What if the Empire invaded modern day Earth?

[Shroom Man 777]

If the Death Star's surface is made of sturdier stuff then iron, like neutronium-ingrained space-armor or whatever, then won't the TIE fighter's weapons fire yield more than just a kiloton per shot?

EDIT:

What if they just slammed a TIE fighter into an asteroid to nudge it towards Earth's direction, with the right calculations and some patience, the asteroid could still end up hitting Earth and killing everyone on it! If it misses, they have 99 TIEs left to try again with!

[Sarevok]

Yet they never use that in combat. Are all Star Wars pilots just retarded?

Who cares ? We could speculate a thousand reasons and none of them matters because the real answer is George Lucas wanted some cool action scenes set in space. But authorial intent is not what we take for facts in this kind of versus debates. We operate under SoD rules here.

Yet they never use that in combat. Are all Star Wars pilots just retarded?

Just how many onscreen battles we saw ? Very few actually. And none under normal circumstances. All the battles were unique and legendary enough to become mythical within the Star Wars universes. They were not normal two spacecraft meet each other and fight type of battles where you could expect full range of speed, firepower and range capabilities.

Episode 4 :Attack a moon sized weapon by hugging its surface so close the defensive guns cant shoot back. X-Wings flew slow within the trenches sure. But you can not deny the insane acceleration they pulled to fly around Yavin to reach the Death Star in first place.

Episode 5 : X-Wings ran away from Hoth. Meanwhile surface guns succesfully nailed star destroyers lurking in high orbit around Hoth. Same ion cannon technology is mounted some capital ships in SW. No reason why the ship mounted variant cant have similar immense range. So this is a good reason for onscreen evidence of weapon ranges exceeding tens of thousands of kilometers.

Episode 6 : The fleets start shooting while beyond visual range. Rebel commander explicitly orders everyone to move so close to star destroyers that the Death star superlaser cant target them without causing friendly fire. Rebels deploy fighters against star destroyers. Their torpedoes have to at least nuclear weapon level if they are to hurt mile sized targets even if you discount shielding and armor.

If they had the capabilities you Warsies thought they had, then flown intelligently, they wouldn't take a single hit from their weapons either. But they get consistently slaughtered in the films.

Umm what ? It is well known turbolaser and blaster bolts move at variable speeds. They can and will adjust speed according to distance and speed of target. There is onscreen evidence to support this. Witness the much faster blaster bolts in the Aotc ground battle when shooting at distant targets.

So, which is it? Are all Star Wars pilots just terminally retarded (along with the rest of the universe who refuse to replace their retarded pilots with competent computers), or could it be that ship performance isn't as good as you claim?

I would say it is a case of you having a selecting memory or incapable of reading the main website of this forum.

[Sarevok]

Didn't we just have a thread where we pointed out how difficult it would be to move an asteroid from the Belt to Earth? The required energies were on the level of sterilizing the surface. TIEs also don't have any towlines with which to nudge the asteroid, and they only carry a few hours of air. So you're suggesting that they should send TIEs on suicide missions to perhaps hit the Earth with an asteroid in twenty years, with a margin of error of +/- 10%. Wow. I apologize to Destructionator for the sarcastic and caustic tone of the earlier post, for neither he nor I have the patience to deal with this kindly.

Nothing Imperial engineers cant handle. TIE fighter engines are magic tech. They can accelerate the TIE craft at thousands of gees while in space. With that level of acceleration ? It would be trivial to nudge any small rock (100-500 m) in size with some planning. If one TIE is not sufficient then dismantle a few TIEs. Fly the engines out to the asteroid. Drill them in, put an astromech droid brain for guidence and control and then fire the damn thing aimed Earth. Its gonna take a few weeks or months but you wipe out human civilization easily.

[Sarevok]

But asteroid option is not needed. TIEs can help Imperials take Earth without going xenocidal. The TIEs are essentially untouchable ground attack aerospace craft. They can blow up entire city blows in high speed attack runs with their laser cannons. The Imperial strategy is simple.

- Blow up every airbase. Most human airpower would be non existent after 100 TIEs begin systematically dismantling airbases around the world.

