Defeating planetary shields without a Death Star and Executor

[Adam Reynolds]

My theory is that since objects moving at high velocity (shells, ships, blaster bolts) bounce off or crash and things moving slowly (battle droids, walkers) can wade through them, then slow movement either allows the attacker to pick their way through gaps in the shield (maybe by waiting for a naturally-occurring seam to open up OR the surface of the shield like the surface of a lake: walk in slowly and nothing happens; jump flat on your face and you'll hurt all over; BUT if you dive head first (or feet first) in the right place at the right time, you'll plunge right through the surface with no trouble.

So the use of walkers and foot soldiers to wade through the shield makes sense, as does the raised platform for the AT-AT's guns -which allow it to open fire at long distances. Sending fighters or bomber to try to slow down and wade through the shields opens them up to ground fire from any forces inside the shield, who now have very slow targets with no armor.

That is undoubtedly the case with theater shields, the question is whether it also applies to encompassing planetary shields, which also serve to protect against invasion as well as bombardment.

Equip a few high yield warheads with hyperdrives, and pull a 'Han Solo in Force Awakens', but aimed so they arrive under the shield, and over the generators traveling and near the speed of light.

They hit the generators, and drop them. Problem solved.

The fact that no one has seriously considered this tactic previously indicates that it isn't as effective as it appears based on a single incident. Look at Finn's reaction, he considered it insane. That isn't something you could consider a common tactic. It also requires extremely accurate navigation data, which is hardly guaranteed.

Also, try that on most worlds and you would be killed by air defenses(or crash into a building on one of the numerous ecumenopolis in the galaxy). There is a reason that the Falcon didn't fire upon the shields while airborne and instead immediately went to ground. His comment was that if they went into the air they would be seen(and likely shot down).

What is a far more realistic tactic is that used in the opening of ROTS. Grievous had accurate navigation data and used it to put his entire fleet in position before the shields could be raised.

Though out of universe, I agree with the general point. This is just like the transwarp beaming developed in the '09 Trek film. It worked as a clever solution that has implications not considered when it was written.

An unstoppable siege engine that no possible relief force can touch is pretty much enough reason. The Death Star is absurd, except, if you really could build it it would offer that capability, while a collection of smaller ships of equal power would at least be vulnerable to defeat in detail by a reasonable enemy fleet. I don't think you really need anything more complicated.

Something else that also explains the limited numbers shown in the OT is that much of the Imperial military is less than reliable and not fully loyal to the Emperor. Getting a sufficiently powerful fleet to level Mon Calamari might be difficult in that the local commanders would not exactly want to listen. It also fits the Emperor's point about his "legion of best troops," while they were loyal they weren't as competent.

The Death Star has the advantage that its crew is small relative to its level of combat power, which would make it ideal for such a military.

[Galvatron]

Something else that also explains the limited numbers shown in the OT is that much of the Imperial military is less than reliable and not fully loyal to the Emperor. Getting a sufficiently powerful fleet to level Mon Calamari might be difficult in that the local commanders would not exactly want to listen. It also fits the Emperor's point about his "legion of best troops," while they were loyal they weren't as competent.

The Death Star has the advantage that its crew is small relative to its level of combat power, which would make it ideal for such a military.

This goes back to my theory that Admiral Ozzel was a rebel sympathizer.

In fact, I've long believed that widespread disloyalty was a major problem for the Imperial military following the double-whammy destruction of Alderaan and the dissolution of the Senate. Even the more jaded Imperials might consider such acts to be unacceptably atrocious, treacherous and counter to the principles of law and order that they believed the Empire stood for.

Regardless, I still think that the Death Star was built out of strategic necessity because the fleet and torpedo spheres could never do what it could.

[Lord Revan]

Personally I'd prefer that prominent imperial officers instead of being rebel sympathizers, were too busy backstabbing and asskissing to really do their job properly: First off it doesn't fall to the myth that dictatorial regimes are somehow inherently more efficient then democratic ones and also explains why the empire would essentially collapse after the Death of Palpatine and cease to be a credible threat to the republic until the raise of the First Order.

to put it simple the Moffs, admirals and high civilian autorities within the empire are constantly competing for the Emperor's favor and their underlings are in turn competing for the favor of said autorities. So it's highly likely that many high ranking imperials have gained their rank not due to competence at their official job but rather how well they've played this game of favors, alliances and back stabbing.

