"Interference", "Jamming", droid targetting, etc.

[adam_grif]

I always hear mention of the use of advanced jamming or some shit as an excuse for why the turrets and broadside guns on capships have actual people targeting things. Vague references to being in a novel somewhere usually coincide with these statements. So my first question is:

- What?

Second question:

- How?

It's quite clear that droids are extremely sophistecated in the computing department and are on par with or exceeding humans in many respects. Even shitty pocket calculators are better than humans are at mathematics and number crunching, and computers are enormously more effective at finding targeting solutions than humans can ever hope to be. Droids obviously can recognize discreet objects like humans can, and we know they are useful in warfare.

So why the fuck do they fucking suck so fucking much? Why do battledroids, that can recognize targets perfectly well, suck so bad in combat compared to humans? Shouldn't they be a million times more accurate with reflexes that puts any human to shame? Why are human operators capable of operating on the same level as droid operated starships? Why do Han and Luke have to manually aim the Falcon's guns to shoot down Tie fighters?

Now, there is one instance of computer targeting that works we see off the top of my head, Vader's tie fighter blowing up some fools at the end of Ep 4. That said, the other instance of comptuer targeting in that movie is shit, because it can't hit the exhaust ports and they use THE FORCE instead.

Anticipated responses:

"The Falcon was a rustbucket, it's not normal."
"It's too expensive to make competent droids."
"They aren't manually targeting the guns! You can't prove that they are!"

etc etc.

[Havok]

Don't be a retard. Of course they could hit the exhaust port with the targeting computers without the Force, or did you miss the part where the first guys rocks the ENTIRE station with his "impacted on the surface" hit. The Force just told Luke when to fire so that they would actually make it through the entirety of the exhaust vent and to the reactor. Luke also didn't have to deal with trailing TIES when he fired thanks to Han.

[recon20011]

The human crew doesn't have to be manually targeting the guns, but if they lose communications to the bridge for fire control and its an automated turret then you need someone there to pick targets, right? And who's better at trouble-shooting/jury-rigging stuff: A human or a battledroid?

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

And even the best droid gunner / fire-control-system is going to miss if its getting faulty targeting data because the target is putting out an ungodly storm of ECS.

[adam_grif]

Don't be a retard. Of course they could hit the exhaust port with the targeting computers without the Force, or did you miss the part where the first guys rocks the ENTIRE station with his "impacted on the surface" hit. The Force just told Luke when to fire so that they would actually make it through the entirety of the exhaust vent and to the reactor. Luke also didn't have to deal with trailing TIES when he fired thanks to Han.

That's the point isn't it? The targeting computer can't make the shot? Ergo why he had to use the force instead of the targeting computer?

The human crew doesn't have to be manually targeting the guns, but if they lose communications to the bridge for fire control and its an automated turret then you need someone there to pick targets, right? And who's better at trouble-shooting/jury-rigging stuff: A human or a battledroid?

Trick question, R2-D2 is the answer.

What are the battle scenes we've watched where we see the gunners do stuff? I think there were some flashes of them in Ep 4 and (maybe) the scene at the start of Ep 3. I don't have the film so I can't watch it, but iirc they had the oldschool broadsides getting manually loaded by droids and shit didn't it?

And even the best droid gunner / fire-control-system is going to miss if its getting faulty targeting data because the target is putting out an ungodly storm of ECS.

That's part of what the question is. What is this "ungodly storm of ECS"? How does it work? Of what nature is it? How can droids and automated targeting be hindered by it, but not human operators? Obviously there's shit like decoys and throwing off sensors, but if there is enough information for human operators to act effectively (i.e. visual data), then droids should be able to do it, and do it way better because humans can't do complex math in microseconds in their heads, nor can they directly interface with ship computers to have their instructions carried out @ lightspeed instead of waiting for nerve conduction and their hands to move.

Back onto the battledroids, specifically, they act slow and dimwitted. You might be able to pass this off as "person recognition" being difficult, except that they act this slow and shitty after they've just politely asked the person to drop their weapons, while their optics are staring right at them. They should be the best fucking shots in the universe, but instead they make stormtroopers effective by comparison.

[Eleas]

Back onto the battledroids, specifically, they act slow and dimwitted. You might be able to pass this off as "person recognition" being difficult, except that they act this slow and shitty after they've just politely asked the person to drop their weapons, while their optics are staring right at them. They should be the best fucking shots in the universe, but instead they make stormtroopers effective by comparison.

But not all battledroids are slow and inaccurate. The commando droids are both nimble and know how to shoot, easily exceeding the abilities of many clone troopers. You criticise the poor performance of the common grunt model - a cheap, easily mass-produced article which may in fact be less complex than the blaster it carries.

