Some inquiries

[Marcus]

1.) What range of engagement is considered optimal for a Star Wars Capital vessel? Obviously point-blank will put out the maximum POSSIBLE damage, but for all weapon systems, there is a 'close enough to be worth really bothering with' level. We will for purposes of this question assume perhaps a single Imperial-II class Star Destroyer, and let us say a Mon Calamari MC80. Time of engagement is on or around ST:ROTJ, for purposes of targeting technologies, et. al.

2.) What range of engagement would be considered maximum for the aformentioned vessels? IE the range at which they could expect to engage and create hits upon one another (granting that with a low enough hit %, such vessels would be capable of repairing their screens more quickly than they were eroded by enemy fire)

3.) At what speed does Turbolaser fire propigate? Subluminal? Superluminal? Are the aformentioned vessels able to engage each other at such a range that fire-control correction becomes problematic?

4.) What do we know about the SW Superluminal Sensors (By Superluminal in this sense, I mean their sensors that are able to provide realtime or near-realtime information on objects at distances measured in lightseconds, or light minutes). At what range would the above ships detect one another? Would the range be greater if one of them was coming out of hyperspace? Less? To what degree do drive emissions, EMCON, etc affect these things? Is there a distinction between Passive and Active use of sensors? If so, how great a difference in performance, and in vulnerability to counterdetection?

Im considering doing some wargaming with the Galactic Empire, and would like to represent their strengths and weaknesses accurately.

[Ender]

1.) What range of engagement is considered optimal for a Star Wars Capital vessel? Seems to be LS or less

2.) What range of engagement would be considered maximum for the aformentioned vessels?Over 8 AU from what we've seen.

[Marcus]

So, optimal engagement range is line of visual sight? (I assume you dont mean an unobstructed line extended into infinity, baring the hypothetical curvature of space-time).

What were they engaging at 8AU out? Thats what, roughly 1 Light-Hour?
Unless the Turbolasers in question are FTL (are they?) I assume whatever your shooting at is unaware of incoming (makes sense, I dont tend to expect to be shot at by things that far away) or unable to move out of the way.

Still need an answer to that propigation speed... alot of what I can do with them depends on how fast that TLaser moves...

[Cpt_Frank]

It's difficult for SW capships to duel at long ranges because the two opponents will both have heavy jamming up which can interfere with their targeting systems.
So it's desireable to fight at point blank range I guess.
Since ST ships don't have any jamming equipment and even if they had it'd still be too weak, they could probably fight with much greater ranges.

[Marcus]

Startrek isnt in it, really.

Okay. Weve got Jamming effective BVR. Evidently the sensors cant Burn-Through until we get within range of the Mk1 Eyeball.

Interesting scaling on the EW interactions... usually burnthrough is a linear function, with jamming a 2nd order function IIRC.

Kinda OT, but can anyone tell me why ED/ECM won the war against ECD/ECCM in the SW universe? (granted 30+TT on a capital broadside, id have a great need to not be there when it shoots)

Hmm... wonder why we dont see more Wild Weasel style missions, and jammer-seekers. Thats the whole trouble with emitting, no matter what you emit... your emitting. Big painted kill-me sign.

This reallly leads to a Sensors question... whats the nature of the Sensor that were jamming? What does it detect, and what is the propigation speed of the medium it detects through?

[Cpt_Frank]

This reallly leads to a Sensors question... whats the nature of the Sensor that were jamming? What does it detect, and what is the propigation speed of the medium it detects through?

you have ordinary sublight sensors and subspace sensors used for short-range duties, and hyperspace sensor with ranges of IIRC several hundred ly.

[Marcus]

Oh, and another random though...
im radiating so hard in every spectrum that noone can tell im there... powerplant outputs capable of driving 30TT broadsides...

hypothetical SW defense weapon... go ahead and 'jam' (read broadcast) really really hard on the visual band of the EM spectrum, too... at the ranges that the human eye can distinguish an ISD, it shouldnt be able to see anything but white...

