Venator hangar gun footage

[Mad]

If we are talking teratons of energy being tossed around, then even if a fraction blows past the shields their should be huge amounts (hundreds of meters) of dura-steel being vaporized.

And you know enough about the properties of durasteel/durarmor and its energy-handling capabilities and characteristics to be able to make that claim?

[The Silence and I]

I think it is a fair claim, 0.1% of a TT's worth of energy is still a GT. 200 GT weaponry can damage combat grade shields and destroy warship hulls, a single GT should cause extensive damage to mere material.

Starfighters with KT at best weaponry caused noticable puncture damage to the DS, which was presumable made of durasteel. If not the hull then surely the armored weapons tower was, and low KT weaponry destroyed it.

The Falcon's KT grade weaponry was dangerous enough that captain Needa raised shields when Han made his attack run. Unless there are easily hit points on an ISD that are 6 or so ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE weaker against thermal effects than the general ship then yes, I would say even a small fraction of a TT will greatly damage the materials used in warship hulls.

[Connor MacLeod]

I think it is a fair claim, 0.1% of a TT's worth of energy is still a GT. 200 GT weaponry can damage combat grade shields and destroy warship hulls, a single GT should cause extensive damage to mere material.

Based on?

Starfighters with KT at best weaponry caused noticable puncture damage to the DS, which was presumable made of durasteel.

According to the novelization, the damage was to specific areas and components of the station, not that it neccesarily blew huge chunks out of the hull (the explosions we saw were largely secondary.)

It is worrth noting that the DS's hull was barely scratched (maybe a couple of centimeters in diameter and depth, judging by the OT:ICS and other visuals.) by the proton torpedoes that missed the exhaust port (which are at *least kiloton* range themselves.)

There is also the small fact about "fusion rockets" that barely scratched the Acclamator's hulls in the AOTC:ICS. Again, at least kiloton range, but hardly damaged.

The Falcon's KT grade weaponry was dangerous enough that captain Needa raised shields when Han made his attack run. Unless there are easily hit points on an ISD that are 6 or so ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE weaker against thermal effects than the general ship then yes, I would say even a small fraction of a TT will greatly damage the materials used in warship hulls.

They thought Han was going to ram the ship. The TESB novelization went into this IIRC. And the same book also indicated that the ramming attack would not be extremely damaging to the tower itself, but it would cause decompression in the bridge and kill all the crew.

[The Silence and I]

I think it is a fair claim, 0.1% of a TT's worth of energy is still a GT. 200 GT weaponry can damage combat grade shields and destroy warship hulls, a single GT should cause extensive damage to mere material.

Based on?

Look, 1/1000 of a TT is a GT right? What are the odds a shield will fail after shunting away 999/1000 of an attack and not before? I think even a GT is dangerous to a warship's hull, the thermal capacity of the armor of the era can be overcome using energy intensities found in the KT grade starfighter weaponry (from the tower example). As long as a weapon has similar intensities the only limiting factor is the energy contained within the blast and at the right intensity I have no trouble thinking a GT or greater will be able to drill a small hole at least into the armor and flash vaporize all kinds of internal things. But my main point is I don't think a mere 1/1000 of the energy would strike the hull, I think the odds are in favor of more. 200 GT will certainly cause damage, how much less can you use to still cause damage? 100 GT, 50, 20, 5? The cut off where anything less is useless hard to quantify.

Starfighters with KT at best weaponry caused noticable puncture damage to the DS, which was presumable made of durasteel.

According to the novelization, the damage was to specific areas and components of the station, not that it neccesarily blew huge chunks out of the hull (the explosions we saw were largely secondary.)

Fair enough, which is why I also brought up the weapon tower, which we know is armored.

It is worrth noting that the DS's hull was barely scratched (maybe a couple of centimeters in diameter and depth, judging by the OT:ICS and other visuals.) by the proton torpedoes that missed the exhaust port (which are at *least kiloton* range themselves.)

Yes I know of this example. The torpedoes that hardly scorched the surface yet shook the 160 km diameter uber dense battle station and didn't even cook the offending fighter with reflected radiation. I participated in a thread attempting to rationalize this incident and no conclusion was achieved. I would throw it out for sanity's sake.

