Ramming drones.

[Patroklos]

Ah, don't forget about the poor Peremptory

While legends, so dismiss as you will, it shows an ISD in battle conditions can be destroyed by a much smaller mass not moving particularly fast. Granted the ISDs deflectors were weakened.

[Lord Revan]

A SW Dreadnaughts are still quite large at about 600 meters in length (little over 1/3 of the length of an ISD) not mention not really an inert mass either.

One thing that bugs me when it comes to these discussions about kinetic impactors people seem to be under the impression that you either not fully immunity or no protection what so ever.

Also it's been a while since I've read the Thrawn trilogy but was it even stated how fast the Katana Dreadnaught was travelling before it hit and please do remember that SW ships have quite impressive linear acceleration.

[Patroklos]

It all happened in visual range from the Katana bridge and was readily observable over an extended narrative (ie they watched and described the collision so it wasn't some blink and its over situation) so it couldn't have been very fast from a space travel perspective. A 600m vessel would be an indistinguishable speck at just a dozen kilometers and the viewing angle of the bridge also shrinks the battlespace described. It doesn't state the speed but it surely isn't anything that's going to yield you gigaton level destruction usually presumed necessary to harm major SW warships upon impact.

Also while a dreadnaught is 600m long it is long and slender unlike an ISD. Even if it was the same shape as the ISD Peremptory would have been very many times the volume and mass (assuming relatively equal densities ton for ton between the ships) of a the impacting Dreadnaught. The scene doesn't really make sense on any level.

[Lord Revan]

it's also something of outlier with SW generally being fairly resistant to physical impactors.

My point is how ever that ISDs neither fully immune to physical attacks nor are they so weak to them that can used as a "silver bullet" to mission kill ISDs

[Borgholio]

I think using ramming drones is less of a "silver bullet" in the ST vs SW idea, but rather the only thing that really would work given the disparity of weapon and shield power.

[Patroklos]

it's also something of outlier with SW generally being fairly resistant to physical impactors.

My point is how ever that ISDs neither fully immune to physical attacks nor are they so weak to them that can used as a "silver bullet" to mission kill ISDs

Oh I agree with you. I always viewed that book's climax and ending with suspicion. If they had made shear off all the weapons emplacements presumably outside the main armor belts or otherwise a mission kill I would have bought it but outright destroying the Peremptory was just too much.

I'd also like to point out that if it takes a Dreadnaught-class at 600m to destroy an ISD in that manor and a Soverign-class at 685m looks to be much less massive based on hull form how many ships do the ST guys have that will do the trick and they are willing to kamikaze in such a manor?

[Lord Revan]

it's also something of outlier with SW generally being fairly resistant to physical impactors.

My point is how ever that ISDs neither fully immune to physical attacks nor are they so weak to them that can used as a "silver bullet" to mission kill ISDs

Oh I agree with you. I always viewed that book's climax and ending with suspicion. If they had made shear off all the weapons emplacements presumably outside the main armor belts or otherwise a mission kill I would have bought it but outright destroying the Peremptory was just too much.

I'd also like to point out that if it takes a Dreadnaught-class at 600m to destroy an ISD in that manor and a Soverign-class at 685m looks to be much less massive based on hull form how many ships do the ST guys have that will do the trick and they are willing to kamikaze in such a manor?

I think they're implying using a shuttle craft (or smaller) sized ship and have it ram at warp speeds to somehow generate massive amounts of energy.

[Borgholio]

I think they're implying using a shuttle craft (or smaller) sized ship and have it ram at warp speeds to somehow generate massive amounts of energy.

Well we know that a small object traveling at high speeds can cause a great deal of damage. Bullets, space debris, RKVs, etc... So the idea of using a shuttle or missile at warp speed seems appealing, since if a bar of tungsten at orbital velocity = nuke, what can it do at FTL speeds?

[Patroklos]

http://www.5596.org/cgi-bin/kinetic.php

Have fun.

[Borgholio]

Neat. Ok so using this calculator and another one to convert Joules to Megatons, here's what I get.

Starfleet Type F shuttle (Star Trek : TOS...I couldn't find the mass listed for the newer ones) has a mass of 17,000kg.

At lightspeed, it would impact with the force of 14.5 gigatons.