[Marcus]

Okay, Hyperspace Sensors out to Several Hundred Light Years.

Active or Passive? What does it return information on? What degree of granularity?

The sense im getting is that the vessel is able to detect FTL Entry or Exit within some range (You brought us out of Hyperspace too close). However, the range of such sensors cant be too great, or the non-FTL approach into bombardment range of Hoth wouldnt have been possible.

Something on the order of Light-Minutes, perhaps Light-Hours, seems reasonable. (To detect an FTL exit). Outside that, our happy little ISDs just quitely cruise into bombardment range on their sublight drives, and blow the rebel base away, without them knowing their there.

Okay, so potential engagement range against a known, immobile target (HOTH) is greater than potential sensor range against a non-emitting, unknown target (Vader and Company).

I would tend to think, with those sensor capabilities, that deep-space conflict would be more a matter of cat and mouse, staying passive, etc. Fire off the Jammers, and you just painted a HUGE 'kill me' sign for every turbolaser in that system... in addition, youve got little clue where anyone else is. Hard to listen when your sreaming.

Then again... if its Jamming, but for whatever reason never in the visual spectra... why arent we just installing VERY large telescopes, nice, fast, computer controlled telescopes, on our ships? Sure, its not FTL information, but its certainly targeting at MUCH better ranges than is ever the case in the movies.

Mysterious are the ways of the force.. ~sratching head and hoping someone can show me the way out of this morass of confusion~

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Turbolasers travel at C.

[Mr Bean]

Allow me

Okay, Hyperspace Sensors out to Several Hundred Light Years.

Active or Passive? What does it return information on? What degree of granularity?

Combination of both, Looking for Ship LY away is active, However any Ships In hyperspace can be Detected Passivly quite easily.

So in other words Hyperspace Sensors on Subliminal Objects are Active, On Superliminal, Passive

Active Hyperspace based Sensors are good enough to detect a 3 Meter Sized Hunk of Metal in a planets orbit several LY away

The sense im getting is that the vessel is able to detect FTL Entry or Exit within some range (You brought us out of Hyperspace too close). However, the range of such sensors cant be too great, or the non-FTL approach into bombardment range of Hoth wouldnt have been possible.

Hyperspace movment period is decteable in LY Range of any Hyperspace equiped ships, The Drive up to HS is supposdly much easier to see however making it a few tens of LYs rather than a few LY in range it can be detected

However the reason for apporching was due to the simple fact that even though Turbolasers Travel at C, They are after prisonrs meaning you want to get as close as possible to prevent them from easily Running away and to give a clearer pictures to your sensors

Something on the order of Light-Minutes, perhaps Light-Hours, seems reasonable. (To detect an FTL exit). Outside that, our happy little ISDs just quitely cruise into bombardment range on their sublight drives, and blow the rebel base away, without them knowing their there.

Acutal no thats even Easier to see thanks to Blackspace Analisys

IE there are Stars, Record where the Stars are then look for spaces where Stars should be but are not

We can do that one today, give it takes us a few days. Meanwhile SW Computers and insturments can do it in a few SECONDS,

Thats of course ignoring Subspace sensors which are the primary mean of Dectection in Light Mintue Ranges thanks to being able to scan passivly and look for distrupition of subspace

What do I mean? Subspace Sensors when Passive act near exactly like Modern day Passive Sonar except they are looking for disruptions in subspace by the passage of ships just like Sonar "Listens" for dispruptions and noise in the water to mark a ships passing


Active of course also acts like Active Sonar on Ships it sends out Subspace Signals which bounce off and are dected when they encounter objects

Addintion:One thing I feel I should mention is that SW and ST Subspace seems virtualy identical, the only diffrence being that SW has been poking and pordding with Subspace for over 25,000 years while ST barley has 3,000 under it

Okay, so potential engagement range against a known, immobile target (HOTH) is greater than potential sensor range against a non-emitting, unknown target (Vader and Company).