Add to that the increasingly erratic behaviour of the battledroids during the clone wars. We see in a few new series episodes (the one where Grievous flogs his droids to keep going, for instance) that droids are being pushed in ways that exceed their capabilities, and it's my impression they're developing idiosyncracies and suffering data failure because of that. And it makes sense to cut corners on what is after all a grunt model, and not memory wipe it all that often, because having droids experienced with facing different threats might actually excuse them being morons from time to time.

Much of this is speculation, but I think it's borne out by the series.

[Azron_Stoma]

What are the battle scenes we've watched where we see the gunners do stuff? I think there were some flashes of them in Ep 4 and (maybe) the scene at the start of Ep 3. I don't have the film so I can't watch it, but iirc they had the oldschool broadsides getting manually loaded by droids and shit didn't it?

All the guns I've seen manned by troops all have computers and such in front of them that they look at, and Imperial gunners have those huge helmets which I'm guessing has such an interface built in, so they aren't entirely manually operated.

The CIS ship had an autoloader with tibanna gas canisters or something, though some say it was a mass driver, I'm guessing it was just something to use in place of a tibanna gas flow conduit, since if damaged they could reload it manually if need be, rather than be completely severed and potentially flood the room with tibanna.

Oddly enough the canister stockpile didn't completely explode when they had a few hits inside the ship, which suggests either Tibanna isn't as volatile as we thought, or lends credence to the mass driver theory, which would preclude the use of a large tibanna flow conduit.

My question is where those specific Turbolasers are located on the Venator, since I don't think those were part of either the 8 heavy turrets, 2 medium turrets or 54 light turrets.

[Havok]

Don't be a retard. Of course they could hit the exhaust port with the targeting computers without the Force, or did you miss the part where the first guys rocks the ENTIRE station with his "impacted on the surface" hit. The Force just told Luke when to fire so that they would actually make it through the entirety of the exhaust vent and to the reactor. Luke also didn't have to deal with trailing TIES when he fired thanks to Han.

That's the point isn't it? The targeting computer can't make the shot? Ergo why he had to use the force instead of the targeting computer?

No. The computer can make the shot. We SAW that. The torpedoes can't make the turn/navigate the exhaust vent on their own, or I should say, without being fired at the exact right time. That is what the Force did for Luke as opposed to the other pilot. That has always been my take anyway.

[fractalsponge1]

One thing immediately come to mind: oversight. When dealing with continent-shattering firepower, you always want it under some other level of control, in case the fire-direction computer glitches/takes damage.

And I know you expect "They aren't manually targeting the guns! You can't prove that they are!" but I don't recall any proof that the large guns (say, acclamator-size and better), or guns firing at long range are in fact routinely human-controlled. Or indeed, that the turret crew is there largely for targeting, as opposed to power regulation, maintenance/damage control, backup, and live-body-in-kill-chain purposes. There is obviously local control possible (ICS), but central fire direction might be calling all the shots unless the ship starts taking disabling damage (sort of like 20th century battleship battery control vs turret control). Most scenes with gunners have been either on small civilian ships (Falcon), and/or with light guns like on the Death Star and Venator.

Also, human crew might be less vulnerable to damage from things like ion cannon (not a direct hit, obviously, but systemic damage).

[nightmare]

"They aren't manually targeting the guns! You can't prove that they are!"

Actually, it's possible to prove that they aren't. What they used are AG-2G quad laser cannons which uses recycled TIE/sa Bomber targeting systems, with a WEG Fire Control rating of 2D. TIE Bombers are noted for their pinpoint accuracy, demonstrably able to level a single building while leaving the rest untouched (although they can also carpet bomb).

Besides, we can see the tracking system in the movie.

[Adam Reynolds]

No. The computer can make the shot. We SAW that. The torpedoes can't make the turn/navigate the exhaust vent on their own, or I should say, without being fired at the exact right time. That is what the Force did for Luke as opposed to the other pilot. That has always been my take anyway.

Hasn't it been stated somewhere that Y-wings have superior targeting to the X-wings, allowing them to make the shot unassisted.

[Darth Yoshi]

No. The computer can make the shot. We SAW that. The torpedoes can't make the turn/navigate the exhaust vent on their own, or I should say, without being fired at the exact right time. That is what the Force did for Luke as opposed to the other pilot. That has always been my take anyway.

Navigate? As in the torps needing to maneuver after entering the vent, or just that the torps were basically preprogrammed to, say, turn 90 degrees 5 seconds after firing?

Hasn't it been stated somewhere that Y-wings have superior targeting to the X-wings, allowing them to make the shot unassisted.

Eh? I thought Gold Squadron's run did use the comp.

[Havok]

No. The computer can make the shot. We SAW that. The torpedoes can't make the turn/navigate the exhaust vent on their own, or I should say, without being fired at the exact right time. That is what the Force did for Luke as opposed to the other pilot. That has always been my take anyway.