- Sink all national aircraft carriers. Pretty easy to do when you can approach the ship so fast only SM-3s have any hope of hitting you and your laser bolts explode with more energy than most cannon shells. For good measure sink every major naval vessel also

- Strafe the fuck out of every military base worth targeting. You can destroy a huge number of vehicles, equipment and soldiers this way.

- For good measure destroy all electric power plant around the world.

- Wait for advanced Earth nations to degrade as their economy and industry fails and theirmilitary strength collapse to Somalia levels.

- Move in with AT-ATs and conquer the remaining hobbled mess.

[Bakustra]

The answer is simple; stormtroopers shoot themselves all in the foot, because Star Wars is filled with idiots, unlike such prestigious and realistic universes as Gundam[/sarcasm]

None of them are prestigious or realistic. Both Gundam and Star Wars have mecha, and are thus as stupid as fuck. Except one verse's stupid mecha does jew-jitsu while the other verse's stupid mecha does slow-motion in motion.

I'm mocking the sanctimonious attitude many people have towards Star Wars being unrealistic, as opposed to Gundam, with psychics, Babylon 5, with more psychics and FTL, and Skylark... with megaton-range machine guns.

It still isn't a nuke, so there'd be no fireball. It'd just be like putting a thousand tons of TNT in a point as wide as the bolt and detonating it. But they could hold Earth essentially hostage by threatening satellites in orbit, regardless of whether they could bombard with TIEs alone, at least until they run out of fuel/power.

Goddamn. Are you telling me that the alloted forces aren't enough to kill off everyone on Earth? If you detonate a thousand tons of TNT in a point as wide as the bolt, it would still make a giant fireball, won't it?

I'm in doubt as to their ability to capture Rio de Janeiro, let alone wipe out the Earth. They have no supplies, war machines that will be more hindrance than help in the terrain they're in, and no way to go home. Realistically, they'd probably try and negotiate with us for help and ultimately try to integrate into society and share with us their technological secrets. But the cruel gods of the versus demand blood.

The fireball of a nuke is dependent on the method of detonation, and is also a consequence of being detonated in mid-air. The bolt is hitting the ground. It would produce a gigantic ball, yes, but one of dirt and shattered rock. The dirt would probably be hot enough to start fires, and the bottom of the crater would be a nice fulgurite (natural glass produced by lightning strikes), but it wouldn't look much like a nuke or a Michael Bay special.

What if we replaced the 100 basic TIE fighters with superior models, like ones with anti-ship weapons? How about TIE bombers? Would that be enough to kill everyone on Earth?

That would make a good thread though. The minimal amount of Star Wars forces required to kill everyone on modern Earth.

If we split the 500,000 stormtroopers evenly between males and females, the Empire could truly win by repopulating the world with the seed of the stormtrooper's grotesque progeny.

TIE Bombers could potentially wipe everyone out with specialized munitions, but that would be more along the lines of biological or chemical warfare. TIEs are just too small to really carry enough weapons to wipe us all out. Probably, ignoring spaceships, you'd need hundreds or thousands of Bombers. You'd probably need a couple hundred million stormtroopers to wipe everybody out as well. They could then resettle the ashes of the ruined world...

[Ghost Rider]

While not enough supplies to drudge through the world, the apparently have some nebulous

"enough supplies to last them from North to South America"

What that means will of course vary.

[Bakustra]

If the Death Star's surface is made of sturdier stuff then iron, like neutronium-ingrained space-armor or whatever, then won't the TIE fighter's weapons fire yield more than just a kiloton per shot?

EDIT:

What if they just slammed a TIE fighter into an asteroid to nudge it towards Earth's direction, with the right calculations and some patience, the asteroid could still end up hitting Earth and killing everyone on it! If it misses, they have 99 TIEs left to try again with!

Essentially, but this is to get low-end estimates. Theoretically, they could be much more, but the problem is that higher temperatures often means lower densities, and we don't know jack about the properties of magical space armors. Hell, kiloton per shot is enough that it starts raising some interesting questions about the space-batteries that TIEs are supposed to run on.

