Bad design in Star Wars

[Agent Sorchus]

It must be understood that my number is only the Volume equivalent of the highest posible number of ships involved on all sides. I am going to have a better estimate based on dialog from Coruscant command that said that it would take the Imperial fleet 6 days to batter down the planetary shields. All I need now is the wattage that a ISD can utilize for bombardment and for how long. I assume that the planetary sheilds are no greater than the sheilds that Alderan had making this next estimate low end for sure. Wattage that the fleet needs to be able to output = 2.5 x 1032 watts.

I will have a full post on this on Friday.

[Simon_Jester]

Remind me again how we calculate the strength of Alderaan's planetary shields in joules?

[fractalsponge1]

I imagine you take the length of time Alderaan's shield held against the superlaser (0.13s according to the main page), and use the calculated power of the Death Star to get an idea of a lower bound for the holding capacity of the planetary shield. This power would be on the order of 1e39W (0.21s total strike, ~1e39J calculated based on Alderaan ejecta momentum, these numbers being from SWTC's Death Star page). This is for a split second burst from the superlaser, which rapidly overwhelmed the surge capacity of the shield; for a bombardment over the timescale of days you'd have the heat dissipation of the shield system to consider as well. You could always assume the shield cannot dissipate any heat dumped into it, which would thus lead to an large underestimation of the power used by the bombarding force. Say something on the order of 1e38J, as a lower bound number for an Alderaan spec-shield. If it took 6 days to reach that for a fleet, assuming the shield can't dissipate any energy but only holds it, then that's ~2e32W.

Saxton's number for ISD firepower would be 1e25W (assuming all of this can be outputted from its weapons array, which is stated to be common from the ICS). 2e32W would thus represent 2e7 ISD equivalents in generating power. Using 7.7e26W as a Mandator estimate, and that makes it 2.6e5 Mandator equivalents. Perhaps Coruscant had a much weaker shield than Alderaan, or this 6-day number is for one of the theatre shields mentioned in Labyrinth of Evil? Where does the 6 day figure come from, RotS novel?

[bz249]

I imagine you take the length of time Alderaan's shield held against the superlaser (0.13s according to the main page), and use the calculated power of the Death Star to get an idea of a lower bound for the holding capacity of the planetary shield. This power would be on the order of 1e39W (0.21s total strike, ~1e39J calculated based on Alderaan ejecta momentum, these numbers being from SWTC's Death Star page). This is for a split second burst from the superlaser, which rapidly overwhelmed the surge capacity of the shield; for a bombardment over the timescale of days you'd have the heat dissipation of the shield system to consider as well. You could always assume the shield cannot dissipate any heat dumped into it, which would thus lead to an large underestimation of the power used by the bombarding force. Say something on the order of 1e38J, as a lower bound number for an Alderaan spec-shield. If it took 6 days to reach that for a fleet, assuming the shield can't dissipate any energy but only holds it, then that's ~2e32W.

Saxton's number for ISD firepower would be 1e25W (assuming all of this can be outputted from its weapons array, which is stated to be common from the ICS). 2e32W would thus represent 2e7 ISD equivalents in generating power. Using 7.7e26W as a Mandator estimate, and that makes it 2.6e5 Mandator equivalents. Perhaps Coruscant had a much weaker shield than Alderaan, or this 6-day number is for one of the theatre shields mentioned in Labyrinth of Evil? Where does the 6 day figure come from, RotS novel?

Had the Alderaan shield really hold out? Or this is just the time required for the collapse propagation (we are talking about distances in the range of 10.000km)?

Anyway what is surely an absolute low limit: the Alderaan shield was blue and if it is a thermal radiation of a blackbody (not a bad assumption IMHO, since shields should absorb in any possible frequency)

p=A*sigma*T^4 A=1E14m2 for an Earth sized object T=1E4K so T^4=1E16K^4 sigma=5E-8Wm^(-2)K^(-4)

thus p=5E22W in form of thermal radiation

[Thanas]

I will have a full post on this on Friday.

I look forward to it.

