Rescuing the topic: Star Wars and engineering

[Captain Seafort]

I've asked this in similar threads before, but can anyone identify a real-world example of a ship's command and control center being located deep within the bowels of the ship?

Pretty much all of them - the bridge is exposed, but CIC, where it's commanded from in battle, is deep inside the ship.

If you want examples of the ship's day-to-day command centre being deep inside it, look at submarines - the type of modern naval vessel that operates in the environment most similar to space.

Considering that, in modern combat, a hit sufficient to take out the bridge is likely to be powerful enough to take out the ship (or else it's just a lucky strike by a puny weapon - unlikely), placing the bridge deep within a ship is somewhat pointless.

Wrong. modern warships can take a lot of punishment without being destroyed - as an example look at the Falklands, where most of the Task Force was hit a some point in the campaign, but only four warship were lost. Even among those that were lost, only Coventry and Antelope sank quickly after suffering fatal damage - Sheffield and Ardent were abandoned after extensive damage control efforts failed, due to fires spreading (in the former case because the water line was broken, in the later case because of the number of hits she'd taken.

There's also the issue of minor damage - rounds from a strafing run by an aircraft, or shrapnel from a hit or near miss are far less likely to penetrate to a position deep inside the ship than to an exposed bridge.

Similar thinking is likely at work in Star Wars (i.e., once the shields go down the ship is screwed anyway, so why bother with a bridge deep within the ship).

Because of what happened to Executor. She suffered a temporary loss of bridge deflector shields, which allowed a fighter to ram the bridge. While a solid broadside from another dreadnought would render the location of the command centre irrelevant, fire from a destroyer or fighter would be sufficient to destroy an unshielded bridge, but insufficient to penetrate to a command centre deep inside the ship.

There's also the other reasons modern ships have exposed bridges - modern warfare occurs at ranges and speeds comprehendable to the Mk 1 Eyeball, and docking manoeuvres are supported by crewmen working on exposed decks. Therefore being able to observe events direct is an advantage to the ship's officers. This is not the case in Star Wars, where ranges in particular are typically measured in thousands or tens of thousands of kilometres, and docking manoeuvres are controlled by tractor beam.

[CaptHawkeye]

Pretty much all of them - the bridge is exposed, but CIC, where it's commanded from in battle, is deep inside the ship.

So who's to say Star Destroyer's don't also have a CIC? They probably do. This doesn't change the fact that officers usually don't want to command down there.

If you want examples of the ship's day-to-day command centre being deep inside it, look at submarines - the type of modern naval vessel that operates in the environment most similar to space.

True, but Star Destroyers are more akin to surface warships than submarines in operational use.

There's also the issue of minor damage - rounds from a strafing run by an aircraft, or shrapnel from a hit or near miss are far less likely to penetrate to a position deep inside the ship than to an exposed bridge.

There's also the issue of becoming trapped in the lower sections of the ship should it start to sink.

This is not the case in Star Wars, where ranges in particular are typically measured in thousands or tens of thousands of kilometres, and docking manoeuvres are controlled by tractor beam.

While i'm not denying Star Wars combat can occur at those ranges we rarely see it happen in the movies. 90% of what we see SD's do in the movies is chase the Millenium Falcon or some other incredibly over matched vessel with no hope of counter attack. Piett and his staff were on the open bridge at Endor but did not really anticipate they'd be seeing any direct combat.

Docking controlled by tractor beams still requires visual scanning for safety purposes I imagine.

[Captain Seafort]

So who's to say Star Destroyer's don't also have a CIC? They probably do. This doesn't change the fact that officers usually don't want to command down there.

That bit was specifically in response to Sanchez's question. As for Star Wars, it's a slightly different situation, in that they're going to be in an enclosed space regardless of where that space is - there's no sun and no breeze in space, and the issue of claustrophobia can be countered by viewscreens.

True, but Star Destroyers are more akin to surface warships than submarines in operational use.

Point, although I'd maintain that their environment is far more similar to submarines.

There's also the issue of becoming trapped in the lower sections of the ship should it start to sink.

Good point. In which case it's a toss-up between avoiding shrapnel and bullets and being able to get off quickly. Probably personnal preference.

