Tech infographic: powering up Star Wars

[Sea Skimmer]

All those security devices all get blown into nothing but clouds of white smoke, and then lots more smoke appears during the shootout. So that's actually fairly consistent in the scene. Stormtroopers have armor, you'd hope it wouldn't blowup into nothing even if it can't save the user. Graceful failure is an important criteria of armor design.

[Simon_Jester]

Fair. Although you STILL need wall material that absorbs blaster bolts with no reflection or scattering to explain why Our Heroes aren't dead, plus the question of why Leia can get shot in the shoulder two movies later with a similar weapon and still have an arm, or for that matter a torso.

[Captain Seafort]

the question of why Leia can get shot in the shoulder two movies later with a similar weapon and still have an arm, or for that matter a torso.

That one's easy: you can see from the images that she didn't get shot in the shoulder, but the bolt hit the doorframe and she was injured by sparks.

[Simon_Jester]

Okay, in all fairness I haven't watched a frame by frame of that scene.

Do we see blaster bolts doing damage to wood in the forests of Endor consistent with megajoule-range bolts? If that grating really is made of fifty kilograms of dense metal, despite not looking like it is, then surely wood should be far more fragile than the grating.

[Vance]

Here is a blast-illuminated picture of a whole, undamaged, grate. These things were very large, several times larger than the kinda drain-covering-grates seen and manhole covers commonly seen on the streets of today here on teh Big Blue. The blast-illumination helps eyeball the grate, because without the lighting, the grates blend right in with the walls since they are much alike (both being very dark in colour).


The hole blasted into the grate is rather big... a big enough man-hole for even the seven foot Chewie...


At an inch thick, accounting for space between the bars, this "hole" represents several litres of "missing material". Regardless of whether it is composed of hard plastic, or lightweight metal, or indeed, dense iron, making several litres of the stuff disappear in a fraction of a second is pretty impressive. This certainly represents a firepower many times greater than the typical shot "set to kill", such as the rest of the shots used throughout those scenes which didn't blow armoured stormtroopers or unarmoured officers apart as one would expect from a shot which blasts bigger-than-torso- sized holes into hard plastic (or whatever) grates. Personally, I do reckon the grates are metal perhaps not iron (despite iron like appearances) but something metallic. Plastic grates just don't feel warsy to me, lol.

This example doesn't exist in a void, and back on the I do list a number of examples of very powerful blaster fire. These high powered blasts appear to be most often used in a kind of light demolition role (destroying support columns, blasting chest sized holes into grates, explosive effects, cratering, etc), except for three or four examples (off the top of my head) where they are used for suppression /distraction (A New Hoe, Empire Strikes Back, Slaves of the Republic etc.). Never are these high powered blasts used against softer fleshy targets, where the same firepower would almost certainly result in a humans torso violently exploding (assuming that the bolt does not over-penetrate the target whilst retaining most of its energy). On an older page, I made to scale comparisons between Han Solo and the size of holes / explosions caused by blasters (on what are assumed to be the "high" or "max" setting).

Jester, there was at least one small tree blown apart at Endor. We don't know whether this was caused by an AT ST or personal blaster. However in either case lower powered shots were used for a majority of the battle, since we see AT ST energy bolts merely superficially scorch wooden catapults and trees in other scenes... which is far less impressive (I guess blowing that one tree finished off their budget, eh!).

Besides, is exploding Ewoks into fountains of blood and gore while simultaneously limiting your blaster only a handful of shots before needing to reload REALLY a good idea?

A lot of these powerful blast effects, such as the Tatooine wall cratering, or the demotion of Geonosian support columns, might be replicated with a stick of dynamite. I'd wager that the highest setting on a blaster yield a megajoule or more.

[Sea Skimmer]

Plastic grates just don't feel warsy to me, lol.

They don't? I mean the whole universe is chock full of stuff which suspiciously looks like painted plastic or wood! Just because we have super advanced personal firepower doesn't mean we still can't subcontract to the lowest bidder. The Empire probably suspended Milspec certification to better keep the costs of the Death Star hidden.

This example doesn't exist in a void, and back on the I do list a number of examples of very powerful blaster fire.

