Flak/shields (I know it's often)

[Connor MacLeod]

An AT-AT does not have projectile weapons. Post proof or retract.

Depends on whether the definition of the "blaster" is of the "massless" or "projectile" variety (In this case I'm referring to the side-mounted medium turrets, not the heavy underside laser cannons, which can arguably be treated as massless based on the AT-At "maximum firepower" scene.)

[Illuminatus Primus]

An AT-AT does not have projectile weapons. Post proof or retract.

Depends on whether the definition of the "blaster" is of the "massless" or "projectile" variety (In this case I'm referring to the side-mounted medium turrets, not the heavy underside laser cannons, which can arguably be treated as massless based on the AT-At "maximum firepower" scene.)

Based on the form of the guns as seen on the model and the barrel of the gun (not to mention the gun is rather skeletal for such a bore), I would find it hard to believe there could be a hidden ammo hopper "behind" everything, along with power feeds and the rotation/aiming mechanism.

[drachefly]

Well, if we assume that the turbolasers and blasters are not really lasers but something slower-than-light (which is well-established), then in some sense they must be projectiles, i.e. must have a rest mass.

The distinction at work here I think is whether the bolts have any coherent internal structure. If not, they are like a bullet... which seems to be the general assumption... or it may be that there could be enough structure in a bolt to assign each one a characteristic time which is (roughly?) how long it will last before it 'flaks'.

The explanation for the scene in which there are two parallel flak bursts near the Falcon would then be simply that they were assigned different times, because of some degree of uncertainty in how far away the Falcon would be when the bolts arrived. One of the guesses was right; the other was wrong.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Well, if we assume that the turbolasers and blasters are not really lasers but something slower-than-light (which is well-established), then in some sense they must be projectiles, i.e. must have a rest mass.

The distinction at work here I think is whether the bolts have any coherent internal structure. If not, they are like a bullet... which seems to be the general assumption... or it may be that there could be enough structure in a bolt to assign each one a characteristic time which is (roughly?) how long it will last before it 'flaks'.

The explanation for the scene in which there are two parallel flak bursts near the Falcon would then be simply that they were assigned different times, because of some degree of uncertainty in how far away the Falcon would be when the bolts arrived. One of the guesses was right; the other was wrong.

No, this is silly. We know most blasters belong to a class of particle beam weapons or laser-like luxon beam weapons. There exists no mechanism to make such things flakburst in violation of CoM and CoE. What is your position on the VD and AOTC ICS descriptions of blaster mechanics? What's your position on vector interactions and volumetric force fields? You seem to just be throwing intentionally vague, ad hoc ideas out here which aren't really comparable to the actual theories proposed (like Mad's) and difficult to falsify.

[His Divine Shadow]

ANH storyboards says they are from LASER/TURBOLASER weapons. There are obviously projectile weapons called BLASTERS (AOTC, novel) and LASER CANNONS (TPM - novel, TPM - movie).

Then it appears that "flak" has been redefined, just as "laser" (energy weapon) and "lightspeed" (hyperspace) have.

It's merely hyperbole in my opinion, the shield interaction effects resemble flak in apperance and possibly, effect and are therefore called as such, hence most of the quotes mentioning flak are not of any importance.

[Mad]

Sorry about the delay, been busy during the break. I noticed you edited your post between when I started on this and when I got around to finishing the reply, so I tried to insert some of your edits in here.

Mad
Random? Wow. That's a nice theory. I'm completely fucked up then - because I can't argue against a theory which explains NOTHING.

Way to misrepresent. By the way, would you say that quantum mechanics explains nothing since it deals with randomness and probabilities?

Invisible? TIE bolts are small enough. You may check the DVD, but I doubt there would be any debris present, neither in this case nor in many others of the same sort.

The chances of it happening depend on the environment. In the scene you posted, being so close to a planet may help things a bit. In a fleet engagement like RotJ, debris from battle damage would be common. In an asteroid field, there's all kinds of tiny things to hit in addition to the big asteroids.

Why wouldn't Falcon jam the fuse exlposions?

And just how do you propose that a physical fuse be jammed!? You have absolutely no support for this. And how often will it happen? Oh, yeah, it's random...

Why do most bolts fly off into the distance without exploding? You know, outside the "fuse jamming" range?

And do flak bursts on Earth violate CoM? Do the millions of particles it split into continue on the same vector the bolt was moving? Why?

Evidence that real-life flak explodes as if the firing projectile were motionless?

The effects and the ANH scene is clear. Neither interrupted by anything, nor exhibits any effects from collision (which the ANH novel describes).
Thus the only possible solution is: the collisions only started AFTER the Falcon decelerated. Hyperspace is also defined as an "alternate dimension".

The Falcon was shaking when it came out.

You still haven't presented any evidence of weak particle shielding.

Do you claim to fully know the Falcon's decelerating capabilities? It decelerated to normal speed in 280 milliseconds in the ANH frames I've shown you.

And what frame of reference do you have to determine that? A rock that we don't know the velocity of?

Look at the supposedly "shielded" TIE fighters collision in ANH trenchy run.

Even if all DS TIEs were shielded (it does make sense for the sentry TIEs to be nav shielded because there's going to be lots of debris surrounding Alderaan's remains), why would we assume they're full shields? Why would you generalize this to all shields? Why should even a full shield survive crashing into the Death Star? (Further, TIEs are said to be unshielded in the EU... why would you ignore this but require that AT-AT and airspeeders also be unshielded because the EU says so?)

If laser weapos are projectile weapons, what use are ray shields, anyway? Just fire those magical flak cannons into the Death Star exhaust port! The flak will get through and burst, causing a chain reaction!