And anything having to do with asteroids runs into the time factor. 200 years later, the Empire has its revenge... DEEP IMPACT 2: This time it's personal!

But asteroid option is not needed. TIEs can help Imperials take Earth without going xenocidal. The TIEs are essentially untouchable ground attack aerospace craft. They can blow up entire city blows in high speed attack runs with their laser cannons. The Imperial strategy is simple.

- Blow up every airbase. Most human airpower would be non existent after 100 TIEs begin systematically dismantling airbases around the world.

- Sink all national aircraft carriers. Pretty easy to do when you can approach the ship so fast only SM-3s have any hope of hitting you and your laser bolts explode with more energy than most cannon shells. For good measure sink every major naval vessel also

- Strafe the fuck out of every military base worth targeting. You can destroy a huge number of vehicles, equipment and soldiers this way.

- For good measure destroy all electric power plant around the world.

- Wait for advanced Earth nations to degrade as their economy and industry fails and theirmilitary strength collapse to Somalia levels.

- Move in with AT-ATs and conquer the remaining hobbled mess.

1. They only have a few hours with the TIEs before they must recharge. They can blow up airbases... but that won't get rid of the ground forces. They can do maybe one or two things on the list.

2. They have no clue where three-quarters of this shit is. TIEs have limits on their sensory equipment. They are called human interpreters. I'm sure that every Imperial Sergeant's space-smartphone has a "identify military and industrial facilities" app, but what happens when it turns out they forgot their chargers? What then?

3. Why do they want to reduce the Earth to savagery again? What would make that worth conquering, exactly? The Empire is not quite so cartoonish as this. Perhaps you are thinking of the RDA again.

While not enough supplies to drudge through the world, the apparently have some nebulous

"enough supplies to last them from North to South America"

What that means will of course vary.

Is that referring to all equipment, though? Because TIEs supposedly run on batteries and require special charging stations. If they have a base facility, then they probably would just remain inside until they have more of a clue what's going on and try and send spies.

[Srelex]

2. They have no clue where three-quarters of this shit is. TIEs have limits on their sensory equipment. They are called human interpreters. I'm sure that every Imperial Sergeant's space-smartphone has a "identify military and industrial facilities" app, but what happens when it turns out they forgot their chargers? What then?

According to the OP, they have as much info on the military as is 'available to the general public'.

[Bakustra]

2. They have no clue where three-quarters of this shit is. TIEs have limits on their sensory equipment. They are called human interpreters. I'm sure that every Imperial Sergeant's space-smartphone has a "identify military and industrial facilities" app, but what happens when it turns out they forgot their chargers? What then?

According to the OP, they have as much info on the military as is 'available to the general public'.

They still don't know where power plants are, or carriers, or military facilities in less open regimes. They might be able to bomb First World bases, but they still have to try and detect Chinese facilities, as an example, for Sarevok's schema genocida idiotica to work. And they have little experience with military facilities like Earth's; SW ones are single large buildings, usually.

[Sarevok]

The OP was vogue about the logistics matter. "enough supplies to last them from North to South America" does not really say anything of value.

However if the Imperials are just dropped in their vehicles they are boned. Their weapons use tibanna gas which is a magic material not found anywhere in this universe. After they deplete their ammo they become sitting ducks.

[Mobius IO]

But asteroid option is not needed. TIEs can help Imperials take Earth without going xenocidal. The TIEs are essentially untouchable ground attack aerospace craft. They can blow up entire city blows in high speed attack runs with their laser cannons. The Imperial strategy is simple.

- Blow up every airbase. Most human airpower would be non existent after 100 TIEs begin systematically dismantling airbases around the world.

- Sink all national aircraft carriers. Pretty easy to do when you can approach the ship so fast only SM-3s have any hope of hitting you and your laser bolts explode with more energy than most cannon shells. For good measure sink every major naval vessel also

- Strafe the fuck out of every military base worth targeting. You can destroy a huge number of vehicles, equipment and soldiers this way.

- For good measure destroy all electric power plant around the world.

- Wait for advanced Earth nations to degrade as their economy and industry fails and theirmilitary strength collapse to Somalia levels.

- Move in with AT-ATs and conquer the remaining hobbled mess.