While i'm not denying Star Wars combat can occur at those ranges we rarely see it happen in the movies. 90% of what we see SD's do in the movies is chase the Millenium Falcon or some other incredibly over matched vessel with no hope of counter attack. Piett and his staff were on the open bridge at Endor but did not really anticipate they'd be seeing any direct combat.

Indeed, and the fact that Endor ended up as a close-range slogging match may be why he and his command staff decided to stay on the bridge rather than relocating to CIC. Nonetheless the ISD (and the VenStar with it's very similar bridge) was designed during the Clone Wars, when ship-to-ship combat was commonplace.

Docking controlled by tractor beams still requires visual scanning for safety purposes I imagine.

True, but the bridge does not strike me as the best location to do so - the extremities of the ship would be better placed, at the top of the tower and the angles of the main wedge

[Darth Wong]

Obsessing over the bridge is irrelevant to the quality of Star Wars engineering anyway, since it is most likely a customer preference rather than an engineering mistake. Unfortunately, very few people on the Internet know jack shit about engineering, so they don't know how to tell the difference.

[JGregory32]

Obsessing over the bridge is irrelevant to the quality of Star Wars engineering anyway, since it is most likely a customer preference rather than an engineering mistake. Unfortunately, very few people on the Internet know jack shit about engineering, so they don't know how to tell the difference.

Quite true, a lot of stuff gets designed to appeal to the consumer rather than function in the best manner. I once had a PC power supply that was designed with two fans placed at 90 degree angles. The idea behind it was to increase the air flow away from the CPU by drawing air directly away. The down side to this was that it did it's job a little too well. The downward facing fan combined with the CPU fan to form a Vacuum around the CPU which died of heat issues.
I have no doubt that the power supply was designed by some idiot in marketing going, "If we put TWO fans on our power supplies people will think their cooler and buy them!".
The bridge towers could be the same way, a group of Admirals express concerns about being able to observe their enviroment and the marketing guys order up large bridge windows. Or it could be a psychological issue that tells us more about the people who command starships.
Getting back to the engineering issue, can anybody come up with a good explination for why the TIE fighter is unshielded when EVERY other fighter in the star wars universe has shields?

[Captain Seafort]

Getting back to the engineering issue, can anybody come up with a good explination for why the TIE fighter is unshielded when EVERY other fighter in the star wars universe has shields?

Simple - they are shielded. That's obvious from looking at images from ANH (one of the Falcon's shots mysteriously detonating between the panels) and ESB (blue shield effects from hitting an asteroid).

[CaptHawkeye]

Yeah, the persistent fanboy notion that TIE Fighters don't have shields is largely the result of the EU poisoning the well. Their is no evidence in any of the movies to support it.

[Big Phil]

I've asked this in similar threads before, but can anyone identify a real-world example of a ship's command and control center being located deep within the bowels of the ship?

Pretty much all of them - the bridge is exposed, but CIC, where it's commanded from in battle, is deep inside the ship.

If you want examples of the ship's day-to-day command centre being deep inside it, look at submarines - the type of modern naval vessel that operates in the environment most similar to space.

Right... and that control room is deep in the bowels of the ship... how? Control rooms on most submarines are right below the conning tower, on the top level of submarines... hardly "deep inside it" and therefore safe from attack. Frankly, the example of submarines points to the futility of attempting to protect the bridge or control room.

Considering that, in modern combat, a hit sufficient to take out the bridge is likely to be powerful enough to take out the ship (or else it's just a lucky strike by a puny weapon - unlikely), placing the bridge deep within a ship is somewhat pointless.

Wrong. modern warships can take a lot of punishment without being destroyed - as an example look at the Falklands, where most of the Task Force was hit a some point in the campaign, but only four warship were lost. Even among those that were lost, only Coventry and Antelope sank quickly after suffering fatal damage - Sheffield and Ardent were abandoned after extensive damage control efforts failed, due to fires spreading (in the former case because the water line was broken, in the later case because of the number of hits she'd taken.

There's also the issue of minor damage - rounds from a strafing run by an aircraft, or shrapnel from a hit or near miss are far less likely to penetrate to a position deep inside the ship than to an exposed bridge.

Right, and how many of those ships remained combat effective after even a single bomb strike? Just because the ships weren't blown to kingdom come doesn't mean they weren't "taken out," which was the phrase I used.

And with Star Destroyers, strafing runs are impossible unless the shields are down... unless you actually believe the crap in the Rogue Squadron books.