Ignoring any mass lightening or FTL weirdness, the same shuttle at warp 5 (~200 times the speed of light) would hit with the force of 2.9 teratons. Ouch.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It all happened in visual range from the Katana bridge and was readily observable over an extended narrative (ie they watched and described the collision so it wasn't some blink and its over situation) so it couldn't have been very fast from a space travel perspective.

Funnily enough, the Captain of the Judicator, the other ISD present, does remark that it happens in the blink of an eye. He thinks something like "An ISD, the Empire's mightiest warship, destroyed int he blink of an eye."

It's also worth considering that the Peremptory had been under sustained ion cannon fire from three other Dreadnoughts before the impact (as in, was begin fired upon before the "ram it with a Dreadnought" plan was considered, let alone acted upon) which probably had some major adverse consequences, most probably with blinding the sensors so the ISD couldn't see the kamikaze coming. Perhaps the Captain had diverted power from the particle shields to reinforce the main shields, since Dreadnoughts don't carry missiles and the fighters attacking the ship couldn't have hurt it. Maybe they'd overclocked the main reactor to keep the main shields up and the impact caused an overload.

Suffice to say, it worked in that case. The fact that it isn't used again (even by the Empire who had a surplus of the Dreadnoughts and were apparently stretched thin during the campaign) suggests it isn't viable.

Oddly, the Thrawn books give another, probably better example of physical impact damage against SW ships. When the Rebels are trying to clear Coruscant orbit of the cloaked asteroids, one of the rocks hits a frigate and wrecks it, forcing it out of orbit and making it collide with the planetary shields. IIRC it happened fast enough that the crew only just abandoned the ship (or it was unmanned at the time, not sure which).

So, yes, physical impacts from kamikazes can be a threat to SW warships, in certain circumstances. The main issue is, whether or not those circumstances are replicable enough for the Federation and allies to find it a viable tactic, and honestly? I don't think so.

Also: Brogholio, does that calculator incorporate relativistic mass gained? I'm assuming not, since at c the impact energy, along with the mass, would be infinite.

[Borgholio]

Also: Brogholio, does that calculator incorporate relativistic mass gained? I'm assuming not, since at c the impact energy, along with the mass, would be infinite.

Yeah that's way out of my pay grade...maybe someone who knows a bit more about relativistic physics can take over.

Actually now that you mention it, if warp drive is just folding space and the ship in the warp bubble is actually moving at STL speeds...then going at warp might not add much more than you could get if you overclocked the impulse engines and pushed it to 90% c...

[Patroklos]

Funnily enough, the Captain of the Judicator, the other ISD present, does remark that it happens in the blink of an eye. He thinks something like "An ISD, the Empire's mightiest warship, destroyed int he blink of an eye."

Once they collided yes. After pages of them describing it about to happen. Explosions are quick affairs.

It's also worth considering that the Peremptory had been under sustained ion cannon fire from three other Dreadnoughts before the impact (as in, was begin fired upon before the "ram it with a Dreadnought" plan was considered, let alone acted upon) which probably had some major adverse consequences, most probably with blinding the sensors so the ISD couldn't see the kamikaze coming. Perhaps the Captain had diverted power from the particle shields to reinforce the main shields, since Dreadnoughts don't carry missiles and the fighters attacking the ship couldn't have hurt it. Maybe they'd overclocked the main reactor to keep the main shields up and the impact caused an overload.

Yes as I mentioned but the shields were not 100%. Three dreadnaughts to an ISD should not be an issue but it would have some effect on their shield power. But also remember that the arrival of the Peremptory also shifted the entire course of the battle from the Judicator being overwhelmed and the Rebels carrying the day to the Rebels themselves trying to figure out how to escape (only for the rolls to reverse after the collision). That tells me the Peremptory was under no conventional danger of being overwhelmed.

I don't remember the particle shielding thing, god knows the universe goes back and forth on that one all the time.

Suffice to say, it worked in that case. The fact that it isn't used again (even by the Empire who had a surplus of the Dreadnoughts and were apparently stretched thin during the campaign) suggests it isn't viable.

Yeah it did. I have to chalk it up to the "HMS Hood effect" and call it a day.