Except it was happening (with Falcon in particular) in a space enviroment.

You did catch the part where I said some of them, yes?

I'm not sure whether blasters never exhibit that, I need a huge frame-by-frame track job now. But nonetheless: they are different, so what is the same principle? How can PROJECTILE weapons operate same principle as ENERGY beams, especially it's so thoroughly described:

The interior mechanisms of a tiny hold-out blaster, a blaster pistol, a large blaster rifle, and a turbolaser cannon are based on the same theories and principles.

(I'm not really high on using EU at all, though...)

That's where we have to rationalize. From the evidence that has been obtained, the two weapons behave differently in the movies. This automatically overrides the notion that they are exactly the same with only scale being different.

Of course, nothing anywhere suggests that there is a physical explosive in blaster weapons anywhere. You have to make it up in order for your "flak burst" hypothesis to even work. But, the question arises: how exactly can a physical explosive projectile fit through the "lens crystal" mentioned in the Visual Dictionary? As the Databank which you just quoted says, "The agitated gas is then funneled through the actuating blaster module, where it is processed into an intense particle beam. A prismatic crystal focuses the beam." Seriously, this "physical explosive" idea is nonsense and contradicts the basic explanations of how blasters work.

Anyway, my turbolaser theory already started trying to explain how the internal mechanisms can rely on the same principles yet have different in-flight charactaristics. (Hint: it deals with the energy->mass conversion which is required by SotE's description.) If you had read my theory, you should have known this already.

Maybe because such small weapons lack the ability, like Earth pistols and rifles don't flak burst.

So there's no physical projectile in blaster weapons, but there is in the "energy weapons" known as turbolasers? Now you're just contradicting yourself.

Yeah.

So why must you assume the definitions of words strictly adhere to modern definitions when we know a number of words have changed meaning?

It's a stretch because of the descriptions, not because of the actual meaning of the word.

The descriptions of specific scenes do contradict the actual visuals of the scenes! However, if we take an alternate meaning to the word flak, then things make sense again.

Thus a missing bolt, as par your theory, pummels the shield not - it's just disrupted and becomes invisible, so where's the DAMAGE after that?

You're an idiot, you know that? I already explained that "damage" to the shields is going to be negligble. Now you're just ignoring what I say so you can keep arguing. Most of the energy is deflected, not absorbed in this instance, so very little heating will occur. Deflecting does not require much power, either.

It is better equipped, Mad. In my argument, there are no kilotons to deal with. There are projectile weapons. All.

Now you're an even bigger idiot. Explain yourself. Where does the energy go? Is it all in an explosive that didn't explode? Now you're contradicting known weapons yields given the weakness of your "flak bursts." So that doesn't work, so maybe you mean some of the energy is in the explosive, but most of it is in the beam that is described by every EU description. Where did that energy go, moron?

If you respond similarly again, I will just use this part to refute you in my next post so it can be clearly seen by all and not stuck in the middle of a long post, and nobody will take your idea seriously because every part of this argument of yours alone contradicts something. It's your most efficient idiocy yet.

Pretty much of them for exceptions, don't you think (you need more screenies, seriously?)

Irrelevant. More bolts pass through than explode.

And what's the point of your theory? It predicts nothing; just states the bolts react randomly, and cannot even explain WHERE does the energy go, if it's not damaging the shield and not left in the bolt.

My theory predicts a lot, you're just strawmanning it into a theory about flak instead of the turbolaser theory that it is.

I understand. SW shields are unreliable? Geesh. And I thought them to be a supreme shielding technology.

Another pointless strawman. You're doing this on purpose now, aren't you? My point was that massless particles can become disrupted easily by things we don't even see. Yet, somehow, like an idiot, you try to turn this around and say that the weak part of SW shields (any part of it not near the hull) not being reliable means that SW shields are unreliable everywhere.

What's next? The sun's gravity is weak because it doesn't pull Andromeda into its orbit?

Sometimes? 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 of the fired bolts disrupted - nothing? And if 100% of the bolts disrupted in case A, but then 0% disrupted in case B? Both cases - shielded craft?

Has this ever happened?

Not really. So then WEAPONS of SW are shit. Because the bolts interact with a shield, not really damage it in any way, but LOSE their energy. Kilotons in it, as per you. Oh my.

You have the memory rention capability of a goldfish, don't you? Yes, the bolt is disrupted. However, my theory clearly states that the main energy content of the weapon is in the invisible beam. In fact, my entire theory is based around that! I never said the invisible beam is disrupted by fringe effects of the shields.

I acknowledge there are/maybe energy beams. That does not change the fact SOMETHING must have fired projectiles in the flak scenes.

Because that's the only way your theory will work, right?

OK. I'll have to look up on this one. And not all fighter shots, as well as not all TL shots, exhibit any sort of redirection.

So?

Vector? Explain, please, how it works; then I'll be fine with it. Shields stretching to infinity cannot disrupt incoming straight for the hull bolts, but disrupt the ones missing the craft?
If a bolt moves against a shield, it's intensity is INCREASING the closer to the hull. So it must be affected somehow. And if the intensity is ONLY near the hull, how does such an unintensive shield disrupt bolts 10-100> meters away? They shouldn't be affected in the slightest, much less LOSE their energy, but that is what happens.

Easy. Using my turbolaser theory, we have the following: the bolt is a chain reaction that moves along the beam, from head to tail (because the beam is moving away from the barrel at c and the bolt is moving at very high sublight velocity away from the head of the beam, the visual effect is that the bolt is moving away from the barrel as well). The majority of the shot's energy is in the beam, and some of it is wasted in the chain reaction to create the bolt. If you think I just made any of that up just now, then double check my theory. It's all there.

