our shipkiller missile 24.7 s to get to the target destroyer, but in the ROTS novel the Venators were targeting and destroying incomming Hailfire missiles in 2.5 s.

Dammit! Nearly an hour of my sleep time wasted looking for the dammed quote and I can't find it. Somewhere in Mike's site there is a quote from an EU novel about a group of Rebel fighters planning an attack against a Star Destroyer. A character commented about the need to avoid releasing the torpedoes too early or else Imperial gunners would have time to track and shoot the torpedoes down. Perhaps missles aren't used because it is rather easy to intercept them.

Two ideas here:

1) These were fighter-scale missiles, so maybe they sacrificed engine power for evasive maneuvers to put a useful warhead on a small missile.

A smaller missile will have smaller delta V no matter what.

A starfighter torpedo might have this limit, but a larger capital-scale missile could carry both good engines and a useful warhead.

Which makes it easier to shoot down.

2) Capital ship gunnery can't be all that effective, as starfighters are still useful. A starfighter is a much larger target than a missile, so if capital ships can shoot down missile swarms so easily, starfighters would be suicide.

Starfighters are pretty much useless against capital ships. In ROTJ Akbar had the capital ships concentrate firepower to knock out the star destroyer's shields so fighters could attack, and in TPM its said that fighters can't get though the shields of what is basically a Q ship. So that argument goes away.

The reason missiles aren't seen very often is the power output needed to accelerate them at any reasonable speeds, with a warhead massive enough to dent something like an ISD (or bigger) is IMMENSE. Think about it. An ISD has a shield output somewhere in the E24-e25 watt range, for just hte dissipation rate. Heat sink rate is at LEAST as large (e24-e25 joules/sec.) In most respects, that translates into some hundreds of millions or billions of kg worth of annihilation reactant - meaning (effectively) that your missile is going to mass at least that much.

Yes, it's a large number, but there is canon evidence showing missiles can carry a large enough warhead to do that much damage.

Where? In the movies starfightes need cap thips to knock down the shields for them.

And I'm not sure what the point of the antimatter mass is, as I'm pretty sure Star Wars technology can produce greater energy/mass ratios than antimatter.

And you base this of what?
If they could, one would think it would be used to power their ships, and the ROTS ICS indicates this is not he case. So I'd like to see the evidence for that.

And not only can missiles in general carry it, but useful warheads can be made small enough to be carried by a starfighter. So there's a definite upper limit on how big a missile warhead has to be to cause damage to a capital ship.

there's also a big limit ont he power of these missiles if they want to fit in the launcher. Most fighter weapons seem to be high KT, low MT.

And you need more than just one (say a couple dozen.) And what about reloads? And so on and so on..

We have canon evidence of practical missile systems in use against capital ships, and with the ability to carry reloads. So obviously they're small enough for it to be possible.

I can think of one incident, the capture of the Lusankya. Beyond that, nope, starfighter missiles were useless.

Basically... at the ranges SW combat usually occur at, missiles are at best shortt range weapons more useful for smaller ships (think torpedo boats.)
Larger ships are usually better off with turbolasers or ion cannons.

Why would they be short range? What is going to limit the range of a physical object in space?

The required Delta V and the fact that longer range makes it easier to shoot something down.

The Venators on Uutapu were shooting down Hailfire missiles.

Not necessarily light-minute ranges, but Star Wars battles seem to often involve very short ranges. You'd think that any improvement on those ranges would be a huge benefit to the side that develops it.

Most battles seem to be in the hundreds to thousands of KMs range actually. Beyond that and It's not a great idea to use missiles.

Starfighters are pretty much useless against capital ships. In ROTJ Akbar had the capital ships concentrate firepower to knock out the star destroyer's shields so fighters could attack, and in TPM its said that fighters can't get though the shields of what is basically a Q ship. So that argument goes away.

Starfighters don't have the POWER to knock out capships, no, but I think what he was referring to was the general inability of capital ships to shoot down starfighters.

Blackjack Simmons wrote:

Starfighters are pretty much useless against capital ships. In ROTJ Akbar had the capital ships concentrate firepower to knock out the star destroyer's shields so fighters could attack, and in TPM its said that fighters can't get though the shields of what is basically a Q ship. So that argument goes away.

Starfighters don't have the POWER to knock out capships, no, but I think what he was referring to was the general inability of capital ships to shoot down starfighters.

1) the Death Star did ok
2) Why bother when they are no threat?

Hey, I'm not supporting his argument, I was just clarifying what I think he was trying to argue.

The Death Star did okay? I haven't seen the movies in a while, but wasn't it the Imperial fighters that shot down most of the Rebels and not the Death Star itself? Isn't there a line in there somwhere, "they are evading our turbolasers."

Umm, even drifting at a slow 500 m/s with the missile pulling 100,000Gs fired from a lightsecond out, 24.7 seconds will pass and the original target will be 12.4 kms away from the missile. Thus delta V is important to keep the missile on target, thus the ability to carry fuel limits it. Further, longer you burn, easier you are to detect, tartget and destroy. It thaks our shipkiller missile 24.7 s to get to the target destroyer, but in the ROTS novel the Venators were targeting and destroying incomming Hailfire missiles in 2.5 s.

1) I haven't read the ROTS novel, so I didn't know that. Were they targeting and destroying all missiles, or just some of them while others hit? If the second, then that's expected. That's why you fire more than one missile, to overload the target's point defense.

2) Where did you get the assumption of a lightsecond for range? Most of the battles we've seen have been at much shorter ranges. It wouldn't take that much to be out of effective turbolaser range.

3) Yes, at extreme ranges the target can evade the missiles. So there's an effective limit, but it's much higher than the effective range of turbolasers. An aim error of 12km over a 300,000km flight is pretty reasonable. If the missile can travel that lightsecond in 25 seconds, it can correct its path in less than a second. Yes, that's assuming it can generate equal thrust in all directions, but the point is it's not a huge extra effort to fix it.

A smaller missile will have smaller delta V no matter what.

Why? A larger missile with weaker engines will have a lower delta V than a smaller missile that's mostly engine. Your comment is only true if both devote the same percentage of their size to engines.

But the point was, there's probably a minimum warhead size to be effective against capital ships. For a starfighter missile, it's reasonable to think that reaching that size requires that the missile be mostly warhead, and therefore less effective at evasion/long range tracking. But a capital-scale missile could carry that warhead, along with better engines. So just because a fighter torpedo is easy to shoot down doesn't mean that a capital-scale one is too.

Starfighters are pretty much useless against capital ships. In ROTJ Akbar had the capital ships concentrate firepower to knock out the star destroyer's shields so fighters could attack, and in TPM its said that fighters can't get though the shields of what is basically a Q ship. So that argument goes away.

In other words, standard imperial anti-fighter tactics consist of "ignore the fighters until your shields are down, then once it's too late and they're blowing stuff off your hull, then you should finally think about killing them"?

And yes, as mentioned, the point is a starfighter is a much larger target, and we've seen them make attack runs in fairly slow straight lines. If imperial gunners can't hit those targets, how can you expect them to put up a perfect shield against much smaller missiles?

Where? In the movies starfightes need cap thips to knock down the shields for them.

I wasn't talking about starfighters. In one of the x-wing books, we see mass torpedo fire knock out a shield arc of an SSD with a single salvo. Last I heard, the popular interpretation is these were capital-scale missiles.

But the point was, saying "it can't be done" is kind of silly when we have canon evidence that it can be. Effective missiles can be carried in reasonable numbers, with a reasonable number of reloads (as we see them fire multiple times).

And you base this of what?
If they could, one would think it would be used to power their ships, and the ROTS ICS indicates this is not he case. So I'd like to see the evidence for that.

Could you quote what you're talking about, as I haven't read that book? And haven't the power calculations for the death star/ISDs/etc ended up high enough that antimatter power won't meet their requirements?

there's also a big limit ont he power of these missiles if they want to fit in the launcher. Most fighter weapons seem to be high KT, low MT.

Key word: most. Most fighter missiles are probably used to kill other fighters, or smaller capital ships. But we have canon proof that fighters CAN carry warheads capable of taking down an ISD's shields when used in sufficient numbers (about 20 total).

So we have an upper limit for the size of the "smallest effective missile", as defined by what a starfighter can carry. It doesn't take a 50 meter missile to present a threat to a capital ship. So any argument that "the missiles would be too big" is obviously false.

I can think of one incident, the capture of the Lusankya. Beyond that, nope, starfighter missiles were useless.

As well as plenty of incidents elsewhere in that series where starfighter-scale missiles are a threat to capital ships. Like it or not, they're canon.

And since we're talking about capital ships armed with missiles, those incidents are clear proof that it would work. If a starfighter can carry effective missiles, then a much larger capital ship can carry them in large numbers. The idea that you wouldn't have space for reloads is disproved.

The required Delta V and the fact that longer range makes it easier to shoot something down.

The Venators on Uutapu were shooting down Hailfire missiles.

You're assuming that the turbolasers are effective over the missile's entire flight. If a turbolaser has an effective range of 1/2 a lightsecond against a missile-sized target (purely imaginary number), it makes no difference whether they're fired from 1 lightsecond or 10 lightseconds, the defending ship has the same amount of time to deal with them.

And again, I'd like a little more detail on the Venator point defense thing. What percentage of the missiles were getting through? How many were fired per-salvo?

Most battles seem to be in the hundreds to thousands of KMs range actually. Beyond that and It's not a great idea to use missiles.

Thousands =/= 300,000km (your one lightsecond example). If ECM and other factors limit effective turbolaser range to say 600km, using missiles from 800km allows the firing ship to attack while exposing itself to much less fire. If the missiles are at all comparable to turbolaser damage, the missile ship will kill its opponent while (probably) suffering no hull damage in return.

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Not to mention increase the cost. It's not that missiles are ineffective, it's that turbolasers, in the end, are simply more effective.

Yes, missiles would be expensive. But building new ships is probably a lot more expensive. So you'd think that fighting from outside your target's effective range would be an appealing idea, to keep your own ships from getting damaged/destroyed.

