I have been discussing with a friend recently the firepower requirements for a Base Delta Zero event. I have referenced both Mike's site and that of Curtis Saxton but he isn't buying it. He has referenced st-v-sw.net a few times, though generally he doesn't, but his overall stance is that there is no requirement (with Dankayo at least) for the Star Destroyers to quickly bombard the planet.
He has put forward kiloton to megaton-level firepower for a Star Destroyer. I have attempted to put forward, in terms of maths, how much firepower would be needed to evenly crater the surface of a world, then work out how much time is needed to. I have been conservative and used the surface area of Pluto as a reference, rather than a larger world.
My maths are as follows:
I would like to point out that maths and science are not my strong suits. I got a C at GCSE science and an E at GCSE maths. So I expect my calculations to be wrong. Simply put, I am posting this because I wish to understand where I went wrong and how to avoid such mistakes in the future.To evenly crater even a world as small as Pluto (17 million km2) with craters of 0.178km in diametre you would need 95505617 18KT bombs. That works out at 1,719,101,106KT- or in other words, 1,719TT. That is simply to crater Pluto, and that is with kiloton-level weaponry.
Using your own estimation of 30 shots per second, and assuming no more than 18KT firepower for all the turbolasers on the ships, and three ships (thus 90 shots per second), that works out at 1,620KT per second. In one hour there are 3,600 seconds- so, 1,620KT x 3,600 = 5,832,000KT, or 5.8GT per hour.
Perhaps a better way to describe it is 0.58TT per hour from three ISDs working in tandem.
At that rate of fire, to crater a Pluto-sized world, it would take three ISDs 2,963 hours. That's 17 weeks.
Obviously this was not the case, and there is a case for Dankayo being bigger than Pluto.
Now lets repeat the exercise. Only this time, lets assume 18MT rather than 18KT. This gives us craters that are 1.7km in diametre.
To crater the surface of Pluto with 18MT weaponry you would need 28,900,000 bombs/shots.
18MT x 28,900,000 = 520,200,000MT. 'Only' 520TT.
Once again, 90 seconds per second x 18MT = 1,620MT per second, or 1.62GT. 1.62GT x 3,600 seconds (1 hour) = 5,832GT- or 5.832TT.
In one day, three ISDs could deliver 139.968TT. It would take them just under four days to completely crater the surface of Pluto.
For a single ISD under the first, 18KT scenario, it would take 51 weeks to evenly crater the surface of Pluto. So you can imagine, with that kind of firepower, how long it would take to crater a world like earth. I think we can both agree that ISDs pack greater firepower than the kiloton range.
For a single ISD under scenario 2, it would take one ISD twelve days to crater the surface of Pluto. This is plainly unreasonable. An ISD is a warship, built for battle, and not intended to be wasted on spending days on cratering a planet, yet we know that the surface of Dankayo was indeed, evenly cratered.
Under scenario 1, a single ISD would take an hour to deliver 1.9GT.
Under scenario 2, a single ISD would take an hour to deliver 1.9TT.