Now, if the bolt is moving toward the shield, then the chain reaction is being pushed toward the tail of the bolt. Nothing remarkable tends to happen.

If the bolt is perpendicular to the shield vector, then the chain reaction is being pushed off of the beam. If enough particles are disrupted, then the reaction ceases, and the bolt explodes. The beam itself is mostly unaffected. (Sometimes, such as has occured in AotC, part of the bolt is disrupted and explodes but the reaction itself continues.)

If the bolt is moving away from the shield, then the bolt is being pushed into an area of the beam that has already been a part of the chain reaction. With less reactants, the chain reaction may cease, and the bolt explodes.

Of course, terminating the beam can result in a halt in the chain reaction, which would also disrupt the bolt and can cause "flak bursts."

The only energy lost is that in the bolt.

OK, particle shields aside (I thought your theory has them operating same as ray shields). You don't have any evidence? Then how are you claiming to have a theory? Where does the energy go from that disrupted bolts, I ask you, if they REALLY contain incredible amounts of energy?

First off, the "no evidence" was in reference to the energy requirements to disrupt the bolt. We don't know how much is required, so just because it is done by fringe shield interactions doesn't mean it is impossible. The energy from the disrupted bolts goes into the environment as the "flak burst" that we see. The majority of the energy in the shot is in the invisible beam, which does not appear to be disrupted. You keep forgetting just what my theory is, it seems.

Strangely enough, but why in the Empire would it make them any weaker? The part which is near the hull is as strong as usual; more than that, if they lose anything it's the worthless ability of getting pummeled by missing shots. One missing shot contains a whole lot of energy, as per your theory. The shield is only strong near the hull. So reducing the worthless "indefinite stretching" would only strengthen the shield.

Try thinking about it for once. You have to have a second shield. That takes energy input, which means less power to direct to the main shield. Further, the waste heat from operating the second shield goes into the heat sinks, lowering the capacity for energy absorption from weapon attacks. Then, because the second shield has the same inverse-squared effect as the main shield, the field cancellation will weaken the main shield as well. Only an idiot would use such an inefficient design in combat.

Also, I have never heard of any problem of the sort that shields are weaker if contained near the hull; neither Solo, nor any ship commander ever acknowledged that in SW, to my mind.

Has there ever been a quote about shields being "contained" near the hull?

Novels do describe shields effects sometimes. I'll have to have a quick rundown, that would take time. As for shield effects - if there were any, the script/storyboards would have indicated their presence, wouldn't it?

Why would they call them "shield effects" if most shield effects are invisible? How often do we see visible shield effects in the movies, considering the number of shielded vessels we see?

The "lightball" explosion is caused by the FIRST bolt. And there's the second bolt which does not explode, but rather hits R2's DOME, triggering the second explosion (the one which erupts behind R2).

Both bolts hit Artoo after being weakened by the shield. That is, unless you're claiming the bolt went through Artoo and exited out behind him before exploding. (Which isn't provable and thus wouldn't hurt my argument at all.)

TWO bolts, TWO explosions.

Both hits on the side of Artoo facing the camera. How could we have an explosion begin behind him?

Yes. But IP tried to refute it because AT-AT has NO projectile weapons. Thus I said that either they have (small cannons never observed to fire laserbolts), or they have weapons capable of both projectile and beam firing modes.

I haven't studied the AT-AT's weapon loadout, so I'll leave this for IP and others to address.

But... there are problems here as well. IP was correct - the AT-AT fires "laser" bolts. And THEY explode into flak:

Those are clearly transparent. Where can an explosive projectile fit in there? Looks like the beam terminated and the bolt exploded with nothing to carry it.

I'm also curious whether these are heavily shielded rebel troopers:

If that's a flak burst, then why didn't it kill them? Beam termination.

And also there's still the exploded LAAT which IP adressed as if it's shields were still operational to disrupt bolts meters away:

You think everything inside the ship is going to totally stop working simultaniously even though the repulsors are clearly still at least partially operational (as evidenced by the ship not immediately dropping like a rock)?

And yet, in the movie the Falcon is shaking.

Kinda like the Falcon was taking direct hits, eh?

Firstly, no AA guns on TIEs. Secondly, you can't blast shield interaction at anyone.

Overly literal interpretation. First, I said "anti-fighter," not "AA." If you don't think TIEs carry anti-fighter weapons, you're an idiot. Also, by your definition, you can't shoot flak at aircraft in real life, either: the explosions from the shells aren't fired at the airraft and the guns themselves aren't being launched at the opponent. Even in real life the usage of the word flak is relaxed.

Why so? Because visible effects of the Flak look small? Oh damn. I thought visible stuff isn't the only stuff in the movie (look at you own invisible debris theory).

Remember Bespin? If these are omnidirectional explosions, then to be damaging they'd need to be kiloton-level, and that would give us visible atmospheric effects we didn't see in the movie.

Mad, are you claiming deflector shields do NOT get damaged from DEFLECTING the bolts? Am I correct?

Why should they? A magnet isn't damaged when it deflects another magnet. Some energy would be expended, but not that much. Why do you say the shield would have to be "damaged," anyway, when that goes against logic? This isn't Star Trek or a video game. The writers are making shields act more in line with real science. Shields are taken out by overheating them by dumping too much energy into their systems, basically overloading them and eventually causing physical damage. Momentum transfer can also cause physical damage, but the bracings are designed to withstand huge hits anyway. The shields themselves, however, do not take damage per se. (Even EGW&T gets this right when it says that overloaded shield projectors will burn out.)

If you're serious on that, why are you looking out for someting huge and visible in those flak bursts?

How are you going to have an invisibly small explosive charge?

