GCS vs ISD: Calling out Northern Huntsman

[IceHawk-151]

Sure it was firing at a target off screen.
or
It was firing at the MC80 sitting right next to it.

A Mon Calamari Cruiser was less than 1Km from the ISD and they traded about 4 HTL shots. One Rebel shot missed the ISD from behind, and atleast one Imperial shot passd by the Mc80 uninteruppted.

[IceHawk-151]

Where was that?

As Saxton explained numerous times, at close ranges not only is geometry unfavorable for large guns, but ships can make relatively minute course corrections and it will no longer be the HTLs' line of sight.

Thus a GCS, which is faster and more manuverable pound for pound at Sublight than a Star Destroyer should be able to dip under the ISD line of site and avoid the Heavy Weapons.

[Illuminatus Primus]

And the point of this argument was what?
Even with conservative numbers a pair of Galaxy-class vessels would be outmacthed by a ISD II.

Two thousand GCSs probably can't destroy an ISD II.

The GCS only hope to win is:
1) Funnel all Phaser power into shields to give them a small boost.

Useless. A couple point-defense/light turbolasers will nail the GCS and kill it shields or not. Actually they should shunt all shields into engines and thrusters to give it a prayer of manuvering too quick to be adequately tracked my ISD's small guns.

2) Close with the ISD from behind and below.

The ISD is equipped with medium and light guns on the superstructure terraces surrounding the conning tower which can fire into the rear arc. Additionally there are at least two medium guns on the ventral face located in or adjacent to the tractor beam emplacements.

3) Nail as many Photon Torpedoes into the engine section of the ISD in hopes that the Particle shields will take a dive and the impulse engines get slagged.

Shields are too thick. Quantums and possibly (if they're significantly higher yield and affective which is just a hand-me to Trek assumption anyway) transphasic torpedoes by the hundreds will only do it. Your GCS needed to have everything non-essential removed including phaser strips and crew quarters and replace these w/ transphasic or quantum burst-firing tubes and magazines literally everywhere.

4) Pull away at max warp to regenerate shields and start again. If there are two GCS maybe they can do hand offs, or keep the ISD busy and stop it from rolling the ship.

This is hopeless. There's bound to be some point-defense lasers covering the aft arc you're talking about and if the GCS follows too closely it'll get vaped by the engine wash.

I would like to remind everery one that we saw one instance of HTL Cannons being used. In that situation atleast 2 of 4 shots missed. At best the percieved accuracy of HTL is 60 % at point blank range. ---> Just a thought

I'm still confused about where you're talking about. Refering to the brim trench quad batteries which fired in ANH to strip down the Tantive IV's shields?

In the end however the greater quantity of weapons fire from the ISD will smash the GCS pair into bits.

Also greater firepower. At least you admit its hopeless though.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Sure it was firing at a target off screen.
or
It was firing at the MC80 sitting right next to it.

Only suspected HTL fire from the Endor scene was in the Executor's destruction scene. We see the ISD firing ship-length (500 meter plus) turbolaser blasts from an area adjacent to the terrace superstructure obstructed from our vision. This, IIRC, was the only instance of believed on film HTL fire in the Trilogy.

theforce.net/swtc/Pix/zs/rotj/turrbolt.jpg (copy and paste-"A distant star destroyer apparently firing bolts from its heavy flank turrets.")

Although there is no close-up footage of these weapons in use, their nature is evident in production art and on the star destroyer concept prototype. (There are distant views of one star destroyer apparently firing ship-length bursts from its heavy turrets in ROTJ.) The guns' location permits good fire coverage over much of the sky, except the ventral side of the ship and a small dead zone behind the command tower. Being on turret mounts implies that these weapons are mainly intended or grouped firing against one or more enemy warships, rather than for bombardment of targets on a stationary planetary surface. (Firing against a fixed point favours taking a simple manoeuvre to reorient the whole ship; firing against multiple moving targets requires that the guns be able to move independently.)

The turrets' disuse in the films' foreground battles can be explained as situational bad luck. In the battle between Princess Leia's Tantive IV and the star destroyer Devastator, the Corellian blockade runner carefully stayed below the midplane of the destroyer, below the big guns' fire horizons. Destroyers entered the Battle of Endor at long range but subject to holding orders; they made no initial attacks. Later they were at point-blank range to the rebel ships, making geometry unfavourable to long-range guns.