There is also the small fact about "fusion rockets" that barely scratched the Acclamator's hulls in the AOTC:ICS. Again, at least kiloton range, but hardly damaged.

This is interesting, I have heard it before. I am usually dubious of things I have not seen happen but this is a nebulous statement really-- KT< most likely, but how much so? Is the blast focused? How tightly? Did it even happen in the movies?

The Falcon's KT grade weaponry was dangerous enough that captain Needa raised shields when Han made his attack run. Unless there are easily hit points on an ISD that are 6 or so ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE weaker against thermal effects than the general ship then yes, I would say even a small fraction of a TT will greatly damage the materials used in warship hulls.

They thought Han was going to ram the ship. The TESB novelization went into this IIRC. And the same book also indicated that the ramming attack would not be extremely damaging to the tower itself, but it would cause decompression in the bridge and kill all the crew.

This is news to me... hmm. I wonder if my point stands though, in ROTJ a starfighter laser weapon blasts a large hole in the bridge tower of an unshielded ISD--same scene with the flaming TIE and the funkly blue glowing thing we see a few times. The material in the bridge tower is weak enough against heat to be readily destroyed by starfighter grade weaponry. Now I suppose you could argue the material used is uber weak and thin to boot but if the disparity were so large then the Imperials would be blathering idiots to put a command center on something that is like wet tissue paper to the rest of the ships steel.

I am not arguing the bridge tower is armored hence I win. No, I am arguing that adding armor wouldn't make 5-6 orders of magnitude difference, which is rougly what you need to make a GT irrelevent to an armored hull. Armor = better yes, but a million times better than your own bridge structure? Not likely.

This is why I say the claim seems fair to me. The energy bleed through from a multi TT weapon is most likely going to be many many GTs of energy, and yes I do think that kind of energy should remind everyone why shields exist in a flash boiling kind of manner.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

The Falcon's KT grade weaponry was dangerous enough that captain Needa raised shields when Han made his attack run. Unless there are easily hit points on an ISD that are 6 or so ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE weaker against thermal effects than the general ship then yes, I would say even a small fraction of a TT will greatly damage the materials used in warship hulls.

They thought Han was going to ram the ship. The TESB novelization went into this IIRC. And the same book also indicated that the ramming attack would not be extremely damaging to the tower itself, but it would cause decompression in the bridge and kill all the crew.

Not to mention that it only makes sense to raise the shields regardless of what level the threat is. If even only a Z-95 was heading straight for the bridge, they'd still be fools not to raise the shields.

[The Original Nex]

Yes I know of this example. The torpedoes that hardly scorched the surface yet shook the 160 km diameter uber dense battle station and didn't even cook the offending fighter with reflected radiation. I participated in a thread attempting to rationalize this incident and no conclusion was achieved. I would throw it out for sanity's sake.

What makes you think that they shook the whole station? I was under the impression that the hallways we saw shaking were in the immediate area of the blast. You mean to say that Tarkin was sitting up in the overbridge shaking from the proton torp blast?

Proton Torps direct all their energy outward towards their target, none was directed at the starfighter in question.

This is news to me... hmm. I wonder if my point stands though, in ROTJ a starfighter laser weapon blasts a large hole in the bridge tower of an unshielded ISD--same scene with the flaming TIE and the funkly blue glowing thing we see a few times. The material in the bridge tower is weak enough against heat to be readily destroyed by starfighter grade weaponry. Now I suppose you could argue the material used is uber weak and thin to boot but if the disparity were so large then the Imperials would be blathering idiots to put a command center on something that is like wet tissue paper to the rest of the ships steel.

Show me this "big hole." The shot doesn't last long enough to see the effects of the bolt. We only see a fireball, something that often happens when something is struck by blaster bolts whether damage is caused of not (see Slave 1 blasters creating a fireball on the Kamino landing platform, but leaving no damage).

You can't say that that blast created a "big hole," you have no basis to say that.