A mirror consumes no power when it reflects a ray of light. An initially concentrated light beam may diffuse in an opaque fog, without the fog requiring power input — this is an example of passive scattering. Analogously, the perfect deflection or splintering of incoming blaster fire may require little or no energy consumption.

He's right on this one (if we assume that the faraway interaction is correct). So where does the energy GO? I'm very curious about that - vhere does the energy from a "splintered" beam go?

Depends on the kind of interaction you are talking about. If it's a hit to the strong part of the shields, then the beam breaks up and then the splinters break up in a recursive effect until they're all deflected and/or absorbed. If it's a miss, then only the bolt is disrupted, and the beam itself continues invisibly away without being absorbed.

[K. A. Pital]

Mad
Nothing to excuse for, I'm not willing to hurry anyone to lose his time in these debates.

By the way, would you say that quantum mechanics explains nothing since it deals with randomness and probabilities?

I won't. But since I have seen no probabilities, or calculations thereof, vector explanations or anything... I just don't know what does the theory explain.

The chances of it happening depend on the environment. In the scene you posted, being so close to a planet may help things a bit. In a fleet engagement like RotJ, debris from battle damage would be common. In an asteroid field, there's all kinds of tiny things to hit in addition to the big asteroids.

I agree. But it's odd in an enviroment which is neither a space battle with wreckage nor an asteroid field. The chances are rather small, even around Bespin. And then, it's not the only one like this. Some explosions happen in a space enviroment, and there are bursts in the very beginning of space battles, which would unlikely be debris disruption.
Moreover, that would mean invisible (small enough not to be visible) debris disrupt a very powerful bolt. And I doulbt someone explored anything like these alleged "disruptions".

And just how do you propose that a physical fuse be jammed!?

http://www.belfortex.com/index.phtml?page=28041&l=e
http://www.smecc.org/proximity_fuze_jam ... isbury.htm
http://www.smecc.org/radio_proximity_fuzes.htm
Do a "fuse jamming" Google search.

"The proximity fuse had been a closely guarded secret on our side. Even though we had been working on countermeasures for a long time, we at Wright Field had never heard of the device. Now we were asked to investigate, on a crash basis, the possibility of a jammer to counter the fuse. We asked why such a jammer had not been developed earlier, and were told that the developing agency had conducted tests and concluded that the fuse could not be jammed! We worked on the problem, and within two weeks, a jammer had been built which would detonate the proximity fuses prematurely."

Evidence that real-life flak explodes as if the firing projectile were motionless?

I need to pick up on some documentary videos (can't find . That may take time.
There are some photos which depict the bursts quite clearly, although cause it's a still I can't figure out if they do explode indeed like if the projectile was motionless - it's just smoking airbursts, alike the ones seen on Geonosis:
Bombers in flak

The Falcon was shaking when it came out.

No, it wasn't. Not in any of the screens which I have shown you, where the Falcon came out. When that "brick" comes close, there is a scene change - Han is shown inside Falcon, and the craft begins to shake. After that - a meteorite shower.

And what frame of reference do you have to determine that? A rock that we don't know the velocity of?

Well, actually for the Falcon to move at .c velocities, the rock should've had a terrible velocity as well, moving in the direction same as the Falcon. So if anything, the Falcon is not moving at .c speeds, unless I'm a french pilot.

Further, TIEs are said to be unshielded in the EU... why would you ignore this but require that AT-AT and airspeeders also be unshielded because the EU says so?

Yes. This is why I said "supposedly shielded". I do not think they are.

If laser weapos are projectile weapons, what use are ray shields, anyway?

Because there are rays as well as projectiles?
Another question, I guess you didn't notice it:

But I have seen Falcon lose it's dish in ROTJ DSII corridor run, and how it has flown through tight places like asteroid encavements. So where's your proof? And do particle shields also stretch out like ray shields?

Of course, nothing anywhere suggests that there is a physical explosive in blaster weapons anywhere. You have to make it up in order for your "flak burst" hypothesis to even work.

Well, actually the AOTC novel says blasters are projectile weapons, so I'm not making it up, it's there in the canon.

So there's no physical projectile in blaster weapons, but there is in the "energy weapons" known as turbolasers? Now you're just contradicting yourself.

WHY? Both a gun bullet and a flak projectile are physical objects. Yet the bullet does NOT flak burst.

So why must you assume the definitions of words strictly adhere to modern definitions when we know a number of words have changed meaning?

Nothing of the sort. We have to watch the descriptions.

The descriptions of specific scenes do contradict the actual visuals of the scenes!

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they are vague enough to allow correction (no defined timepoints, no certainity of what fired, no certainty of what is "flak burst"). But then sometimes they are describing flak in a way shield interactions cannot be described. Which sort of ruins the "redefining" argument.
Like the ISD chase, for example. The novel and script say (about Han):

It was all he could do to avoid the barrage of flak bursts rocketing toward the Falcon from the Imperial ship.

As it moves across the surface
of the Star Destroyer, the Falcon bobs and weaves to avoid the numerous
flak bursts.

It is really hard to wank. If the flak bursts mentioned here are harmless shield interactions, what's the point to avoid them?
IP tried to rationalise this with additional (i.e. non-beam weaponry) on the ISD, but it just doesn't follow - the novel, and the script ESPECIALLY depict the movie scenes, and in the movie the flak bursts are the explosions from bolts. So I just wonder how one would explain these descriptions (!) away.

Also, I'm REALLY curious how are the articles at Wizards.com rated in "officiality", because one of them says the following:

Although flak killed his gunner and Skywalker himself was shot down, Wedge Antilles completed this tactic and crippled one AT-AT.