The prime weapons of a star destroyer must have a range of at least several thousand or several tens of thousands of kilometres, the typical distances of the blockade orbits around Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. The destroyers were positioned to intercept any escaping ships, but were also prepared to bombard the rebel base once the shields were lowered.

A Mon Calamari Cruiser was less than 1Km from the ISD and they traded about 4 HTL shots. One Rebel shot missed the ISD from behind, and atleast one Imperial shot passd by the Mc80 uninteruppted.

When is that? Are you talking about when we look down at an ISD and Mon Cal from the Falcon's cockpit right before the "Come on Han ol' buddy, don't let me down" (IIRC) scene? I do not believe we have HTL fire in that scene.

[IceHawk-151]

The Tanitive IV was not exactly manuvering. It was following a straight line course at top speed. All the ISD had to do was lead the CRC a bit and they could have 100 % accuracy.

QUick question, how powerful do you think Proton Torpedoes are? I've heard numbers ranging from 500KT - 12.5 MT (Back in the sane days) to 10 MT- 200 MT (Zounds!).

Either way 22 Proton Torpedoes were capable of brining down sections of a Destroyer's shields in the Rouge Books. Concentrated blasts like those seem to give Particle Shielding trouble. Two GCS could put 20 Photon Torpedoes into the same area pretty quick, they might be able to open up a few holes here or there.

"Two thousand GCSs probably can't destroy an ISD II. "

Sure, if you follow the ICS numbers.
Going by more conservative numbers it would take around 8 GCS to gurantee victory over an ISD II.

[IceHawk-151]

Right behind Ackbar's head. You can clearly see the two ships firing on each other. If you watch you see atleast 1 Long Green bolt pass behind the Mc80 and atleast 1 long Red Bolt pass behind the ISD.

[Ender]

And the point of this argument was what?

Because Northern Huntsman challenged about it, like I quoted in the first post. Of course after that he ran like a little bitch and we haven't seen him for a week as a result, but what can you do.

I would like to remind everery one that we saw one instance of HTL Cannons being used. In that situation atleast 2 of 4 shots missed. At best the percieved accuracy of HTL is 60 % at point blank range. ---> Just a thought

Show they were aiming at the Mon Cal. And that bites trek in the ass as well. We let them ge by on Way of the Warrior misses for the same reason they accept that those were not necessarily misses.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The Tanitive IV was not exactly manuvering. It was following a straight line course at top speed. All the ISD had to do was lead the CRC a bit and they could have 100 % accuracy.

You are a fucking idiot. Why don't you think it was manuvering?! Those TL blasts are being used to "hurd" the corvette toward the firing arcs for the medium guns around the landing bay for shield/engine disabling and so it could be nabbed by the pursuit and retrieval tractor beams. Which is exactly what happened.

Quick question, how powerful do you think Proton Torpedoes are? I've heard numbers ranging from 500KT - 12.5 MT (Back in the sane days) to 10 MT- 200 MT (Zounds!).

God does scaling the overall SW universe hurt your brain or something? I don't see how having the proton torpedoes have modern yields is reasonable, but whatever.

Proton torpedoes are a whole type of weapon from capital ship anti-surface bombardment, to knocking-out "soft" targets on a captial ship's surface once the shields have been stripped off, to anti-fighter work.

I'd say they range from the upper kiloton range to gigaton range for fighter torps. Capital ship-class torpedoes might be even in the neighborhood of the Acclamator's main guns or more.

Either way 22 Proton Torpedoes were capable of brining down sections of a Destroyer's shields in the Rouge Books. Concentrated blasts like those seem to give Particle Shielding trouble. Two GCS could put 20 Photon Torpedoes into the same area pretty quick, they might be able to open up a few holes here or there.

Sorry, but I believe it was only one VSD in the Alderaanian graveyard, filled w/ radioactive asteroids. Perhaps you can give specific examples. And try and put into context what class of torpedoes you're talking about. For instance in the Bacta War you're looking at a fight against a modified getaway ship, not a true commandship w/ capital ship-class torps. Why do you think they were mounted on fighters?

