Does Star Trek Have Any Chance AT ALL?!

[tempest]

You blathering idiot...

The guns are powerful compared to other Sci Fi series.

The reason their so underpowered or appeared to be is because their technological equivilant.

Its like trying to kill a elephant with a short sword.

The guns were out of date because the GALATIC Empire has total control over all weapon factories and the only avaliable weapons are on the black market meaning the weapons are out of date.

Its a Rebellion not a Empire Vs a Empire. Think about it, if I control all factories producing heavy weapons I would make sure I know where every single one of those heavy weapons were, so of course the Rebels get outdated and inferior weapons, not to mention they're working on a short budget.

Ok, maybe this isnt making sense...... but your on a planet of ice, and the AT-AT's are walking on this ice. Even the puniest of star-fighter weapons you have can sink an AT-AT into a crater (per shot). You have around 60 starfighters and about a dozen AT'AT's. Any sort of reasonable weapon (such as a gun on a troop transport) would leave the AT-AT's thrown miles back, under an avalanche of debris.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Tempest:
Correct me if i'm wrong but i think what you're saying that the sheilds of the Hoth base were so powerful, and by extention most SW planetary shields, that defense guns would be largely ancillary because little could punch through the shield. So the idea, i think, is why spend money on a powerful battery of turbolasers when a shield defends just as well. And that, while the AQ cannot hurt the main planets of the Empire, they could, and perhaps would thought i cant imagine why, decide to 'go down fighting' by taking out as many unsheilded backwater planets as possible before they go. Furthermore that the defense trench line guns at Hoth were inadequate for a reason, because they thought they could hide behind the shield, and that is evidence of the first point.

Just to try and clarify this, and again correct me if i'm mistaken.

[tempest]

Tempest:
Correct me if i'm wrong but i think what you're saying that the sheilds of the Hoth base were so powerful, and by extention most SW planetary shields, that defense guns would be largely ancillary because little could punch through the shield. So the idea, i think, is why spend money on a powerful battery of turbolasers when a shield defends just as well. And that, while the AQ cannot hurt the main planets of the Empire, they could, and perhaps would thought i cant imagine why, decide to 'go down fighting' by taking out as many unsheilded backwater planets as possible before they go. Furthermore that the defense trench line guns at Hoth were inadequate for a reason, because they thought they could hide behind the shield, and that is evidence of the first point.

Just to try and clarify this, and again correct me if i'm mistaken.

Damn.... Yea pretty much everything dead on...

I'm still a little bugged about the rebel firepower discrepancy, because it's really out of whack by orders of magnitude.. but I dont think anyone is really gonna address it so I think I'll just let it slide.

oh, the only reason they would go down fighting is because this is a VS thread, feddies are wimps.

[harbringer]

AT-AT's have repulsers so they can't "fall" into a hole they only walk to avoid lethal shield interaction. In TESB you see evidence of what maybe shielding (it at least looks like it) on the AT-AT itself perhaps due to Vader commanding these were special versions or maybe all have shielding, it hardly matters it will degrade weapons fire either way.

The turret guns do not need to be dedicated anti armour weapons just like the E-webs of imperial troops they may have been there to take out armoured infantry (yes a blaster rifle will do this but maybe not at long range).

The Ion cannon was a defense weapon against orbital attack, an orbital attack they felt would be mounted by ships and is an indication of the size power and accuracy of such weapons (from memory it missed once while trying to fire around friendly vessals).

Your asteroid idea is a straight rip off of the lensman series, you cannot tell me that warp tech with its mass reduction effects will make this a lethal weapon, and impulse will take too long to get to the target. You would have to calculate enourmous amounts of data to achieve a hit, thus why the cardassian dreadnaught missile was a) so big and b) so rare (and expensive).

[Noble Ire]

Damn.... Yea pretty much everything dead on...