(emphasis mine)
Great Battles - Hoth

I already explained that "damage" to the shields is going to be negligble. Now you're just ignoring what I say so you can keep arguing. Most of the energy is deflected, not absorbed in this instance, so very little heating will occur. Deflecting does not require much power, either.

Nop! I did not mean damage to SHIELD, I meant where does the energy GO after the interaction? WHY no damage on all things around the craft?

You know, kilotons don't just vanish into nowhere. The energy has to go - either in the shield, or remain in the bolt. But if it remains in the bolt, WHERE is the damage from that energy to the outer world?

Now you're contradicting known weapons yields given the weakness of your "flak bursts." So that doesn't work, so maybe you mean some of the energy is in the explosive, but most of it is in the beam that is described by every EU description. Where did that energy go, moron?

1) weapon yields are known for rays. Not for projectiles.
2) yields ARE variable for alleged beam weapons
3) I mean that the projectiles/whatever they are which flak burst don't have kilotons in them.
All.

More bolts pass through than explode.

So the force-field interaction is occasional? And again, if more or less pass, it's actually irrelevant. There's pretty much of either.

My theory predicts a lot, you're just strawmanning it into a theory about flak instead of the turbolaser theory that it is.

Answer the question, where does the alleged energy go.
1) the shield absorbed it => shield receives damage from missing hits
2) it's left in the bolt => where is the damage from the bolt after it interacted with the shield, did the energy in it vanish somewhere?

My point was that massless particles can become disrupted easily by things we don't even see.

Uh. I got the point. You say that invisible things can cause a bolt to explode, yet you ask for visible projectiles to explode in flak bursts. Why?

Has this ever happened?

Okay. I have gone for screenshots. It's gonna take time.

Yes, the bolt is disrupted. However, my theory clearly states that the main energy content of the weapon is in the invisible beam. In fact, my entire theory is based around that! I never said the invisible beam is disrupted by fringe effects of the shields.

I UNDERSTAND this, it's CLEAR to me. This is why I ask - WHERE is the damage from that invisible bolt? Where? Kiloton-range explosions should be occuring when the invisible bolt proceeds further beyond the place where it lost the tracer, and hit something else!

So?

So how come? What does the redirection prove? That some of the fired shots are rays? Fine. So what with the non-redirected shots?

... okay, thanks for the explanation. I understood the idea before though.

The only energy lost is that in the bolt.

Yes. And very little energy:

The beam itself is mostly unaffected.

This means:
A) beam loses little energy in the "flak bursts'
B) rest of the energy is still in the beam
C) so where does it's left energies GO? Nothing happens. When the chain reaction of the "tracer" is disrupted, somehow the bolt no longer exists. It does not damage anything, it does not show any kiloton explosions.

Of course, terminating the beam can result in a halt in the chain reaction, which would also disrupt the bolt and can cause "flak bursts."

So are the beams TERMINATED, or do they PROCEED with little energy loss, and thus should cause effects on the outside world?

The energy from the disrupted bolts goes into the environment as the "flak burst" that we see. The majority of the energy in the shot is in the invisible beam, which does not appear to be disrupted.

I UNDERSTAND! So WHERE does this invisible leftover with tons of energy GO? WHY does it NOT manifest itself in ANYWHERE?

Try thinking about it for once. You have to have a second shield. That takes energy input, which means less power to direct to the main shield. Further, the waste heat from operating the second shield goes into the heat sinks, lowering the capacity for energy absorption from weapon attacks. Then, because the second shield has the same inverse-squared effect as the main shield, the field cancellation will weaken the main shield as well. Only an idiot would use such an inefficient design in combat.

I just don't get you. WHY do you insist on some sort of a second shield which would work like a nullifier for the first one?

Has there ever been a quote about shields being "contained" near the hull?

EGWT quote, which IP gratefully provided, states the shield's energy layers extend from several MM to several CM beyond the hull.
The distance is clearly defined "from x to y".

How often do we see visible shield effects in the movies, considering the number of shielded vessels we see?

1) TPM - the Naboo fighter activates the shield
2) Droideka shields
3) Gungan shields
I guess that's all for visible shield effects.
But in YOUR theory the "flak bursts" ARE shield effects, and flak bursts ARE visible.

So why would anyone in the Empire write something like "it blasted flak on the Millenium Falcon", when he meant "the beams' tracers were disrupted by the Millenium Falcon's shield" or "the beams exploded against MF shields"?
Actually, the novels have a few "exploded against shield" stuff, but nothing considering the flak bursts is there, IIRC.

Both bolts hit Artoo after being weakened by the shield.

Bolt 1 exploded in front of Artoo. The small greenish explosion died down long after Artoo already had another bolt strike him and cause the explosion with smoke.

That is, unless you're claiming the bolt went through Artoo and exited out behind him before exploding. (Which isn't provable and thus wouldn't hurt my argument at all.)

NO.
Bolt 1 explodes in front of the droid in a small greenish burst.
Bolt 2 HITS Artoo ON THE DOME and there is smoke.

All. Watch the scene.

Both hits on the side of Artoo facing the camera. How could we have an explosion begin behind him?

Bolt 2's impact is obstructed by the explosion of bolt 1. You can see it clearly if you watch it.
Bolt 2 impacts on Artoo's dome. The explosion is up and above Artoo, leaning behing him. It aint on his OTHER side, it's on his TOP.

Where can an explosive projectile fit in there? Looks like the beam terminated and the bolt exploded with nothing to carry it.

And where did the energy go then? Some kiloton-range explosion from the bolt's termination should've promptly destroyed BOTH speeders.

If that's a flak burst, then why didn't it kill them? Beam termination.

Maybe because it sort of... *scary word" ...missed them?
Beam termination? And where's the energy it carried?