[Captain Cyran]

Yes I know of this example. The torpedoes that hardly scorched the surface yet shook the 160 km diameter uber dense battle station and didn't even cook the offending fighter with reflected radiation. I participated in a thread attempting to rationalize this incident and no conclusion was achieved. I would throw it out for sanity's sake.

What makes you think that they shook the whole station? I was under the impression that the hallways we saw shaking were in the immediate area of the blast. You mean to say that Tarkin was sitting up in the overbridge shaking from the proton torp blast?

If just that section of the ship were shaking as much as it was, that would have caused massive internal damage to the DS. Tarkin wasn't shaking as much as the section right next to the blast, but he would have felt it.

Proton Torps direct all their energy outward towards their target, none was directed at the starfighter in question.

But the energy would have been reflected back towards the fighter as it couldn't go anywhere else.

This is news to me... hmm. I wonder if my point stands though, in ROTJ a starfighter laser weapon blasts a large hole in the bridge tower of an unshielded ISD--same scene with the flaming TIE and the funkly blue glowing thing we see a few times. The material in the bridge tower is weak enough against heat to be readily destroyed by starfighter grade weaponry. Now I suppose you could argue the material used is uber weak and thin to boot but if the disparity were so large then the Imperials would be blathering idiots to put a command center on something that is like wet tissue paper to the rest of the ships steel.

Show me this "big hole." The shot doesn't last long enough to see the effects of the bolt. We only see a fireball, something that often happens when something is struck by blaster bolts whether damage is caused of not (see Slave 1 blasters creating a fireball on the Kamino landing platform, but leaving no damage).

You can't say that that blast created a "big hole," you have no basis to say that.

That doesn't work, Kamino architexture is surrounded by a shield to protect it from the weather. That is why there was no hole there.

[Spartan]

Mad wrote:

And you know enough about the properties of durasteel/durarmor and its energy-handling capabilities and characteristics to be able to make that claim?

I assume you are refering to the specific heat of the armor? Well we know its neutronium impregnated. It's hard to imagine a substance with a higher specific heat index than neutronium.

The Acculamator has dura-armor which is noted to be more resilent than dura-steel. In ATOC-ICS we are told that the CIS rockets can barely score the neutronium impregnated cladding. These are mere fighter scale weapons at most in the giga-ton range (more likely kiloton-megaton range), and yet they cause extensive cratering to the Acclamators armor (just look at the picture).

Now I've not yet scaled the size or depth of the craters, but we are not talking scratches here.

Now we are talking about weapon that if comparable to an ISD's heavy turbo lasers then it should be dishing out teraton range shots. Said shots penetrated the vessel in questions shields, hence the fireball. If even a fraction of the energy pass on to the target vessel, then we are talking about potentially orders of magnitude more energy that need to crater dura-armor. Never mind dura-steel.

[Firefox]

These are mere fighter scale weapons at most in the giga-ton range (more likely kiloton-megaton range), and yet they cause extensive cratering to the Acclamators armor (just look at the picture).

Assuming you're referring to the Acclamator drawing in the AotC-ICS, how do you know those craters were caused by starfighter-grade ordnance, and not capship weapons?

Meanwhile, I think I've made a new discovery. Has anyone else noticed there are *four* guns in each of the Venator's heavy turrets?

[The Original Nex]

If just that section of the ship were shaking as much as it was, that would have caused massive internal damage to the DS. Tarkin wasn't shaking as much as the section right next to the blast, but he would have felt it.

I know that he would have felt it, but the whole station certainly wasn't shaking to the extent shown in the one area near the blast-point

But the energy would have been reflected back towards the fighter as it couldn't go anywhere else.

Point, but fighters still have shields, it is hardly remarkable that Red Leader survived.

That doesn't work, Kamino architexture is surrounded by a shield to protect it from the weather. That is why there was no hole there.

Fine, but there's still no proof of a "big hole" in the ISD, which was the contention.

