Krall's Fleet vs. an ISD

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, the DS1 turbolasers couldn't stop 30 fighters in loose formation. But 250,000 in an extremely close formation? You don't have to hit individuals targets to take out multiple ships if the bolts can smash through tens or dozens of ships in the swarm.

Hence why I said it "should prove effective at clearing close swarms of lightly-armoured targets." You can't compare this hypothetical situation to Yavin as the situation is too different. Especially since the DS1 guns were explicitly built for fending off capships not fighters, whilst in Legends cannon massed fire from ISDs/SSDs was a threat to Rebel fighters. And again, those Rebel fighters were a) aware of the possibility/danger and b) actively maneuvering to avoid getting hit whilst Krall's swarm didn't IIRC, the swarm moved and relied on attrition and numbers to wear down targets (I may be wrong, I only saw Beyond once and it's been a couple weeks).

Plus the (by ST standards) ridiculous sublight acceleration of the ISD means that it has to be an ambush situation, as TRR pointed out. Which precludes using the entire swarm, since by the time thy form up the ISD can say "fuck it" and retreat at high speed.

The point is the flakbursts don't exist and aren't even tried in any serious way vs fighters in Star Wars.

The swarm didn't try to evade but nu-Trek guns have a firing rate of upward of 1500 RPM and a near 100% hit ratio vs missiles on the connie (I've done a thread on this in the past) and accuracy to within about two meters - far better than Turbolasers. There's no point trying to evade them - they'd be extremely effective vs Wars fighters too.

Fair enough. Though the OP did specify we could use Legends canon which does (i'm fairly certain) include examples of capital ship guns being at least moderately effective against attacking fighters, the sheer numbers will mitigate that.

Though there is still the problem of "ISDs have >2300g max sublight acceleration so can run away easily enough" issue.

[NecronLord]

I can't see them flooring it (or hypering) away from Altamid. Altamid is surrounded by a 'nebula' (destroyed planet perhaps?) with lots of tightly packed rocks. Altamid is unexplored because it's entirely surrounded by these.

We know from Clone Wars that hypering through a comet cluster is instant death and given how careful and slow they have to be in the Hoth Asteroid Field in ESB, I can't see them making practical use of those thousand+ gravities.

It doesn't have anywhere to run to, unless it navigates the rocks. All the while the swarm that metaphorically blots out the sun can chase it.

[Captain Seafort]

Though there is still the problem of "ISDs have >2300g max sublight acceleration so can run away easily enough" issue.

That depends on the acceleration of the neo-E. If it's the same as the refit E-nil, then TMP's Earth-Jupiter travel of <1.8 hours indicates that she's capable of at least 2850g.

[The Romulan Republic]

I can't see them flooring it (or hypering) away from Altamid. Altamid is surrounded by a 'nebula' (destroyed planet perhaps?) with lots of tightly packed rocks. Altamid is unexplored because it's entirely surrounded by these.

We know from Clone Wars that hypering through a comet cluster is instant death and given how careful and slow they have to be in the Hoth Asteroid Field in ESB, I can't see them making practical use of those thousand+ gravities.

It doesn't have anywhere to run to, unless it navigates the rocks. All the while the swarm that metaphorically blots out the sun can chase it.

In that case, yes, going off this thread, if the swarm can fly through their shields, they're probably fucked.

Hmm... would their own fighters and such be any use at all here? If nothing else as a suicidal delaying action to allow the ship to flee?

If all else fails, how might an ISD commander defend the interior of the vessel against borders? Maybe concentrate his defenders around key areas (including the hanger, engineering, and the bridge/command tower) and relying on knowledge of the "terrain" and the fact that they'll be defending choke points (corridors, etc.) with automatic weapons and thermal detonators.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I can't see them flooring it (or hypering) away from Altamid. Altamid is surrounded by a 'nebula' (destroyed planet perhaps?) with lots of tightly packed rocks. Altamid is unexplored because it's entirely surrounded by these.

We know from Clone Wars that hypering through a comet cluster is instant death and given how careful and slow they have to be in the Hoth Asteroid Field in ESB, I can't see them making practical use of those thousand+ gravities.