Sure, if you follow the ICS numbers.
Going by more conservative numbers it would take around 8 GCS to gurantee victory over an ISD II.

Conservative numbers which are skewed by your personal wish to appease the middle-ground and win brownie points, NOT in the mainstream, canon-derived scale of the SW universe. In other words, stop sucking up and wanking on pathetic figures and trying to pretend the BDZ doesn't exist and DS was magic tech for SW when you're trying to use Darksabre to prove your calcs.

[IceHawk-151]

If they had the accuracy to herd the ship into a certain area, (Nice way to rationalize misses) why didn't they just nail the CRC with a mass of LTL fire and disable it right away?
I'm pretty sure there were a bunch of Ion Cannons within range of the CRC at that time.

Upper Gigaton for Heavy Torpedoes? That would make sense with the new shield numbers.

I never said it was an ISD. I said only "a destroyer". The point was that Particle Shields seem to be vulnerable to relatively heavy yield weapons impacting on a small surface area.

Appease the middle ground? No.
As far as Wong's 1 Hour/ 1 Meter BDZ, no it doesn't exsist. AS far as I can tell he looked at a few quotes, made an assuption here or there, and spat out a high end number. A BDZ would be just as effective if it was done to 50 cm in five hours.

DS magic tech? I don't recall ever saying that myself. Nice assumption though. You're attempt to generalize my agruments would be more succesful if you and I argued about more than 1 topic.

Last I checked according to the official numbers Wong himself used he rationalized numbers in the lower Gigatons for heavy weapons. The ICS numbers seem to be two orders ofd magnitude greater than the conclusions on the SD.net Tech page. Wong's original numbers seemed plausible, the new numbers don't. Ofcourse thats another thread....

[Darth Servo]

If they had the accuracy to herd the ship into a certain area, (Nice way to rationalize misses) why didn't they just nail the CRC with a mass of LTL fire and disable it right away?
I'm pretty sure there were a bunch of Ion Cannons within range of the CRC at that time.

They wanted PRISONERS. They wanted to confirm that the DeathStar plans were infact on board the ship. Kind of difficult to do with what you're proposing.

As far as Wong's 1 Hour/ 1 Meter BDZ, no it doesn't exsist. AS far as I can tell he looked at a few quotes, made an assuption here or there, and spat out a high end number. A BDZ would be just as effective if it was done to 50 cm in five hours.

Five hours would allow people time to escape and/or get communications out. BDZ is a no witnesses, no survivors operation.

Last I checked according to the official numbers Wong himself used he rationalized numbers in the lower Gigatons for heavy weapons. The ICS numbers seem to be two orders ofd magnitude greater than the conclusions on the SD.net Tech page. Wong's original numbers seemed plausible, the new numbers don't. Ofcourse thats another thread....

Mike's original numbers were delibrately over conservative.

[Illuminatus Primus]

If they had the accuracy to herd the ship into a certain area, (Nice way to rationalize misses) why didn't they just nail the CRC with a mass of LTL fire and disable it right away?

Well if it was any other reason numbnuts, why would they even bother w/ the Hoth blockade? From their deployment they had to be able to hit escaping transports at least ten thousand kilometers away at all times.

I'm pretty sure there were a bunch of Ion Cannons within range of the CRC at that time.

And fuck the main computer and log, therefore making it impossible to determine whether they'd tracked down the DS plans for sure. Real smart.

Upper Gigaton for Heavy Torpedoes? That would make sense with the new shield numbers.

Only for Capital ship-class torpedoes. Look at SW2ICS and you see tubes the size of large fighers. The ISD has tubes the size of TIEs on it.

I never said it was an ISD. I said only "a destroyer". The point was that Particle Shields seem to be vulnerable to relatively heavy yield weapons impacting on a small surface area.

Well, whoopdedo. Taking the size of the Trade Federation's Battleships, w/ the size of the Executor compared to the Imperator, and cross that w/ the circumstancial evidence from larger vessels from Marvel, and you get that the ISD is the Empire's stock destroyer.

Appease the middle ground? No.
As far as Wong's 1 Hour/ 1 Meter BDZ, no it doesn't exsist. AS far as I can tell he looked at a few quotes, made an assuption here or there, and spat out a high end number. A BDZ would be just as effective if it was done to 50 cm in five hours.