[The Silence and I]

With the proton torpedo thread a ways back it was suggested only the immediate vicinity was shaking (I was reluctant to believe anything else myself) due to a local flexing due to a degree of give in the material of the DS hull. But you see, SW materials are so uberly strong and stiff, because of what they are used to build, that such flexing is impossible because even if enough force were directed against the hull to shake the entire station the local area would not have flexed as much as it seemed to have done. Their materials are that damn strong, according the thread. SO, the only way to shake up the stormies inside like that is to shake the entire bloody moon like that--which requires an uber bomb of doom (TM) to pull off. Because that uber bomb of doom (TM) didn't even pierce the hull or tickle the fighter it clearly wasn't an uber bomb of doom (TM). Hence, this example was decided to be useless and was thrown out. Make sense? I hope not.

If you want proof of a big hole in the bridge tower I can't give it to you. We all know the models were never damaged and this is simply special effects. I can tell you though that the fireball is bigger than my livingroom and dinning room together, grows after the bolts are done firing, and lingers glowing strong as the camera passes by. If the hull was not at least pitted deeply and or widely then were did so much vaporized material come from? Thin vacuum? Of course the lingering effect is more telling than you might think: if the bolts had cratered the surface in a quick flash vaporization the visual result would have been a violent, brief "eruption" of gasses (metal vapor) leaving a cherry red glowing hull. We actually see something more akin to a fire, in that it is long lived and not too violent. What I think happened is the hull was breached and many things inside started reacting (burning, with or without oxygen, who cares. Futuristic volitiles...) and sending a more or less constant glow of fumes out into space. After a while the reactants will be used up. But I do think there was a hole, even if it was a small one, it makes the best sense in terms of the visuals we have.

[nightmare]

With the proton torpedo thread a ways back it was suggested only the immediate vicinity was shaking (I was reluctant to believe anything else myself) due to a local flexing due to a degree of give in the material of the DS hull. But you see, SW materials are so uberly strong and stiff, because of what they are used to build, that such flexing is impossible because even if enough force were directed against the hull to shake the entire station the local area would not have flexed as much as it seemed to have done. Their materials are that damn strong, according the thread. SO, the only way to shake up the stormies inside like that is to shake the entire bloody moon like that--which requires an uber bomb of doom (TM) to pull off. Because that uber bomb of doom (TM) didn't even pierce the hull or tickle the fighter it clearly wasn't an uber bomb of doom (TM). Hence, this example was decided to be useless and was thrown out. Make sense? I hope not.

Yes, the materials are strong. Thermonuclear warheads going off outside Ackbar's window, Acclamator barely scored by fusion rockets, ISD-II bridge windows reinforced so they can take a captial concussion missile, DS proton torpedo scorching, numerous instances of fighters surviving punishment and multi-km buildings as standard on core worlds, etc.

Nothing suggests, however, that the entire DS is built in practically one block. Sections with dampening technologies would be much more logical. Why have blast doors if not to seal off sections, hmm? In short, your assumption - that the DS must be built in one block due to material strenght - is nonsense. With your logic, it would be better to build cars without shock dampeners, because it would make them stronger against impacts. It's the other way around. That's why Cheyenne mountain has massive dampeners, that's why cars have shock dampeners and that's why ablative armour works. It helps both against point-of-impacts and material fatigue.

*tries to ignore most of the thread to avoid spoilers so you'll have to forgive me if I don't answer all the questions posed.*

[Connor MacLeod]

Based on?

Look, 1/1000 of a TT is a GT right? What are the odds a shield will fail after shunting away 999/1000 of an attack and not before? [/quote]

Depends on the vessel in question don't you think?

I think even a GT is dangerous to a warship's hull,

Stop assuming all warships are the same.

the thermal capacity of the armor of the era can be overcome using energy intensities found in the KT grade starfighter weaponry (from the tower example).

What tower example?

As long as a weapon has similar intensities the only limiting factor is the energy contained within the blast and at the right intensity I have no trouble thinking a GT or greater will be able to drill a small hole at least into the armor and flash vaporize all kinds of internal things.

Which is going to vary depending on the particular ship in question (how big it is, its role, and whatnot. A Corvette is not going to be as well armored as a Star Destrtoyer. And a Battlecruiser is not going to be as well armored as a battleship.)