It doesn't have anywhere to run to, unless it navigates the rocks. All the while the swarm that metaphorically blots out the sun can chase it.

That's a fair point. As TRR said, this basically has to be an ambush in a tight environment. If we were substituting the ISD for, say, Yorktown Base in open space it would be a different matchup.

[NecronLord]

Slam all the blast doors down - a given - and hope it takes them a while to cut through, would be his best immediate response to boarding, but I'm not sure that's their protocol.

Fighters would be of limited help, we see that Krall is willing to expend his drones in ramming attacks.

It's conceivable that they could rig up jamming against the drones - but they never ever do that on a large scale in the clone wars - and possibly they could open fire on Altamid itself to try and draw them off or hold it to ransom.

[Elheru Aran]

There are so many drones anyway that they could easily expend a few per fighter to just ram them to death and they'd barely notice.

Firing on Altamid is a bit of a gamble; Krall only seemed to have the one base of any importance, and even for Star Wars, searching an entire planet to find a small base would be a bit of a time-consuming process... especially when under attack by a few hundred thousand drone-craft. Krall doesn't seem to be the type to give much of a shit if a few bits of land on Altamid get blown up, and frankly he doesn't seem much attached to Altamid to start with, apart from the alien technology there.

[The Romulan Republic]

Slam all the blast doors down - a given - and hope it takes them a while to cut through, would be his best immediate response to boarding, but I'm not sure that's their protocol.

Fighters would be of limited help, we see that Krall is willing to expend his drones in ramming attacks.

It's conceivable that they could rig up jamming against the drones - but they never ever do that on a large scale in the clone wars - and possibly they could open fire on Altamid itself to try and draw them off or hold it to ransom.

I didn't mention shutting the doors, but yes, I'd almost take that for granted.

Those big blast doors we see on the Death Star could probably hold them for a while, but unless the ISD can get into open space or get reinforcements, its probably only delaying the inevitable.

Reg. ramming, from someone who hasn't seen the film, how do Krall's drones stack up in terms of speed/maneuverability vs. Imperial fighters?

Jamming... yeah, I'm skeptical as well, though we can expect some technical differences between the vulnerabilities of Krall's drones and CIS droids.

Firing on Altamid... I didn't think of that, but its the kind of maneuver I could see a creative Imperial officer doing. Hell, some of the more ruthless ones might do it purely for vengeance/to send a message if they knew they were going down.

Hmm... are the drones independent/AI-controlled, or are they being controlled from a central location on the planet a la Trade Federation droids in Phantom Menace or the Chitauri in Avengers? If the latter, targeting the controller seems a good move.

[Abacus]

Never heard the joke before, honestly...so, yeah, it flew straight over the head.

[NecronLord]

Romulan. You should see this film. It’s great.

I will now spoil all the tactically relevant bits:

When they get to Altamid they immediately scan a large underground infrastructure. Altamid’s surface is very pleasant, very rural, with most settlement being visibly iron age (but actually much more advanced, residences for the inhabitants whose industry was below.

The drones, both the spacecraft and infantry, were made by the Ancient Ones, as mining drones (the Federation getting whupped by advanced mining gear is almost a theme in the new films) which Kraal had found and repurpoused.

The crew defeat these (after the loss of the Enterprise and salvaging an Enterprise-era ship) by beaming aboard a drone and finding the command frequency that guides them, then blasting radio jamming onto their command frequency.

As Krall didn’t design them, possibly damage to the underground infrastructure to Altamid might override his orders and force the drones to return home to fix it? It’s unclear and the Ancient Ones abandoned the planet long ago.

[The Romulan Republic]

Want to see it, movie budget is limited. Will hopefully get around to it eventually.

Although right now I'm wishing I'd gone for this rather than Suicide Squad, because I didn't like Suicide Squad.

Anyway, all that doesn't say much about weather targeting the planet would be viable as a way of stopping the swarm. Might be worth firing on the command facility as a last-ditch attempt anyway, though.

[NecronLord]

Well I don't think firing would work long, simply because the drones would get in the control room and apply rubber hose counter-battery fire.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well I don't think firing would work long, simply because the drones would get in the control room and apply rubber hose counter-battery fire.