You think everything inside the ship is going to totally stop working simultaniously even though the repulsors are clearly still at least partially operational (as evidenced by the ship not immediately dropping like a rock)?

And why should it fall like a rock? It's flying at a certain speed, after all.

Kinda like the Falcon was taking direct hits, eh?

It was. Among OTHER. Direct hits were rare.

If you don't think TIEs carry anti-fighter weapons, you're an idiot.

And since when FIGHTER weapons, which are CLEARLY anti-fighter, referred to as "flak"? Since Star Wars?

Also, by your definition, you can't shoot flak at aircraft in real life, either: the explosions from the shells aren't fired at the airraft and the guns themselves aren't being launched at the opponent. Even in real life the usage of the word flak is relaxed.

It is relaxed, but it's irrelevant to the point (I NEVER thought of an ultraliteral FLAK interpretation EITHER!).
The point is, you can blast a flak projectile at somebody. And that does damage. But how can you blast a shield INTERACTION, which does NO damage?

If these are omnidirectional explosions, then to be damaging they'd need to be kiloton-level, and that would give us visible atmospheric effects we didn't see in the movie.

1) Why do they need to be kiloton-level? Particle shields strong again? Even after that Death Star II run?
2) Why do they need to have really spectacular visible atmospheric effects?
And since they DON"T, I ask once again - you don't deal with the problem either. The proceeding beam with it's energy LEFT IN IT should go and wreck HELL on the battlefield.

Which it does not - once a tracer is disrupted, strangely the invisible beam does not manifest itself in ANY way. It should proceed, and hit something. Blow up craters it earth! Scorch the sand and rock on Geonosis!
Yet... WHERE?

Shields are taken out by overheating them by dumping too much energy into their systems, basically overloading them and eventually causing physical damage.

Yes. That is right. And this is where the problem of energy COMES.
You DO "damage" (not in a material sence!) the shield by dumping energy into it.
You say "missing bolts disrupted by the shield dump NO/irrelevant energy into the shield"
Thus the energy is left in the beam, albeit it's invisible now. But when it proceeds to hit something else around the target, where does the energy go? it SHOULD blast us away - a beam did NOT lose energy, it just lost the tracer in the shield and proceeded.... and nothing happened. The invisible C-propagating bolt did not even stir the sand on Geonosis.

How are you going to have an invisibly small explosive charge?

"They must have found a way" - after all, if they found a way with blasters and other crazy stuff like hyperspace and antigravity (currently antigravity is not seriously considered by scientists, IIRC).
After all, they don't need to be INVISIBLY small - we see a bolt from a distance. All they have to be is small enough to be invisible from the distance we see the bolt.

And then, transparent materials aren't so bad.

If it's a miss, then only the bolt is disrupted, and the beam itself continues invisibly away without being absorbed.

Absolutely. So it CONTINUES and then... where does it go? There's a lot of energy in the beam, which isn't really affected. And that "invisible beam" which still propagates, does not manifest itself.
No kiloton explosions around, nothing.

[drachefly]

You seem to just be throwing intentionally vague, ad hoc ideas out here which aren't really comparable to the actual theories proposed (like Mad's) and difficult to falsify.

I was not posting a coherent theory of my own, so falsifiability is not a big deal -- I was merely pointing out that some of the arguments AGAINST various theories were extremely ill-founded.

People were saying that the only way to balance mass and energy was to involve a shield. I said this was bull; all you need is for the explosion to not account for all of the energy and momentum of the beam. e.g. the 'tracer' explodes, but the destructive beam continues on unaffected. There you go, CoM and CoE. Or even if the flak burst contains some energy but not all, you can balance it.

People were saying that AT-AT's shoot 'energy' or they shoot 'projectiles'. I was pointing out that the latter is necessarily so, but the intended question still has not been answered.

My position on the theories present is that both the volumetric shield theory and the intentional flak burst theory are basically physically consistent and tactically consistent. I just posted because I'd rather see a debate which is focused on actual debatable issues rather than floundering around in irrelevancies like dual-launching AT-ATs and Anti-aircraft-gun-mounting TIE fighters.

[Illuminatus Primus]

In other words, the magic missing momentum and energy is hand-waved away. Thanks for missing the point about failing to meet empirical observation.

[Mad]

Another delayed reply. This is getting long and a bit repetitive, so I've rearranged some things and cut out others in an attempt to stamp out, eliminate, and abolish redundancy. If I missed anything important, just reiterate it.

Conservation of Energy (where did the energy go?)

Nop! I did not mean damage to SHIELD, I meant where does the energy GO after the interaction? WHY no damage on all things around the craft?

You know, kilotons don't just vanish into nowhere. The energy has to go - either in the shield, or remain in the bolt. But if it remains in the bolt, WHERE is the damage from that energy to the outer world?

Answer the question, where does the alleged energy go.

Because there's very little energy in the interaction. Most of it is in the beam, which isn't necessarily affected. Should that beam hit something, we should see the energy release.

I UNDERSTAND this, it's CLEAR to me. This is why I ask - WHERE is the damage from that invisible bolt? Where? Kiloton-range explosions should be occuring when the invisible bolt proceeds further beyond the place where it lost the tracer, and hit something else!

And hits... what? Air? Damage effects from directed energy weapons are different from those of explosives, as well. The only time there was weapons we know should be kiloton-range in an atmosphere (TIE fighters), there was nothing to hit (on Bespin). I'm not sure if we were ever given yields for the weapons used on Geonosis itself.

Yes. And very little energy:

The beam itself is mostly unaffected.

