Star War Naval Combat

[Esquire]

The underlying issue isn't that Star Wars ships are definitely designed to resist artificial gravity attacks, it's that gravity just isn't strong enough to do much to the materials used. Interdictors almost certainly generate something much less than Earth gravity, and a TIE fighter's rated acceleration is like 4,000 g, I think, and that as a biological/investment limit. Other ships, let alone missiles, are much faster; the materials involved are simply not susceptible to damage from such a proportionally weak force.

[Reyvan]

Interdictors also don't seem to be able to "throw" their gravity well. They can't make the center of another ship the mass shadow, they make themselves the center of the mass shadow. Making it so that you suddenly seem to have the same mass as a planet might cause a few seconds of confusion for other ships in a battle, but it would start crushing them.

Even with old canon star destroyers which can't fly in atmosphere, I would bet the problem is that they have to worry about hitting the ground, not being torn apart. An interdictor is much smaller than a planet, a star destroyer would probably be able to put itself in a decaying orbit around an interdictor until it could destroy it and stop the gravity well.

[Esquire]

'Can't not cook the planet with ion wash, and STO only takes a Lambda like four minutes anyway so nobody bothered building in landing gear/repulsorlift capacity' is more likely, I think. What's the source for atmosphere being dangerous to ISDs, rather than to the planet or just pointless?

[Elheru Aran]

Old artwork and such was pretty consistent about Star Destroyers staying mostly in one piece when they crashed to the planet. Even Old Republic era ships, before the prequel films, were fairly tough-- see the Chu'unthor, massive Jedi training ship, crashed pretty intact. The prequels depict (admittedly purpose-built) Acclamators and Venators being in planetary atmospheres with no problem. Structural engineering really isn't an issue for Star Wars.

[Jub]

I guess that it simply wasn't a part of an ISD's mission role to go planet side so they deleted the landing gear and possibly reduced the level of repulsor units to where it could stay high safely but low-level hovering might not stay stable. It could still enter the atmosphere in a pinch but landing or low-level hovering would take a skilled bridge crew.

[Batman]

In Rebels ISDs routinely hover less than a ship's length off the ground with no apparent trouble (of course in Rebels ISDs are largely unarmed and carry at best one full squadron of TIE fighters so... )

[Jub]

In Rebels ISDs routinely hover less than a ship's length off the ground with no apparent trouble (of course in Rebels ISDs are largely unarmed and carry at best one full squadron of TIE fighters so... )

I haven't seen Rebels, how much lower than a ship's length do they hover? Even 1 kilometer should give them room to correct but if they're like tens of meters that would completely lay this can't go in atmosphere thing to rest. It's likely they can just hover low/land now that a lot of the older stuff that said they couldn't has been tossed.

[Batman]

I'd have to go through Rebels again to be 100% certain but from memory I don't think it was ever less than a quarter of the ship's length, possibly as much as half if not more. No tens of metres that I can recall but even 2 or 3 FULL ship's lengths (and more) would make them fully atmosphere capable.
Not capable of landing necessarily but they can definitely operate in-atmosphere, at least for Earthlike planets

[Jub]

I'd have to go through Rebels again to be 100% certain but from memory I don't think it was ever less than a quarter of the ship's length, possibly as much as half if not more. No tens of metres that I can recall but even 2 or 3 FULL ship's lengths (and more) would make them fully atmosphere capable.
Not capable of landing necessarily but they can definitely operate in-atmosphere, at least for Earthlike planets

That's what we saw in TLJ as well. It makes sense, given how effective repulsors seem to be at lifting things and how little (no?) effect they have on the environment even a large ship should be able to use them to hover.

[Batman]

Whenever did we capital ships operate in atmosphere in TLJ?

[Jub]

Whenever did we capital ships operate in atmosphere in TLJ?

The Star Destroyer over Jedha was from Rogue One, my memory was telling me TLJ:

[Batman]

Thanks for clearing that up. I was seriously wondering.

[Elheru Aran]

Still a really great visual. And absolute proof that atmosphere operations really isn't an issue for ships of this size in SW. Which we really should've known since ESB, given that Cloud City is several times the size of an ISD IIRC.

We also see Venators in atmosphere several times in the Clone Wars series, notably IIRC in the Mon Calamari storyline, deploying Clonetroopers directly off the ships into the water.

[Jub]

Thanks for clearing that up. I was seriously wondering.

No worries. I hardly expect anybody to know all of Star Wars especially given the changes to canon and the lack of a versus debate.

Still a really great visual. And absolute proof that atmosphere operations really isn't an issue for ships of this size in SW. Which we really should've known since ESB, given that Cloud City is several times the size of an ISD IIRC.

