Do Ion Cannons realy just disable ships?

[Bob the Gunslinger]

If this has already come up, I apologize.

Off the bat, I want to mention that I am more of a movie purist, and think the EU is full of factually inaccurate garbage. As far as I know, it is only the EU that tells us that ion cannons are used primarily to disable ships without damaging them. I'm not convinced.

For one thing, the only time we see an ion cannon used in the movies is at the battle of Hoth. The cannon hits an ISD with at least 2 shots. We then see huge flashes of light and color and then the ship turns away while covered with electricity arcs.
Kind of like what happens when a TIE fighter is damaged. Or R2-D2.

The novel states (on page 215 of the complete trilogy paperback):

The twin red bolts struck the enormous ship and blasted its conning tower. Explosions set off by the blast began to rock the great flying fortress, spinning it out of control.

It seems to me that the ion cannon does a good deal of damage for a weapon meant to disable ships. Am I the only one who things the EU's version of the ion cannon--i.e. the "stun setting" for starships--is a little stupid.

[Teleros]

Well the energy from the shot has to go somewhere, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of it causes a few explosions, especially around the area where it's directly hit.

[Ritterin Sophia]

And here I thought overloading the powergrid of the ship and causing primary components of the ships systems to burn out , perhaps I was wrong.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I guess my point was that the primary sources gave us no reason to believe that the damage was limited in any way to the electrical or control systems. The explosion effects were similar to those seen in other space combats in ANH and ESB. The book seems to indicate that damage to the conning tower and secondary explosions were the cause of the ISD drifting out of control, and not overloaded control systems.

Did WEG just pull the whole ion cannon=Star Wars EMP thing out of their ass or was there a basis for it?

[Teleros]

From Mike's pages:

However, they cause only superficial physical damage; their most significant impact is their ability to temporarily disrupt power systems, thus temporarily "decapitating" the ship by disrupting its control systems. The extremely large power reactor systems on planetary surfaces can power very large ion cannons, but capital ships are limited to much smaller ion cannons.

Sounds about right, I guess the precise extent of the damage would depend on where / what you struck and so on.

[Stark]

Dude, Mike's site isn't a canon source. It's clear ion cannons don't do significant permanent damage - the ship crippled by the ion cannon is later pursuing the Falcon, apparently. The EU idea of ion guns as harmless guns used to disable stuff all the time (like in the games) seems odd considering all the disabling attempted in the movies with regular guns.

[Chris OFarrell]

In one of the Black Fleet books, I think its the second one, a modified Nebulon B frigate which is equipped with a heavy ion cannon fires on a bioship, but one that has a limpet sensor system attached to the hull. The ion cannon strike completely fries the thing and one of the characters makes a comment that ion cannon radiation from a powerful enough cannon DOES in fact cause considerable real damage to electronics, at least on some level.

[Coriolis]

I guess disabling ships with regular guns is something akin to using a scalpel. An ion cannon is an alternate way to do the job really messily. You have to essentially "reboot" a ship after an ion blast, whereas you can immediately use ship components after a disabling it.

[Stark]

As a child I always figured that 'ion cannon' was just a specific subweapon - it was huge, planetbound, fired different bolts etc and not a magic disable gun. The EU idea that *fighters* carry ion cannons was right out of left field for me, and WEG giving most capships a sizable (never used) ion armament was just as crazy.

Really, if the ship was in the pursuit later, it even fails as a disable gun (the ship was back in action relatively quickly).

[Chris OFarrell]

Ah here it is, first section of Tyrents Test (the incident itself happened in Shield of Lies at the end of Landos section)

"I can answer that", said Lobot, who had suddenly busied himself with collecting the parts of his contact suit and climbing back into them. "Just before it ceased transmitting, the sensors measures a monopolar ion density of more then twenty thousand Rham units. It is a near certainty that the limpet it damage beyond repair."

"Twenty thousand? Better then I thought. I'd have given you odds that it wouldn't take more then twelve," Lando said. "Well no matter".

"The primary component of all spectral sensors is Favervil dielectric ribbon," Lobot said. "Dielectric ribbon begins to de-bond under ion bombardment at a density of fifteen thousand Rahms."

"Is that so, "Lando said.