This means:
A) beam loses little energy in the "flak bursts'
B) rest of the energy is still in the beam
C) so where does it's left energies GO? Nothing happens. When the chain reaction of the "tracer" is disrupted, somehow the bolt no longer exists. It does not damage anything, it does not show any kiloton explosions.

The beam has to hit something, and it has to do so at full power. When has the beam hit anything?

So are the beams TERMINATED, or do they PROCEED with little energy loss, and thus should cause effects on the outside world?

Either could happen. If the beam is terminated before the ramp-up occurs, the bolt could be disrupted. The full energy release never exits the barrel of the gun. If it proceeds on with little energy loss, then it could conceivably hit something. Of course, it has to actually hit something to do damage...

And where did the energy go then? Some kiloton-range explosion from the bolt's termination should've promptly destroyed BOTH speeders.

Huh? What are you talking about? If the beam terminates prematurely, the energy never leaves the weapon. It's saved for another shot. (If you know you've missed, why waste the energy?)

Moving on...

I won't. But since I have seen no probabilities, or calculations thereof, vector explanations or anything... I just don't know what does the theory explain.

There doesn't seem to be enough data to really get reliable probablities. The theory explains how the official descriptions of turbolasers can mesh with the visuals and explains some oddities in the visuals as well.

I agree. But it's odd in an enviroment which is neither a space battle with wreckage nor an asteroid field. The chances are rather small, even around Bespin. And then, it's not the only one like this. Some explosions happen in a space enviroment, and there are bursts in the very beginning of space battles, which would unlikely be debris disruption.
Moreover, that would mean invisible (small enough not to be visible) debris disrupt a very powerful bolt. And I doulbt someone explored anything like these alleged "disruptions".

There's also the vector thing. There isn't necessarily one single cause to any particular effect.

http://www.belfortex.com/index.phtml?page=28041&l=e
http://www.smecc.org/proximity_fuze_jam ... isbury.htm
http://www.smecc.org/radio_proximity_fuzes.htm
Do a "fuse jamming" Google search.

"The proximity fuse had been a closely guarded secret on our side. Even though we had been working on countermeasures for a long time, we at Wright Field had never heard of the device. Now we were asked to investigate, on a crash basis, the possibility of a jammer to counter the fuse. We asked why such a jammer had not been developed earlier, and were told that the developing agency had conducted tests and concluded that the fuse could not be jammed! We worked on the problem, and within two weeks, a jammer had been built which would detonate the proximity fuses prematurely."

The first link refers to jamming remote-detonation. That's only useful if the shells are remote detonators.

The second two links refer to prematurely detonating the proximity fuses. This completely fails to explain late detonations.

A simple timer would be much more effective and unjammable. The targetting computer could determine when the detonation should occur.

Evidence that real-life flak explodes as if the firing projectile were motionless?

I need to pick up on some documentary videos (can't find . That may take time.
There are some photos which depict the bursts quite clearly, although cause it's a still I can't figure out if they do explode indeed like if the projectile was motionless - it's just smoking airbursts, alike the ones seen on Geonosis:
Bombers in flak

Looks like the flak was fired from the lower-left, and is heading upper-right, based on the motion of the smoke. Basically, momentum is clearly conserved with those shots, unlike the bursts we see in the SW movies.

Well, actually for the Falcon to move at .c velocities, the rock should've had a terrible velocity as well, moving in the direction same as the Falcon. So if anything, the Falcon is not moving at .c speeds, unless I'm a french pilot.

I already mentioned this as a possibility earlier. The rock could have been ejected from a collision further away, and tossed towards the planet.

Because there are rays as well as projectiles?

Why worry about energy weapons if the particle shields are as weak as you claim? Just use projectile weapons.

But I have seen Falcon lose it's dish in ROTJ DSII corridor run, and how it has flown through tight places like asteroid encavements. So where's your proof? And do particle shields also stretch out like ray shields?

Shields likely would've been double-rear in the DS2, so as to survive fire from pursuing fighters. Of course, impacting against something so massive would likely tear the shield generators off their housings so it's also possible that they simply gave way instead of wrecking the entire shield system.

Particle shields appear to be variable. The "edge" of the particle shields would likely be just outside the "edge" of the ray shields (if we define "edge" as the optimal boundery). This way, an incoming torpedo weapon can be blocked and the energy release from the detonation can be handled by the ray shields.

Typical particle shielding appears to be another form of force fields, so they would likely act similarly.

Well, actually the AOTC novel says blasters are projectile weapons, so I'm not making it up, it's there in the canon.

That could mean anything. Technically, a wad of spit or plasma bolt is a projectile weapon. It simply means it's an object with mass that moves at sublight velocity. There's certainly no evidence of an explosive solid in them.

WHY? Both a gun bullet and a flak projectile are physical objects. Yet the bullet does NOT flak burst.

If they can make invisibly small explosives to put in turbolaser weapons, then those explosives will also fit in blasters.

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they are vague enough to allow correction (no defined timepoints, no certainity of what fired, no certainty of what is "flak burst"). But then sometimes they are describing flak in a way shield interactions cannot be described. Which sort of ruins the "redefining" argument.

For some things, though, it's quite clear. Such as Artoo getting blasted.

Like the ISD chase, for example. The novel and script say (about Han):

It was all he could do to avoid the barrage of flak bursts rocketing toward the Falcon from the Imperial ship.

As it moves across the surface
of the Star Destroyer, the Falcon bobs and weaves to avoid the numerous
flak bursts.

It is really hard to wank. If the flak bursts mentioned here are harmless shield interactions, what's the point to avoid them?
IP tried to rationalise this with additional (i.e. non-beam weaponry) on the ISD, but it just doesn't follow - the novel, and the script ESPECIALLY depict the movie scenes, and in the movie the flak bursts are the explosions from bolts. So I just wonder how one would explain these descriptions (!) away.