Incorrect, Accurasy and The ability to take Prisonrs is greatly hampered by being in Light Mintue Range, One must get MUCH Closer if one wants to be take prisoners

Then again... if its Jamming, but for whatever reason never in the visual spectra... why arent we just installing VERY large telescopes, nice, fast, computer controlled telescopes, on our ships? Sure, its not FTL information, but its certainly targeting at MUCH better ranges than is ever the case in the movies.

Let me paint you a picture if I can....




Take a Ship Say an Imperal Star Destroyer MK II

Draw a Light Hour Sized Glob, Now Overlay the two

That MK II can be ANYWHERE in that Glob, It can be contracted, refocused, Set so the ship is at the Center or sitting at the Rear, Side or Draging it behind it

That is basicly how SW FTL Sensor Jamming works,

Now if you have Light-Mintue Ranged weapons(Prehaps as high as an Hour as low as Two LM)

Now then you have a 100LM Sized Fighting Area, Sure you can use Telescopes but thats old information as you noted, AND
Imperal Star Destroys catch running Fighters when it moves to Flank speed... So what? Well Fighters can move at and above .1C

Meaning you have an near impossible Target to hit in that 100 LM Glob

It can be anywhere in there and cross the whole thing in a few hours

So can your weapons

At any time it can stop, slow down, revers whatever, you won't know until mintues or HOURS later!
And you expect to hit a target like that how? When one needs Multiple Broad-sides to take down a single shield section....

THAT my friend is the problem of Fighting at Lightmintue Ranges in SWs

And why they typicly always close to Light-seconds ranges to do the Fighting

[Marcus]

That, Mr. Bean, is exactly the sort of data I needed. Thank You!

[Cpt_Frank]

just have to love bean's comprehensive data collections (that's what makes him an invaluable asset).

[Illuminatus Primus]

Aye. We're looking at 10,000-100,000 km effective combat ranges.

[Marcus]

Side note:
Assumption: As the ability of SW capital vessels to confuse one anothers sensors are so great as to confound all accurate detection outside of human visual range... and as human visual range is so small relative to the size of the 'circle of illusion' put out by the jammers, the ability of any fleet to intercept another within deep space would seem to be negildgable, barring use of truely MASSIVE numbers of probes...

I assume that almost all SW engagements are directly over, or within visual range of, objectives? IE there is no circumstance similar to Jutland, where a sorteing fleet is intercepted well clear of its base. In SW, the issue would be to figure out where said fleet was headed, and either wait there for them, or with some careful planning to preposition Interdictors along the flight path...

Hmm... how big an Area of Effect does an Interdictor create? Rougly the same as a class M Planet? Stellar body? Id have to be Pretty Honkin Big to be of use for interstellar interception...

And id like to read more about this jamming effect, 1 LY bubble, etc... sensor information is important to the conversion I want to do, where would you suggest I look?

[Cpt_Frank]

In SW, the issue would be to figure out where said fleet was headed, and either wait there for them, or with some careful planning to preposition Interdictors along the flight path...

Yes. The method of FTL travel also normally prevents engagements
'en route', although you can draw your opponents with interdictors out of hyperspace (as you said) or you can also try to block their path with a large body such as a large asteroid or a capital ship. However if you do it you will have to move this 'block ship' into the path when the other ship is nearly there so that the failsafe will throw the ship out of hyperspace otherwise it will just pull an evasive maneuver in hyperspace to avoid the collision.

So the most common way to fight is to wait for your opponents at their target destination, or to attack a fixed position of the enemy.
And most time it's indeed fought at point blank range as seen at the battle of Endor, although the closing fleets exchange (inaccurate due to heavy jamming) fire before they have visual contact.