[Galvatron]

That's fine for the Emperor's circle of sycophants on Coruscant, but I'd like to think the majority of the Imperial military wasn't composed of mustache twirling villains any more than the German army was during WW2.

[Lord Revan]

The Soviet army in 1939 wasn't filled with mustage twirling villains either yet what I just described (just replace "emperor's favor" with "loyality to Stalin") lead to the disaster that was the Winter War for the soviets.

Also I highly dout that apart from the very top of the imperial heirarchy few if any members of the imperial military had picture of the events that wasn't heavily marred by propaganda, sure they might not belive what Corusant is telling them but at same time they might have their douts that what the rebels tell them is any more accurate.

[Galvatron]

Whether they believe it or not, I'm sure the Empire has plenty of loyalty officers scattered throughout the military to prevent widespread sedition among the rank-and-file. I'm hoping Rogue One shows us more of this side of the Empire since the main villain appears to be the head of the ISB.

[Solauren]

Except the manuever was considered a 'you gotta be fucking kidding me' by everybody else and the Falcon wasn't moving anywhere' near' the speed of light when she realspaced under the shield.
And how do you know you can 'target' the generators through the shield, leave alone at FTL distances?

First, Han managed to land damn close to Starkiller bases work areas (even with the bouncing around, it had to be within a few kilometers). So, targeting to exit hyperspace over a specific location can't be that hard.

Second, launch warheads before your main invasion fleet. Since they target shouldn't be expecting attack, their shields should be at lower, more or less vulnerable, energy level. Say, the level needed to deflect minor but annoying space debris, or a minimal power setting where shields could be brought to full power quickly in the event of a surprise attack (kind of like putting a computer into sleep mode.)

They'll still have to penetrate the shields, ala Han, but, we've seen Star wars warheads are way more agile then starships (i.e Luke's torpedoes pulling a near perfect 90 degree turn when fired into the Death Star's thermal exhaust port in a New Hope). So long as they are close, and have a large yield (i.e Seismic charges), they'll penetrate the shield, and explode, and take out the shield generators.

Third 'near light speed' is what they said in the film, IIRC, and not meant to be an accurate reflection of velocity.

[Galvatron]

If torpedoes are so wanktastically agile and smart, you'd think both sides would use them in battle a lot.

[Elheru Aran]

If torpedoes are so wanktastically agile and smart, you'd think both sides would use them in battle a lot.

The rationale is either 'torpedoes are not that common/are rare', 'torpedoes are expensive' or 'well they look a lot like blaster bolts how do you know all the stuff being shot off in the background ISN'T torpedoes'...

I lean towards 'the ones Luke had were special variants that cost more' or something like that, personally.

[Galvatron]

I don't buy either rationale. If all of the rebel fighters at Yavin had these expensive variants, why didn't they all just launch them as a salvo directly toward the exhaust port at the outset of the battle? If they're all so super-duper smart and agile, it should have been a simple matter for them to avoid the Death Star's turbolasers and hit their target. Why bother with the trench run at all?

Isn't it more likely that the torpedoes aren't nearly as smart as they're being credited as? Sure, they're definitely capable of performing sharp turns at high speeds while homing in on a stationary target, but why should we assume that they're any better at evading unpredictable enemy fire than, say, a droid fighter?

[Elheru Aran]

Eh, the trench run was required to avoid defensive fire from the DS surface, or something like that. I don't know that *all* the fighters had torpedoes; it's possible that only a few were equipped with them and the rest were just escorts (which raises the question of why Luke has them, but whatever).

The possibility has been brought up before that they were programmed to go X distance and then execute a sharp turn, which would also explain the trench run-- easier to program than approaching the exhaust port from whatever direction above it.

