The Silence and I wrote:
I agree shield protection isn't uniform, it's just the way the theory is presented made it seem to me like they are uniform; and if that is the case then smaller guns serve no meaningful purpose against larger vessels.
As I told apocalypse in my earlier posts, understanding every aspect shield theory can get pretty complicated (there are aspects I still have very little to no grasp on.) - for a general 'vs" debate enviroment its generally simpler to leave out alot of the technicalities on both sides (why do you think momentum, force, or pressure rarely comes up in vs debates? Usually its simpler to think in terms of energy and sometimes power.)
Small guns have alot of disadvantages - they generally have shorter range and less punch, but they do have some advantages though - they have lower recoil (and therefore need correspondingly less bracing/reinforcement than larger guns, which means they can turn faster and more freely.)Usually smaller guns also have a higher rate of fire.
With composite beam "combination" technology (like the superlaser's building lots of smaller beams up into a big beam, or the LAAT's dish guns) you can make several smaller guns almost comparable to a big one, in theory. The only other requirement is that you have a greater number of smaller guns to compensate for the "per shot" difference.
Again, I'm probably oversimplifying it some, but it works out on general principle.
I am willing to entertain the possibility they were gunning for the light guns, the only problem I have with that is EU not withstanding I have never been impressed with their precision targeting skills (especially considering the ISD has far more capable EW). I had thought of the possibility they were attempting to blind the ISD sensors, but their volume of fire wasn't nearly enough to deal with the various sensors at all times and at the range they were fighting at I expect a window would suffice...
A sustained low-powered beam would probably not penetrate enough to "blind" sensors.. and any shot powerful enough to penetrate ought simply destroy it anyhow.
Another possibility is that the T4 was caught in a tractor beam which hampered its ability to accelerate or manuver, and they were trying to shoot out the tractor beam emitter. (If caught, they might be able to move some, but full accel might very well burn out the engines.. like with the Falcon when captured by the Death Star, IIRC.)
Accuracy-wise, there's several complications. For one thing, targeting weak points isnt going to be easy - you can't detect them directly (shields absorb energy remember.) and the dynamic nature of the shields means that making alterations to the overlapping can make some of the weak points or gaps disappear.
And if there IS a tractor beam in play, it might very well interfere with the ability of the turret's mobility, making precision targeting more difficult (analgous to the fact that "distortion generators" on the Death Star or gravity well projectors can interfere with the manuvering of fighters.)
I am going to have to disagree here, those light guns probably have less than 1/1000 th the momentum of a large ship killer turbolaser--it is such a long shot I wouldn't even consider it.
Think back to Mike's shield analysis of the TESB incident
here The estimate of the asteroid's momentum corresponds to a 350 GT TL. Based on estimated mass and acceleration figures (about 100,000 tons for the T4 disregarding fuel - which I consider conservative, and a 3000 gee acceleration.) the ship's power generation has to be in the e20-e21 watt range.. well into the hundreds of gigatons range.
A single shot on its own *might* not do much, but sustained bombardment over minutes (maybe even an hour or so) might have results.
Surely the frigate has larger weaponry? If the shielding there was reduced to 1/10,000 th its normal strength (or something like that) to the point where it has difficulty dealing with light guns why not send a few medium cannons into the fray? The frigate did not appear damaged, so I expect its larger guns were charging after having just fired a salvo; but why continue firing with the tiny guns if the shielding facing it can handle the larger guns too, unless shield geometry is really unstable or the shields act more like trek shields, taking damage even from weaker guns?
The frigate presumably HAS bigger guns, and presumably they were recharging (we never see any broadsides onscreen, I remind you.) As for firing the tiny guns, why not? We don't know the strength of the shields in this section - they may not stop the frigate's larger guns at all. The lighter guns would presumably be used to take out sensors or guns that might threaten it directly that close up (think to how Thrawn destrtoyed the guns on an entire side of an Assault Frigate in HTTE to use it as a shield.) Its even possible those guns werent as "light" as they seem - they might be projectile weapons for all we know.
On the other hand, it might be one of the medical ships (yeah I know, dumb sending a medical ship into combat, but these are the Rebels we're talking about.. at this point they're obviously desperate.)
The Frigate isn't doign any major damage (yet), nor is it apparently being supported by larger ships (maybe a corvette) - I preusme that the Emperor's standing orders about not attacking applied so long as the ship in question was not in danger (think back to the Imperial communications ship which destroyed a rebel cruiser but was disabled in doing so.)
The rebels were by canon outgunned and out-numbered. Aside from a few one-shot tricks (ramship/fire ship tactics) they could not have survived had the Imperials not held back some.
Come again? I was under the rather strong impression the Falcon only fended the TIEs off in ESB because it avoided most of the fire, not because its rear shields could hold out forever.
The Falcon can withstand at LEAST multi-megaton impacts, both by their ability to withstand Imperial light weapons fire (TESB) and by comparison to similarily-sized vessels (like Padme's personal yacht in the AOTC:ICS)
What is the reasoning behind sending TIEs after a ship they cannot damage without surounding and delivering multiple attack vectors in a setting where said ship is not going to allow such an attack? If they want to send ships after them why not a small gunboat class?
Those were sentry ships, and they couldnt just let them pass without attempting tos top them. And as I pointed out, its not impossible for them to damage the Falcon - they have to get "around" the angled shields, though, to do so. (in other words, they have to trick it to use its shields in a direction they aren't attacking from, and hit it before the shields can be redeployed.)
Turns out the shields were up the whole time; I had not watched that scene closely since before the DVDs and the fighter that crashes into the Executor looks a heck of lot like a turbolaser blast. The Executor's light guns cause damage to the frigate but the Executor fends off the frigate's guns without apparent damage.
Got screenshots? When I looked at the scene I never recalled seeing any "splintering" or "bolt-interactions" - sometimes its easy to confuse bolt/shield interactions with explosions. And I know at least some of the shots "hit" without any flashes or whatnot.
) then what Connor means, to use the sink analogy, is the "drain" can drain away 6.9 of those turbolaser hits in 1/12 th a second and the 0.1 turbolaser shot left will remain in the sink--which probably can hold far, far more than 0.1 of a shot. So unless you maintain firing at least 7 shots every 1/12 th a second long enough for those 0.1's to fill the sink the shields will hold. So no, 7 shots is not enough to breach the shields (if I made an error somewhere Connor feel free to point it out).
This is starting to sound very inconsistant with the way combat in SW is conducted. The reason little ships aren't a threat to big ships is because the big ships can slice apart the little ships before the little ships can inflict sufficient damage, not because the little ships can inflict no damage. This theory is not adding up.
). My contention had largely to do with the ability of a shield to abosrb incoming energy, rather than its ability to store and re-radiate the energy it absorbs. I was using dissipation to describe this statistic, whereas IP and (presumably) Connor were using it to describe its ability to re-radiate (I think -- feel free to correct me if I'm misrepresenting our respective points in any way). 