[Mr Bean]

Assumption: As the ability of SW capital vessels to confuse one anothers sensors are so great as to confound all accurate detection outside of human visual range... and as human visual range is so small relative to the size of the 'circle of illusion' put out by the jammers, the ability of any fleet to intercept another within deep space would seem to be negildgable, barring use of truely MASSIVE numbers of probes...

Acutal not quite like All Jamming while they can confuse each others Sensors with Jamming By itself Jamming lets anyone old yaahooo know where you are much much farther away
Or in other words
Lets say your standing in a room and don't want your footsteps hear, you can try and walk quietly or you can make a second noise to cover up the first

This second noise is jamming. In Space when you generate the noise to mask your "footsteps"(Lets say you have a Kazoo) being you Kazoo is much louder than your footsteps your footsteps can't be heard, However the Kazoo CAN and be heard from much further away then foot-steps

This is the method of Jamming dectectiond Counterdectection

Get close enough and you can burn through jamming(Get close enough to hear the Footsteps) and thusly it is in SW

Hmm... how big an Area of Effect does an Interdictor create? Rougly the same as a class M Planet? Stellar body? Id have to be Pretty Honkin Big to be of use for interstellar interception...

By all accounts its pretty large so say moon sized

And id like to read more about this jamming effect, 1 LY bubble, etc... sensor information is important to the conversion I want to do, where would you suggest I look?

Novelistation's, WEG, Various Assundry reasourcses plus one can always learn more about joing your Countrys armed forces and signing on as an EW Officer(Electron Warfare)
One of the nice things about SW is the fact that so many of thier tecnologys run similary to OUR Tecnologys thusly understanding how it works in real-life helps greatly in understand how it works in SW(Hyperspace and Subspace are but two new Mediums to work in in a sense, one has water, ground and air, in SW you add in Hyperpsace and Subspace as well)




NOTE! CORRECTION ON SOMTHING I SAID EARILER
Its Light HOUR Not year my mistake, Jamming is can be done on a System Wide Basies but normal ships carry only Light Mintue- HOUR sized Devices not Light YEAR which is considered To Energey Intesive to be worth it


Now then onto the matter of Hyperspace Travel and Interductors, both natural and artifical

Hyperspace Travel through Solid Objects IS Possible however its not used because of the side effects

To hold a ship in hyperspace one needs a drive that can prople a ship into Hyperspace along with project the protective mantel which protects ships aginst Hyperspace itself which is highl enegetic

If one where to leave the drive mantel of a ship traveling through hyperpsace as mentioned in HSA one is literly and increably rapidly reduced to atom sized bits by Hyperspace, Method and effecitiveness is unknow however its noted that a ship traveling through Hyperspace when its mantel fails is also similary reduced to debris quite quickly

Now then, When in a hyperjump there are various systems that keep the drive operationg in a safe fasion. Now then when in hyperspace and holding a ship in hyperspace any Gravtational Sources place extra strain on the ship, To prevent the stress causing the drive to fail(And the mantel with it quickly destroying the ship) all ships are equiped with an Auto-Cut off that drops them in Real-space

Thus the comment Solo makes about Bouncing close to a Supernova or appearig in a Star


You CAN Hype through solid objects with little physical damage to your ship, However it places a strain on the drive, enough and the ship fails and either drops into Real-space with melted drives or in hyperspace where its riped apart

That concludes this days Lecuture by myself

[Marcus]

Mr. Bean, I was asking about the special SW Jamming, not jamming in general... ive got a former EW specialst from the US Navy that I go to for that stuff.

My curiosity was to how they change the apparent point of origin of the jamming. Ive always liked dark-night analogies for Sensors, it puts it so clearly in our terms.

A guy, walking around, on a cloudless night, can attempt to see with his eyes after they adjust to the darkness. Normal range of operation against a similar target, clear conditions... perhaps 10 feet. Perhaps 50 feet. Depends on horizon conditions, and a million other minor factors.

Same guy can light off a nice, shiney torch. Now he by GOD sees everthing within about 50 feet. Maybe a bit more.