Oddly, the Thrawn books give another, probably better example of physical impact damage against SW ships. When the Rebels are trying to clear Coruscant orbit of the cloaked asteroids, one of the rocks hits a frigate and wrecks it, forcing it out of orbit and making it collide with the planetary shields. IIRC it happened fast enough that the crew only just abandoned the ship (or it was unmanned at the time, not sure which).

Which is horrible luck for that frigate. Was its shields up? I don't remember if they went into detail.

So, yes, physical impacts from kamikazes can be a threat to SW warships, in certain circumstances. The main issue is, whether or not those circumstances are replicable enough for the Federation and allies to find it a viable tactic, and honestly? I don't think so.

As far as I know later Executors were not having their command towers lopped off at will so I would have to agree. Outside the video games anyway.

[Lord Revan]

Neat. Ok so using this calculator and another one to convert Joules to Megatons, here's what I get.

Starfleet Type F shuttle (Star Trek : TOS...I couldn't find the mass listed for the newer ones) has a mass of 17,000kg.

At lightspeed, it would impact with the force of 14.5 gigatons.

Ignoring any mass lightening or FTL weirdness, the same shuttle at warp 5 (~200 times the speed of light) would hit with the force of 2.9 teratons. Ouch.

that bolded part is the important part that said the kinectic energy of anything moving at light speed is "infinite" as the relavitic formula for kinetic energy is E=(m/square root(1-(v2/c2)))c2-mc2, you can see the issue when c=v

[Eternal_Freedom]

Funnily enough, the Captain of the Judicator, the other ISD present, does remark that it happens in the blink of an eye. He thinks something like "An ISD, the Empire's mightiest warship, destroyed int he blink of an eye."

Once they collided yes. After pages of them describing it about to happen. Explosions are quick affairs.

Very true, I just thought it was interesting.

It's also worth considering that the Peremptory had been under sustained ion cannon fire from three other Dreadnoughts before the impact (as in, was begin fired upon before the "ram it with a Dreadnought" plan was considered, let alone acted upon) which probably had some major adverse consequences, most probably with blinding the sensors so the ISD couldn't see the kamikaze coming. Perhaps the Captain had diverted power from the particle shields to reinforce the main shields, since Dreadnoughts don't carry missiles and the fighters attacking the ship couldn't have hurt it. Maybe they'd overclocked the main reactor to keep the main shields up and the impact caused an overload.

Yes as I mentioned but the shields were not 100%. Three dreadnaughts to an ISD should not be an issue but it would have some effect on their shield power. But also remember that the arrival of the Peremptory also shifted the entire course of the battle from the Judicator being overwhelmed and the Rebels carrying the day to the Rebels themselves trying to figure out how to escape (only for the rolls to reverse after the collision). That tells me the Peremptory was under no conventional danger of being overwhelmed.

It wouldn't normally be an issue, but these Dreadnoughts had been specifically refitted with ion cannons - Luke or Han calls up Bel Iblis and says "thanks for the help but you're gonna get slaughtered here" or words to that effect, which is when he brings up the ion cannons.

The key word in that last sentence is "conventionally" overwhelmed. As I said, these were not regularly-armed Dreadnoughts. Usually it would be, well, not quite "no sweat" to take on the three Dreadnoughts but in this case it didn't end well.

I don't remember the particle shielding thing, god knows the universe goes back and forth on that one all the time.

Very true, but that is, at least, a vaguely plausible explanation. It may even be an automated feature - diverting power from particle to ray shields when in open space and under fire. It would indeed usually be a sensible thing.

Suffice to say, it worked in that case. The fact that it isn't used again (even by the Empire who had a surplus of the Dreadnoughts and were apparently stretched thin during the campaign) suggests it isn't viable.

Yeah it did. I have to chalk it up to the "HMS Hood effect" and call it a day.

True. It reminds me of the ST novel Federation, wherein the E-D rams a Romulan Warbird and destroys it. Picard later explains that if the conditions hadn't been exactly right, the E-D would have been destroyed (the E-D's warp core was offline, she was partially cloaked, the Warbird was at relative rest, the E-D had all it's power diverted to structural integrity, etc).

Oddly, the Thrawn books give another, probably better example of physical impact damage against SW ships. When the Rebels are trying to clear Coruscant orbit of the cloaked asteroids, one of the rocks hits a frigate and wrecks it, forcing it out of orbit and making it collide with the planetary shields. IIRC it happened fast enough that the crew only just abandoned the ship (or it was unmanned at the time, not sure which).