As for the rest of it, the obvious problem is is that too small a hole would conceivably do little damage even if it penetrates deeply into the ship - the bolt/beam is only going to vaporize things along the path of the beam, and maybe immediately surrounding it. What's more, the beam might very well punch out the other side without hitting anything vital, essentially wasting teh energy of the shot. (Heavy turbolaser bolts have been known to punch holes straight through an unshielded warship.)

But my main point is I don't think a mere 1/1000 of the energy would strike the hull, I think the odds are in favor of more. 200 GT will certainly cause damage, how much less can you use to still cause damage? 100 GT, 50, 20, 5? The cut off where anything less is useless hard to quantify.

Yes, it is. So whats the point of all this.

Fair enough, which is why I also brought up the weapon tower, which we know is armored.

Again what weapon tower, and how is this relevant to the thick hull armor of starships? Are you seriously assuming every part of the ship is armored equally?

Yes I know of this example. The torpedoes that hardly scorched the surface yet shook the 160 km diameter uber dense battle station and didn't even cook the offending fighter with reflected radiation. I participated in a thread attempting to rationalize this incident and no conclusion was achieved. I would throw it out for sanity's sake.

Or like any rational person, you might realize there were subsidiary explosions triggered on the Death STar that might result in the "shaking".

This is interesting, I have heard it before. I am usually dubious of things I have not seen happen but this is a nebulous statement really-- KT< most likely, but how much so?

At least a kiloton, but even that is enough, relatively speaking (we're talking at LEAST 4 terajoules per square centimeter, after all.)

Is the blast focused? How tightly?

Presumably so, since gunship missiles (and the proton torpedoes on X-wings) were focused. As for how tightly.. a two degree cone for the LAAT gunship missiles (100 kilotons.) The AOTC: ICs does make mention of "beamed" and "concentrtated heat" effects for warheads though.

Did it even happen in the movies?

No, and what difference does that make? Unless its explicitly contradicted by something in a higher source, it stands. I grow really tired of this "Is it in the movies? Then it probably doesn't matter" bullshit.

I will point out that Trade Federation core ships weren't harmed by gunship missiles, and that even the TEchno union starships knocked over by missile bombardments were not substantially damaged.

This is news to me... hmm. I wonder if my point stands though, in ROTJ a starfighter laser weapon blasts a large hole in the bridge tower of an unshielded ISD--same scene with the flaming TIE and the funkly blue glowing thing we see a few times.

Stop acting as if a starship's hull has some sort of uniform thickness or resiliency. And even IF a starfighter punched some sort of hole (IIRC what you are talking about,. its not THAT largge.), the bridge tower is noticably less armored than the main hull (TESB asteroid incident is a further example, and discussed extensively by Mike.)

The material in the bridge tower is weak enough against heat to be readily destroyed by starfighter grade weaponry. Now I suppose you could argue the material used is uber weak and thin to boot but if the disparity were so large then the Imperials would be blathering idiots to put a command center on something that is like wet tissue paper to the rest of the ships steel.

You know, its not an unheard concept for naval warships to armor some places of a ship more heavily than others, or to leave certain areas totally unprotected. Its called the "All or Nothing armour scheme"

And the "bridge towers" of most warships (such as carriers) is not that well armored relative to the overall ship (again, discussed on Mike's shields page.)

I am not arguing the bridge tower is armored hence I win. No, I am arguing that adding armor wouldn't make 5-6 orders of magnitude difference, which is rougly what you need to make a GT irrelevent to an armored hull. Armor = better yes, but a million times better than your own bridge structure? Not likely.

See above.

This is why I say the claim seems fair to me. The energy bleed through from a multi TT weapon is most likely going to be many many GTs of energy, and yes I do think that kind of energy should remind everyone why shields exist in a flash boiling kind of manner.

See, you're definitely not making any sense now.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

I'm confused. Do the Venator-class Star Destroyers have any relevance to the Victory-class ones? Are they even in the movie since EU stated that they were used in the clone wars.

[Firefox]

According to folks at Lucasfilm, there will be no Victory class SDs. Still, one can hope an ILM tech furtively added one in the background, perhaps at the end of the movie.