I'm still a little bugged about the rebel firepower discrepancy, because it's really out of whack by orders of magnitude.. but I dont think anyone is really gonna address it so I think I'll just let it slide.

Do you just stick your fingers in your ears and scream every time I mention the fact that the Rebels would have destroyed their own base, or parts of it, if they had used heavier weaponry?

oh, the only reason they would go down fighting is because this is a VS thread, feddies are wimps.

Feddies, while corrupt and stupid, have shown themselves perfectly willing to go down fighting.

[CaptJodan]

Big not huge.
http://www.telcom.es/~jcastjr/starwars/hoth.jpg
But large enough in scale to be within an order of magnatude of an X-wing gun. And by rights an X-wing should bring about 200Gigatons as per one of the guys here. But this thing isnt even in the close to the KT range.

Oh.....my.....God.

Do you not see that those are ANTI-PERSONNEL WEAPONS. The dish weapon is probably heavier, designed to take out medium sized veichiles like the (shock, they weren't there at the end of the battle) AT-STs. The towered weapons are canonly old, as already said in this thread 15 times, as well as DESIGNED FOR ANTI-PERSONNEL. They have a fast refire rate, and low power.

You don't see the concept that certain weapons are designed for certain roles? You don't NEED a weapon that fires giganto bolts of weapons from starfighter or major ship weapons that melt or destroy vast portions of the landscape. Hell you don't even want that because you may need your infantry to charge forward in a battle and attack, and blowing the shit out of where your infantry have to go isn't the ideal way to provide cover fire. I can't understand how this concept escapes you.

Fact. These were old weapons. Fact, they were designed for a specific purpose on the battlefield and that purpose didn't involve blowing up vast amounts of landscape. This was the best the Rebels could put together. They DIDN'T HAVE heavy artillary. THIS ISN'T A FUCKING EXAMPLE OF HEAVY ARTILLARY. This completely baffles you, I know, but try and get that through your head.

[Stark]

Why is anyone even debating this guy? 'lolz lolz lolz xWings have 200GIGaton guns hur hur'? 'i can poo-poo the yield without numbers'?

He's both ignorant and stupid: I'm going to go out on a limb and cry troll.

[LordShaithis]

I myself have asked in other threads why we don't see huge clouds of steam rising from the surface of Hoth during the battle. If fighter guns are kiloton-range, and we assume that the Hoth artillery pieces aren't somehow an order of magnitude weaker than that, we should see a real mess when they're discharged on an arctic world.

[tempest]

AT-AT's have repulsers so they can't "fall" into a hole they only walk to avoid lethal shield interaction. In TESB you see evidence of what maybe shielding (it at least looks like it) on the AT-AT itself perhaps due to Vader commanding these were special versions or maybe all have shielding, it hardly matters it will degrade weapons fire either way.

I really thought that the AT-AT did fall, seems like activating the repulsorlift might be a good thing there, but it looks like they didnt.
And I'm not debating that the AT-ATs are wel guarded.

The turret guns do not need to be dedicated anti armour weapons just like the E-webs of imperial troops they may have been there to take out armoured infantry (yes a blaster rifle will do this but maybe not at long range).

The Ion cannon was a defense weapon against orbital attack, an orbital attack they felt would be mounted by ships and is an indication of the size power and accuracy of such weapons (from memory it missed once while trying to fire around friendly vessals).

The big thing here is that the SW weapons have WAY more energy....So that big gun shouldnt be re-charging, it should be going NUTZ, because it's droping power that is SIX ORDERS OF MAGNATUDE below troop transport gun range.

Your asteroid idea is a straight rip off of the lensman series, you cannot tell me that warp tech with its mass reduction effects will make this a lethal weapon, and impulse will take too long to get to the target. You would have to calculate enourmous amounts of data to achieve a hit, thus why the cardassian dreadnaught missile was a) so big and b) so rare (and expensive).

Actually I'm counting on the time it takes, the more time, the more acceleration. The math is workable today.