Navigate? As in the torps needing to maneuver after entering the vent, or just that the torps were basically preprogrammed to, say, turn 90 degrees 5 seconds after firing?

Either or? Both? I'm not sure if we know how 'smart' the torpedoes were.

Hasn't it been stated somewhere that Y-wings have superior targeting to the X-wings, allowing them to make the shot unassisted.

Eh? I thought Gold Squadron's run did use the comp.

I think he means without using the Force.

[recon20011]

Even if the Y-wings could make the shot unassisted (by the Force) that doesn't mean its a guaranteed hit.

And I would like to know how "smart" most Star Wars missiles/torpedoes are. As smart as some of today's missiles?

[Srelex]

Even if the Y-wings could make the shot unassisted (by the Force) that doesn't mean its a guaranteed hit.

And I would like to know how "smart" most Star Wars missiles/torpedoes are. As smart as some of today's missiles?

It depends. I think Jango's missile fired at Obi-Wan in AOTC, various missiles in both Clone Wars series, and other items of the EU display very impressive manouevers. Others are pretty much 'dumb'.

[Bottlestein]

Depending on how close to their operating limits Nav. computers run, they could be used to calculate targetting solutions surely?

[recon20011]

Even a smart missile can't execute a 90 degree turn though, and that is what the torpedoes needed to do to get into the exhaust vent, right?

[Batman]

Real world missiles have been doing 90 degree turns for decades. The apparent problem was that it was an extremely TIGHT 90° turn that needed to be precisely timed, which the rebels apparently thought the targeting computer had a nonzero chance of successfully achieving.
Who knows, if Vader had said 'screw it, if the stupid git wants to get blown up, it's not my Death Star. The Force is much more impressive anyway' and just left, so pretty much ALL the rebel fighters could make an attack run (possibly several), one of them might just have gotten lucky.

[Havok]

Yeah, it is the distance/time the missiles have to make the turn that has always struck me as why it was such a hard shot.

Wedge's complaint implies that it actually is impossible for a human and merely crazy difficult for a computer (It is fairly obvious he was exaggerating)

Luke's follow up really has no bearing on it being any easier than Wedge said, as his POV comes from someone that is as strong, if not stronger than Anakin was in the Force. There is no reason to think that he didn't unknowingly have the same advantages as Anakin did when he was a kid, while he was bullseyeing womp rats on Tattooine. Making 'impossible' shots seem routine.

[Eleas]

Yeah, it is the distance/time the missiles have to make the turn that has always struck me as why it was such a hard shot.

Wedge's complaint implies that it actually is impossible for a human and merely crazy difficult for a computer (It is fairly obvious he was exaggerating)

Luke's follow up really has no bearing on it being any easier than Wedge said, as his POV comes from someone that is as strong, if not stronger than Anakin was in the Force. There is no reason to think that he didn't unknowingly have the same advantages as Anakin did when he was a kid, while he was bullseyeing womp rats on Tattooine. Making 'impossible' shots seem routine.

Shit, I really like that interpretation. Since Luke, at least to start with, was never arrogant like many others would have been, it would have been natural for him to pull of things that no human by rights should be able to do... and dismiss it as either a fluke or "yeah, Biggs thinks I could be good enough to enter the Academy someday."

[PainRack]

Looks like people has forgotten the whole ANH scene in the novel, where the Commander wanted to fire on R2D2 escape pod by simply pressing on a button.

That has to be automated targeting.

[Srelex]

Can you elaborate for those who haven't read it?

[recon20011]

Looks like people has forgotten the whole ANH scene in the novel, where the Commander wanted to fire on R2D2 escape pod by simply pressing on a button.

That has to be automated targeting.

There can be automated targeting, but having manned turrets (whether manned by sentient beings or manned by droids it doesn't matter too much) would be connected to a central fire control no matter what. Just if the CIC is knocked out, or the fire control director, or communications are disrupted, its best to have someone there to patch things up and take over in a pinch.
Didn't WW2 era battleships have automated targeting of sorts? Or at least the Fire Control Director pointed his apparatus *insert name of particular device here* and all the turrets on the ship were aimed at that target.
Point being, automated and centralized fire control does not eliminate the necessity of manning the turrets in case something goes wrong. Obviously in a non-battle situation such as shooting an escape pod, the guns can be aimed automatically and fired remotely.

[Havok]

Looks like people has forgotten the whole ANH scene in the novel, where the Commander wanted to fire on R2D2 escape pod by simply pressing on a button.

That has to be automated targeting.

Sorry, but the actual scene in the y'know, movie, sorta overrides that.

[adam_grif]

Yeah, it is the distance/time the missiles have to make the turn that has always struck me as why it was such a hard shot.

When I watched the movie, I always read it as the torpedo being "sucked in" to the port, because that's what it looks like. Doesn't the failed torpedo hit beside the port or something?