Whole the Tie fighter could do a lot of damage to large military and industrial structures your vastly overestimating how easy it is to bring a nation to its knees through air power alone. For example in WW2 German's industrial production was increasing right up until the time their oil fields were overrun by the Russian despite the fire bombing of their cities etc.

And once again how long can Tie fighters operate without being refit and refueled?

Finally the AT-At's ar not going anywhere they cannot walk to, and neither are the rest of the Imperial ground forces for that matter. Even if they can get over mountains and across the Panama Canal they still cannot project ground power to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, etc...

[Ghost Rider]

While not enough supplies to drudge through the world, the apparently have some nebulous

"enough supplies to last them from North to South America"

What that means will of course vary.

Is that referring to all equipment, though? Because TIEs supposedly run on batteries and require special charging stations. If they have a base facility, then they probably would just remain inside until they have more of a clue what's going on and try and send spies.

Completely unknown, which is a part of what I meant by "Vary". Not as a jab or anything but that the wording is extremely vague in any quantative regard. Especially when thought of what connotation of time does from North to South America mean in any respect, as well as what supplies.

Though from the appearance of the OP, it may lean towards what you reasonable presume is needed for a journey on foot for a military operation for the two continents. Then the presumption of the tip of Alaska to just before Antarctica? So your guess will be as good as anyone's.

[Junghalli]

But hey, it's in space, and its weapons yield is measured in kilotons according to these guys, and unless the atmosphere significantly degrades the weapons range

The Earth's atmosphere does provide a measure of protection against kiloton-level events.

On 8 October an asteroid detonated high in the atmosphere above South Sulawesi, Indonesia, releasing about as much energy as 50,000 tons of TNT, according to a NASA estimate released on Friday. That's about three times more powerful than the atomic bomb that levelled Hiroshima, making it one of the largest asteroid explosions ever observed.

However, the blast caused no damage on the ground because of the high altitude, 15 to 20 kilometres above Earth's surface, says astronomer Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Canada.

This 50 kiloton energy release shook some people up on the ground but apparently did little noteworthy damage.

The average density of air at sea level is ~1.29 kg/m^3, about half that at an altitude of around 5 km. So there's a fairly decent air mass between Earth and space, I calculate about 9.68 tons over every m^2 of land area. Depending on the properties of TIE weapons fire I'd say it's quite possible if they tried to shoot at cities from space most of the energy would end up harmlessly heating up a lot of high altitude air.

Didn't we just have a thread where we pointed out how difficult it would be to move an asteroid from the Belt to Earth? The required energies were on the level of sterilizing the surface.

If you're talking about the thread I'm pretty sure you're talking about the asteroid being used as an example there (16 Psyche) is a monster over 200 km across that has something approaching 1% of the total mass of the asteroid belt and is one of the 10 most massive main belt asteroids. If it were to impact Earth with a velocity of a mere 1 km/s the resulting explosion would be the better part of 3000 teratons, or almost 30 times the estimated energy of the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Throwing 16 Psyche at Earth would be horrible overkill to destroy civilization. It's also a main belt asteroid, so it would require a high delta V to reach Earth, and the calculation was for a transfer to Earth orbit which would require slowing it down on arrival whereas if you were using it as a projectile obviously you would have to do no such thing.

A much more sane choice for a projectile would be the near-Earth asteroid Eros, which is something like 1/10,000th 16 Psyche's estimated mass and according to PERMANENT could reached from Earth orbit with a delta V of under 2 km/s (ergo it would probably take similar delta V to move it onto a direct collision course), as opposed to the 8-10 km/s needed for asteroid belt to Earth transfer orbits.

Doing some quick napkin calculations with the numbers cited for ANH (covering hundreds of thousands of km in minutes, which would imply several hundred to thousand km/s) and assuming TIEs have a mass in the ton range they might have a total potential KE in the ballpark of 2 X 10^15 joules. Imparting a delta V of 2 km/s to Eros would require roughly 1.2 X 10^22 joules, a difference of approximately 7 orders of magnitude. So just going by that it's doubtful they could do it, although that's hardly a thorough analysis.