I havent read the lensman series (I have been meaning to), but hitting something with a rock itself isnt very novel. And using phase cloak to get there isnt novel (given in senario), so it's just a combo of plain-jane ideas.

[tempest]

Big not huge.
http://www.telcom.es/~jcastjr/starwars/hoth.jpg
But large enough in scale to be within an order of magnatude of an X-wing gun. And by rights an X-wing should bring about 200Gigatons as per one of the guys here. But this thing isnt even in the close to the KT range.

Oh.....my.....God.

Do you not see that those are ANTI-PERSONNEL WEAPONS. The dish weapon is probably heavier, designed to take out medium sized veichiles like the (shock, they weren't there at the end of the battle) AT-STs. The towered weapons are canonly old, as already said in this thread 15 times, as well as DESIGNED FOR ANTI-PERSONNEL. They have a fast refire rate, and low power.

You don't see the concept that certain weapons are designed for certain roles? You don't NEED a weapon that fires giganto bolts of weapons from starfighter or major ship weapons that melt or destroy vast portions of the landscape. Hell you don't even want that because you may need your infantry to charge forward in a battle and attack, and blowing the shit out of where your infantry have to go isn't the ideal way to provide cover fire. I can't understand how this concept escapes you.

Fact. These were old weapons. Fact, they were designed for a specific purpose on the battlefield and that purpose didn't involve blowing up vast amounts of landscape. This was the best the Rebels could put together. They DIDN'T HAVE heavy artillary. THIS ISN'T A FUCKING EXAMPLE OF HEAVY ARTILLARY. This completely baffles you, I know, but try and get that through your head.

My bad it was a troop transport gun that was 200GT per the wars-trek in 5 minute page.

But the buggers were kilometers away, you can really do some damage with moderate sized guns, rather than just using pea shooters.
The concept that it was the best the rebels could put together is laughable. I'm ok with the hand weapons, but anyting larger should have been devastating.. and the big guns werent firfing fast IIRC.
Your engaging at 40 kilos out, you have plenty of gons in the GT range, getting a kiloton grade weapon should be a peice of cake, getting a rapid fire KT weapon should be pretty easy. a Rapid fire KT weapon should be damn near standard squad level equipment.
their base isnt going out 10 kilometers, so they can fire some pretty decent shots at that range..

[Lord Pounder]

Yeah however Hoth is a rear guard action designed to merely hold off the Imperials untill the transports could be loaded and evacuated. The Rebels knew that they where fucked on the ground, The forced from Executor alone where more than they could handle. Any commander worth his stars would have had that heavier more expensive equipment packed up so it could be used in another battle where it might do more good.

[18-Till-I-Die]

One could say that, as these are rebels and the base was, IIRC, an ad-hoc outpost on a backwater ice moon that they simply didnt bother to deploy their most powerful weapons. Why waste them on a base which is cheaper to abandon than defend, against an emey who can easily overwhelm you anyway.

What i mean is, that Echo Base was probably never designed or equipped to actually repel an Imperial attack, just to act as a shield and use teh ion cannon to cover the rebels as they escape. Which is precisely what happened in the film. So hauling out your precious few (these are rebels, guerilla fighters) heavy weapons to defend this place which is for all practical purposes a waystation wouldnt be sensible. Older, cheaper, and obviously weaker weapons would be sufficient for the delaying action they intended to fight.

[harbringer]

I really thought that the AT-AT did fall, seems like activating the repulsorlift might be a good thing there, but it looks like they didnt.
And I'm not debating that the AT-ATs are wel guarded.

The big thing here is that the SW weapons have WAY more energy....So that big gun shouldnt be re-charging, it should be going NUTZ, because it's droping power that is SIX ORDERS OF MAGNATUDE below troop transport gun range.

Actually I'm counting on the time it takes, the more time, the more acceleration. The math is workable today.