I don't think anybody, at least I, has asserted that they're capable of evading fire. It's possible that missiles in ROTS or Clone Wars could do this, CIS missiles at least if they were equipped with droid brains, but I don't recall seeing or reading it happen. Counter-missile fire doesn't seem to be much of a thing in Star Wars...

[Galvatron]

Eh, the trench run was required to avoid defensive fire from the DS surface, or something like that. I don't know that *all* the fighters had torpedoes; it's possible that only a few were equipped with them and the rest were just escorts (which raises the question of why Luke has them, but whatever).

It makes no sense that the rebels would entrust their only effective weapon to their greenest pilot, no matter how grateful they were to him for rescuing Leia and the Death Star plans. The only plausible alternative (IMO) is that all the fighters had torpedoes so that they all had a chance at making the kill shot.

The possibility has been brought up before that they were programmed to go X distance and then execute a sharp turn, which would also explain the trench run-- easier to program than approaching the exhaust port from whatever direction above it.

I think that's far more probable than any other explanation.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, the environment inside the trench will be relatively free of jamming because it is out of line of sight to the rest of the Death Star.

If the torpedoes would need an active sensor lock to home in on the exhaust port when fired from above the Death Star surface, they are vulnerable to every kind of jamming and ECM the Death Star can throw at them. Given that Star Wars possesses jamming so good that they can trick fighters into flying into a force field like birds smacking into a window pane, the torpedoes probably wouldn't get a precise enough lock to hit the target.

Whereas given the stated mindset of the Death Star designers ("doesn't consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat"), it seems unlikely there are any jammers specifically planted to cover the interior of the trench from a fighter flying inside the trench, which means the only jamming and countermeasures in the trench are going to be whatever the Rebels bring with them.

[Galvatron]

If that's the case, then I once again question the practicality of torpedo spheres as siege platforms. If their torpedoes can be so easily jammed, then it doesn't matter how fast or agile they are.

[Elheru Aran]

If torpedoes are independently programmed with simple directions ("700 delta-v along vector 200 by 43, hard left 60 degrees and down 3 degrees" for example), then perhaps jamming would be less effective against them if that's 'hard coded' so to speak. Torpedo spheres are basically space artillery in a sense; they set up outside the range of planetary anti-space weapons and fire torpedoes at specific sections of planetary shields until the shield collapses. If active guidance-- homing in on other ships for example-- was used, then *that* might be easier to jam.

[Galvatron]

Is there any reason to believe that weakened sections can't be reinforced or that shields can't simply rotate to prevent any one section from taking sustained fire before it collapses?

After all, one good ass-pull deserves another.

[Elheru Aran]

I vaguely recall that the Coruscant shield was arranged in at least two layers which could rotate (according to that Rogue Squadron book, I forget which one); the Thrawn Trilogy seemed to think it was only one shield but I could be wrong, haven't read the latter two books in a while (recently re-read Heir of the Empire in its special re-issue edition with the notes by Zahn. Pretty good, by the way. Check it out if you can find it).

Of course, Coruscant is a special case. It's possible that being able to rotate a shield is an upgrade and not all planets can afford something like that. And of course if the shield moves, the torpedo sphere can move too...

[Eternal_Freedom]

You're thinking of X-Wing: Wedge's Gamble, where it is indeed a two-layer shield that apparently required some fairly complicated engineering to make it work (powering the outer shield required opening portals in the inner shield for instance). By the time the New Republic controls the planet it is indeed a single layer shield, perhaps they decided that the double-layer shield was too costly to maintain (it's main advantage seemed to be traffic control more than anything).

[Galvatron]

I can't help but laugh at how far some of us are willing to bend over backwards to defend this thing.

And I don't think it really matters if torpedo spheres can move. If they're constantly playing catch-up with a rotating shield, they're not going to be able to sustain a bombardment long enough to significantly weaken, much less penetrate, it.

It'll be even harder to do so if the shield can be rotated in a random and unpredictable pattern or if power can be diverted from stronger sections on the far side of the planet.

Hell, shielded planets might be so difficult to attack that it would take a superweapon to do the job.

[Elheru Aran]

/shrug/ Some of us don't have a whole lot to do during the day