Similar thinking is likely at work in Star Wars (i.e., once the shields go down the ship is screwed anyway, so why bother with a bridge deep within the ship).

Because of what happened to Executor. She suffered a temporary loss of bridge deflector shields, which allowed a fighter to ram the bridge. While a solid broadside from another dreadnought would render the location of the command centre irrelevant, fire from a destroyer or fighter would be sufficient to destroy an unshielded bridge, but insufficient to penetrate to a command centre deep inside the ship.

There's also the other reasons modern ships have exposed bridges - modern warfare occurs at ranges and speeds comprehendable to the Mk 1 Eyeball, and docking manoeuvres are supported by crewmen working on exposed decks. Therefore being able to observe events direct is an advantage to the ship's officers. This is not the case in Star Wars, where ranges in particular are typically measured in thousands or tens of thousands of kilometres, and docking manoeuvres are controlled by tractor beam.

In-universe, no one agrees with you - there isn't some massive campaign to locate control rooms deep in the bowels of ships after Endor, so clearly it's not an issue anyone considers too important.

[Captain Seafort]

Right... and that control room is deep in the bowels of the ship... how? Control rooms on most submarines are right below the conning tower, on the top level of submarines... hardly "deep inside it" and therefore safe from attack. Frankly, the example of submarines points to the futility of attempting to protect the bridge or control room.

They at least have the hull of the submarine surrounding them, rather than being exposed in the manner of the bridges of surface ships.

Right, and how many of those ships remained combat effective after even a single bomb strike?

Of those I mentioned, Antelope. Other rest of the task force, Argonaut, Antrim, Brilliant, Broadsword, Glasgow, Plymouth and Glamorgan. They were all hit, some of them repeatedly and severely, and they all came home.

And with Star Destroyers, strafing runs are impossible unless the shields are down... unless you actually believe the crap in the Rogue Squadron books.

Which is exactly what I said. Try reading next time. The point, which I made earlier and will now repeat, is that while a direct broadside from heavy guns will make armour irrelevent, a strafing run by fighters will be stopped by armour, therefore the armour is not as irrelevent as you claim.

In-universe, no one agrees with you - there isn't some massive campaign to locate control rooms deep in the bowels of ships after Endor, so clearly it's not an issue anyone considers too important.

There is, however, a trend of ships being lost or crippled due to direct hits on their bridges (Iron Fist, Corruptor, Implacable and Reckoning at least).

[Big Phil]

Right... and that control room is deep in the bowels of the ship... how? Control rooms on most submarines are right below the conning tower, on the top level of submarines... hardly "deep inside it" and therefore safe from attack. Frankly, the example of submarines points to the futility of attempting to protect the bridge or control room.

They at least have the hull of the submarine surrounding them, rather than being exposed in the manner of the bridges of surface ships.

But no more secure

Right, and how many of those ships remained combat effective after even a single bomb strike?

Of those I mentioned, Antelope. Other rest of the task force, Argonaut, Antrim, Brilliant, Broadsword, Glasgow, Plymouth and Glamorgan. They were all hit, some of them repeatedly and severely, and they all came home.

Are you being obtuse, or deliberately misreading me? Combat ineffective means they are no longer capable of fighting or defending themselves, which describes pretty much all of those ships. Glasgow, Broadsword, etc., were withdrawn from the Falklands as soon as possible. It didn't even require the destruction of their bridges to make them combat ineffective.

And with Star Destroyers, strafing runs are impossible unless the shields are down... unless you actually believe the crap in the Rogue Squadron books.

Which is exactly what I said. Try reading next time. The point, which I made earlier and will now repeat, is that while a direct broadside from heavy guns will make armour irrelevent, a strafing run by fighters will be stopped by armour, therefore the armour is not as irrelevent as you claim.

Hey, Captain Tennille, how do those shields come down? It sure isn't strafing runs from fighters causing it.

You're argument is like saying that modern warships need to have their control room deep within an armored vault because, if they run out of missiles or gun rounds, they could vulnerable to inflatable boats with machine guns

In-universe, no one agrees with you - there isn't some massive campaign to locate control rooms deep in the bowels of ships after Endor, so clearly it's not an issue anyone considers too important.

There is, however, a trend of ships being lost or crippled due to direct hits on their bridges (Iron Fist, Corruptor, Implacable and Reckoning at least).