[Spartan]

Firefox wrote:

Assuming you're referring to the Acclamator drawing in the AotC-ICS, how do you know those craters were caused by starfighter-grade ordnance, and not capship weapons?

I was refering to AotC-ICS. It was specifically referenceed to be fighter grade. Capital ships in SW very rarely engage each other with missile weapons as such weapons are far to easily shot down by close in weapons systems or 'spoofed' by ECM. Also is you've read the graphic novel version of ATOC you can see CIS droid fighters swarming in low orbit around genosis; though they did not appear in ATOC.

[VT-16]

Do the Venator-class Star Destroyers have any relevance to the Victory-class ones?

If they were the same, they would have the same class-name, now wouldn´t they?

I´m sure there will be EU ship-cameos just like in AOTC and ANH, judging by how easy it is to make a low-resolution CG model. They´ve already made a Farscape ship-cameo, in the opening battle, wouldn´t be too hard to give EU ships some movie-lovin´ as well.

[Spartan]

Do the Venator-class Star Destroyers have any relevance to the Victory-class ones?

The only thing that comes to mind is that the Venator is a competing design for the Victory. I would guess that the Victory was the more successful design as its pretty clear that the ISD's design would have more readily evolved from the Victory class than the Venator design.

[VT-16]

The Venator was the older design of the two, and considered the first true Star Destroyer. The Victory-class apparently arrived too late in the wars to make any significant difference. (Of course they became more notable during the Imperial era.)

[Spartan]

Actually they could still be contemporay but competing designs. Indeed they have to be as the ISD makes its appearance shortly after the close of the Clone Wars. It would make more since in universe if the Venator design was somewhat easier toget into production. Or if the Victory design ran into production troubles. Ofcourse it could be that both designs served during the war and no Victory's were avalible for the Battle of Courscant.

[Lord Revan]

Well since VSDIs are good at first strike and planetary atttack missions, but as good in space battle it would make sence that there's no VSDs at the battle of Corusant.

[VT-16]

And the Venators are described as the "Pride of the Republic Navy", so it makes sense to have them close to the heart of the Republic.

[Lord Revan]

And the Venators are described as the "Pride of the Republic Navy", so it makes sense to have them close to the heart of the Republic.

and are as far as I know are designed to beat the crap out the CIS fleet (making them good at defending anything), so the choice of using Verdators for the Corusant defence fleet is a natural one.

[The Silence and I]

Look, 1/1000 of a TT is a GT right? What are the odds a shield will fail after shunting away 999/1000 of an attack and not before?

Depends on the vessel in question don't you think?

You missed my point I think.
If a shield is on the verge of collapse, what are the odds it will have exactly enough reserve to absorb the vast majority of one last shot before failing? Are battles pre-planned (don't say yes )? I suspect you find the odds higher than I do, simply because you think the armor will stop largish fractions of TT level energies--a belief I do not share I will point out now. Perhaps this is the confusion?

I think even a GT is dangerous to a warship's hull,

Stop assuming all warships are the same.

I am of the belief that if you put GT level energies into a relatively small volumn the intensities that result will be too much for even the thermal limit of ISD grade armor, and damage will result. Intensity and total energy are most of what is relevant to an energy weapon; achieve a certain intensity and you can damage any material the next question is do you have enough energy/power to cause significant damage.

the thermal capacity of the armor of the era can be overcome using energy intensities found in the KT grade starfighter weaponry (from the tower example).

What tower example?

Remember in ANH when (I think it was two) starfighters attack and destroy a gun tower? Those towers are supposedly armored with combat grade material. The fighter's weapons proved able to damage that material and destroy the tower. The energy intesity of X-Wing cannons is not known, but with a limited (single digit KT) energy behind each shot the weapons were able to penetrate a light covering of armor.

Making a small leap I assume the larger weapons can achieve at least equivalent intensities and obviously much higher energies. Such weapons should be able to penetrate orders of magnitude more material (thickness) than starfighter weapons, right? It won't be a clean relation because of ablating material getting in the way and more blast effects etc. but I am trying to say if a starfighter can pierce 5cm of combat grade armor (random number) then a multi TT weapon with the same (if not greater) intensities should be able to penetrate A LOT MORE. Hence why I think even a small fraction of such a multi TT weapon should pierce the hull and cause havok inside.