I havent read the lensman series (I have been meaning to), but hitting something with a rock itself isnt very novel. And using phase cloak to get there isnt novel (given in senario), so it's just a combo of plain-jane ideas.

If I hit a plane with a 105mm heat round and it then cannot fly does that mean it couldn't to begin with??, There were other factors involved during that battle like damage. There was not one AT-AT that fell due to another reasons not even the one that cants backwards to kill a snowspeeder. In the thrawn trilogy a AT-AT uses repulsers to decend to the planets surface.

All the fighters with their potent weapons were escorting escaping ships and were obviously unavailable.

All the emplacements that were seen could have been fired at the ice but for a lot of reasons wern't, they also had more viable targets.

If you want to do the maths calculate a path accross the galaxy without hitting anything (including little piddly asteroids) since after all we don't know what the limits of a phase cloak are (there has already been one ship buried in an asteroid after all). Hitting a precise target with what is a largely unguided munition.

The lensmen series is very good, and using hyper tunnels they accelerated planetoids to FTL speed before crashing them into the target planet (avoiding any counter measures along the way....). They also harnesed the entire energy output of the sun for a brief moment to create a beam weapon.

[HSRTG]

Oh for god's sake. Tempest, you deny Star Wars has planetary defense turbolasers? From the Star Wars Guide to Weapons and Technology, which, IIRC, is drawn from canon sources.

Planetary Turbolasers are common surface-based weapons that fire supercharged bolts of destructive energy into low orbit. When deployed in sufficient numbers they prove a deadly detterent to planetary sieges and are capable of reducing enemy fleets to drifting hulks and debris in a matter of hours

Explain how turbolasers able to reduce fleets into hulks of drifting debris cannot vaporise a mere asteroid.

With a power output nearly four times that of the v-150 Planet Defender Ion Cannon (Note: used at Hoth) the w-165 is one of the most powerful turbolasers ever built. It's sustained volly's can destroy even an Imperial Star Destroyer, ripping through armor plating to pierce the ship's vulnerable main reactor and cause a titanic explosion that can literally rip apart one of these massive cruisers.

Note mine. Do I really need to say anything about the capabilities of these against a mere asteriod?

Because of the turbolaser's limited fire vectors, planets may use hundreds of them, and they are normally part of a larger defensive network that typically includes ion cannons and planetary shields.

Bolding mine. Again, do I really need to say anything?

I apologize for jumping into the middle of the debate, but I thought I could add something.

[HSRTG]

Damn lack of an edit button. Quick Addendum, this is for a real world that the Empire would care about. Obviously Backasswater IV wouldn't have this large network.

[Knife]

First off; most of the weapons shown on the rebels side were anti personel weapons. The turreted weapon you linked to earlier is an 'Anti infantry Battery' according to the EGWT.

Even in SW, you don't need KT level firepower to take down a person and to have such is silly. The turreted weapon is probably more for crew protection, giving them some semblence of imunity from enemy 'infantry' weapons. Not heavy weapons.

The EGWT rates the dish like weapon as a 'anti vehicle artillery'; for use against 'landspeeders, arispeeders, and repulartanks.' Now the repulsartanks I know of, like the TradeFed ones, were not heavily armored and were taken out with 'handgernade' like weapons and the landspeeders and airspeeders are similarly if not less armored. Basically, again, they do not need KT level firepower to do their job so it would be silly to dedicate the energy and the resources to make one able to deliever the shots.

Which brings me to my main point. SW guns operate off of energy derived either from a stored source or a 'generator' some where else. The primary power source of the Echo Base was currently charged with maintaining the theater shield and powering the Ion Cannon, the one piece of artillery that was rated with a high firepower.

Since the whole Hoth battle was a rear guard action, slowing the inevitable, why would they rededicated the engery sources from the shield ( protecting them from orbital bombardment) and the Ion Cannon (the one weapon shown that is rated for anti ship work) to any heavy artillery them may (or may not) have?