1) Qualify that - were the ships destroyed because of a hit to the bridge, or was control lost until it could be restored from elsewhere?
2) That's four cases out of how many millions? Just because the writers have a brainbug doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the engineering or the location of the bridge.

[Connor MacLeod]

There's nothing wrong with the TIEs being unshielded - shield generators cost money and add mass to the ship (and may or may not consume additional power - that is stil undecided) which is going to alter performance.

Besides, just because we see TIEs shielded in the movies does not automatically mean ALL TIEs are. We know they can be equipped with shields, at a cost in performance.

[Samuel]

There's nothing wrong with the TIEs being unshielded - shield generators cost money and add mass to the ship (and may or may not consume additional power - that is stil undecided) which is going to alter performance.

Besides, just because we see TIEs shielded in the movies does not automatically mean ALL TIEs are. We know they can be equipped with shields, at a cost in performance.

Given how fast the shielded X-Wings die, it is questionable how useful it is anyways.

[Connor MacLeod]

AS far as the bridge thing goes.. I have to ask you people where you think you're going to put it? The ISD has fuckoff huge engines and a reactor which doesnt even quite fit into the hull itself, which occupies much of the central positions. Then, there is the fuel supply, which often has to be positioned along the centerline (going by the ICSes at least I remember) or at least around the center of the ship, along with the hangars. Same with the heavy guns. I can distinctly remember that alot of this would be required because of center of mass placement and recoil issues (they're the ideal placement) - so I can't really see where you could stick a CIC deep in the ship anyhow. Hell, there could be dangers in putting crews too close to such things anyhow (at least unshielded).

Add to that my recollection that heavy weapons, once shields are penetrated, do tend to be capable (at least on their highest settings) of putting big holes in targets and you're not really going to have much choice in where you place bridges. I do remember them having a CIC and such but again they're not going to be buried all that deeply in the hull even then (its going to be up in the superstrucutre no matter what)

So again, someone please indicate to me on an ISD diagram WHERE the bridge/CIC should be placed, since your options for sticking it inside the ship are rather limited.

[Connor MacLeod]

There's nothing wrong with the TIEs being unshielded - shield generators cost money and add mass to the ship (and may or may not consume additional power - that is stil undecided) which is going to alter performance.

Besides, just because we see TIEs shielded in the movies does not automatically mean ALL TIEs are. We know they can be equipped with shields, at a cost in performance.

Given how fast the shielded X-Wings die, it is questionable how useful it is anyways.

That's probably what you would term the "porosity" of SW fighter level shielding. Along with Han's orders to "agnle the deflector sheilds" it means that while shields may provide better protection (for their mass) than armor, they can't cover EVERY direction simultaneously (or at least not do it with equal protection) - which means there would be gaps or weak points that weapons fire could slip through.

It makes sense though, given that fighters suffer more severe volume constraints than big ships. And if volume constraints limit firepower for fighters, I don't see why it wouldnt be true for defenses as well. In a fighter, all small craft probably rely on directing shields in one direction to maximize protection. At long ranges it would be impossible for the enemy to get in "behind" you and stirke at a weak point (which may be one reason why we see such close fighter ranges in the movies. The other reason often cited being EW) It wouldn't be easy to constantly shift and redirect shields to cover all angles in a close range duel, which means you'd have to "even out" and suffer reduced protection.

[Knife]

Or a quicker way to put it, they are flak jackets for fighters rather than bullet proof vests.

[Sky Captain]

I have envisioned those huge bridge towers not only as command place but also as crew`s living quarters because as already mentioned SD`s main hull is crammed full of all sorts of high energy systems and it might simply be bad for crew`s health to squeeze the living space in between those systems (things like vibration, noise, too much heat, radiation could be an issue in main hull). It might be viewed as a trade off between having a healthy living space and increased profile of your ship making it easier to hit at long ranges or having crew quarters squeezed in main hull resulting in smaller profile, but having to worry about health of your crew.

[Pinjar]

Just to quickly return to safety railings.

From AOTC isn’t it true that the first death star is adapted from Geonosian designs? If so the preference of Genosians to use their wings would mean that they probably wouldn’t even consider safety railings.