In other words, standard imperial anti-fighter tactics consist of "ignore the fighters until your shields are down, then once it's too late and they're blowing stuff off your hull, then you should finally think about killing them"?

Yes. Fighters just aren't powerful enough to do serious damage to capitol ships to be considered that much of a threat. Unless there is a sizeable formation of fighters that can get off a good volley of torps, the fighters can't harm the ship with its shields up. Thus it is much more valuable for capitol ships to fight the other capitol ships, as that is there main threat.

Also, remember that both sides will have fighters. Other fighters are much more effective than ship guns against fighters.

I don't have a quote, but in the BFC books there was a fair amount of missiles used, and the capitol ships were shown to use specific point defense cannons regularly.

lPeregrine wrote:

Umm, even drifting at a slow 500 m/s with the missile pulling 100,000Gs fired from a lightsecond out, 24.7 seconds will pass and the original target will be 12.4 kms away from the missile. Thus delta V is important to keep the missile on target, thus the ability to carry fuel limits it. Further, longer you burn, easier you are to detect, tartget and destroy. It thaks our shipkiller missile 24.7 s to get to the target destroyer, but in the ROTS novel the Venators were targeting and destroying incomming Hailfire missiles in 2.5 s.

1) I haven't read the ROTS novel, so I didn't know that. Were they targeting and destroying all missiles, or just some of them while others hit? If the second, then that's expected. That's why you fire more than one missile, to overload the target's point defense.

All missiles and the droids.

2) Where did you get the assumption of a lightsecond for range? Most of the battles we've seen have been at much shorter ranges. It wouldn't take that much to be out of effective turbolaser range.

We see that kind of range agaisnt the Vong and Killiks, both of whom lack ECM. The lack of ECM aids your argument, as heavy ECM takes away the advantage provided by your longer range missiles as they still have to be within TL range.

3) Yes, at extreme ranges the target can evade the missiles. So there's an effective limit, but it's much higher than the effective range of turbolasers. An aim error of 12km over a 300,000km flight is pretty reasonable.

No its not, have you forgotten the inverse square law?

If the missile can travel that lightsecond in 25 seconds, it can correct its path in less than a second. Yes, that's assuming it can generate equal thrust in all directions, but the point is it's not a huge extra effort to fix it.

You ignore inertia. After accelerating that much it will be highly resistant to being diverted.

A smaller missile will have smaller delta V no matter what.

Why? A larger missile with weaker engines will have a lower delta V than a smaller missile that's mostly engine. Your comment is only true if both devote the same percentage of their size to engines.

With the same specific impulse, and the same fuel density, the greater percentage of the fuel will still be a smaller volume and thus smaller amount, resulting in a lower delta V.

You do grasp that the missiles fired by an Acclamator are several meters in diameter (based off the tube size) whereas those fired by an X-wing are several centimeters in diameter, right?

But the point was, there's probably a minimum warhead size to be effective against capital ships. For a starfighter missile, it's reasonable to think that reaching that size requires that the missile be mostly warhead, and therefore less effective at evasion/long range tracking. But a capital-scale missile could carry that warhead, along with better engines. So just because a fighter torpedo is easy to shoot down doesn't mean that a capital-scale one is too.

A cross section of several square meters is inherently easier to hit then one of several square centimeters. It doesn't matter how great your targeting system is, half the cross section is still half the cross section.

Starfighters are pretty much useless against capital ships. In ROTJ Akbar had the capital ships concentrate firepower to knock out the star destroyer's shields so fighters could attack, and in TPM its said that fighters can't get though the shields of what is basically a Q ship. So that argument goes away.

In other words, standard imperial anti-fighter tactics consist of "ignore the fighters until your shields are down, then once it's too late and they're blowing stuff off your hull, then you should finally think about killing them"?

We have the quotes from the movies saying fighters are no threat. Fell free to refute G level canon if you can.

And numbnuts - starfighters have shields and move much slower then missiles - which in space makes missiles FAR easier to kill. As I show below.

And yes, as mentioned, the point is a starfighter is a much larger target, and we've seen them make attack runs in fairly slow straight lines. If imperial gunners can't hit those targets, how can you expect them to put up a perfect shield against much smaller missiles?

Aside from them shooting down missiles in ROTS?

Where? In the movies starfightes need cap thips to knock down the shields for them.

I wasn't talking about starfighters. In one of the x-wing books, we see mass torpedo fire knock out a shield arc of an SSD with a single salvo. Last I heard, the popular interpretation is these were capital-scale missiles.

One example of a poorly maintained star dreadnaught that by all logic would not be operating at peak power vs canon statments. Nice.

But the point was, saying "it can't be done" is kind of silly when we have canon evidence that it can be. Effective missiles can be carried in reasonable numbers, with a reasonable number of reloads (as we see them fire multiple times).

Except the example is so extreme to make it worthless. Do you realize how lucky Wedge and Co were?

If the Lusankya was properly maintained instead o buried for almost a decade it would be stronger
If it had a fully trained crew instead of conscripts and prison guards it would be stronger
If it had decent logistics it would have been stronger.
If the captain had begun targeting the freighters they would have won
If the captain had stood his ground at Yag'dul they would have won.
If the captain had started the PD batteries (NO mention at all of the flak guns) they could have won.

Yet you think they should depend on those contingencies in a fleet battle.

And you base this of what?
If they could, one would think it would be used to power their ships, and the ROTS ICS indicates this is not he case. So I'd like to see the evidence for that.

Could you quote what you're talking about, as I haven't read that book?

The reactors are said to annihilate X tons of matter a second. If they did more then e=mc^2 then those small ships would be able to bitchslap an Executor class Star Dreadnaught.

And haven't the power calculations for the death star/ISDs/etc ended up high enough that antimatter power won't meet their requirements?

No, they don't.

there's also a big limit ont he power of these missiles if they want to fit in the launcher. Most fighter weapons seem to be high KT, low MT.

Key word: most. Most fighter missiles are probably used to kill other fighters, or smaller capital ships. But we have canon proof that fighters CAN carry warheads capable of taking down an ISD's shields when used in sufficient numbers (about 20 total).

Never have we seen fighters bring down the shields of an Imperator. We saw them with the aid of an escort frigate take down the shields of a Victory class that just decanted though an asteroid field, and we've seen them do damage after the shields have been taken down in other ways. We've seen them kill a strike class picket cruiser. We've seen them kill a Lancer class escort frigate. We've seen a simulation training mission where stafighters killed the Avenger, but that was not real. We've seen a bomb almost the size of the falcon take out a Dreadnaught clas star frigate. Never has a starfighter squadron killed an Imperator.

So we have an upper limit for the size of the "smallest effective missile", as defined by what a starfighter can carry. It doesn't take a 50 meter missile to present a threat to a capital ship. So any argument that "the missiles would be too big" is obviously false.

Show me an example of a starfighter squadron, unassisted in any way, punching throught the shields of a capital ship. Not some glorfied coast guard boat, not some small fleet picket, a true capital ship.

I can think of one incident, the capture of the Lusankya. Beyond that, nope, starfighter missiles were useless.

As well as plenty of incidents elsewhere in that series where starfighter-scale missiles are a threat to capital ships. Like it or not, they're canon.

And of course you fail to name any of these. Except I know them all, and nope, doesn't work.

K-wings, using dedicated shield buster bombs, could not punch through the shields of things that were star frigates at best.

And since we're talking about capital ships armed with missiles, those incidents are clear proof that it would work. If a starfighter can carry effective missiles, then a much larger capital ship can carry them in large numbers. The idea that you wouldn't have space for reloads is disproved.

The 900 meter long Victory class only carries 4 missiles in its magazines. Yes, the lack of reload space is canon.

The required Delta V and the fact that longer range makes it easier to shoot something down.

The Venators on Uutapu were shooting down Hailfire missiles.

You're assuming that the turbolasers are effective over the missile's entire flight.

10 light minutes vs several hundred kilometers... yeah, I'd say my assumption is grounded in fact.

If a turbolaser has an effective range of 1/2 a lightsecond against a missile-sized target (purely imaginary number), it makes no difference whether they're fired from 1 lightsecond or 10 lightseconds, the defending ship has the same amount of time to deal with them.

The defending ship could also use its dedicated PD flak guns to make the missile destroy itself, regardless of range. Long range + constant acceleration = high velocity. And despite what Stackpole has A-wing pilots claim, in space speed kills.

Lets say your missile has a yield of 200 GT, same as an Acclamator's HTL. Assume direct matter to energy conversion, that means that it has to mass 9.3 tons at a minimum. Lets say its pulling 72,000 Gs (same as Luke's torps), and has accelerated for a single second. Now lets say it collides with a 1 kg flak fragment from the PD guns. Ignoring any movement on the part of the flak towareds or away from the incoming missile, that means that the resulting KE from the impact is 2.32*10^15 joules - your missile just killed itself in a nice 553 KT explosion, well away from the shield boundary of the ship you are shooting at.

Ouch.

Meanwhile the 200 GT Tl you fired vaped that 1 kg piece of iron and kept going and slammed into your enemies shield. Its also a lot more intense then your missile would have been too, so it migh penetrate a bit.

Which is the better weapon again?

And again, I'd like a little more detail on the Venator point defense thing. What percentage of the missiles were getting through? How many were fired per-salvo?

None. Through the Vigilance and her LAAT/is all the missiles were destroyed and the droids as well. No statement on firing rate, probably what we see in the movies.

Most battles seem to be in the hundreds to thousands of KMs range actually. Beyond that and It's not a great idea to use missiles.

Thousands =/= 300,000km (your one lightsecond example). If ECM and other factors limit effective turbolaser range to say 600km, using missiles from 800km allows the firing ship to attack while exposing itself to much less fire.

Unless you seriously want to argue that the reactor onboard a missile can put out more power then a capital ship to get a sensor return ECM sufficient to limit Tl use will hamepr missiles far more.

If the missiles are at all comparable to turbolaser damage, the missile ship will kill its opponent while (probably) suffering no hull damage in return.