So there IS damage from the strike. But to a ship with a repair crew and supplies like an ISD, repairing the damage from a high end Ion cannon strike is entirely an easy undertaking. Of course in the above situation, Lando didn't have any ability to repair the sensors.

Lower end ion cannon strikes are generally recoverable by military equipment within a matter of minutes at least to some extent. I also remember in "Wraith Squadron" when the unit crashed into a minefield, a combination of Ion Cannon and EMP blasts to the X-Wings completely disabled them for a short time. While the Snub fighters were mostly back to full operations within a short time, their computers volitile memory was all gone (including their astromechs memories, nav computer maps and so on).

[Bob the Gunslinger]

As a child I always figured that 'ion cannon' was just a specific subweapon - it was huge, planetbound, fired different bolts etc and not a magic disable gun. The EU idea that *fighters* carry ion cannons was right out of left field for me, and WEG giving most capships a sizable (never used) ion armament was just as crazy.

Really, if the ship was in the pursuit later, it even fails as a disable gun (the ship was back in action relatively quickly).

Thank you!
I'm glad I'm not alone.

Plus you make a good point about how the Imperials never use their "60 ion cannons" when trying to capture the Falcon or the Tantive IV.

[PayBack]

I'll admit I DID see it as a weapon used for disabling with a similar idea to the weapon the Jawa used on R2. I have wondered though why it wasn't used on the Tantive IV.

Sure you see a similar effect on R2D2 and TIEs from normal weapons, but you do also see actual damage. Especially with TIEs with wings blowing off etc. With the Ion cannon shot from Hoth, the ISD showed no physical damage that I remember (it's been a while). Surely if it was primarily a damaging weapon there'd be a lot of damage at the point of impact if it knocks out the whole ship with two shots.

[Stark]

You linked the ion cannon to the Jawa shockguns *before* the EU helped you along? I find that difficult to believe: as a child I figured the ISD hit by the cannon was completely fucked, as I didn't know it was used later.

You may well wonder why ion guns aren't used more, when they are used ONCE ever in the movies. All the disabling, pursuing etc is done with regular guns. This is why I figured the ion cannon was simply a specialised gun for the planetbound siege role. I don't have a problem with the idea that it somehow damages internal systems - and even the later EU apparently does this, with ion guns blowing the shit out of internal electronics. Really, for the ESB event all the gun needs to do is very temporaily disable the ship - even a few seconds would be enough, and the rebels obviously didn't think they could simply disable the whole fleet to escape en masse.

[PayBack]

You linked the ion cannon to the Jawa shockguns *before* the EU helped you along? I find that difficult to believe: as a child I figured the ISD hit by the cannon was completely fucked, as I didn't know it was used later.

Why do you find it hard to believe. It knocked the ship out without obvious damage and had lightning shit all over it. Just like the Jawas did to R2. I didn't see it as a different type of damage causing weapon due to the lack of even a scorch mark on the ISD. And I don't think the EU existed when the ESB came out.. or at least I wasn't aware of it. I think RoTJ had been out for a while before I read my first book but I'm a bit hazy thinking back that far. I didn't have the InterWeb back then for a start

Oh and when did the ESB come out? I'm older than you think

[Stark]

It wasn't lightning, just slightly purple shield-conduction stuff. It was pretty awesome that it visibly moved around instead of 'flashed' like normal shield interactions, though. It doesn't really look anything like the 'blue lightning' of the Jawa guns, and lacks the giant bolt and power cord of that gun.

And I was just a kid when I saw it, hence the 'shot by big gun and falls down' understanding I had before I investigated it. I've mused that it may have caused power outages indirectly due to some physical shock effect (perhaps damaging the shield power systems or other sensitive systems), but this hardly explains the very visually distinct impact effects. Clearly, the projectile contained nanomachines.

[Connor MacLeod]

Ion cannons do cause damage. Think about it, its a physical weapon with immense KE and momentum (much like the ion engine exhaust, really.) A number of the early EU novels make this clear, but the TESB novelization makes it even more clear that ion cannons do cause physical damage. Moreover, the ROTS: ICS makes it clear that Ion cannons do in fact do physical damage.