As long as a weapon has similar intensities the only limiting factor is the energy contained within the blast and at the right intensity I have no trouble thinking a GT or greater will be able to drill a small hole at least into the armor and flash vaporize all kinds of internal things.

Which is going to vary depending on the particular ship in question (how big it is, its role, and whatnot. A Corvette is not going to be as well armored as a Star Destrtoyer. And a Battlecruiser is not going to be as well armored as a battleship.)

All true, amounts of armor will vary, but not by 10-100-1000-10,000 times, except perhaps the difference between a window and a reinforce area of hull. Get the right intensities behind it and you will penetrate if you have the energy to back it up, and with GT< energies likely from a leaked shot I do think a hull breach would occur.

As for the rest of it, the obvious problem is is that too small a hole would conceivably do little damage even if it penetrates deeply into the ship - the bolt/beam is only going to vaporize things along the path of the beam, and maybe immediately surrounding it. What's more, the beam might very well punch out the other side without hitting anything vital, essentially wasting teh energy of the shot. (Heavy turbolaser bolts have been known to punch holes straight through an unshielded warship.)

This is a good point I think, as there is no reason a bolt would loose focus AFTER entering the ship, unless it was timed to (for clarification, and this is not something I want to debat here, I hold with the belief that many turbolaser bolts are infact projectiles) or something.

Yes I know of this example. The torpedoes that hardly scorched the surface yet shook the 160 km diameter uber dense battle station and didn't even cook the offending fighter with reflected radiation. I participated in a thread attempting to rationalize this incident and no conclusion was achieved. I would throw it out for sanity's sake.

Or like any rational person, you might realize there were subsidiary explosions triggered on the Death STar that might result in the "shaking".

If part of the station shook--cause is irrelevant--then either local materials flexed or the entire damn station shook too. I wanted to say local materials flexed, but NO! That can't be! So we are left with an impossibility.

This is interesting, I have heard it before. I am usually dubious of things I have not seen happen but this is a nebulous statement really-- KT< most likely, but how much so?

At least a kiloton, but even that is enough, relatively speaking (we're talking at LEAST 4 terajoules per square centimeter, after all.)

That does not help much, but is a lower limit.

Did it even happen in the movies?

No, and what difference does that make? Unless its explicitly contradicted by something in a higher source, it stands. I grow really tired of this "Is it in the movies? Then it probably doesn't matter" bullshit.

I only bring it up because I dispise the EU, I will not contend it though.

I will point out that Trade Federation core ships weren't harmed by gunship missiles, and that even the TEchno union starships knocked over by missile bombardments were not substantially damaged.

Now, I don't wish to open THAT can of worms, but I seriously doubt anyone there was packing more than KT grade, and I would think far, far less.

All I am saying is I think it is fair to say a few GT at a high intensity will cause significant damage to the hull (unless it cleanly penetrates). I think you are far more enamored of the materials in SW than I am and I have no furthur wish to debate this. If you want my concession you have it, but don't assume you have convinced me

[Star-Blighter]

Look, 1/1000 of a TT is a GT right? What are the odds a shield will fail after shunting away 999/1000 of an attack and not before?

Depends on the vessel in question don't you think?

You missed my point I think.
If a shield is on the verge of collapse, what are the odds it will have exactly enough reserve to absorb the vast majority of one last shot before failing? Are battles pre-planned (don't say yes )? I suspect you find the odds higher than I do, simply because you think the armor will stop largish fractions of TT level energies--a belief I do not share I will point out now. Perhaps this is the confusion?

I think even a GT is dangerous to a warship's hull,

Stop assuming all warships are the same.

I am of the belief that if you put GT level energies into a relatively small volumn the intensities that result will be too much for even the thermal limit of ISD grade armor, and damage will result. Intensity and total energy are most of what is relevant to an energy weapon; achieve a certain intensity and you can damage any material the next question is do you have enough energy/power to cause significant damage.

the thermal capacity of the armor of the era can be overcome using energy intensities found in the KT grade starfighter weaponry (from the tower example).