TLs have an advantage in range, power, speed, and intensity. What do missiles have to offer?

Not to mention increase the cost. It's not that missiles are ineffective, it's that turbolasers, in the end, are simply more effective.

Yes, missiles would be expensive. But building new ships is probably a lot more expensive. So you'd think that fighting from outside your target's effective range would be an appealing idea, to keep your own ships from getting damaged/destroyed.

Except it doesn't work that way.

A-Wing_Slash wrote:I don't have a quote, but in the BFC books there was a fair amount of missiles used, and the capitol ships were shown to use specific point defense cannons regularly.

And it still took cap ships to kill cap ships - the shield buster bombs couldn't penetrate without supporting fire.

All missiles and the droids.

Out of how many fired per salvo? Killing 100% of 4 missiles is a lot less impressive than killing 100% of 400. And I'm asking this as an honest question, I don't have the novel and can't look myself.

We see that kind of range agaisnt the Vong and Killiks, both of whom lack ECM. The lack of ECM aids your argument, as heavy ECM takes away the advantage provided by your longer range missiles as they still have to be within TL range.

Actually the presence of heavy ECM is what makes missiles more useful. With nothing interfering with targeting, of course turbolasers have insane ranges. But with heavy ECM involved, a near-miss turbolaser shot is a miss, period. On the other hand, a missile can refine its course as it closes with the target. So a near-miss with a guided weapon can turn into a hit.

A turbolaser has to be aimed precisely when it's fired, or it's a wasted shot. A missile just has to be aimed well enough to get into the general area of the target, and can correct its mistakes on the way there. Guess which is more affected by ECM.

No its not, have you forgotten the inverse square law?

Apparently I have, how does it make a 12km aim error over 300,000km range into a clear miss for a guided weapon?

You ignore inertia. After accelerating that much it will be highly resistant to being diverted.

And you don't know how inertia works. The distance that matters is the target's distance perpendicular to the missile's flight path. No matter how fast it's moving forwards, it has zero inertia in that perpendicular plane.

A cross section of several square meters is inherently easier to hit then one of several square centimeters. It doesn't matter how great your targeting system is, half the cross section is still half the cross section.

Please, explain how a fast larger missile making evasive maneuvers is easier to hit than a small missile on a predictable straight-line course. It's not as simple as just looking at the cross-section. If the fighter missile is flying a straight line course, it's a trivial challenge to plot the course, and put a turbolaser bolt into where it's expected to be.

And in any case, a capital-scale missile has a smaller cross-section than a starfighter. If cross-section is all that matters, starfighters should be hit effortlessly.

We have the quotes from the movies saying fighters are no threat. Fell free to refute G level canon if you can.

If fighters are no threat, period, why does anyone use them? If they are a threat (once shields go down, etc), why ignore them and leave your enemy with more resources?

And numbnuts - starfighters have shields and move much slower then missiles - which in space makes missiles FAR easier to kill. As I show below.

By what insanity does moving SLOWER help you evade fire, when dealing with weapons that are instant-hit over the range most battles happen at? A slow moving target is easier to track, and easier to kill.

One example of a poorly maintained star dreadnaught that by all logic would not be operating at peak power vs canon statments. Nice.

Please quote the canon statements that say capital-scale missiles are not a threat to capital ships. The best interpretation of the incident in question involved is the freighters were using much larger warheads (as they would have no reason to limit themselves to fighter-scale weapons when they have so much more hull space available). There is no contradiction.

xcept the example is so extreme to make it worthless. Do you realize how lucky Wedge and Co were?

If the Lusankya was properly maintained instead o buried for almost a decade it would be stronger
If it had a fully trained crew instead of conscripts and prison guards it would be stronger
If it had decent logistics it would have been stronger.
If the captain had begun targeting the freighters they would have won
If the captain had stood his ground at Yag'dul they would have won.
If the captain had started the PD batteries (NO mention at all of the flak guns) they could have won.

Yet you think they should depend on those contingencies in a fleet battle.

And it was also a top-end capital ship fighting against clearly inferior opponents. Just the sheer scale of an SSD and the power available for its shields make it a difficult target, even with all those negative factors. If missiles are as weak as is being claimed, they shouldn't have even put a dent in the shields.

What that battle shows is that mass torpedo fire CAN damage capital ships. If it can work well against even a low-quality SSD, it should work much better against the more common smaller ships.

The reactors are said to annihilate X tons of matter a second. If they did more then e=mc^2 then those small ships would be able to bitchslap an Executor class Star Dreadnaught.

Interesting, since I know I've seen pro-Star Wars arguments on this site that Star Wars ships have much better power generation than simple matter/antimatter reaction (as Star Trek).

Never have we seen fighters bring down the shields of an Imperator. We saw them with the aid of an escort frigate take down the shields of a Victory class that just decanted though an asteroid field, and we've seen them do damage after the shields have been taken down in other ways. We've seen them kill a strike class picket cruiser. We've seen them kill a Lancer class escort frigate. We've seen a simulation training mission where stafighters killed the Avenger, but that was not real. We've seen a bomb almost the size of the falcon take out a Dreadnaught clas star frigate. Never has a starfighter squadron killed an Imperator.

Ok, I'll concede this argument until/if I can find it. I haven't read the books in a long time, so my memory is probably off.

But even if it wasn't an ISD, these are still starfighter torpedoes causing damage vs. capital ships. What I'm talking about is capital-scale missiles, which by common sense would have much greater firepower. Those starfighter incidents just establish a lower limit for what missiles can do.

The 900 meter long Victory class only carries 4 missiles in its magazines. Yes, the lack of reload space is canon.

Not really, since a Victory-class manages to carry 80 launchers x 4 reloads, for its secondary weapons. That's in addition to turbolasers, a hangar bay, etc. A dedicated missile ship could carry a lot more.

10 light minutes vs several hundred kilometers... yeah, I'd say my assumption is grounded in fact.

Are you quoting the maximum range for turbolasers as 10 light minutes? If you are, have you forgotten that there's a difference between maximum physical range and effective range in a real battle?

The defending ship could also use its dedicated PD flak guns to make the missile destroy itself, regardless of range. Long range + constant acceleration = high velocity. And despite what Stackpole has A-wing pilots claim, in space speed kills.

Lets say your missile has a yield of 200 GT, same as an Acclamator's HTL. Assume direct matter to energy conversion, that means that it has to mass 9.3 tons at a minimum. Lets say its pulling 72,000 Gs (same as Luke's torps), and has accelerated for a single second. Now lets say it collides with a 1 kg flak fragment from the PD guns. Ignoring any movement on the part of the flak towareds or away from the incoming missile, that means that the resulting KE from the impact is 2.32*10^15 joules - your missile just killed itself in a nice 553 KT explosion, well away from the shield boundary of the ship you are shooting at.

Ouch.

Meanwhile the 200 GT Tl you fired vaped that 1 kg piece of iron and kept going and slammed into your enemies shield. Its also a lot more intense then your missile would have been too, so it migh penetrate a bit.

Which is the better weapon again?

Where did you learn collision physics? A 9.3 ton missile is not going to dump all 553 KT of its kinetic energy in a collision with a 1kg flak fragment. It's going to drop in speed somewhat (probably taking damage), and continue on at a slightly lower speed. The only way it would release its entire kinetic energy would be if by some miracle, that 1kg fragment brought the missile to a complete stop.

And you're also making two other assumptions, that the missiles do not mount basic shields, and will use their maximum acceleration, even though much slower and larger targets are capable of evading turbolaser fire.

None. Through the Vigilance and her LAAT/is all the missiles were destroyed and the droids as well. No statement on firing rate, probably what we see in the movies.

Then this event is pretty meaningless. Without the number of missiles invovled stated, it's impossible to get any idea of point defense effectiveness. Under heavy bombardment, the ship could do the same, or it could be overloaded and let missiles slip through for damage.

Unless you seriously want to argue that the reactor onboard a missile can put out more power then a capital ship to get a sensor return ECM sufficient to limit Tl use will hamepr missiles far more.

Why would it need to have more powerful sensors? A turbolaser shot needs a precise image of the target to be effective, since even a slight aim error will produce a miss at long range. A missile just needs to be aimed in the general direction of the target. Once it reaches the target area, simple visual guidance will be enough (and not jammable). It's kind of hard to hide a 1.6km bright white star destroyer at close range.

And that's ignoring the option of using the launching ship's sensors to guide the missile for most of its flight, switching to the missile's own sensors once it gets close enough.

lPeregrine wrote:

All missiles and the droids.

Out of how many fired per salvo? Killing 100% of 4 missiles is a lot less impressive than killing 100% of 400. And I'm asking this as an honest question, I don't have the novel and can't look myself.

No statement as to the size of the missile swarm

We see that kind of range agaisnt the Vong and Killiks, both of whom lack ECM. The lack of ECM aids your argument, as heavy ECM takes away the advantage provided by your longer range missiles as they still have to be within TL range.

Actually the presence of heavy ECM is what makes missiles more useful. With nothing interfering with targeting, of course turbolasers have insane ranges. But with heavy ECM involved, a near-miss turbolaser shot is a miss, period. On the other hand, a missile can refine its course as it closes with the target.

Yes, but it has to be able to punch through the ECM to find its target. That's the problem

So a near-miss with a guided weapon can turn into a hit.

Yes, at greatly reduced yield and intensity.

A turbolaser has to be aimed precisely when it's fired, or it's a wasted shot. A missile just has to be aimed well enough to get into the general area of the target, and can correct its mistakes on the way there. Guess which is more affected by ECM.

Lets see, I can fire the TL again a second later, but I can't do the same with the missile. The missile can't correct its course unless it can find the target, which it can't do in a heavy ECM environment. So I'm gonna go with the missile.

No its not, have you forgotten the inverse square law?

Apparently I have, how does it make a 12km aim error over 300,000km range into a clear miss for a guided weapon?