The main threat to the rebels at Hoth were the SD's in orbit, not the ground forces. The SD's represented both a sustained presence with reinforcements for the groundforecs, and a seiging force cutting off escape. They had to use their resources to get the hell out of there before the orbital force sealed off any escape, the ground forces were just there to flush the rebels out. Really a distraction. If the Rebels had redeployed their forces and resources to deal only with the Imperial ground forces, the Alliance would have died a horrible death then and there.

[nightmare]

Does Star Trek Have Any Chance AT ALL?!

I'm just going to sum up an answer to the question of the OP by saying no. None at all. Which in no way takes away from my appreciation of the series. Some of its fans have done that, however, as did the later series in an ever increasing fashion, culminating with the second season of Voyager which made me stop watching Trek. Now we can all go and have a singalong together...okay, but it sounds good in theory, doesn't it?

[Dark Primus]

For Federation to survive let it be conquered, and becomes a satelite power, after a decade ot two the Imperial Tech would most likely be a little bit widespread while Alpha Quadrant technology is slowly phasing out from the interstellar markets, making it a little bit easier for te unhappy Fed citizens to get their hands on some of the new technology, and with enough support they could cause some damage. Steal ships and fighters, set up small bases various locations far from Imperial patrol zones.

Well you get the idea.

The way I see it, Feds can only beat the Imperials by using their own technology against them, they can't use their Alpha Quadrant tech, its too low tech.

[Ghost Rider]

For Federation to survive let it be conquered, and becomes a satelite power, after a decade ot two the Imperial Tech would most likely be a little bit widespread while Alpha Quadrant technology is slowly phasing out from the interstellar markets, making it a little bit easier for te unhappy Fed citizens to get their hands on some of the new technology, and with enough support they could cause some damage. Steal ships and fighters, set up small bases various locations far from Imperial patrol zones.

Well you get the idea.

The way I see it, Feds can only beat the Imperials by using their own technology against them, they can't use their Alpha Quadrant tech, its too low tech.

And this will allow them to counter massive equipment advantage again how?

The Federation with this will at least put up a fight, but unless they have some ace in the hole to allow the higher ups to go dumber then the Empire at Endor, they still lose...horribly.

[Knife]

For Federation to survive let it be conquered, and becomes a satelite power, after a decade ot two the Imperial Tech would most likely be a little bit widespread while Alpha Quadrant technology is slowly phasing out from the interstellar markets, making it a little bit easier for te unhappy Fed citizens to get their hands on some of the new technology, and with enough support they could cause some damage. Steal ships and fighters, set up small bases various locations far from Imperial patrol zones.

Well you get the idea.

The way I see it, Feds can only beat the Imperials by using their own technology against them, they can't use their Alpha Quadrant tech, its too low tech.

To summerize GR; they'll still get run over by weight of numbers.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yes against the New Republic, you show up with 25 ships and your a threat to the whole galaxy as they can't seem to get their heads out of their asses and stop infighting, long enough to rebuild the military after it was disbanded following the LAST attempt to conquer the whole galaxy by the most rencent pain in the ass....

[Darth Wong]

yes against the New Republic, you show up with 25 ships and your a threat to the whole galaxy as they can't seem to get their heads out of their asses and stop infighting, long enough to rebuild the military after it was disbanded following the LAST attempt to conquer the whole galaxy by the most rencent pain in the ass....

Conquering and holding a whole galaxy is a pretty big deal. But for an entity which can even consider such a thing, conquering and holding 150 planets is something you assign to an underling with a memo.

[LordShaithis]

Walkers have shields, even though they're never made reference to. And they have repulsorlifts, which always just so happen to be damaged before a walker goes to fall over. And everyone has nuclear-yield guns, but for a variety of reasons they're never fired at a high enough setting to even cause any visible melting of snow.

[Noble Ire]

Walkers have shields, even though they're never made reference to. And they have repulsorlifts, which always just so happen to be damaged before a walker goes to fall over. And everyone has nuclear-yield guns, but for a variety of reasons they're never fired at a high enough setting to even cause any visible melting of snow.

Is there any purpose to this post aside from "Teh canon is St00pid!!1!"?
And I don't know what your deal with the shield theory is. There is evidence both in favor and against, and as far I know, them having shields incorporated into their armor doesn't change their cpabilities as seen onscreen.

[Admiral_Evian]

I really can't believe the level of ignorance that some people have here on this forum. Why don't you guys just answer the questions and just get on with the debate? Instead, you dance around each others posts saying nothing!

Lets clear up some of these unanswered issues.


Firstly. The insane idea that the 'secret' rebel base didn't have "the usual big guns" because they were too large to hide within the base complex without giving away its position, is false. Let me remind you that the rebels had a big generator capable of powering the entire base and its shield which could withstand "any bombardment" the Empire could throw at it. This big generator wasn't strategically placed under the ice; no, it was on top for all to see. Also, there was the ion cannon which was also quite large and visible. Now, are you saying the rebels would place these two large items on their base and not "the usual big guns" capable of defending against speeders, AT-ST's etc because the enemy would see them? Doesn't make sense.


Secondly. The idea that the AT-AT could easily take a blast from one of these dish type guns is not in question. What is in question, and what conveniently is not being answered by some of the guys here, is why the defense guns along the ditch didn't leave large craters for the AT-AT's to stumble across? The dish type gun clearly was a "heavy" gun in the sense that a trooper could not carry it therefore it had to be mounted. It only ever fired sporadicaly, and when it did it took a short time to charge and fire, clearly showing us it required quite a bit of energy to power. It is obviously a larger calibre gun than the puny rifles and weapons held by the ground troops. If this is the case, then why weren't there huge explosions on the ice when the shots missed their targets?

One argument which I have had put forward to me on a previous debate was that the entire battlefield had a mesh - shield, kind of like high tensile steel rebars in reinforced concrete, and that this gave the ground the ability to take hits from big guns with only a minor puff of smoke being given off on impact.
(If someone has a link to any pages giving technical stats for the ground guns then please post)
Others have put forward the equaly false argument that the rebels had low tech weapons and this is why the guns didn't give us the huge impact/explosions one would expect from such weapons on ice. While the rebels were outnumbered, their tech level was similar to that of the Empire as can be seen by the array of powerful ships they have at their command. In any case, if the rebel guns were so outdated that they were ineffective against the Empires ground troops, then the soldiers would not have held their positions and would have refused to take up arms. Imagine giving a US soldier a Napoleon era musket and telling him to go out and defend a trench against a larger enemy who had modern day weapons and battle tanks like the Abrams, aint gonna happen. The rebels would have got their weapons off the black market, which would have had decent hardware to sell, as it always does.

Has it ever occurred to anyone here that digging an ice trench to defend ones self against blaster fire from an AT-AT is just pointless? We are constantly reminded about the eye opening power of the SW weapons but in the Hoth scene we clearly see that a trench, cut only out of ice, can give protection against these weapons. The numbers just don't add up. Why don't the blaster bolts melt the ice? Someone answer this without dodging the question.

Also, someone mentioned that the walkers had repulsors so that they would not fall in holes. Is this true? The AT-ST's on Endor didn't seem to have this tech.

I have to agree with Dark Primus about how the Feddies should deal with the Empire. Clearly, the tech gap is too large for starters, and lets not mention again the numerical difference between the two sides. The Federation should offer an unconditional surrender and allow an occupation. The Empire will then start huge building projects in Federation space so that this area of the galaxy can be brought up to a "useful" level of tech. After many decades or even centuries, the Federation space will be on the same tech level as the rest of the Empire giving an opportunity to begin a rebellion and time for secret organisations like section 31 to infiltrate the Empire and aid the AQ in an uprising.