Edit: by the same estimate a TIE doing a suicide run into Earth might get you a boom in the low megaton range (a few tons at 2000 km/s - a speed at which 100,000 km could be covered in 50 seconds).

[Junghalli]

Ah, hell, that link for air density should have been http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/RachelChu.shtml

[Star Wars 888]

Actually, IMO any modern world power could solo the invasion force. Before you go "LOL!" think about it:

The imperials would have no air support or anti air other than 100 tie fighters. Several squadrons of F22s would be able to air bomb the imperials, and the 100 tie fighters would not be able to deal with an overwhelming number of jets before they can attack. Note that tie fighters aren't exactly the pinnacle of Star Wars technology.

Stormtroopers and AT-STs would easily be wiped out by said air raids and artillery strikes. You're left with the 100 AT-ATs and 100 tie fighters, which isn't even close to being able to conquer the world. Besides, they would eventually run out of supplies. SAM missiles may be able to take down tie fighters, given that tie fighters had no shields and were designed to be fodder.


Besides, the imperial invasion force has no transports capable of getting them past the Ocean. They could capture ships, but said ships would have to be pretty huge to fit 100 AT-ATs and would get blown out of the water by modern day navies. The AT-ATs would then sink to the bottom and the crew would drown.

Basically, the invasion force is screwed.

[Ghost Rider]

Actually, IMO any modern world power could solo the invasion force. Before you go "LOL!" think about it:

The imperials would have no air support or anti air other than 100 tie fighters. Several squadrons of F22s would be able to air bomb the imperials, and the 100 tie fighters would not be able to deal with an overwhelming number of jets before they can attack. Note that tie fighters aren't exactly the pinnacle of Star Wars technology.

Stormtroopers and AT-STs would easily be wiped out by said air raids and artillery strikes. You're left with the 100 AT-ATs and 100 tie fighters, which isn't even close to being able to conquer the world. Besides, they would eventually run out of supplies. SAM missiles may be able to take down tie fighters, given that tie fighters had no shields and were designed to be fodder.


Besides, the imperial invasion force has no transports capable of getting them past the Ocean. They could capture ships, but said ships would have to be pretty huge to fit 100 AT-ATs and would get blown out of the water by modern day navies. The AT-ATs would then sink to the bottom and the crew would drown.

Basically, the invasion force is screwed.

And you're going to provide proof of F22s dealing with orbital fightercraft, that can exceed Mach 10?

And that SAMs are going to shoot down said craft?

Or are you just spamming the retard button to make waves?

[Star Wars 888]

Tie fighters can't move that fast in the atmosphere (in the atmosphere starfighters need deflector shields to move at their high speeds, and tie fighters lack deflector shields), and there's more to wars then "zomg they have powerful weapons!"

How will the invasion force get access to ships and cross the ocean without being blown to bits by naval forces? 100 tie fighters may be powerful, but they can't take down the world's navies before the invasion force get blown to bits.
How will the invasion force even get access to ships that can carry AT-ATs?
How will the invasion force deal with artillery and air strikes (100 tie fighters will not be able to stop an overwhelming amount of F22s before the ground forces get bombed)?
How will the invasion force conquer and hold an entire planet? Upon taking a city they'll have to leave behind a garrison, and thus their available numbers will decrease.
How will the invasion force deal with a massed guerrilla campaign?
How will the invasion force even know about Earth, its nations and such?
How will the invasion force deal with a scorched Earth policy? Their supplies won't last forever.

Logistics will destroy the invasion force.

[Junghalli]

And you're going to provide proof of F22s dealing with orbital fightercraft, that can exceed Mach 10?

I think he was arguing that we could successfully bomb their ground forces anyway because our bombers could drop their bombs faster than the limited number of TIEs could shoot them down.

[Ghost Rider]

And you're going to provide proof of F22s dealing with orbital fightercraft, that can exceed Mach 10?

I think he was arguing that we could successfully bomb their ground forces anyway because our bombers could drop their bombs faster than the limited number of TIEs could shoot them down.

Then he could actually man up and prove it rather then give a statement no different then "I believe Germany would win the Civil War because their outfits are snazzier!".