The intensity of your weapon drops with the inverse of the square of the distance. Couple that with the cosine law and things get bad. For example, a 10 GT bomb going off 12 kilometers away would result in an intensity of only 23.2 GJ/m^2 hitting the target. With the presence of shields, this is basically useless, making your missile effectively a miss.

And you don't know how inertia works.

No, I just missed your bullshit assumption that thrust can be equally applied in all directions. Its clear from the films and he engines themselves that this is not the case. It would have to alter its overall trajectory, it can't just shoot out exhaust on the port side to move it back in line.

How about you keep to the facts if you want to prove your point, ok?

A cross section of several square meters is inherently easier to hit then one of several square centimeters. It doesn't matter how great your targeting system is, half the cross section is still half the cross section.

Please, explain how a fast larger missile making evasive maneuvers is easier to hit than a small missile on a predictable straight-line course.[/quote]My, nice of you to skew the things here to try and prove you right. Of course you don't want to assume both are manuvering the same, that would totally destroy your point. This inspite of the fact that we've seen that small missiles are incredibly manuverable.

It's not as simple as just looking at the cross-section. If the fighter missile is flying a straight line course, it's a trivial challenge to plot the course, and put a turbolaser bolt into where it's expected to be.

If you don't try and bullshit the basic assumptions then yes it is as simple as cross section.

And in any case, a capital-scale missile has a smaller cross-section than a starfighter. If cross-section is all that matters, starfighters should be hit effortlessly.

Missile tube diameter on Acclamator: ~10 meters
Cockpit diameter of TIE Fighter: 2.02 meters

And this was such a nice debate until you felt the need to start lying.

We have the quotes from the movies saying fighters are no threat. Fell free to refute G level canon if you can.

If fighters are no threat, period, why does anyone use them? If they are a threat (once shields go down, etc), why ignore them and leave your enemy with more resources?

By that logic, if missile ships were a good desing and a major threat, why does nobody use them?

And numbnuts - starfighters have shields and move much slower then missiles - which in space makes missiles FAR easier to kill. As I show below.

By what insanity does moving SLOWER help you evade fire, when dealing with weapons that are instant-hit over the range most battles happen at? A slow moving target is easier to track, and easier to kill.

A target that kills its engines and goes ballistic doesn't have a giant IR signatuire passive sensors can lock onto to shoot down. A slow moving missile in space is harder to find and thus harder to kill. Plus you can just let your flak cannons put up stuff in its path and have them kill themselves, which is more dificult with a slow moving missile.

One example of a poorly maintained star dreadnaught that by all logic would not be operating at peak power vs canon statments. Nice.

Please quote the canon statements that say capital-scale missiles are not a threat to capital ships. The best interpretation of the incident in question involved is the freighters were using much larger warheads (as they would have no reason to limit themselves to fighter-scale weapons when they have so much more hull space available). There is no contradiction.

I never said there was. My point is that if the Lusankya had been in good condition and fought well, they never would have had the oppertunity to put the ship in danger.

xcept the example is so extreme to make it worthless. Do you realize how lucky Wedge and Co were?

If the Lusankya was properly maintained instead o buried for almost a decade it would be stronger
If it had a fully trained crew instead of conscripts and prison guards it would be stronger
If it had decent logistics it would have been stronger.
If the captain had begun targeting the freighters they would have won
If the captain had stood his ground at Yag'dul they would have won.
If the captain had started the PD batteries (NO mention at all of the flak guns) they could have won.

Yet you think they should depend on those contingencies in a fleet battle.

And it was also a top-end capital ship fighting against clearly inferior opponents.

Thanks for ignoring the part where I pouinted out it clearly was not top end.

Just the sheer scale of an SSD and the power available for its shields make it a difficult target, even with all those negative factors. If missiles are as weak as is being claimed, they shouldn't have even put a dent in the shields.

I'm not saying missiles lack the power to hurt it, I'm saying properly fought they wouldn't have had a chance to hurt it. The thing clearly wasn't at full power, a Mandator class had ~1/3rd the power of an Executor and it could hold off 1000 light star destroyers. Plus there are the obvious limits on logistics which would restrict its power. They never activated the PD guns, and they never went on the offensive, they just stayed above Thyferra and let the enemy come to them. had they gone out and engaged the freighters carrying the missiles, they could have annihilated them or atlest scattered them so they were no longer able to concentrate their firepower enough to be a threat.

What that battle shows is that mass torpedo fire CAN damage capital ships. If it can work well against even a low-quality SSD, it should work much better against the more common smaller ships.

It shouldn't have worked well though, and a well fought ship would have seen to it that that would have been the case. Thus negating you argument.

The reactors are said to annihilate X tons of matter a second. If they did more then e=mc^2 then those small ships would be able to bitchslap an Executor class Star Dreadnaught.

Interesting, since I know I've seen pro-Star Wars arguments on this site that Star Wars ships have much better power generation than simple matter/antimatter reaction (as Star Trek).

They do have better power generation. A Galaxy class starship could put out ~3*10^16 watts. A Venator class Star Destroyer could put out 3.6*10^24 watts.
Tha 100 million times diference is what makes it better.

But even if it wasn't an ISD, these are still starfighter torpedoes causing damage vs. capital ships.

No. none of them were them doing damage agaisnt capital ships unassisted. The closest examples were the Victory and the Dreadnaught, and in the Dreadnaught it was hit by a freighter sized bomb, and the Victory was attacked by an escort frigate and just decanted through an asteroid (relativistic impacts anyone?). The others are against small pickets and escorts, not true capital ships.

What I'm talking about is capital-scale missiles, which by common sense would have much greater firepower. Those starfighter incidents just establish a lower limit for what missiles can do.

Biggest bomb we've seen was the siesmic charge dropped by Slave 1. it came in at 13 GT. It was also something like 2 meters long and 1/3 a meter thick. Way to big for fighter mounting, and it didn't even have engines or anything.

Meanwhile, an Acclamator class troop transport has shields that dissipate 16 TT/s. Do you grasp the disparity?

The 900 meter long Victory class only carries 4 missiles in its magazines. Yes, the lack of reload space is canon.

Not really, since a Victory-class manages to carry 200 launchers x 4 reloads, for its secondary weapons. That's in addition to turbolasers, a hangar bay, etc. A dedicated missile ship could carry a lot more.

And hey, you're only of by an order of magnitude! That's great. The Victory carried 80 missiles. And it would have taken all of them to bring down Home One's shields.

10 light minutes vs several hundred kilometers... yeah, I'd say my assumption is grounded in fact.

Are you quoting the maximum range for turbolasers as 10 light minutes? If you are, have you forgotten that there's a difference between maximum physical range and effective range in a real battle?

And have(1 AU = ~8 LM) you forgotten that in ESB they were going to fire across several AU? 10 LM seems to be the max effective range, not max range.

The defending ship could also use its dedicated PD flak guns to make the missile destroy itself, regardless of range. Long range + constant acceleration = high velocity. And despite what Stackpole has A-wing pilots claim, in space speed kills.

Lets say your missile has a yield of 200 GT, same as an Acclamator's HTL. Assume direct matter to energy conversion, that means that it has to mass 9.3 tons at a minimum. Lets say its pulling 72,000 Gs (same as Luke's torps), and has accelerated for a single second. Now lets say it collides with a 1 kg flak fragment from the PD guns. Ignoring any movement on the part of the flak towareds or away from the incoming missile, that means that the resulting KE from the impact is 2.32*10^15 joules - your missile just killed itself in a nice 553 KT explosion, well away from the shield boundary of the ship you are shooting at.
Ouch.
Meanwhile the 200 GT Tl you fired vaped that 1 kg piece of iron and kept going and slammed into your enemies shield. Its also a lot more intense then your missile would have been too, so it migh penetrate a bit.
Which is the better weapon again?

Where did you learn collision physics? A 9.3 ton missile is not going to dump all 553 KT of its kinetic energy in a collision with a 1kg flak fragment. It's going to drop in speed somewhat (probably taking damage), and continue on at a slightly lower speed. The only way it would release its entire kinetic energy would be if by some miracle, that 1kg fragment brought the missile to a complete stop.

I oversimplified. What's really gonna happen is that that 1 kg of iron is gonna plasmify when the kinetic energy is conserved into thermal energy and go through the missile like an antitank missile or HEAT round does today, vaporizing the controls and such as it goes. The missile won't be vaporized, but its not gonna detonate, and thus release the 553 kt when it hits the edge of the shields, but prior to the boundary (its a field as well, remember?); assuming of course it doesnt rupture the fuel tank and explode before there.. Better?

And you're also making two other assumptions, that the missiles do not mount basic shields,

Prove that assertion

and will use their maximum acceleration,

You were the one claiming going faster was beter. Forgive me for trying to give you all the advantages.

even though much slower and larger targets are capable of evading turbolaser fire.

Funny how I didn't say a thing about it being hit by TL fire.

None. Through the Vigilance and her LAAT/is all the missiles were destroyed and the droids as well. No statement on firing rate, probably what we see in the movies.

Then this event is pretty meaningless. Without the number of missiles invovled stated, it's impossible to get any idea of point defense effectiveness. Under heavy bombardment, the ship could do the same, or it could be overloaded and let missiles slip through for damage.

So they shoot down very tiny missiles within seconds, but according to you that isnt a good example. Riiight.

Unless you seriously want to argue that the reactor onboard a missile can put out more power then a capital ship to get a sensor return ECM sufficient to limit Tl use will hamepr missiles far more.

Why would it need to have more powerful sensors? [/quote]If the ship can't get a return from its sensors to target accurately, then more power is needed to cut though the jamming. Thus if you want to say the ship can't get though it to fire a TL, but a missile can, the missile requires more powerful jamming.

A turbolaser shot needs a precise image of the target to be effective, since even a slight aim error will produce a miss at long range. A missile just needs to be aimed in the general direction of the target. Once it reaches the target area, simple visual guidance will be enough (and not jammable). It's kind of hard to hide a 1.6km bright white star destroyer at close range.

When you talk visual guidance, i asme you mean similar to hat we have today. In which case I would love to hear how the radio signals (or whatever signal used) to direct the missile and the video feed signal from the missile cannot be jammed as easily as regular sensors.