[Knife]

I was looking at some still pictures of the Battle of Endor, and the rebel fleet at it's objective rally point at Sullest. I noticed that there is a long sequence of the same ships (plus or minus a couple depending on camera perspective) seen from Sullest all the way until the fleet starts to radically maneuver due to the Deathstar shield still being up. These ships, also held smaller formations within each other in all the shots. For example, there was Home One in all the shots, at least two of the Liberty sub-types directly behind the Starcruiser, and two more Liberty sub-types even further back in some shots. There were three Corvettes in their own formation off to the starboard side of Home One at Sullest and at Endor you can see at least one still off to starboard. At Sullest, you can see one Escort Frigate with a grouping of Medium Transports around it again on the starboard side of Home One; at Endor you can see two Escort Frigates with those same groupings of Medium Transports (you can see only three this time).

Rebel Fleet at Sullest

Aft view of the fleet at Sullest

Rebel Fleet at Endor



I think we are looking at a battlegroup with smaller sub-units or combat units within the larger group. If indeed this is a 'standard' TO&E for the Rebels for a Starcruiser sized battlegroup, you can start making extrapolations off of that. For instance, we know there was at least one more Starcruiser like Home One at Endor, seen on the starboard side of the Executor when Home One was on the port side attacking the SSD. There might be a third Starcuiser, the second ship being annililated by the Deathstar II at Endor looked more like a Home One style ship than a wingless Liberty type. If true, and there were three Starcruisers at Endor, each with four Stardestroyer level Mon Cal ships, three Corvettes, and one-two escort Frigates, you have a sizable force at Endor sponsored by the Mon Cal's with 3 Cruisers and 12 Destroyers. Not a sector fleet to be sure, but it starts to come close with the combined firepower of three starcruisers.

Second Starcruiser after Executor attack.

I've made similar comments to these effects before, usually by trying to count or estimate the number of Mon Cal blobs in various scenes, plus the possible three Starcruisers. Those estimates were a bit higher, coming a lot closer to a sector fleet strength armada. Counting just one battlegroup in the fleet, then estimating fleet strength by amount of battlegroups yields a bit lower. We also know there were a hodge podge of other ships there at Endor too, Dorian gunships and Bulk Cruisers being two examples. It would be easy enough to put them in as per roll. Example, not enough Corellian Corvettes for a battlegroup? Add a Dorian Gunship.

Anyway, I bring it up after your guys long discussion on Imperial fleet size and roll of destroyers and shipyard capacity. Mon Cal seems to have been a good enough shipbuilders to commit a squadron of Stardestroyer level ships that equals half an Imperial sector fleet at Endor plus three Starcruisers from just their vessels. Does this represent the sector fleet for a free Dac, or perhaps the attack portion of the Mon Cal fleet with a sector fleet still in position around their world, or is it the reserves of the Mon Cal fleet?

[Agent Sorchus]

This is an analysis of the 4th battle of Coruscant from Dark empire

"Coruscant is surrounded. Our defenses have been forced to retreat, and we estimate the planetary shield will fail by morning."
―Garm Bel Iblis
This quote implies the bombardment lasted only one day. Now assuming that the shield of Coruscant is equal to Alderan's shield, and the only source I am using is the main page here we have the Death Star E38 joules and the shield with stood .13 seconds of the blast. Now since this is intended to be a lower end estimate I'll use one second for the length of the blast. 1.3 x 1037 joules. Another assumption is that the shield has no heat dissipation and that the time of the bombardment is ~24hours ( this is greater than my original estimate, mostly because I misread my source). The new Wattage that the fleet has to generate is 1.5 x 1033. Using the wattage supplied by Fractalsponge for a ISD (1025W) than that is the equivelent of 150,000,000 Star Destroyers.

So how do we get a force that is 6000 times the normally stated number of Star Destroyers? First we never know the numbers for larger vessels like what we have been discussing. We have to also remember that this is actual wartime for the Empire and that they are most likely to be placing the majority of their economy towards this. We also cannot rule out specialized siege weapons either.