[Lord Relvenous]

Maybe we should consider the Ion cannon as a piece of a strategy, not a stand-alone weapon. In the EU, it states that Nebulon-B frigates are able to eliminate much larger vessels because of their large batteries of ion cannons. In the EU it describes the massive effect on shields that ion cannons can have, greater so than turbolasers, and maybe that is where their value comes from. In a space battle a ship could attack another ship's shields with ion cannons, which are electronics specific, and fire the turbolasers, which do structual damage to the hull. Think of ion cannons and turbolasers as more of a one-two punch, rather than a roundhouse or uppercut.

[Stark]

If ion guns have more effectiveness against shields, why are they never fired, even when all the attacker wants to do is down shields (like vs T4 or MF)? It just smacks of RTS-style 'the same but different' silliness. Any explanation for ion guns, I think, has to address the fact that they're never used. This is why I find the EU ubiquity of ion guns to be deeply silly.

[PayBack]

If you ignore the EU for a second and have them being big and power hungry. Limited to ground based installations and main battery level weapons on ISD sized ships and above. That would fit the movies at least. The ISD has one each side yes, but it would be unnecessary, impractical and wasteful to use them on the Falcon, Tantive IV or any other pissant ship like them. That would fit yes?

[Stark]

Yeah, that works - the larger rear 'ion guns' can be easily said to be too unwieldy for small targets, avoided by the T4, and poorly placed for pursuit. Then you'd have to ask why they've got them at all.

Someone proposed that the ion guns were less space/power-effcient than turbos, so that a ion gun of a certain size/power would be less effective than a turbo of the same size/power, but have the strange 'stun' effect seen in ESB. Thus it's good for siege warfare (knocking out perimeter ships temporarily to escape) but putting them on fighters and trying to disable a capship like in the games is silly.

[PayBack]

Yeah, that works - the larger rear 'ion guns' can be easily said to be too unwieldy for small targets, avoided by the T4, and poorly placed for pursuit. Then you'd have to ask why they've got them at all.

For broadsides on bigger ships where they're willing to waste the extra power for the added shield penetration and choas caused by system failures.

(working on the assumption of superior effect against sheilds, but even without it the effect on the other ships system alone would make them worth having.)

Someone proposed that the ion guns were less space/power-effcient than turbos, so that a ion gun of a certain size/power would be less effective than a turbo of the same size/power, but have the strange 'stun' effect seen in ESB. Thus it's good for siege warfare (knocking out perimeter ships temporarily to escape) but putting them on fighters and trying to disable a capship like in the games is silly.

Taking on cap ships would be silly yes, but having Ion weapons on fighters would make sense for caturing small ships and would be feasable as they can be made small enough to be carried by Jawas after all. Of course we again run into the fact the emipre never did that, instead using laser armed TIEs.

[eyl]

Lower end ion cannon strikes are generally recoverable by military equipment within a matter of minutes at least to some extent. I also remember in "Wraith Squadron" when the unit crashed into a minefield, a combination of Ion Cannon and EMP blasts to the X-Wings completely disabled them for a short time. While the Snub fighters were mostly back to full operations within a short time, their computers volitile memory was all gone (including their astromechs memories, nav computer maps and so on).

There seems to be some variability of the effect, at leat on fighters. In the Empion mine incident, some of the X-wings were field-repairable within what looks like a few hours, but at least one fighter was unrepairable outside a shop. OTOH, the astromechs just needed a cold reboot.

[Mad]

In Stackpole's books, ion cannons are commonly fired along with turbolasers in battle. The only things consistently easy to disable with ion cannons are fighters (and they sometimes become so damaged they need replacement parts before being operational again).

Anything bigger that is fighting back needs turbolasers or massive ion bombardments from a bigger ship in order to disable the ship (ISD firing at a freighter caught in a tractor beam or an SSD firing multiple broadsides at an ISD).

And they do cause damage, and have even destroyed smaller transports in Rogue Squadron.

[Darth Wong]

The EU, as usual, took something from the movies and blew it out of proportion. In the movies, the ion cannon fires an orange-red bolt which causes light physical damage but has a strong disabling effect. The EU exaggerated this to almost pure electronic damage and no physical damage, due in part to the X-Wing games.

[Master_Baerne]

.

Did WEG just pull the whole ion cannon=Star Wars EMP thing out of their ass or was there a basis for it?

This is WEG we're talking about. What do you think?