And that's ignoring the option of using the launching ship's sensors to guide the missile for most of its flight, switching to the missile's own sensors once it gets close enough.

If the ships sensors can't get a lock for a TL, why could thay magically get a lock for a missile.

You keep doing this, automatically skewing things without looking at how it affects the overall comparison. You argument seems to be similar to that of "If I put Michael Jordan in cement shoes and break his arms and legs, I can beat him in basketball, thus I am better!"

Yes, at greatly reduced yield and intensity.

A light hit is better than a complete miss.

Lets see, I can fire the TL again a second later, but I can't do the same with the missile. The missile can't correct its course unless it can find the target, which it can't do in a heavy ECM environment. So I'm gonna go with the missile.

And you can also fire another missile behind the first one.

How many times does this need to be said, a missile needs a less precise lock at long range. A missile only needs its precise lock once it reaches close range and makes its final course corrections to hit. A turbolaser needs a precise lock at maximum range. Since ECM effectiveness decreases greatly the closer you get, guess which weapon is hurt most by it.

The intensity of your weapon drops with the inverse of the square of the distance. Couple that with the cosine law and things get bad. For example, a 10 GT bomb going off 12 kilometers away would result in an intensity of only 23.2 GJ/m^2 hitting the target. With the presence of shields, this is basically useless, making your missile effectively a miss.

You completely missed the point of what I was saying. The missile doesn't explode 12km from the target, it just flies the last 12 km and scores a hit. Or more realistically, has been correcting its aim over the entire flight, and scores a hit. A 12km difference from the initial aim point over a 300,000km flight is trivial to correct for when you're talking about a guided weapon.

No, I just missed your bullshit assumption that thrust can be equally applied in all directions. Its clear from the films and he engines themselves that this is not the case. It would have to alter its overall trajectory, it can't just shoot out exhaust on the port side to move it back in line.

How about you keep to the facts if you want to prove your point, ok?

Thanks for proving your complete ignorance of physics. The missile rotates 90 degrees perpendicular to its course, then fires its engine at full power. And even if it can't, the power demands for this course correction are far less than the power demands for getting to the target in the first place.

My, nice of you to skew the things here to try and prove you right. Of course you don't want to assume both are manuvering the same, that would totally destroy your point. This inspite of the fact that we've seen that small missiles are incredibly manuverable.

The question was fighter missiles, which posters here have been claiming fly in straight lines at the target. One possible explanation being because fighter-scale anti-capital weapons have only minimal engine power because they have to devote almost all of their space to getting a useful warhead size (and are therefore more like modern guided bombs than a true missile).

Missile tube diameter on Acclamator: ~10 meters
Cockpit diameter of TIE Fighter: 2.02 meters

And this was such a nice debate until you felt the need to start lying.

Nice black and white fallacy. There's more possible missile sizes than tiny or 10m. It would be easy to build one with a larger warhead than a fighter torpedo, but a smaller cross-section than a fighter.

By that logic, if missile ships were a good desing and a major threat, why does nobody use them?

That's the question I'm asking here. Obviously the reason is because long-range missile duels don't make very good movie battles. What I'm asking is how bad an omission it is.

A target that kills its engines and goes ballistic doesn't have a giant IR signatuire passive sensors can lock onto to shoot down. A slow moving missile in space is harder to find and thus harder to kill. Plus you can just let your flak cannons put up stuff in its path and have them kill themselves, which is more dificult with a slow moving missile.

That's nice. The comparison was between large, slow-moving fighters and small, fast-moving missiles. Last time I checked, fighters don't kill their engines and drift in silently to their targets.

Thanks for ignoring the part where I pouinted out it clearly was not top end.

Thanks for ignoring the part where even a poorly maintained SSD is still a very powerful ship. Unless you're trying to claim that the Lusankya's crew was too incompetent to raise their sheilds at anywhere near full power, shields and hull armor alone should make it less vulnerable to damage than a common ISD.

I'm not saying missiles lack the power to hurt it, I'm saying properly fought they wouldn't have had a chance to hurt it. The thing clearly wasn't at full power, a Mandator class had ~1/3rd the power of an Executor and it could hold off 1000 light star destroyers. Plus there are the obvious limits on logistics which would restrict its power. They never activated the PD guns, and they never went on the offensive, they just stayed above Thyferra and let the enemy come to them. had they gone out and engaged the freighters carrying the missiles, they could have annihilated them or atlest scattered them so they were no longer able to concentrate their firepower enough to be a threat.

And by that logic, in a fair fleet battle, the forces opposing it would've had much greater firepower to match. I'm not actually sure this works in your favor. If a fully operational Executor could hold off 3,000 light star destroyers, that's more ships than most canon battles have shown (assuming 'light destroyer' is actually a significant capital ship, not a 100 meter patrol ship). Therefore even a weakened SSD should be a tougher target than you'd expect to see in most battles.

As for your claim of never using the point defense guns, proof of this? Is it clearly stated that the guns are never used, or are you just making the assumption that because the author doesn't mention them, they don't exist?

They do have better power generation. A Galaxy class starship could put out ~3*10^16 watts. A Venator class Star Destroyer could put out 3.6*10^24 watts.
Tha 100 million times diference is what makes it better.

Obviously it's better. I haven't done the calculations myself, are claims that Star Wars power technology gives a power density greater than matter/antimatter anihilation a case of exaggeration by rabid fans?

No. none of them were them doing damage agaisnt capital ships unassisted. The closest examples were the Victory and the Dreadnaught, and in the Dreadnaught it was hit by a freighter sized bomb, and the Victory was attacked by an escort frigate and just decanted through an asteroid (relativistic impacts anyone?). The others are against small pickets and escorts, not true capital ships.

And all of them are cases of starfighter missiles, which are relevant in a discussion of capital-scale missiles only for establishing a lower limit of capital missile damage. And that absolute lower limit is "causes heavy damage to unshielded capital ships".

Biggest bomb we've seen was the siesmic charge dropped by Slave 1. it came in at 13 GT. It was also something like 2 meters long and 1/3 a meter thick. Way to big for fighter mounting, and it didn't even have engines or anything.

Meanwhile, an Acclamator class troop transport has shields that dissipate 16 TT/s. Do you grasp the disparity?

Again, a lower limit. And not way too big for fighter mounting, if you consider "fighter" to include heavy bombers. Or if you grant Star Wars the incredibly difficult invention of external mounts for their missiles.

And hey, you're only of by an order of magnitude! That's great. The Victory carried 80 missiles. And it would have taken all of them to bring down Home One's shields.

Thank you for proving my point so nicely. 80 missiles as the SECONDARY weapon on a ship a fraction of Home One's size are capable of bringing down its shields. What were you saying about lacking firepower?

And have(1 AU = ~8 LM) you forgotten that in ESB they were going to fire across several AU? 10 LM seems to be the max effective range, not max range.

Which is why most (if not all, I don't have every book) of the battles we see happen at much shorter ranges? If 10LM is effective combat range in a real battle (with all the ECM, evasive targets, etc), why don't they fight at that range?

I oversimplified. What's really gonna happen is that that 1 kg of iron is gonna plasmify when the kinetic energy is conserved into thermal energy and go through the missile like an antitank missile or HEAT round does today, vaporizing the controls and such as it goes. The missile won't be vaporized, but its not gonna detonate, and thus release the 553 kt when it hits the edge of the shields, but prior to the boundary (its a field as well, remember?); assuming of course it doesnt rupture the fuel tank and explode before there.. Better?

Assuming a direct head-on impact, and no shields on the missile, and the missile accelerating at maximum power.

Prove that assertion.

Please disprove it, since we're talking about a hypothetical design. With the high speeds/acceleration of Star Wars ships, basic collision shielding has to be cheap and universally used.

You were the one claiming going faster was beter. Forgive me for trying to give you all the advantages.

It's better to a point. And it doesn't take insane acceleration to be faster than the slow strafing runs made by starfighters. Starfighters that seem to be missed very frequently by the same turbolasers you claim can create a perfect missile shield.

So they shoot down very tiny missiles within seconds, but according to you that isnt a good example. Riiight.

Without the numbers, it's meaningless. For example, the ability to shoot down 10 incoming missiles is not the same as the ability to shoot down a full 400 missile salvo from a dedicated missile cruiser. Of course the ship you're talking about might have stopped 800 missiles. The point is, we don't know, so you can't just assume it was the high end.

If the ship can't get a return from its sensors to target accurately, then more power is needed to cut though the jamming. Thus if you want to say the ship can't get though it to fire a TL, but a missile can, the missile requires more powerful jamming.

How many times does it need to be said, a turbolaser requires a much better return than a missile. Lets say (at long range) the firing ship can narrow down the target to a small area of space. Somewhere in that sphere is the target ship, but it only occupies 10% of the area. A turbolaser fired at the wrong 90% is a clear miss. A missile fired at the wrong 90% gets closer, gets a more accurate return, and corrects its course to hit.

And don't try claiming getting close isn't good enough. Considering the size of most Star Wars ships, visual targeting will give a good lock far enough out for the missile to hit.

When you talk visual guidance, i asme you mean similar to hat we have today. In which case I would love to hear how the radio signals (or whatever signal used) to direct the missile and the video feed signal from the missile cannot be jammed as easily as regular sensors.

1) The fact that voice communication is possible even in ultra-high ECM environments like the first death star battle prove that complete jamming is impossible.

2) Who said anything about a video feed? This is Star Wars, the universe where intelligent droids are considered nothing more than a household appliance. With that level of AI, it should be a trivial challenge to progam a missile's computer to 'hit that triangle-shaped thing'.

If the ships sensors can't get a lock for a TL, why could thay magically get a lock for a missile.

Because the requirements for an initial missile lock are much lower. By the time a missile needs the same precision as a turbolaser, it's much closer to the target and ECM is less effective.

lPeregrine wrote:

Yes, at greatly reduced yield and intensity.

A light hit is better than a complete miss.

The power difference makes it a complete miss.