With one ISD on an inhabited world? How many people would escape? Dumbass.

DS magic tech? I don't recall ever saying that myself. Nice assumption though. You're attempt to generalize my agruments would be more succesful if you and I argued about more than 1 topic.

Nope, just read your claims on hypermatter reactors. If you scaled the DS to ISD size, you find that the ISD should have more firepower then it does.

Last I checked according to the official numbers Wong himself used he rationalized numbers in the lower Gigatons for heavy weapons. The ICS numbers seem to be two orders ofd magnitude greater than the conclusions on the SD.net Tech page. Wong's original numbers seemed plausible, the new numbers don't. Ofcourse thats another thread....

Saxton's figures are reasonable low-end. Mike's are bare bottom assume-everything-at-its-worst while still making logical sense figures.

[IceHawk-151]

"With one ISD on an inhabited world? How many people would escape? Dumbass."

Alot.
Assume this.

Time 0:00 - ISD enters system and shows up on planetary sensor arrays.
Time 1:00 - ISD pulls into orbit and begins to blast away at the planet,
Time 10:00 - News networks on the planet inform everyone that there is a really big ship shooting up the planet.
Time 20:00 - ISD is pulling around the planet contniuing bombardment as families begin to packup to leave.
Time 35:00 - Halfway around the world now the ISD is 50 % done.
Time 40:00 - Family "X" on the unharmed side of the planet jump in an old family transport and launch for space.
Time 45:00 - Family transport is pulling away from the planet as the ISD pulls around to the last section of the world.
Time 50:00 - Family "X" jump into hyperspace as the ISD takes out thier home town.

The Numbers themselves are arbitrary but I thik you can get the idea behaind them.

[Ghost Rider]

Given that according to VoTF NO ONE escapes a BDZ and that has yet to be contradicted

You have to come up with something better than that feeble proof, that people escape a BDZ.

[Mr Flibble]

"With one ISD on an inhabited world? How many people would escape? Dumbass."

Alot.
Assume this.

Time 0:00 - ISD enters system and shows up on planetary sensor arrays.
Time 1:00 - ISD pulls into orbit and begins to blast away at the planet,
Time 10:00 - News networks on the planet inform everyone that there is a really big ship shooting up the planet.
Time 20:00 - ISD is pulling around the planet contniuing bombardment as families begin to packup to leave.
Time 35:00 - Halfway around the world now the ISD is 50 % done.
Time 40:00 - Family "X" on the unharmed side of the planet jump in an old family transport and launch for space.
Time 45:00 - Family transport is pulling away from the planet as the ISD pulls around to the last section of the world.
Time 50:00 - Family "X" jump into hyperspace as the ISD takes out thier home town.

The Numbers themselves are arbitrary but I thik you can get the idea behaind them.

I see two huge holes in your argument. One: you are forgetting that the ISD has TIEs which would make mince meat of the family craft, and can be watching on side of the planet while the ISD destroys. Two: THE ISD HAS TIEs. I know that techinically speaking that is only one problem, but I thought that it was such a big one that it was worth mentioning twice.

[consequences]

"A brilliant plan, Darkstar, with only two tiny drawbacks, one a Galaxy class can't warpstrafe, and two, a federation ship has never been able to warpstrafe outside the juvenile fantasies of wanking trekkie fanboys."

[Master of Ossus]

"With one ISD on an inhabited world? How many people would escape? Dumbass."

Alot.
Assume this.

Time 0:00 - ISD enters system and shows up on planetary sensor arrays.
Time 1:00 - ISD pulls into orbit and begins to blast away at the planet,
Time 10:00 - News networks on the planet inform everyone that there is a really big ship shooting up the planet.
Time 20:00 - ISD is pulling around the planet contniuing bombardment as families begin to packup to leave.
Time 35:00 - Halfway around the world now the ISD is 50 % done.
Time 40:00 - Family "X" on the unharmed side of the planet jump in an old family transport and launch for space.
Time 45:00 - Family transport is pulling away from the planet as the ISD pulls around to the last section of the world.
Time 50:00 - Family "X" jump into hyperspace as the ISD takes out thier home town.

The Numbers themselves are arbitrary but I thik you can get the idea behaind them.