What am I claiming really? That 25000 Imperators is nothing compared to the actual scale of warfare that happens in cannon, and so seriously conflicts with the economic might of the empire that it might as well be thrown out. This also means that we cannot make good limits to the number of large capital ships in the Empires Arsenal. That Azure Hammer's 58 ships (if they consist of 1 Executor and 57 Imperator) coldn't do anything to the old and powerful core worlds, worlds who could hide beneath their Sheilds in the face of the Imperial fleet as long as they wanted to. Azure hammer would only be a threat if it was a actual fleet of Star Battleships and Star cruisers not just Destroyers.

I really want to stress that Pellaeon's quote is a lower bound limit for the numbers of star destroyers, "Two hundred Star Destroyers remaining from a Fleet that had once included over twenty-five thousand of them." page 7 Spectre of the Past This has nothing to say about the actual size of the fleet.

[The Romulan Republic]

I really want to stress that Pellaeon's quote is a lower bound limit for the numbers of star destroyers, "Two hundred Star Destroyers remaining from a Fleet that had once included over twenty-five thousand of them." page 7 Spectre of the Past This has nothing to say about the actual size of the fleet.

That may be so, but if the actual number was, say, 1,000,000 ISDs, why would Pellaeon phrase it as "over twenty-five thousand of them?"

Of course, one could simply choose to ignore the above. The EU canon is by now so convoluted and contradictory that a very good argument can be made for ignoring large chunks of it altogether. But of course, it can also become difficult to discuss Star Wars when everyone has a different view on what is canon/legitimate.

[Thanas]

This is an analysis of the 4th battle of Coruscant from Dark empire

"Coruscant is surrounded. Our defenses have been forced to retreat, and we estimate the planetary shield will fail by morning."
―Garm Bel Iblis

Let me ask you something - have you ever read the story in question? Because I have and iirc it says that Coruscants planetary shield was chracked by two waves of ISDs, about 24 iirc. So please do not take anything Bel Iblis says in that story for making any sense. Wookiepedia also mentions the attack being led by Thrawn himself - a possibility that flatly contradicts with The Last Command. So I would argue it not being a good source of anything.

Also, even if we assume the story is correct there is always the possibility of a torpedo sphere having been employed at Coruscant.

In short, your estimate assumes several things:
- That the facts of the story are true (which also means you just set an upper limit for the Coruscant planetary shield that is around 24xISD firepower)
- That no dedicated siege weapons like the Torpedo sphere were used.

I see no evidence for that.

[TC Pilot]

So how do we get a force that is 6000 times the normally stated number of Star Destroyers?

By arbitrarily raising the Alderaan shield's defensive capability?

First we never know the numbers for larger vessels like what we have been discussing. We have to also remember that this is actual wartime for the Empire and that they are most likely to be placing the majority of their economy towards this.

Or we can conclude the opposite, that the Imperial military has suffered catastrophic losses in both territory and numbers over the last half decade.

There are several other things wrong with your analysis. For starters, it's known that the Imperials actually got several shots off before the Coruscant shield was raised, resulting in the destruction of a large part of the Republic Army's command staff. Power generators could easily have been hit as well, either by the bombardment or by sabotuers along the lines of what Rogue Squadron did. Thanas has already brought up the problem with torpedo spheres (though I will say that 24 ISDs sounds impossibly small, given that the plot of the story involves courier ships breaking through an Imperial blockade). As well, you're relying on figures gleaned from a superlaser punching through a single point, rather than ships that are, IIRC, bombarding the shield from all directions. Shields are not uniformly strong, which is why torpedo spheres exist at all.

[The Romulan Republic]

Wookiepedia also mentions the attack being led by Thrawn himself - a possibility that flatly contradicts with The Last Command. So I would argue it not being a good source of anything.

Well, it is Wookiepedia. Probably not the most reliable source, so without a quote from the actual source, I'm inclined to wonder if this particular error originated with Wookiepedia, not Dark Empire.