Lets see, I can fire the TL again a second later, but I can't do the same with the missile. The missile can't correct its course unless it can find the target, which it can't do in a heavy ECM environment. So I'm gonna go with the missile.

And you can also fire another missile behind the first one.

Great, care to prove the refire rate is as good?

How many times does this need to be said, a missile needs a less precise lock at long range.

And I'm saying you're full of shit. The sensor return is based of cross section of the target, and distance. It will be the exact same for both a TL and missile as the same object is firing them.

A missile only needs its precise lock once it reaches close range and makes its final course corrections to hit.

You've hit the point of conceeding, though I don't think you grasp it yet. See below.

A turbolaser needs a precise lock at maximum range. Since ECM effectiveness decreases greatly the closer you get, guess which weapon is hurt most by it.

So ECM efectiveness decreases the closer you get despite the inverse square law saying the exact opposite would happen? Afterall, the cross section would increase linearly, an the distance would decreasse linearly, but the ECM would increase exponentially, so that makes it weaker as you get closer?

Yeah, just shut the fuck up.

The intensity of your weapon drops with the inverse of the square of the distance. Couple that with the cosine law and things get bad. For example, a 10 GT bomb going off 12 kilometers away would result in an intensity of only 23.2 GJ/m^2 hitting the target. With the presence of shields, this is basically useless, making your missile effectively a miss.

You completely missed the point of what I was saying. The missile doesn't explode 12km from the target, it just flies the last 12 km and scores a hit. Or more realistically, has been correcting its aim over the entire flight, and scores a hit. A 12km difference from the initial aim point over a 300,000km flight is trivial to correct for when you're talking about a guided weapon.

For this guided weapons to be correcting the entire time makes it a gigantic target the entire time.

No, I just missed your bullshit assumption that thrust can be equally applied in all directions. Its clear from the films and he engines themselves that this is not the case. It would have to alter its overall trajectory, it can't just shoot out exhaust on the port side to move it back in line.

How about you keep to the facts if you want to prove your point, ok?

Thanks for proving your complete ignorance of physics. The missile rotates 90 degrees perpendicular to its course, then fires its engine at full power.

Again, not possible with observed engine configurations. My you love altering the facts to try and prove a point.

And even if it can't, the power demands for this course correction are far less than the power demands for getting to the target in the first place.

We were discussing delta V here originally. You think the rate work is done (power) is the same as the net possible change in your velocity (delta V), yet I'm the one ignorant of physics?

My, nice of you to skew the things here to try and prove you right. Of course you don't want to assume both are manuvering the same, that would totally destroy your point. This inspite of the fact that we've seen that small missiles are incredibly manuverable.

The question was fighter missiles, which posters here have been claiming fly in straight lines at the target.

No, the question was the ability to hit the incoming missile. When I correctly pointed out the larger cross section of the capital missile would make it a bigger target, suddenly it maunvered but the figter one didn't. Hence your false comparison.

One possible explanation being because fighter-scale anti-capital weapons have only minimal engine power because they have to devote almost all of their space to getting a useful warhead size (and are therefore more like modern guided bombs than a true missile).

Funny, cuz I watched AOTC (apparently you didn't), so talk to me some more about how Jango's missile flew straight at Obiwan and didn't manuver?

Missile tube diameter on Acclamator: ~10 meters
Cockpit diameter of TIE Fighter: 2.02 meters

And this was such a nice debate until you felt the need to start lying.

Nice black and white fallacy. There's more possible missile sizes than tiny or 10m. It would be easy to build one with a larger warhead than a fighter torpedo, but a smaller cross-section than a fighter.

Its an issue of volume, so you have constratins there somewhere. Give it a smaller cross section on one side it gets bigger on another.

By that logic, if missile ships were a good desing and a major threat, why does nobody use them?

That's the question I'm asking here. Obviously the reason is because long-range missile duels don't make very good movie battles.

Under SoD, the real reason is because in space missiles are pretty shitty weapons. Conviently, this mirrors real life. Lasers and particle beams doing impulse damage are the best, followed shortly by KKWs.

What I'm asking is how bad an omission it is.

its a good one. In real life high accelerating massivly powered missiles are unlikely for the reasons I've been trying to drive into your thick skull.

A target that kills its engines and goes ballistic doesn't have a giant IR signatuire passive sensors can lock onto to shoot down. A slow moving missile in space is harder to find and thus harder to kill. Plus you can just let your flak cannons put up stuff in its path and have them kill themselves, which is more dificult with a slow moving missile.

That's nice. The comparison was between large, slow-moving fighters and small, fast-moving missiles. Last time I checked, fighters don't kill their engines and drift in silently to their targets.

Watch the movies then you ignorant fuck.

"Accelerate to attack speed" - ANH
we watch the engines go from serving as radiators to thrusting on the Falcon in ESB, Slave 1 in AOTC (in fact we see a cockpit display confirming this behind Jango's head), Obi Wan and Anakin as they dive through the Coruscant shield in ROTS.

Thanks for ignoring the part where I pouinted out it clearly was not top end.

Thanks for ignoring the part where even a poorly maintained SSD is still a very powerful ship. Unless you're trying to claim that the Lusankya's crew was too incompetent to raise their sheilds at anywhere near full power,

Competence would make them not do this. Look at their logistics. An Executor class star dreadnaught can only run at full power for ~17 hours before exhausting its fuel supply. Thyffera had no way to resupply it. Anything they use fighting Antillies they can't use to fight off anyone who comes for the Bacta.

shields and hull armor alone should make it less vulnerable to damage than a common ISD.

Shields dealt with, since the hull armor is the same thickness on both I'd love to hear what proof the stuff on a star dreadnaught is superior as thats the only way to back up your claim.

I'm not saying missiles lack the power to hurt it, I'm saying properly fought they wouldn't have had a chance to hurt it. The thing clearly wasn't at full power, a Mandator class had ~1/3rd the power of an Executor and it could hold off 1000 light star destroyers. Plus there are the obvious limits on logistics which would restrict its power. They never activated the PD guns, and they never went on the offensive, they just stayed above Thyferra and let the enemy come to them. had they gone out and engaged the freighters carrying the missiles, they could have annihilated them or atlest scattered them so they were no longer able to concentrate their firepower enough to be a threat.

And by that logic, in a fair fleet battle, the forces opposing it would've had much greater firepower to match. I'm not actually sure this works in your favor. If a fully operational Executor could hold off 3,000 light star destroyers, that's more ships than most canon battles have shown

5,000 is less then 3,000 now? My, I wasn't aware of that.

(assuming 'light destroyer' is actually a significant capital ship, not a 100 meter patrol ship). Therefore even a weakened SSD should be a tougher target than you'd expect to see in most battles.

The light destroyer class in question is a Resucant. And yes, a star dreadnaught is tougher. It took 2 Home One types and 8 Liberty/pickle types to bring down the bridge shields of the Executor.

As for your claim of never using the point defense guns, proof of this?

Asking someone to prove a negative is a god way to take a long walk of a short pier here. So burden of proof is on you to show they were used despite them not being mentioned at all.

Is it clearly stated that the guns are never used, or are you just making the assumption that because the author doesn't mention them, they don't exist?

So you think its more reasonable to think something there is no proof for exists?

They do have better power generation. A Galaxy class starship could put out ~3*10^16 watts. A Venator class Star Destroyer could put out 3.6*10^24 watts.
Tha 100 million times diference is what makes it better.

Obviously it's better. I haven't done the calculations myself, are claims that Star Wars power technology gives a power density greater than matter/antimatter anihilation a case of exaggeration by rabid fans?

Rabid no. Stupid yes.

No. none of them were them doing damage agaisnt capital ships unassisted. The closest examples were the Victory and the Dreadnaught, and in the Dreadnaught it was hit by a freighter sized bomb, and the Victory was attacked by an escort frigate and just decanted through an asteroid (relativistic impacts anyone?). The others are against small pickets and escorts, not true capital ships.

And all of them are cases of starfighter missiles, which are relevant in a discussion of capital-scale missiles only for establishing a lower limit of capital missile damage. And that absolute lower limit is "causes heavy damage to unshielded capital ships".

Amazin, we went from fighter missiles kill Imperators to now they cause heavy damage to unshielded capital ships.

Biggest bomb we've seen was the siesmic charge dropped by Slave 1. it came in at 13 GT. It was also something like 2 meters long and 1/3 a meter thick. Way to big for fighter mounting, and it didn't even have engines or anything.

Meanwhile, an Acclamator class troop transport has shields that dissipate 16 TT/s. Do you grasp the disparity?

Again, a lower limit.

No you oilslick on the ocean of hukmanity (thaks broomstick), the single kiloton missiles Luke used against the Death Star would be the lower limit for starfighter missile power.

And not way too big for fighter mounting, if you consider "fighter" to include heavy bombers.

By all means show me how a siesmic charge is gonna fit through the missile launcher on a TIE Bomber. I'm all ears. Afterall, its not like I fucking considered them before I spoke.

Or if you grant Star Wars the incredibly difficult invention of external mounts for their missiles.

You mean like the K-wing has, where it mounts special shield busting weapons, that STILL can't get through the shields of a Yevethan Thrustship?

And hey, you're only of by an order of magnitude! That's great. The Victory carried 80 missiles. And it would have taken all of them to bring down Home One's shields.

Thank you for proving my point so nicely. 80 missiles as the SECONDARY weapon on a ship a fraction of Home One's size are capable of bringing down its shields. What were you saying about lacking firepower?

Nothing about capital missiles lacking firepower you dipshit, that figher missiles lacked the firepower. My, you do love your strawmen, don't you?

And have(1 AU = ~8 LM) you forgotten that in ESB they were going to fire across several AU? 10 LM seems to be the max effective range, not max range.

Which is why most (if not all, I don't have every book) of the battles we see happen at much shorter ranges? If 10LM is effective combat range in a real battle (with all the ECM, evasive targets, etc), why don't they fight at that range?

Not real big on this whole "thinking" thing, are you? Here's a hint, there are this things called relative velocity, acceleration, point defense, and hyperdrives. Lets see if you can work out why you want to fight at closer ranges.