[Ghost Rider]

Tie fighters can't move that fast in the atmosphere (in the atmosphere starfighters need deflector shields to move at their high speeds, and tie fighters lack deflector shields), and there's more to wars then "zomg they have powerful weapons!"

So nothing.

How will the invasion force get access to ships and cross the ocean without being blown to bits by naval forces? 100 tie fighters may be powerful, but they can't take down the world's navies before the invasion force get blown to bits.

Again nothing, and you have really no idea what 1 KT of energy does to most modern items, do you? This is what it fires per shot.

100 ships.

How will the invasion force even get access to ships that can carry AT-ATs?

Because when I can turn your city into slag, and you cannot assemble forces before I do...your choices are

Surrender and I spare you or Defy me I burn your city into cinders.

Oh I forgot, humanity is so fucking dumb they are lockstep with the idea of dying for the cause.

How will the invasion force deal with artillery and air strikes (100 tie fighters will not be able to stop an overwhelming amount of F22s before the ground forces get bombed)?

I keep forgetting modern forces having speeds that can reach mine in less then the minutes it takes mine to cover planetary distances. Again show proof that my TIEs are slower or demonstrate the F22 can do the speeds shown of Yavin to the Death Star. I want to see this.

How will the invasion force conquer and hold an entire planet? Upon taking a city they'll have to leave behind a garrison, and thus their available numbers will decrease.

Adults call this making alliances. Thanas made a good point, something you should've read and comprehended. Humans aren't lockstep suicidal nuts, and unless this is a summer blockbuster? Many many South American nations aren't going to be thrilled to be turned into wastelands.

How will the invasion force deal with a massed guerrilla campaign?

Thanks for conceeding.

How will the invasion force even know about Earth, its nations and such?

Not my problem you cannot read the first post.

How will the invasion force deal with a scorched Earth policy? Their supplies won't last forever.

Wait, are you conceeding again, or just blithering?

Logistics will destroy the invasion force.

You do grasp the point of demonstrating the proof of this, correct?

[Junghalli]

Incidentally, what is the source of the 1 kt estimate for TIE fighter guns anyway? I'm not saying it isn't so, but the only site I can remember from this thread is the 60 GJ low-ball from Mike's main site, which says this:

Because of the shallow angle of approach and the fact that the flashes vary in size and brightness, it is difficult to gauge the actual amount of destruction being done. However, in order to create a flash of vapour the size of an X-wing fighter, the individual blasts must be vapourizing at least one cubic metre of metal each. This is a very conservative estimate since the gas also had to shoot away from the surface so quickly it intercepted the hurtling starfighter, but it will have to suffice. At least 60GJ is required to vaporize a single cubic metre of ordinary iron, so this provides a lower limit for starfighter laser cannon energy.

We must stress the highly conservative nature of this estimate: the DS shell was constructed of heavy armor, and Imperial armor is far superior to simple iron. In The Stele Chronicles, a TIE fighter pilot deliberately flew his unshielded fighter into the atmosphere of a planet at high speed as an evasive maneuver. The unprotected armor and transparent front window of his fighter were totally unaffected by this event- an event that would easily push ordinary iron beyond its maximum service temperatures as the 20th century Space Shuttle's ceramic heat tiles demonstrate. Furthermore, Imperial dura-armor is made by "compressing and binding neutronium, lomite, and zersium molecules together through the process of matrix acceleration", according to the SWE. The use of neutronium micro-particles as interstitial alloying elements in dura-armor is strongly suggestive of extreme mechanical and thermal toughness.

60 GJ is about 1/70th of a kiloton. As Mike says it's an extreme low-ball estimate, but I'm just curious where the specific kiloton estimate comes from.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Tie fighters can't move that fast in the atmosphere (in the atmosphere starfighters need deflector shields to move at their high speeds, and tie fighters lack deflector shields), and there's more to wars then "zomg they have powerful weapons!"

Actually they can, as I stated before the Revenge of the Sith ICS puts the Eta-2 Actis Interceptor at 15000km/h with no shields in a standard atmosphere, meanwhile the much larger ARC-170 Heavy Fighter pulls 44000km/h with them.