You assume that the TIE fighers are incapable of shooting down the old family transport (which most people do NOT have lying around, as demonstrated by the dedicated hangar facilities in Mos Eisley space-port, as opposed to the lack of hangars in the moisture farms), that the ISD is incapable of engaging the transport itself, and that the people on the other side of the planet have time to recognize what is going on, despite the complete jamming of transmissions. You then accuse another person of being a dumbass for examining the evidence. I suggest you stop mindlessly flaming people and begin reading up on what a BDZ actually entails.

[Slartibartfast]

I never said it was an ISD. I said only "a destroyer". The point was that Particle Shields seem to be vulnerable to relatively heavy yield weapons impacting on a small surface area.

Ah, I see, you meant that one of the Droidekas was blown by torpedoes? I never saw that, but I agree that it would make sense, destroyer droids aren't that tough.

[Slartibartfast]

"With one ISD on an inhabited world? How many people would escape? Dumbass."

Alot.
Assume this.

Time 0:00 - ISD enters system and shows up on planetary sensor arrays.
Time 1:00 - ISD pulls into orbit and begins to blast away at the planet,
Time 10:00 - News networks on the planet inform everyone that there is a really big ship shooting up the planet.
Time 20:00 - ISD is pulling around the planet contniuing bombardment as families begin to packup to leave.
Time 35:00 - Halfway around the world now the ISD is 50 % done.
Time 40:00 - Family "X" on the unharmed side of the planet jump in an old family transport and launch for space.
Time 45:00 - Family transport is pulling away from the planet as the ISD pulls around to the last section of the world.
Time 50:00 - Family "X" jump into hyperspace as the ISD takes out thier home town.

The Numbers themselves are arbitrary but I thik you can get the idea behaind them.

Interesting... according to you, for a BDZ to work as stated, it should take a hell of a lot less time than 1 hour. In fact, it means it's actually MORE powerful than Wong's calcs. Neat!

[Connor MacLeod]

Just to point out an interesting tidbit: According to the SW Technical Journal, a B-wing starfighter has "more raw firepower" than most corvettes. Considering that most Corvettes tend to have at least 2 turbolasers and as many as a dozen (so maybe around 6-8 TLs average), This easily puts a B-wing's firepower in the Gigaton range (low hundred to mid hundreds at a guess.. possibly higher.) Most B-wings carry 8 protorps, 2-4 auto blasters, 1-2 heavy laser cannon, and 3 medium ion cannon. Unless you think the firepower were to be concentrated in the energy weapons (and even with a million shots apiece, we'd lose only a few GT from the value - in other words, the energy mounts contribute an INSIGNIFICANT amount of the overall firepower), that puts the torpedoes well into GT range as well.

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh yes, and there are the showdown at centerpoint proton torpedo calcs, even though I never meant those to be a specific quantification of firepower (more of an "order of magnitude" indicator).

And the Seismic charges (which, even if they deliver their firepower in an odd manner, still indicates the existence of GT-range warheads.)

I find it amusing that the old "particle shields are incredibly weak" theory continually gets touted around, even though its been dismantled dozens of times.

[Illuminatus Primus]

"With one ISD on an inhabited world? How many people would escape? Dumbass."

Alot.
Assume this.

Time 0:00 - ISD enters system and shows up on planetary sensor arrays.
Time 1:00 - ISD pulls into orbit and begins to blast away at the planet,
Time 10:00 - News networks on the planet inform everyone that there is a really big ship shooting up the planet.
Time 20:00 - ISD is pulling around the planet contniuing bombardment as families begin to packup to leave.
Time 35:00 - Halfway around the world now the ISD is 50 % done.
Time 40:00 - Family "X" on the unharmed side of the planet jump in an old family transport and launch for space.
Time 45:00 - Family transport is pulling away from the planet as the ISD pulls around to the last section of the world.
Time 50:00 - Family "X" jump into hyperspace as the ISD takes out thier home town.

The Numbers themselves are arbitrary but I thik you can get the idea behaind them.

Don't you get it? The whole point of my comment was that the 1 hr BDZ is rather conservative, even w/ TIEs any longer and there would be lots of escapees.

It was in response to your "Wong's 1hr BDZ doesn't exist" a contention with no evidence.