[TC Pilot]

Where does Wookieepedia say that Thrawn led the battle?

I'd also highly doubt the error came from Dark Empire, since the DE sourcebook is where we learn that it's "surviving members of the Emperor's ruling circle, in concert with six former starfleet commanders" that lead the attack.

[Thanas]

Where does Wookieepedia say that Thrawn led the battle?

I'd also highly doubt the error came from Dark Empire, since the DE sourcebook is where we learn that it's "surviving members of the Emperor's ruling circle, in concert with six former starfleet commanders" that lead the attack.

From here:

That night, Clancy impatiently strode into the palace to demand answers from someone official. Once inside, she encountered Colonel Jak Bremen, who unexpectedly led her to General Garm Bel Iblis, a man Clancy knew by reputation but whose physical appearance was only vaguely familiar to her. Bel Iblis explained that the Empire, led by Grand Admiral Thrawn, had gained the upper hand in the battle, and that the New Republic was pulling out to minimize civilian casualties. He went on to commandeer her vessel for the purpose of sneaking a datacard past the Imperial fleet blockading the planet; this datacard carried intelligence on the battle and coordinates for the New Republic government's rendezvous

Looking it once over, this seems to relate more to Thrawn's first attack, so I'll withdraw that point.

[TC Pilot]

Looking it once over, this seems to relate more to Thrawn's first attack, so I'll withdraw that point.

No, it's definately referring to the Fourth Battle, not the Third ("the battle" even links to the Fourth page). It's just Wookieepedia being stupid again.

[Crazedwraith]

I have that story in 'Tales From The Empire' Bel Iblis does not say Thrawn lead the attack, in fact he doesn't mention Thrawn at all. The narrative mentions his recent death that's it. Wookiepedia's got it wrong.

Hence I just removed the offending portion of text. See! Wookiepedia Works!

[Akkleptos]

My! This has gone so far so quickly, but yet I need to say, regarding Havok's retort to the useless punk who wrote the stupid article in the first place:

Do I need to remind you, gentlemen?

Havok is the new Stark.

Now... with EXPORT quality!

[Jade Falcon]

Considering that entire sequence is just Lucas ripping off paying homage to the bomber raid in the Dam Busters I'd imagine the targeting computer with its twin vertical lines moving towards the center is directly inspired by the two pronged aiming device that showed the pilot when to release the torpedoes.

Maybe the exhaust port needed some intermittent mesh grating or something that would allow exhaust to pass through but impede or detonate any object attempting to come through it.

Late reply here, but I wouldn't say its a Dambusters rip off, look up 633 Squadron sometime.

[Captain Seafort]

Just because it rips off 633 Squadron doesn't mean it doesn't do the same to the Dambusters, to an even greater degree - some of the dialogue is almost identical, and the basic concept of a long run in with a couple of towers shooting at you before releasing the weapon at a precise distance from the target is the same.

[Jade Falcon]

Just because it rips off 633 Squadron doesn't mean it doesn't do the same to the Dambusters, to an even greater degree - some of the dialogue is almost identical, and the basic concept of a long run in with a couple of towers shooting at you before releasing the weapon at a precise distance from the target is the same.

True, its just that I see a greater similiarity with 633 squadron, with the target at the end of the fjord, heavily defended by AA along the sides, enemy fighter cover, and a precision hit needed due to a rock overhang. There's elements from both films, but I just think more from 633 squadron. Then again, George I believe has said that he liked the dogfighting from older WWII films.

[Captain Seafort]

As I said, there are definitely similarities, particularly with the trench, but the heavy AA (especially as most of it was coming from a pair of towers flanking the target), and the requirement for a precision hit apply just as much to either attack, and the lack of manoeuvring in the trench reminds me more of the dams run than 633 Squadron's jumping about all over the place.

[VF5SS]

Well the biggest similarity to me was the AA fire (especially since they're both done with special effects, love those DEADLY NEGATIVE SCRATCHES) and the elaborate targeting system. Anyway, Star Wars made that whole trench run idea so popular its kind of ridiculous at this point.