[Ghost Rider]

Incidentally, what is the source of the 1 kt estimate for TIE fighter guns anyway? I'm not saying it isn't so, but the only site I can remember from this thread is the 60 GJ low-ball from Mike's main site, which says this:

Because of the shallow angle of approach and the fact that the flashes vary in size and brightness, it is difficult to gauge the actual amount of destruction being done. However, in order to create a flash of vapour the size of an X-wing fighter, the individual blasts must be vapourizing at least one cubic metre of metal each. This is a very conservative estimate since the gas also had to shoot away from the surface so quickly it intercepted the hurtling starfighter, but it will have to suffice. At least 60GJ is required to vaporize a single cubic metre of ordinary iron, so this provides a lower limit for starfighter laser cannon energy.

We must stress the highly conservative nature of this estimate: the DS shell was constructed of heavy armor, and Imperial armor is far superior to simple iron. In The Stele Chronicles, a TIE fighter pilot deliberately flew his unshielded fighter into the atmosphere of a planet at high speed as an evasive maneuver. The unprotected armor and transparent front window of his fighter were totally unaffected by this event- an event that would easily push ordinary iron beyond its maximum service temperatures as the 20th century Space Shuttle's ceramic heat tiles demonstrate. Furthermore, Imperial dura-armor is made by "compressing and binding neutronium, lomite, and zersium molecules together through the process of matrix acceleration", according to the SWE. The use of neutronium micro-particles as interstitial alloying elements in dura-armor is strongly suggestive of extreme mechanical and thermal toughness.

60 GJ is about 1/70th of a kiloton. As Mike says it's an extreme low-ball estimate, but I'm just curious where the specific kiloton estimate comes from.

Bakustra's example was one of the notes that gave the KT weaponry:

Do you have any idea... okay. In order to melt a block of iron the size of a TIE cockpit, you would need 2.41e11 J of energy input. That is about 1/6th of a kiloton. But, an explosion the "size of a TIE fighter" is somewhat different. The volume enclosed by a TIE's wings is about 250 m^3. Now, in order to create an explosion of that size from iron, with the velocity of a high-explosive like TNT (or like the explosives used on the models!), you would need to inject 4.22e12 J of energy into the block. That is just over one kiloton, or to be more precise, one kiloton per second. So there is the kiloton-per-second-range weaponry, just from the Death Star scene. It comes from the X-Wings, but TIE fighters and other small craft can fight on roughly even ground with them.

It's not that it vaporizes, but there is an explosion. And he does go further to point out that

This is talking about the surface of the Death Star, not the TIE fighters themselves. Prove that the Death Star's surface is lined with gasoline and/or other volatiles. Prove that blasters, which you believe to be lasers, are volatile. We don't see holes being blasted in the hallways, we see the hallway shaking. This doesn't use the turrets either.

And in both cases, he presents the logic in a format that does put the onus onto the opponent.

[Junghalli]

Ah, thanks for that, Ghost Rider.

[DudeGuyMan]

I know there's probably a litany of books and shit to back all this stuff up, so I'm not actually contesting it debate-wise, but does anyone else find the mental image of a TIE fighter strafing the ground with it's little pew-pew guns and raising a series of giant nuke-level explosions pretty god damned hilarious?

Wait wait wait, I'm sure there's answers to this that I just don't know, but... like... how did R2-D2 get shot in the head by a kiloton-level TIE laser at almost point-blank range during the trench run and come out only somewhat severely damaged? Were there shields that invisibly and undetectably strip 99.99% of the energy from a shot without actually stopping it? Weren't the X-wing shields all set to 100% forward to help protect from fixed turbolasers?

And where were the giant clouds of steam and shit rising from the snowfields of Hoth as AT-ATs fired their guns all over the place? Maybe they had the guns dialed down so they wouldn't render the ground unwalkable, but then the dude explicitly ordered "maximum firepower" when shooting the generator and it still wasn't terribly impressive.

Inquiring minds want to know, because every dumbass weapon bigger than a tripod gun being nuke-level certainly appears to require some interesting non-movie shit to come up with.