And everyone for miles around sees him (given a clear LOS)

This is Active Sensors

For the really Gung-Ho, you can surround yourself with 50,000 Candlepower Tungsten-Filament Lights, with the intent of blinding any poor fool that looks at you.

This is Jamming.

Now, the analogies are strained, but we are not capital warships.

My question with the SW Jamming is how it makes itself appear physically seperate from the origin of its radiation? In the real world, Jamming is a great way to make sure noone knows whats next to you... or even what exactly is incoming... but you fire off a big Jammer, and everyone knows EXACTLY where you are (though hopefully not what you are, or whose standing next to you).

It would seem to make more sense for our hypothetical ISD to fire off expendables that create the jamming... maybe launch small unmanned craft out to a goodly distance before they start screaming 'No, Shoot ME', etc. Hell, maybe that is how they do it.

Now, I suppose you could ramp up your big powerful array, point it tightbeam at something small, and a good long way away... and trust the scatter off whatever your pinging to get a response back. Theres real-world paralells with bottom-bounce sonar and two-point radar where you get not only sensor information you couldnt otherwise, but you get to hide the origin of the signal.

However, in the real world, there are ways to backtrack that, too.

Just seems to me the thing to do in any SW capship would be to be vewwy vewwy quiet. Space is big. Ships arent.

[Darth Wong]

My question with the SW Jamming is how it makes itself appear physically seperate from the origin of its radiation? In the real world, Jamming is a great way to make sure noone knows whats next to you... or even what exactly is incoming... but you fire off a big Jammer, and everyone knows EXACTLY where you are (though hopefully not what you are, or whose standing next to you).

Well, a mile-long capship may not be able to realistically conceal its location, so it may become wise for it to become as bright as possible so that you can't see its fighters. In other words, the capship jammers don't conceal the ship itself; they blot out your ability to pick up the missiles and/or fighters that are headed your way.

Another possibility is to manipulate range and velocity data. Let's suppose the ship's shields work in concert with the jammer system, so that they try to absorb incoming radiation and then re-radiate it in some other form. Let's suppose they are successful, and the jammer then produces a fake signal reflection. If it arrives early, it will appear that the ship is closer than it really is. If it arrives late, it will appear that the ship is farther away than it really is.

Similarly, they might theoretically mess around with frequencies to simulate Doppler phase-shift, thus fooling the enemy radar into thinking that the vehicle is travelling at a different speed than it really is. At long ranges, these methods could be used to significantly confuse targeting systems.

It would seem to make more sense for our hypothetical ISD to fire off expendables that create the jamming... maybe launch small unmanned craft out to a goodly distance before they start screaming 'No, Shoot ME', etc. Hell, maybe that is how they do it.

Decoys do seem to be a perfectly plausible explanation.

Just seems to me the thing to do in any SW capship would be to be vewwy vewwy quiet. Space is big. Ships arent.

True enough, but that only works if you're not moving, and your ship is cold. Space has a very low background radiation temperature, and apart from simple geometry, vacuum has no natural signal attenuation/scattering mechanism like an ocean does with noises; if you are generating power or even maintaining a comfortable internal temperature, then you are emitting radiation. This is not a technological side-effect; it is an inevitable outcome of the laws of thermodynamics.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well, a mile-long capship may not be able to realistically conceal its location, so it may become wise for it to become as bright as possible so that you can't see its fighters. In other words, the capship jammers don't conceal the ship itself; they blot out your ability to pick up the missiles and/or fighters that are headed your way.

Another possibility is to manipulate range and velocity data. Let's suppose the ship's shields work in concert with the jammer system, so that they try to absorb incoming radiation and then re-radiate it in some other form. Let's suppose they are successful, and the jammer then produces a fake signal reflection. If it arrives early, it will appear that the ship is closer than it really is. If it arrives late, it will appear that the ship is farther away than it really is.