[Batman]

Bespin had bottomless railingless pits, as did Naboo. As do a lot of the games. WHATEVER the reason they don't like railing, the Geonosians not falling anyway does NOT seem like a likely culprit (OOU because that happened a long time before the Geonosians ever showed up to begin with).

[Darth Yoshi]

Just to quickly return to safety railings.

From AOTC isn’t it true that the first death star is adapted from Geonosian designs? If so the preference of Genosians to use their wings would mean that they probably wouldn’t even consider safety railings.

Not so much, no. In the twenty years between ROTS and ANH, there was plenty of time for someone in the Empire to take a look at the blueprints and think, "maybe I should add railings." Hell, as late as during the actual construction at Despayre, someone should've realized that the Death Star has no railings and fixed it.

[Darth Wong]

Just to quickly return to safety railings.

From AOTC isn’t it true that the first death star is adapted from Geonosian designs? If so the preference of Genosians to use their wings would mean that they probably wouldn’t even consider safety railings.

It's entirely possible that routine maintenance is usually not done by people traversing catwalks on foot. Considering the distances involved and the open interiors of these cavernous spaces, it might be that technicians were expected to move from check station to check station via an anti-grav platform like the ones the battledroids were using in TPM. After all, some modern factories and warehouses are laid out so that the employees are expected to use Segways.

If you're a technician and you're zooming up and down these multi-kilometre long shafts to check on gauges and run scans on sensitive machinery, it would make a lot more sense to use an antigrav SW version of a Segway to do it. Stepping off such a machine and onto a platform would be really annoying if there's a waist-height guardrail in the way.

[Stark]

Yeah, as I speculated about the tractor controls, the void spaces could be used by flying droids or technicians to directly access hardware and not guys catching elevators everywhere. Particularly on the DS with it's absurd scale, the distances between different elements of the same system could be very large in all 3 dimensions.

Indeed, doesn't one of the OT movies show a flat elevator platform arriving in one of the hangar pits?

[Connor MacLeod]

That might also explain why there was that "bridge" inside the DS in ANH that Luke had to magically grapple across. If those huge open spaces were meant for antigrav access then there are probably placees you also don't want bridges and walkways if you can avoid it (So you would retract it and leave the chasm open to traffic)

Hell, even if the routine maintenance isn't by anti-grav equipped humans, you'd still probably want it to be acecessible to droids.

[erik_t]

Pretty much all of them - the bridge is exposed, but CIC, where it's commanded from in battle, is deep inside the ship.

If you want examples of the ship's day-to-day command centre being deep inside it, look at submarines - the type of modern naval vessel that operates in the environment most similar to space.

Right... and that control room is deep in the bowels of the ship... how? Control rooms on most submarines are right below the conning tower, on the top level of submarines... hardly "deep inside it" and therefore safe from attack. Frankly, the example of submarines points to the futility of attempting to protect the bridge or control room.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2001/ ... news15.gif

Two points here.

First, the nature of periscopes requires that a submarine control room be on the upper deck. For most historical submarine designs, the periscope is (as a child would expect) a big long extensible tube with mirrors, penetrating into the hull. Now that non-penetrating TV-camera-based periscopes are beginning to appear in service, control rooms are in fact moving down to the center of the boat, although this is for usable space, not for protection.

Second, a large submarine might be three decks high. The difference between "middle" and "outside edge" is a matter of two or three meters. Statistically insignificant.

[FSTargetDrone]

As far as railings go, take a look a these photos:





This is a stretch of the Georgetown Loop Railroad in Colorado. The railway is in regular use as a tourist attraction. Note the people in the car behind the tender. As you can see, there are no railings on this bridge, it's quite narrow and any fall would likely be fatal. Yet, a specialized vehicle (in this case, a train) can negotiate the bridge quite safely, without any guard rails, as long as it does so without racing across at an unreasonable speed. Maintenance crews probably use tethers or some such when working on the bridge and railway.

So I don't think it's all that far a stretch to imagine bridges crossing much deeper spans (inside the Death Star, etc.), especially when one has access to antigravity vehicles. And the bridges that we see troops crossing in the Death Star, they probably weren't regularly used by people at all, as has already been suggested. Non-hovering droids can safely used the bridges (they aren't going to slip or take a peek too close to the edge) and hovering vehicles don't need to worry about it.

[FSTargetDrone]

Dammit, too late to edit...

A better picture showing how narrow the bridge is: