ROTS Canisters

chitoryu12 · Post by **chitoryu12** » 2006-04-25 07:49pm

Unfortunatly, I lack a picture of these, but do you guys remember when the turbolasers on the Invisible Hand in Episode III were firing? You can clearly see metal canisters ejected from the back. Also, I seem to remember them bouncing around the clone battleship when the turbolasers hit. What do you guys think these may be? Either they're disposible power packs for the laser, or they're casings for solid ammunition (that's my two cents anyway). Any thoughts?

apocolypse · Post by **apocolypse** » 2006-04-25 07:57pm

What we saw on the IH weren't turbolasers. They're marked as "mass drivers" that fire projectile warheads in the VD.

chitoryu12 · Post by **chitoryu12** » 2006-04-25 08:16pm

Thanks man. Really helps.

apocolypse · Post by **apocolypse** » 2006-04-25 08:23pm

chitoryu12 wrote:Thanks man. Really helps.

No problem, I recall thinking that they were some odd TL variant that used canisters of tibanna gas myself when the movie first came out.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-04-25 08:42pm

I'm a bit confused about these mass drivers. They weren't mentioned in the ROTS ICS. Are they separate from the ion cannons pointed out in the ICS, or were the same weapons given different labels in each book?

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2006-04-25 08:45pm

It was probably a modification to the standard Venator. I personally think their armour piercing shells.

I wrote a theory on them a while back:

The shells fired by the Inivisible Hand and Venator in the beginning of RotS. I think that they are armour piercing shells, unlike, say, the HTL, they are not meant to dump hidieous amounts of energy into the target. It seems to me that their purpose is doing exactly what we saw them doing, putting lots of holes into the armour of enemy ships.

My guess is that after shields go down, the broadside cannons puncture the hull of the enemy in many different places, and then the turbolasers finish it off. It could be that the armour typically used is very good at deflecting large amounts of turbolaser energy, but not so good at deflecting these armour piercing shells. This makes sense, as the shells don't seem to be much of a threat, wereas turbolasers can be very nasty. However, used in combination, the shells are deadly because by causing punctures in the hull, they increase the effectiveness of turbolasers against it. One would presume that the shells+turbolaser combo kills ships faster than pure turbolasers.

In the scene, both sides were holding off on the lasers because at that range they would be doing nearly as much damage to themselves as the enemy, so they used armour piercers only.

apocolypse · Post by **apocolypse** » 2006-04-25 08:49pm

Jim Raynor wrote:I'm a bit confused about these mass drivers. They weren't mentioned in the ROTS ICS. Are they separate from the ion cannons pointed out in the ICS, or were the same weapons given different labels in each book?

According to the VD, they're housed on the same weapon. There is a longer smaller barrel above the large mass driver barrel that's labeled as an ion cannon. One of the oddities though, IIRC, is that apparently the area labeled for the ion cannons in the ICS isn't where we saw the mass drivers being fired from in the movie. I could be mistaken, but I thought I recalled someone pointing that out.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2006-04-25 08:59pm

Well its not like the ICS books specifically point out the location of every single weapon to begin with, the word count limits prevent that if nothing else.

NRS Guardian · Post by **NRS Guardian** » 2006-04-25 11:36pm

Most likely the mass drivers are responsible for the flak bursts we see the IH firing.

Admiral Johnason · Post by **Admiral Johnason** » 2006-04-25 11:45pm

apocolypse wrote:
Jim Raynor wrote:I'm a bit confused about these mass drivers. They weren't mentioned in the ROTS ICS. Are they separate from the ion cannons pointed out in the ICS, or were the same weapons given different labels in each book?
According to the VD, they're housed on the same weapon. There is a longer smaller barrel above the large mass driver barrel that's labeled as an ion cannon. One of the oddities though, IIRC, is that apparently the area labeled for the ion cannons in the ICS isn't where we saw the mass drivers being fired from in the movie. I could be mistaken, but I thought I recalled someone pointing that out.

Prehaps it is a double shot. the moment the sheild is penetrated by the ion cannon, the mass driver goes to work. But then, why not just use a turbolaser or side torp tube?