Which is horrible luck for that frigate. Was its shields up? I don't remember if they went into detail.

I can't recall offhand if it was stated either way, but frankly given what they were doing they'd be fucking insane not to have the shields at full power.

So, yes, physical impacts from kamikazes can be a threat to SW warships, in certain circumstances. The main issue is, whether or not those circumstances are replicable enough for the Federation and allies to find it a viable tactic, and honestly? I don't think so.

As far as I know later Executors were not having their command towers lopped off at will so I would have to agree. Outside the video games anyway.

Yeah. Very special circumstances. Indeed, the Lusankya has her bridge (and presumably a good chunk of the command tower) wrecked by a suicidal coralskipper during her death ride at Borleais and she stayed on course (the bridge wasn't in use at the time, and the shields were already down, but still).

[Xess]

Neat. Ok so using this calculator and another one to convert Joules to Megatons, here's what I get.

Starfleet Type F shuttle (Star Trek : TOS...I couldn't find the mass listed for the newer ones) has a mass of 17,000kg.

At lightspeed, it would impact with the force of 14.5 gigatons.

Ignoring any mass lightening or FTL weirdness, the same shuttle at warp 5 (~200 times the speed of light) would hit with the force of 2.9 teratons. Ouch.

that bolded part is the important part that said the kinectic energy of anything moving at light speed is "infinite" as the relavitic formula for kinetic energy is E=(m/square root(1-(v2/c2)))c2-mc2, you can see the issue when c=v

Apparently for FTL particles KE works in reverse from STL, though I have not done the math myself. In essence for FTL it takes infinite energy to slow down to light speed and the faster you go the less energy you have.

[Lord Revan]

Neat. Ok so using this calculator and another one to convert Joules to Megatons, here's what I get.

Starfleet Type F shuttle (Star Trek : TOS...I couldn't find the mass listed for the newer ones) has a mass of 17,000kg.

At lightspeed, it would impact with the force of 14.5 gigatons.

Ignoring any mass lightening or FTL weirdness, the same shuttle at warp 5 (~200 times the speed of light) would hit with the force of 2.9 teratons. Ouch.

that bolded part is the important part that said the kinectic energy of anything moving at light speed is "infinite" as the relavitic formula for kinetic energy is E=(m/square root(1-(v2/c2)))c2-mc2, you can see the issue when c=v

Apparently for FTL particles KE works in reverse from STL, though I have not done the math myself. In essence for FTL it takes infinite energy to slow down to light speed and the faster you go the less energy you have.

true but warpdrive might not follow that formula seeing as it doesn't take infinite power to get to Warp 1 and it's generally accepted that Warp 1=c

then there's the fact that speed isn't a constant in relation to the warp factor meaning you can have 2 different speeds from the same warp factor.

you can see why I called FTL ramming a can of worms best left unopened

[The Romulan Republic]

Also: Brogholio, does that calculator incorporate relativistic mass gained? I'm assuming not, since at c the impact energy, along with the mass, would be infinite.

Yeah that's way out of my pay grade...maybe someone who knows a bit more about relativistic physics can take over.

Actually now that you mention it, if warp drive is just folding space and the ship in the warp bubble is actually moving at STL speeds...then going at warp might not add much more than you could get if you overclocked the impulse engines and pushed it to 90% c...

Since warp speed ramming is a contentious issue, why not focus on what they can do with STL ramming? If we have the maximum speed of a Star Trek ship and its size, we can get an idea of the damage it could do.

The big question for me aside from that is the effectiveness of shields against impacts.

[The Romulan Republic]

What you're basically talking about is an oversized photon torpedo: a torpedo with the mass and propulsion of a starship to deliver a bigger impact and a larger antimatter payload.

While it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect these to inflict damage on Imperial warships, the main problem is going to be expense. It takes the Federation months or years to build a single decent-sized starship. Even stripped of all the systems needed for a crew, it will still probably take a month or more to build just one of these drone ramships. They'll be like the V2's of the second World War: effective, but an incredibly inefficient way to deal damage to the enemy.