They'd have to be harmless. In order for the explosive to be invisibly small, its mass would be vaporized by the explosion. With no mass to speak of to impact the ship, the majority of the energy release would be handled by the ray shielding. And we know from the TIEs above Bespin that the energy release from the explosions is very small. The ramifications of parts of your argument completely destroys any chance for them to be effective weapons.

Also, I'm REALLY curious how are the articles at Wizards.com rated in "officiality", because one of them says the following:

Although flak killed his gunner and Skywalker himself was shot down, Wedge Antilles completed this tactic and crippled one AT-AT.

(emphasis mine)
Great Battles - Hoth

Explosion from weapon impact, like with the "flak" that engulfed Artoo, remember?

1) weapon yields are known for rays. Not for projectiles.

Explosive weaponry must be hanlded by ray shields while shrapnel is handled by particle shielding. With your invisibly small projectiles, there's no shrapnel. We have a good idea as to the energy handling capability of ray shields.

3) I mean that the projectiles/whatever they are which flak burst don't have kilotons in them.
All.

So they're useless. There can't possibly be any shrapnel strong enough to do damage from invisibly small explosive charges.

So the force-field interaction is occasional? And again, if more or less pass, it's actually irrelevant. There's pretty much of either.

There's so many factors that we can't measure.

Uh. I got the point. You say that invisible things can cause a bolt to explode, yet you ask for visible projectiles to explode in flak bursts. Why?

Because you say they affect the particle shields. In order to do that, you need to throw mass at it. If the projectiles are invisibly small, there isn't going to be enough mass to affect the particle shields.

So how come? What does the redirection prove? That some of the fired shots are rays? Fine. So what with the non-redirected shots?

The shots that aren't redirected don't necessarily prove anything.

I just don't get you. WHY do you insist on some sort of a second shield which would work like a nullifier for the first one?

How else are you going to nullify a force field?

EGWT quote, which IP gratefully provided, states the shield's energy layers extend from several MM to several CM beyond the hull.
The distance is clearly defined "from x to y".

You forgot the very important word "anywhere" which suggests that one optimal edge can be set to a particular distance.

1) TPM - the Naboo fighter activates the shield
2) Droideka shields
3) Gungan shields
I guess that's all for visible shield effects.

Which can be explained as interactions where the field is strong enough to create such an interaction. Once you get beyond a certain distance, the interactions are too weak to cause any visible effects.

But in YOUR theory the "flak bursts" ARE shield effects, and flak bursts ARE visible.

Not exactly. The energy is from a disruption in the bolt, not from the shield glowing.

So why would anyone in the Empire write something like "it blasted flak on the Millenium Falcon", when he meant "the beams' tracers were disrupted by the Millenium Falcon's shield" or "the beams exploded against MF shields"?

Because it's simplier to say? Why would anyone in the Empire say "jump to lightspeed" when they obviously mean something far, far faster than the speed of light?

Bolt 1 exploded in front of Artoo. The small greenish explosion died down long after Artoo already had another bolt strike him and cause the explosion with smoke.

NO.
Bolt 1 explodes in front of the droid in a small greenish burst.
Bolt 2 HITS Artoo ON THE DOME and there is smoke.

All. Watch the scene.

Bolt 2's impact is obstructed by the explosion of bolt 1. You can see it clearly if you watch it.
Bolt 2 impacts on Artoo's dome. The explosion is up and above Artoo, leaning behing him. It aint on his OTHER side, it's on his TOP.[/quote]

The "greenish explosion" was a shield effect. The explosion is from Artoo getting hit. There is no "flak" burst as per the traditional meaning of the word.

Maybe because it sort of... *scary word" ...missed them?

If the flak can't injure a human at that range (it was pretty close), it's going to be completely useless against military attack craft.

And why should it fall like a rock? It's flying at a certain speed, after all.

Because a rock flying at a certain speed is still going to drop like a rock. Where's the lift coming from?

It was. Among OTHER. Direct hits were rare.

If direct hits were rare, then the Falcon wouldn't be in much danger. It was taking direct hit after direct hit from fighters in ANH.

And since when FIGHTER weapons, which are CLEARLY anti-fighter, referred to as "flak"? Since Star Wars?

Since when is hyperspace, which is clearly much, much faster than c, referred to as lightspeed?

It is relaxed, but it's irrelevant to the point (I NEVER thought of an ultraliteral FLAK interpretation EITHER!).
The point is, you can blast a flak projectile at somebody. And that does damage. But how can you blast a shield INTERACTION, which does NO damage?

I see. So you make it just literal enough to suit you, but not so literal that it doesn't.

1) Why do they need to be kiloton-level? Particle shields strong again? Even after that Death Star II run?

The ray shields will have to block the attacks you describe.

2) Why do they need to have really spectacular visible atmospheric effects?
And since they DON"T, I ask once again - you don't deal with the problem either. The proceeding beam with it's energy LEFT IN IT should go and wreck HELL on the battlefield.

Do you know what the energy weapon yields used on Geonosis were? On Hoth, we know they didn't use full power until they went for the generator.

"They must have found a way" - after all, if they found a way with blasters and other crazy stuff like hyperspace and antigravity (currently antigravity is not seriously considered by scientists, IIRC).
After all, they don't need to be INVISIBLY small - we see a bolt from a distance. All they have to be is small enough to be invisible from the distance we see the bolt.

1) Circular logic: it works that way because they found a way.

2) If what you say is true, then there will be no shrapnel to hit the particle shields. Your particle shield argument unravels completely. We already know the strength of the ray shields.