What tower example?

Remember in ANH when (I think it was two) starfighters attack and destroy a gun tower? Those towers are supposedly armored with combat grade material. The fighter's weapons proved able to damage that material and destroy the tower. The energy intesity of X-Wing cannons is not known, but with a limited (single digit KT) energy behind each shot the weapons were able to penetrate a light covering of armor.

Making a small leap I assume the larger weapons can achieve at least equivalent intensities and obviously much higher energies. Such weapons should be able to penetrate orders of magnitude more material (thickness) than starfighter weapons, right? It won't be a clean relation because of ablating material getting in the way and more blast effects etc. but I am trying to say if a starfighter can pierce 5cm of combat grade armor (random number) then a multi TT weapon with the same (if not greater) intensities should be able to penetrate A LOT MORE. Hence why I think even a small fraction of such a multi TT weapon should pierce the hull and cause havok inside.

As long as a weapon has similar intensities the only limiting factor is the energy contained within the blast and at the right intensity I have no trouble thinking a GT or greater will be able to drill a small hole at least into the armor and flash vaporize all kinds of internal things.

Which is going to vary depending on the particular ship in question (how big it is, its role, and whatnot. A Corvette is not going to be as well armored as a Star Destrtoyer. And a Battlecruiser is not going to be as well armored as a battleship.)

All true, amounts of armor will vary, but not by 10-100-1000-10,000 times, except perhaps the difference between a window and a reinforce area of hull. Get the right intensities behind it and you will penetrate if you have the energy to back it up, and with GT< energies likely from a leaked shot I do think a hull breach would occur.

As for the rest of it, the obvious problem is is that too small a hole would conceivably do little damage even if it penetrates deeply into the ship - the bolt/beam is only going to vaporize things along the path of the beam, and maybe immediately surrounding it. What's more, the beam might very well punch out the other side without hitting anything vital, essentially wasting teh energy of the shot. (Heavy turbolaser bolts have been known to punch holes straight through an unshielded warship.)

This is a good point I think, as there is no reason a bolt would loose focus AFTER entering the ship, unless it was timed to (for clarification, and this is not something I want to debat here, I hold with the belief that many turbolaser bolts are infact projectiles) or something.

Yes I know of this example. The torpedoes that hardly scorched the surface yet shook the 160 km diameter uber dense battle station and didn't even cook the offending fighter with reflected radiation. I participated in a thread attempting to rationalize this incident and no conclusion was achieved. I would throw it out for sanity's sake.

Or like any rational person, you might realize there were subsidiary explosions triggered on the Death STar that might result in the "shaking".

If part of the station shook--cause is irrelevant--then either local materials flexed or the entire damn station shook too. I wanted to say local materials flexed, but NO! That can't be! So we are left with an impossibility.

This is interesting, I have heard it before. I am usually dubious of things I have not seen happen but this is a nebulous statement really-- KT< most likely, but how much so?

At least a kiloton, but even that is enough, relatively speaking (we're talking at LEAST 4 terajoules per square centimeter, after all.)

That does not help much, but is a lower limit.

Did it even happen in the movies?

No, and what difference does that make? Unless its explicitly contradicted by something in a higher source, it stands. I grow really tired of this "Is it in the movies? Then it probably doesn't matter" bullshit.

I only bring it up because I dispise the EU, I will not contend it though.

I will point out that Trade Federation core ships weren't harmed by gunship missiles, and that even the TEchno union starships knocked over by missile bombardments were not substantially damaged.

Now, I don't wish to open THAT can of worms, but I seriously doubt anyone there was packing more than KT grade, and I would think far, far less.

All I am saying is I think it is fair to say a few GT at a high intensity will cause significant damage to the hull (unless it cleanly penetrates). I think you are far more enamored of the materials in SW than I am and I have no furthur wish to debate this. If you want my concession you have it, but don't assume you have convinced me

Neutronium impregnated hulls would be VERY, VERY fucking resistant to thermal damage. And RoTJ makes it fairely obvious that once the shields go down, your kinda fucked in general anyways.