I oversimplified. What's really gonna happen is that that 1 kg of iron is gonna plasmify when the kinetic energy is conserved into thermal energy and go through the missile like an antitank missile or HEAT round does today, vaporizing the controls and such as it goes. The missile won't be vaporized, but its not gonna detonate, and thus release the 553 kt when it hits the edge of the shields, but prior to the boundary (its a field as well, remember?); assuming of course it doesnt rupture the fuel tank and explode before there.. Better?

Assuming a direct head-on impact, and no shields on the missile, and the missile accelerating at maximum power.

Clipping the damn thing is gonna work moron, have you ever bothered to investigate how easy it is to shoot down a missile or about the effects of high velocity impacts on spacecraft?

Prove that assertion.

Please disprove it, since we're talking about a hypothetical design. With the high speeds/acceleration of Star Wars ships, basic collision shielding has to be cheap and universally used.

Sorry dipshit, burden of proof is on you. I love how the further and further we get in this thread the more fallacies and BS you are down to for responses

You were the one claiming going faster was beter. Forgive me for trying to give you all the advantages.

It's better to a point. And it doesn't take insane acceleration to be faster than the slow strafing runs made by starfighters.

Yes, Mach 12 is so sluggish.

Starfighters that seem to be missed very frequently by the same turbolasers you claim can create a perfect missile shield.

Anytime you want to stop strawmanning me will be great. I've been talking about a specific canon example and abou the flak guns.

And as for the starfighters, I'd point to the transverse acceleration of the turrets vice that of starfighters. Gee, maybe that has something to do with it and huh, look at taht, that's a major difference between something on a strafing run and something on a suicide run.

So they shoot down very tiny missiles within seconds, but according to you that isnt a good example. Riiight.

Without the numbers, it's meaningless. For example, the ability to shoot down 10 incoming missiles is not the same as the ability to shoot down a full 400 missile salvo from a dedicated missile cruiser. Of course the ship you're talking about might have stopped 800 missiles. The point is, we don't know, so you can't just assume it was the high end.

You really have no idea what these terms "high end", "low end" "upper limit" and "lower limit" mean, do you? You keep tossing them out in situations wher they don't apply.

If the ship can't get a return from its sensors to target accurately, then more power is needed to cut though the jamming. Thus if you want to say the ship can't get though it to fire a TL, but a missile can, the missile requires more powerful jamming.

How many times does it need to be said, a turbolaser requires a much better return than a missile.[/quote]Hey, you can keep repeating your BS all you want, it doesn' mean its gonna be true.

Lets say (at long range) the firing ship can narrow down the target to a small area of space. Somewhere in that sphere is the target ship, but it only occupies 10% of the area. A turbolaser fired at the wrong 90% is a clear miss. A missile fired at the wrong 90% gets closer, gets a more accurate return, and corrects its course to hit.

Sensors don't work like that. Do you have any experience with or done anyreading about radar at all? You get a hit or you don't, you don't get "Well, theres something in X percent over there"

And again, you are tweaking the circumstances for a false comparison. One of your initial claims was that missiles would enjoy superior range. But the max range they will detect another ship is the same for TLs anbd missiles. So now you are claiming that you'll get sensor returns that indicate an area rather then a contact (and you claim this I assume because you are talking out your ass, not because you are a liar, though I wouldn't rule it out) and that lets you just shoot off the missile, and it will magically punch through the much stronger ECM on its own when it gets closer.

And don't try claiming getting close isn't good enough. Considering the size of most Star Wars ships, visual targeting will give a good lock far enough out for the missile to hit.

I see your retarded ass has no idea the scope of space. Even with the size of SW ships, the simple fact is close isn't good enough.

When you talk visual guidance, i asme you mean similar to hat we have today. In which case I would love to hear how the radio signals (or whatever signal used) to direct the missile and the video feed signal from the missile cannot be jammed as easily as regular sensors.

1) The fact that voice communication is possible even in ultra-high ECM environments like the first death star battle prove that complete jamming is impossible.

And yet in ROTS the jamming is so heavy that Anakin and Obiwan can't even reach the Jedi Temple. Gosh, I wonder if that has anything to do with the inverse square law and the position of the ships doing the jamming. Hmmmm.

2) Who said anything about a video feed? This is Star Wars, the universe where intelligent droids are considered nothing more than a household appliance. With that level of AI, it should be a trivial challenge to progam a missile's computer to 'hit that triangle-shaped thing'.

And your concession is accepted bitch.

You want these ubermissiles to have shields, independent sensors, to just launch in the general direction of the ship, and manuver and make independent targeting choices once they get closer, and then attack. Guess what you just created?

Starfighters.

All you have to do at this point is give them independent weapons and have them return to the launching ship to save the expense you readily admit to, and that's what you've created. Starfighters.


By the way, nice moral code you have there, creating intelligent machines for the sole purpose of dying. Tell me, if you were a general, would you have kids for the sole purpose of making them suicide bombers as soon as they could walk?

If the ships sensors can't get a lock for a TL, why could thay magically get a lock for a missile.

Because the requirements for an initial missile lock are much lower. By the time a missile needs the same precision as a turbolaser,

No, they are not. The sensor return is a result of distance, cross section of the target, and the power of the ping. The return that shows where the ship is will be equal because the distance, cross section, and the strength of the ping will be equal.

it's much closer to the target and ECM is less effective.

Yeah, the fact that you don't grasp the inverse square law just marks you as fucking dumb.

Great, care to prove the refire rate is as good?

Obviously I can't, because you're asking me to prove the refire rate of a weapon we haven't seen. How fast it can fire depends on the launcher design.

And I'm saying you're full of shit. The sensor return is based of cross section of the target, and distance. It will be the exact same for both a TL and missile as the same object is firing them.

And once again, you don't bother paying attention to what I'm saying. A missile can do more with the same sensor return. "There's something in that area" isn't good enough for a turbolaser, because without precise aim you just miss. A missile on the other hand, can work with that vague return, using it to guide it to a point where it gets a better one and refines its course. So assuming the same sensors on the firing ship, a missile armed ship will be able to launch from a distance where the turbolaser armed ship can't shoot back accurately.

So ECM efectiveness decreases the closer you get despite the inverse square law saying the exact opposite would happen? Afterall, the cross section would increase linearly, an the distance would decreasse linearly, but the ECM would increase exponentially, so that makes it weaker as you get closer?

Yeah, just shut the fuck up.

ECM power doesn't decrease, its effectiveness decreases. Sensor effectiveness also obeys the inverse square law, so the closer you get, the harder it is for ECM to hide the target. Until you get to the point where using a simple EYE is good enough to hit the target.

Again, not possible with observed engine configurations. My you love altering the facts to try and prove a point.

My you love ignoring physics when it suits you. Unless you're claiming some bizarre engine configuration where the missile can only fly straight, without turning. Because otherwise, it shuts off its engine, uses its maneuvering thrusters/thrust vectoring/whatever to rotate so the engine is pointing perpendicular to its path, then applies full thrust. If you can't even get this basic concept of how movement in space works, there's no point in having this debate.

We were discussing delta V here originally. You think the rate work is done (power) is the same as the net possible change in your velocity (delta V), yet I'm the one ignorant of physics?

Power, as in "a powerful engine", not the scientific definition. And this is common sense, moving 12km to the left in 30 seconds requires a lot less engine thrust than moving 300,000km in 30 seconds.

No, the question was the ability to hit the incoming missile. When I correctly pointed out the larger cross section of the capital missile would make it a bigger target, suddenly it maunvered but the figter one didn't. Hence your false comparison.

Obviously if both missiles are evading, the larger one is easier to hit. But my post was in reply to a points mentioned elsewhere about fighters having to release their missiles very close to the target to keep them from getting shot down, and that fighter torpedoes always fly straight at the target without evading. My speculation on the reason for it was that the fighter missiles being used were more equivalent to modern guided bombs, 90% warhead with some limited maneuvering thrusters to give better accuracy.

Funny, cuz I watched AOTC (apparently you didn't), so talk to me some more about how Jango's missile flew straight at Obiwan and didn't manuver?

1) It wasn't my claim. I was addressing the claim by others that missiles always do that.

2) Anti-fighter missile =/= anti-capital torpedo. Jango's missile could afford to have a better engine because it doesn't need as large a warhead to kill a fighter. On the other hand, it's not unreasonable to think that any anti-capital missile small enough to mount on a fighter has to be 90% warhead just to do a useful amount of damage. And therefore it would be easier to hit than a larger (and not fighter carryable) missile that had extra engine power for evasive maneuvers.

Its an issue of volume, so you have constratins there somewhere. Give it a smaller cross section on one side it gets bigger on another.

Unless you just drop the overall volume, which is what I was trying to say. There's more than just fighter-size and 10-meter missiles. What I was suggesting was an intermediate size, that can be carried in larger numbers to overwhelm point defense, keeps cross-section low enough, but carries a larger warhead than a fighter torpedo.

Under SoD, the real reason is because in space missiles are pretty shitty weapons. Conviently, this mirrors real life. Lasers and particle beams doing impulse damage are the best, followed shortly by KKWs.

Because in real-life you don't have shields or armor. In real-life your starship is killed by your enemy tossing a few spare bolts out the airlock (assuming they hit). Star Wars is not realistic combat, period.

"Accelerate to attack speed" - ANH
we watch the engines go from serving as radiators to thrusting on the Falcon in ESB, Slave 1 in AOTC (in fact we see a cockpit display confirming this behind Jango's head), Obi Wan and Anakin as they dive through the Coruscant shield in ROTS.

"Accelerate to attack speed' being said with the engines already glowing nicely. Which, in the real world, makes you a nice target for every IR sensor in the system. Fighters in Star Wars are obviously not too concerned with concealing themselves from passive sensors, and they don't get instantly killed for it.

Competence would make them not do this. Look at their logistics. An Executor class star dreadnaught can only run at full power for ~17 hours before exhausting its fuel supply. Thyffera had no way to resupply it. Anything they use fighting Antillies they can't use to fight off anyone who comes for the Bacta.

