Ion cannon question

The Jazz Intern · Post by **The Jazz Intern** » 2006-04-24 10:59pm

Okay- well, I start from the beggining.
I was bored, and had a scrap of paper around. Some one had said somthing about tri fighters, which triggered me to think about a republic counter...
and it came out. I was thinking about the missles, and how flares might not work... so then I thought about this great idea- Ion cannon clouds!

Okay, it prolly won't work, but heres the idea- turning an ion cannon blast into a cloud of energy which is harder for an accelerating missle,m or a buzz droid to dodge.

so would it work?

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-04-24 11:11pm

They're called flak bursts, and you don't need ion cannons to do it; simply have a charge detonate in proximity. That's actually how modern air-to-air missiles tend to work, IIRC.

The Jazz Intern · Post by **The Jazz Intern** » 2006-04-24 11:17pm

but what of buzz droid armour?

NRS Guardian · Post by **NRS Guardian** » 2006-04-24 11:57pm

If flak bursts can damge fighters capable of taking KT level firepower I think any armor a buzz droid has won't stand up to a flak burst.

The Jazz Intern · Post by **The Jazz Intern** » 2006-04-25 08:26pm

ohh...
when do they use flak bursts. I must admit, I haven't read many of the books

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-04-25 09:22pm

The Jazz Intern wrote:ohh...
when do they use flak bursts. I must admit, I haven't read many of the books

We see flak in the opening sequence of ROTS. Look for it exploding near the fighters as Anakin and Obi-Wan fly through the battle.

chitoryu12 · Post by **chitoryu12** » 2006-04-26 04:47pm

You can see a good shot of a projectile and a flak burst not long after the S-Foils on Oddball's ships go down. Look around the right of the screen, and you can see a laser or a tracer projectile fly in (watch frame-by-frame for a better view) and explode.

At least now we may make the assumption that lasers do more than fizzle into nothing when they go beyond their range.

The Jazz Intern · Post by **The Jazz Intern** » 2006-04-26 08:19pm

I really should look more closely

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2006-04-26 08:45pm

chitoryu12 wrote:At least now we may make the assumption that lasers do more than fizzle into nothing when they go beyond their range.

In order to obey Conservation of Energy, they'd have to release a kiloton of energy if they truly flakbursted.

Of course, since the majority of the energy in the beams is invisible, we can't see how much energy remains in the beam after the explosion.