Similarly, they might theoretically mess around with frequencies to simulate Doppler phase-shift, thus fooling the enemy radar into thinking that the vehicle is travelling at a different speed than it really is. At long ranges, these methods could be used to significantly confuse targeting systems.

Its called deception jamming.

Which is how a lot of modern jamming works, especially with individual aircraft pods. Against command guided SAM's it even becomes possible to transmit premature detonate commands. There have been cases of multiple missile salvos of SA-6's and 3's being exploded in this way.

Only ships and dedicated jamming aircraft can put out enough power to simply blind transmitters. The others have to be more clever about it for the most part, especially now that many search radar are frequency agile.

[Sea Skimmer]

Drat. I meant to snip that last quote section and only be quoting Wong.

[Fixed it for you- DW]

[Marcus]

Okay... thanks for the help, guys. I think ive got the data I need for the scenario I want to run.

Ill just fudge up the combat speed, engagement ranges, and weapon-action speed on the SW ships, and use the sensor stuff above. Should work out nicely. Firepower and defense is already comfortably more than sufficient.

Ill just cheat and let em shoot FTL targets, and Ill have a nice game for my SFB boys. Thanks loads!

[Sea Skimmer]

True enough, but that only works if you're not moving, and your ship is cold. Space has a very low background radiation temperature, and apart from simple geometry, vacuum has no natural signal attenuation/scattering mechanism like an ocean does with noises; if you are generating power or even maintaining a comfortable internal temperature, then you are emitting radiation. This is not a technological side-effect; it is an inevitable outcome of the laws of thermodynamics.

Having just read the book for some reason, Tyrants Test is worth checking out for information about Star Wars sensors, Elint and silent running. Chapter seven/page 193 onword to be more specific.

Couple quotes strike me

Page 194

"Even with the best available instruments, and Imperial-class star destroyer was undetectable aginst the background of a first-magnitude star at a range of only six thousand kilometers. A ship the size of the Vanguard could creep within three hundred klicks without being spotted. Any inattention, any errors of assessment, any deficiencies in the systems, and those margins would narrow still further.
Active sensing-a laser pulse, a radar ping-could remove that vulnerability, separating a nearby ship from a distant star. But active sensing created a vulnerability of its own, announcing their presence like a shout in the night."


Vanguard is a 700 meter Majestic class heavy cruiser.

Page 195

"Let her roll," Brand said-altering, on a sudden impulse, the procedure they had used in the past. "I don’t care what the engineers at technical say-I don’t believe that the breaking thrusters don't light us up," he added. "Lets just be a rock this time."
"Infalling in formation, sir?"
"Loose formation-we'll let 'em drift. It wont amount to much as this point. Signal the patrol."
"Yes sir.

Page 195

"It's not impatience, Colonel Foag, I'm just adjusting the tradeoffs slightly," said Brand. "I'm well aware that if Elint ran the show, we'd make entry at one-tenth formation standard with the engines cold and ninety-percent of the ship's systems shut down."

Page 197

"Nor did he expect a Yevethan thrustship to drop out of hyperspace almost dead ahead of them, six million kilometers on the far side of the asteroid ring.
Like a giant strobe, the instantaneous flash known as Cronau radiation put the arriving ship not only on the screens in the Folna's elint center, on the other ships screens as well."

I'll post some more later.

[Marcus]

You know, as long as noone says 'Star Trek' in front of you people, your not bad people.

~grin~

Thanks loads!

[Master of Ossus]

You know, as long as noone says 'Star Trek' in front of you people, your not bad people.

~grin~

Thanks loads!

Oh, I don't know. I can be pretty bad. And you should see the Science, Logic, and Morality forum when someone says "creationist."

[Darth Wong]

Oh, I don't know. I can be pretty bad. And you should see the Science, Logic, and Morality forum when someone says "creationist."

What? Did I hear someone say "creationist?" Attack! Destroy! Crush! Kill! HULK STOMP!!!