Yes, though it is worth considering that thermal effects in particular are immensely dependent on the type of target material.

Jester, there was at least one small tree blown apart at Endor. We don't know whether this was caused by an AT ST or personal blaster.

IIRC that string of trees that gets blown up your probably thinking of shows the blasters coming in at an angle from a higher elevation, which makes it pretty likely it was the AT-ST.

However in either case lower powered shots were used for a majority of the battle, since we see AT ST energy bolts merely superficially scorch wooden catapults and trees in other scenes... which is far less impressive (I guess blowing that one tree finished off their budget, eh!).

Probably, ROTJ had a lot of budget issues and also some really bad issues with simply making the special effects work at all. That's why the space Battle is so poor, many other shots were filmed but simply didn't work out with the effects or the model-background compositing. It isn't for nothing that Lucas then stopped making the movies until special effects improved. Course then other problems occurred.

Besides, is exploding Ewoks into fountains of blood and gore while simultaneously limiting your blaster only a handful of shots before needing to reload REALLY a good idea?

Yes? But the Empire didn't loose because it was hyper competent. I Like to think of it like Fascist Italy.

A lot of these powerful blast effects, such as the Tatooine wall cratering, or the demotion of Geonosian support columns, might be replicated with a stick of dynamite. I'd wager that the highest setting on a blaster yield a megajoule or more.

Perhaps, though this runs afoul the problem that energy interactions with targets are very energy type-material dependent and that makes it difficult to actually decide anything to less then an order of magnitude. And that is a bit annoying at low total energy levels, since for a real life comparison 1 MJ of KE is similar to a 57mm round, while 10 MJ is a bit more powerful then a 120mm tank sabot round. Big ass difference between those two, but same order of magnitude.

[Simon_Jester]

Here is a blast-illuminated picture of a whole, undamaged, grate. These things were very large, several times larger than the kinda drain-covering-grates seen and manhole covers commonly seen on the streets of today here on teh Big Blue. The blast-illumination helps eyeball the grate, because without the lighting, the grates blend right in with the walls since they are much alike (both being very dark in colour).

Sure, the grates are big- which is precisely why I argue they must be made out of lightweight materials. If you make something that big out of steel, it's going to be too heavy for one human to remove, heavy enough that people could injure themselves handling it. There's literally no reason to even have a grate like that if it can't be removed for access down the shaft.

[Soberingly, it occurs to me that the obvious reason to need such a big garbage disposal shaft in the detention area isn't for normal garbage. It's so you have a place to dump the bodies- in which case no wonder it's big enough that any humanoid alien including Wookiees can fall down it]

At an inch thick, accounting for space between the bars, this "hole" represents several litres of "missing material". Regardless of whether it is composed of hard plastic, or lightweight metal, or indeed, dense iron, making several litres of the stuff disappear in a fraction of a second is pretty impressive. This certainly represents a firepower many times greater than the typical shot "set to kill", such as the rest of the shots used throughout those scenes which didn't blow armoured stormtroopers or unarmoured officers apart as one would expect from a shot which blasts bigger-than-torso- sized holes into hard plastic (or whatever) grates.

In line with what you say later, it's at least credible that the blasters have, by design, a 'supercharge' setting NOT normally used, which expends much or all of their powerpack in a single high-energy thwack.

This might be very useful in a setting where light walkers, heavily armored battledroids, or powered armor (e.g. spacetroopers) are a thing. It would serve some of the same tactical functions as (for instance) rifle grenades did for mid-20th century infantry. It would also reduce the need to design dedicated squad-level antitank weapons for the troops.

Personally, I do reckon the grates are metal perhaps not iron (despite iron like appearances) but something metallic. Plastic grates just don't feel warsy to me, lol.

If the cover is metallic, I suspect the metal bars would be hollow rather than solid. I mean, a grate that big would be manageable to remove and carry if it were made out of, say, hollow aluminum tubing.

This is just common sense, because in Star Wars they do still have humans (or robots that aren't inhumanly strong) doing a fair amount of their maintenance work.

[Sea Skimmer]

I am now silly musing that perhaps the grate was made of some kind of painted aerogel.