Add the turbo laser controls to the list of key systems to secure against borders, then.

Its got to take at least a little while to cut through ISD hull armour, blast doors, and thousands of troops with blasters and thermal detonators.

[NecronLord]

It took Ventress's breaching pods seconds.

[The Romulan Republic]

On a Venator, correct?

We cannot them presume, without further evidence, that a larger ISD's turbo laser controls are so accessible.

[NecronLord]

In all honesty, I'd be SHOCKED if there wasn't a window somewhere in that room. There are windows in the guns of Venator.

[The Romulan Republic]

I suppose the Venator is what you get when you have a warship designed by a society that hasn't fought a major war in a millennium.

You'd think that the Empire would be a little more savvy, though God knows they made their share of blunders.

[NecronLord]

The Empire also likes windows and pseudo-casements.

[Esquire]

Do we see the drones do any readily-quantifiable cutting? It occurs to me that just because a CIS boarding pod can accomplish its mission with ease, we can't necessarily assume a Star Trek one - even from highly-advanced robots - would do the same. I've not seen either the movie or the episode in question; just wondering.

[Elheru Aran]

That does make me wonder. If Trek structural materials are less strong than Wars, it stands to reason that if all the drones did was just ram their way in, they could well have a much harder time with it going up against Wars materials.

[Esquire]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. If nothing else, the fact that ST warships need a structural integrity field suggests (suggest, mind; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) that their hulls aren't as strong as SW designs.

[NecronLord]

Do we see the drones do any readily-quantifiable cutting? It occurs to me that just because a CIS boarding pod can accomplish its mission with ease, we can't necessarily assume a Star Trek one - even from highly-advanced robots - would do the same. I've not seen either the movie or the episode in question; just wondering.

Except the Ancient Ones' are not an equivalent-technology-to-the-Federation threat. They are far beyond the Federation. They may well have technology and materials science vastly in advance of Star Wars - whenever we see anything built by the Ancient Ones (all civilian gear!) it comically out-performs Federation gear and stomps the Federation's shit in. Saying "Star Trek materials are weak" is meaningless - we know almost nothing about the Ancient Ones beyond what's been outlined.

In the absence of calculable incidents, we default to matching like with like.

[Esquire]

Do we see the drones do any readily-quantifiable cutting? It occurs to me that just because a CIS boarding pod can accomplish its mission with ease, we can't necessarily assume a Star Trek one - even from highly-advanced robots - would do the same. I've not seen either the movie or the episode in question; just wondering.

Except the Ancient Ones' are not an equivalent-technology-to-the-Federation threat. They are far beyond the Federation. They may well have technology and materials science vastly in advance of Star Wars - whenever we see anything built by the Ancient Ones (all civilian gear!) it comically out-performs Federation gear and stomps the Federation's shit in. Saying "Star Trek materials are weak" is meaningless - we know almost nothing about the Ancient Ones beyond what's been outlined.

In the absence of calculable incidents, we default to matching like with like.

Which was why I asked if there were any calculable incidents. I have no particular problem with ~250,000 drones being able to kill a Star Destroyer with little effort; I simply observe that the same tactics which work against U.S.S. Enterprise may not necessarily work against ISD Devastator. There's several orders of magnitude of difference between the Federation and the Empire; plenty of space for something in the middle.

[NecronLord]

Honestly, no, not really. We see that the tiny bug-ships can't endure the fire from capital ships and space stations, but beyond that we don't see them hit anything of known strength, or damaged by anything.

[Elheru Aran]

Honestly, no, not really. We see that the tiny bug-ships can't endure the fire from capital ships and space stations, but beyond that we don't see them hit anything of known strength, or damaged by anything.

So essentially we don't have anything legitimately quantifiable. Okay.

What about... and I freely confess I don't have the skills or knowledge to calculate this, but if someone wants to give it a go... say the hull of the Enterprise is equivalent to a titanium submarine hull? What kind of force would be required to send the... what... 4-metre-long? 5 metre? by two-ish metre wide, drone through said hull?

Bearing in mind that we saw the drones going *through* the ship at a few different points... not just punching partway through, which seems to be their 'boarding' tactic.