Where did you get this 17 hour number from? As well as the idea that an SSD requires special resupply that can't be provided by an average planet (and one that's home to a galaxy-spanning industry even).

Shields dealt with, since the hull armor is the same thickness on both I'd love to hear what proof the stuff on a star dreadnaught is superior as thats the only way to back up your claim.

1) Where has this "same thickness" number been given? I don't remember seeing any specific armor numbers before.

2) Sheer size gives an SSD much more armor. If two ships suffer 10% loss of firepower, for example, the SSD took a lot more damage in the process.

5,000 is less then 3,000 now? My, I wasn't aware of that.

Are you even bothering to read what I write? I said MOST battles.

The light destroyer class in question is a Resucant. And yes, a star dreadnaught is tougher. It took 2 Home One types and 8 Liberty/pickle types to bring down the bridge shields of the Executor.

Exactly my point. Even operating at reduced power, an SSD is more powerful than most other common ships. So a tactic that causes damage to an SSD (even one operating at reduced effectiveness) should be more than effective against an ISD that's a tiny fraction of its size.

Asking someone to prove a negative is a god way to take a long walk of a short pier here. So burden of proof is on you to show they were used despite them not being mentioned at all.

Common sense says that if something that obvious could be used, it would be used. Unless the Lusankya's crew are completely incompetent, they would be using point defense guns. They gain absolutely nothing by NOT using them. If these point defense guns actually exist on the ship, the burden of proof is on you to prove the crew and commanders of every ship in the fleet are incompetent to the point that my dog could do a better job of running a ship.

Your 'argument' isn't much better than saying "X incident does not show the full firepower of ship Y, because we don't have a specific gun by gun list of every turbolaser firing, repeated for each salvo".

Amazin, we went from fighter missiles kill Imperators to now they cause heavy damage to unshielded capital ships.

Like I said, I conceded I was wrong about the targets involved. It's been a long time since I've read the books. But fighter missiles aren't the issue here. They're only relevant as an absolute lower limit for what a missile-armed capital ship could do.

No you oilslick on the ocean of hukmanity (thaks broomstick), the single kiloton missiles Luke used against the Death Star would be the lower limit for starfighter missile power.

Try again. It's a lower limit, because a capital-scale missile defined as "more powerful than fighter missiles" CAN NOT be weaker than any observed fighter missile. Because this hypothetical capital missile can simply use the exact same warhead. The chain goes like this:

capital-scale missile (X GT)> most powerful fighter missile (Y GT) > weaker fighter missiles (1 kt)

The most poweful fighter missile is the lower limit. X can not be less than Y, the 1kt number is irrelevant.

By all means show me how a siesmic charge is gonna fit through the missile launcher on a TIE Bomber. I'm all ears. Afterall, its not like I fucking considered them before I spoke.

By all means, show me how building a fighter-scale launcher for a siesmic charge is too difficult to do. It doesn't matter if TIE Bombers aren't designed to carry them, the missile itself is small enough that size alone does not prevent bombers in general from carrying them.

Nothing about capital missiles lacking firepower you dipshit, that figher missiles lacked the firepower. My, you do love your strawmen, don't you?

There's a strawman here, and it isn't mine. Fighter missiles are relevant only because they establish an absolute minimum for the firepower of a missile-armed capital ship. But go ahead, keep demolishing that strawman instead of addressing the much larger missiles that a capital ship can carry.

The ONLY reason they were even mentioned was to disprove the idea that any missile capable of damaging a capital ship would have to be far too massive to be practical.

Not real big on this whole "thinking" thing, are you? Here's a hint, there are this things called relative velocity, acceleration, point defense, and hyperdrives. Lets see if you can work out why you want to fight at closer ranges.

You mean the relative velociy, acceleration, and hyperdrives that aren't an issue with lightspeed weapons like turbolasers? Even at ranges 10x what we usually see, turbolasers would be effectively instant-hit (and therefore unaffected by the target's movement). And point defense isn't an issue at all unless you're using missiles, so with all these pure-turbolaser ships it's not a reason to fight from shorter range.

Clipping the damn thing is gonna work moron, have you ever bothered to investigate how easy it is to shoot down a missile or about the effects of high velocity impacts on spacecraft?

Of course I have, because unlike you, I know how collisions like that actually work on REAL spacecraft. Which means I know that Star Wars ships don't obey these laws of high-velocity impacts.

Sorry dipshit, burden of proof is on you. I love how the further and further we get in this thread the more fallacies and BS you are down to for responses

Fortunately this little argument ends here:

Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, p76, "Proton Torpedoes"

"Each torpedo is wrapped in a protective energy envelope to prevent accidental detonation caused by collisions with debris or near misses by laser cannon blasts."

Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, p78, "Concussion Missiles"

"Exterior shield projectors wrap the missile in a protective energy shroud..."

There's your proof, even fighter-scale missiles can mount some degree of protection against physical impacts.

Yes, Mach 12 is so sluggish.

While I haven't done the frame-by-frame analysis, what we see in the movies sure doesn't look like mach 12 constantly. Those fighters look like they're flying a lot slower, but still not getting hit effectively.

And as for the starfighters, I'd point to the transverse acceleration of the turrets vice that of starfighters. Gee, maybe that has something to do with it and huh, look at taht, that's a major difference between something on a strafing run and something on a suicide run.

So you're saying the transverse acceleration isn't going to be an issue with missiles? Why is a missile unable to fly the same attack path, with the single difference of a sharp turn to actually hit the ship instead of pulling up to get clear of it?

You really have no idea what these terms "high end", "low end" "upper limit" and "lower limit" mean, do you? You keep tossing them out in situations wher they don't apply.

You know, not everything is a precise scientific term. I said "high end" as in "lots of missiles, vs. a few", as in "the high end of the possibilities." Maybe it was a couple dozen missiles involved. Maybe it was a couple thousand. If, as you say, no numbers are stated, there is no reason to assume a large quantity of missiles instead of a small quantity.

Sensors don't work like that. Do you have any experience with or done anyreading about radar at all? You get a hit or you don't, you don't get "Well, theres something in X percent over there"

No, I don't have firsthand experience with radar, especially in the Star Wars universe. But when you're talking about active jamming, reducing it to a likely region is the only thing that makes sense. The "is something out there?" question is answered for you by the huge amount of energy your target is putting out.

And again, you are tweaking the circumstances for a false comparison. One of your initial claims was that missiles would enjoy superior range. But the max range they will detect another ship is the same for TLs anbd missiles. So now you are claiming that you'll get sensor returns that indicate an area rather then a contact (and you claim this I assume because you are talking out your ass, not because you are a liar, though I wouldn't rule it out) and that lets you just shoot off the missile, and it will magically punch through the much stronger ECM on its own when it gets closer.

Detect =/= be able to shoot at effectively. Lets say all precise returns are jammed, all you can get is "there's a poweful jamming source in that direction". Randomly shooting turbolasers at your best guess of the center of the jamming effect is unlikely to hit anything. Randomly shooting a missile at your best guess of the center of the jamming effect is likely to get the missile close enough to detect that giant battleship by visual targeting, if nothing else.

I see your retarded ass has no idea the scope of space. Even with the size of SW ships, the simple fact is close isn't good enough.

Right, lets just overlook the fact that every single time we see starship combat in the movies, the ships are within visual range of each other. And most (I can't say all) of the book descriptions imply the same. Space may be big, but the typical Star Wars battlefield sure isn't.

And yet in ROTS the jamming is so heavy that Anakin and Obiwan can't even reach the Jedi Temple. Gosh, I wonder if that has anything to do with the inverse square law and the position of the ships doing the jamming. Hmmmm.

So sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But more often than not, communication is possible within a battle.

And your concession is accepted bitch.

You want these ubermissiles to have shields, independent sensors, to just launch in the general direction of the ship, and manuver and make independent targeting choices once they get closer, and then attack. Guess what you just created?

Starfighters.

Even if I grant your huge exaggeration, there's one key difference. My "ubermissiles" can actually damage a capital ship, while starfighters seem to exist for the single purpose of giving the hero a personal-scale battle to fight.

By the way, nice moral code you have there, creating intelligent machines for the sole purpose of dying. Tell me, if you were a general, would you have kids for the sole purpose of making them suicide bombers as soon as they could walk?

Moral code? You can't be serious... do you feel guilty every time we use a missile in the real world? I wasn't saying use fully-intelligent droid brains, just that for a civilization that considers human-like AI a common appliance, image-recognition and targeting is a trivial task. Which do you think is harder, programming realistic human emotion, millions of languages, etc, or building a computer that can identify a star destroyer in camera data and home in on it?

lPeregrine have you even looked at how a PD system works, the idea is put up a wall of something to prevent a missle from getting through to your ship (since in SW fighters are not really threatening to cap ships).
If you look at any modern destroyer and you will see they have a PD system for eliminating missles and fighters by firing at 3000 rpm, now it stands to reason that SW would have a PD system on cap ships, like an ISD, which can eliminate missles designed to hurt them.

You've also convienently forgoten that in the battle with the Lusankya the Rogues also had a ISD and a Alderanian War Cruiser which call me crazy constitutes Capital Ship support.

Also in this particular battle the moron in command of the Lusankya basically allowed the War Cruiser to blow the shit out of it's engines, forcing him to keep his shields even and reducing manuverability.

lPeregrine wrote:Thank you for proving my point so nicely. 80 missiles as the SECONDARY weapon on a ship a fraction of Home One's size are capable of bringing down its shields. What were you saying about lacking firepower?

WOTC states that the VSD's 80 concussion missiles are its PRIMARY weapons. Furthermore, they're "assault concussion missiles" designed primarily for planetary bombardment, and aren't used very often in ship-to-ship combat. These missiles were such a pain in the ass to use that they were completely removed from the VSD II, which relies on more traditional turbolaser weaponry.

The VSD that brought down Home One's shields was probably lucky to even hit the ship, and probably blew its entire load in doing so.