Well, it would probably cost less than a normal ship since it wouldn't have a lot of stuff a manned ship has to have. In fact, they'd probably want to make the drones relatively small so they'd be harder to shoot down and send them in swarms rather than have a missile the size of a full starship.

[Lord Revan]

Also: Brogholio, does that calculator incorporate relativistic mass gained? I'm assuming not, since at c the impact energy, along with the mass, would be infinite.

Yeah that's way out of my pay grade...maybe someone who knows a bit more about relativistic physics can take over.

Actually now that you mention it, if warp drive is just folding space and the ship in the warp bubble is actually moving at STL speeds...then going at warp might not add much more than you could get if you overclocked the impulse engines and pushed it to 90% c...

Since warp speed ramming is a contentious issue, why not focus on what they can do with STL ramming? If we have the maximum speed of a Star Trek ship and its size, we can get an idea of the damage it could do.

The big question for me aside from that is the effectiveness of shields against impacts.

what's we really need is max speed with 0% mass lightening as that would give the max kinectic energy they're capable of delivering since even if we use the newtonian formula for kinectic energy mass is a variable there, (that formula being E=(1/2)mv2) and since with mass lightening the effective mass is lowered thus energy it gives must be lower in direct portion to the decrese in mass, in essence once you go past the threshold the kinectic energy remains the same as with the threshold speed since the mass is lowered to compensate. which is probably why when we do see ST ships ram each other the speed isn't all that great.

[Ted C]

What you're basically talking about is an oversized photon torpedo: a torpedo with the mass and propulsion of a starship to deliver a bigger impact and a larger antimatter payload.

While it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect these to inflict damage on Imperial warships, the main problem is going to be expense. It takes the Federation months or years to build a single decent-sized starship. Even stripped of all the systems needed for a crew, it will still probably take a month or more to build just one of these drone ramships. They'll be like the V2's of the second World War: effective, but an incredibly inefficient way to deal damage to the enemy.

Well, it would probably cost less than a normal ship since it wouldn't have a lot of stuff a manned ship has to have. In fact, they'd probably want to make the drones relatively small so they'd be harder to shoot down and send them in swarms rather than have a missile the size of a full starship.

I'm not disputing that it would be less expensive than a fully-equipped starship, but it would still be quite costly. You could certainly cut down on it's overall volume, since you don't need corridors and habitable compartments, but you still want to keep it's mass up so that it hits the target hard. The biggest expense is still the warp propulsion system: there's no way to get out of having that unless you want to have starship tow it to the combat zone or carry it in a shuttlebay.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

It would seem like these might be a viable alternative to the dreadnought.

While they won't be as difficult as the dreadnought to destroy (lacking the weapons and defences), their AI is arguably superior and their small size makes them easier to mass-produce (it was one of 33 launched in error).

The only unknown is the blast yield- instead what we're given is the radius which is stated to be 200KM, and the 'energy matrix' supposedly could "power an entire fleet of starships". Given that Onquanii also said it was worth 1,000 dilithium crystals we can infer that the size of the 'fleet' he had in mind would be large enough to use all those crystals.

[biostem]

It would seem like these might be a viable alternative to the dreadnought.

While they won't be as difficult as the dreadnought to destroy (lacking the weapons and defences), their AI is arguably superior and their small size makes them easier to mass-produce (it was one of 33 launched in error).

The only unknown is the blast yield- instead what we're given is the radius which is stated to be 200KM, and the 'energy matrix' supposedly could "power an entire fleet of starships". Given that Onquanii also said it was worth 1,000 dilithium crystals we can infer that the size of the 'fleet' he had in mind would be large enough to use all those crystals.

Those torps aren't Federation technology - if the claims about it being able to power a fleet were correct, imagine how much smaller one could make starships - heck, with that kind of power output, why waste it on a single-shot weapon. Imagine if those drones were outfitted with some sort of energy weapon that was equally advanced!

[Batman]

I dunno. The Warp Core and associated systems take up a reasonably small part of the volume of a starship as a rule. You still need the life support systems, living quarters, engine room, sickbay, recreational facilities, not to mention the corridors and lifts connecting them. Itsy bitsy super power core also doesn't mean you can make the drive systems or the weapons any smaller just because your power source is tiny.

[Lord Revan]

the powersource could also be dangerous to lifeforms explaining why it's used in unmanned torps and not ships.