We also see Venators in atmosphere several times in the Clone Wars series, notably IIRC in the Mon Calamari storyline, deploying Clonetroopers directly off the ships into the water.

Yeah, and we finally see a non-Clone Wars era ship do it to put any debate around that to rest.

[Batman]

Cloud City is just 'parked' there though. For all we know it cannot move under its own power. For an ISD to do this means it can go into (and back out of) a planetary atmosphere under its own power.

[Elheru Aran]

I mean, it's not like Clone Wars and the OT are *that* far apart or anything. Unless some sort of apocalypse scenario is envisaged for the end of the prequel era, there's really no reason to assume that the Imperial Starfleet would be using technology *worse* than that which we see deployed on a regular basis during the prequel era. While ISD's are certainly bigger than Venators, they're not tremendously larger (something like... 1/3rds longer? don't have the time to look up the stats atm).

If you want to involve the versus debate, it could be pointed out that we rarely ever saw the Federation bring starship-size craft into atmosphere the E-D was literally crashing, and I dunno about pretty much any other incidents. Though, notably, the E-D's saucer survived crashing quite well... so again, it may not be structural engineering that's a problem for the Federation either. But that's a whole other discussion.

Cloud City is just 'parked' there though. For all we know it cannot move under its own power. For an ISD to do this means it can go into (and back out of) a planetary atmosphere under its own power.

That's a fair enough point, but it's still a substantial enough achievement. And honestly, given that it's above a gas giant, bigger than Earth, with a correspondingly stronger gravitational force, but still within the atmosphere far enough to have comfortable air pressure outdoors (see docking platforms)... though granted possibly the city is surrounded by some kind of atmospheric force bubble, but there's no indication of such. I'm still saying it's cool, okay

[Jub]

I mean, it's not like Clone Wars and the OT are *that* far apart or anything. Unless some sort of apocalypse scenario is envisaged for the end of the prequel era, there's really no reason to assume that the Imperial Starfleet would be using technology *worse* than that which we see deployed on a regular basis during the prequel era. While ISD's are certainly bigger than Venators, they're not tremendously larger (something like... 1/3rds longer? don't have the time to look up the stats atm).

I don't think it would be a tech issue, more of a cost and expected roll issue. The ISD carries landing barges and shuttle to get things to the ground and, assuming extra space is needed for landing gear and extra repulsors cutting those could leave more mass/volume for other goodies. Of course, now we know it can go deep into the atmosphere so the point is pretty moot anyway.

[Batman]

Jupiter (which is the largest planet we can directly observe) has a 'surface' gravity of less than 2.5 g. By Star Wars standards that's nothing.

[KraytKing]

I mean, it's not like Clone Wars and the OT are *that* far apart or anything. Unless some sort of apocalypse scenario is envisaged for the end of the prequel era, there's really no reason to assume that the Imperial Starfleet would be using technology *worse* than that which we see deployed on a regular basis during the prequel era. While ISD's are certainly bigger than Venators, they're not tremendously larger (something like... 1/3rds longer? don't have the time to look up the stats atm).

Those were Acclamators. Less than half the length of an ISD, and specifically designed with planetary landings in mind. They have landing gear, for God's sake, I should hope they can enter an atmosphere. Something purpose built for ferrying troops is going to do better than an ISD, which is explicitly stated to be designed with naval combat as the focus.

Same with Cloud City. It's designed to be inside a planetary atmosphere, under high G, constantly. It isn't designed to fly around, carry fighters, or be shot at. Some kind of trade-off. Just because Star Wars can do things we don't know how to do doesn't mean they can do them all the time, with everything.

Regardless, I still concede. Too much fucking evidence.


Anyone feel like restarting the whole "hyperdrive in a gravity well" debate? That was another thing that was wrong on Jedha.

[Jub]

I mean, we already knew that you could disable hyperdrive safties and jump away from a planet or interdiction field from Legends material. So it's not like seeing it happen in the newest Disney movies is that unexpected. It's still usually considered foolish, dangerous, and as a last resort but none of those things make it impossible if you have luck, skill, and the right equipment at your side.

[Eternal_Freedom]

As an aside, we see Venators taking off from surface landing strips in ROTS (when Yoda is heading off to Kashyyyk) so they at least have landing gear etc as well.

[Jub]

Plus the whole Invisible Hand crash shows that the ship itself can easily survive even a mostly out of control and unpowered landing while allowing at least some occupants to survive the impact. That's some seriously tough stuff and solid dampening field work and even that's nothing compared to hundred and thousand G-forces under acceleration, turbolaser strikes, asteroid strikes, etc. Star Wars tech can take a damned beating and keep running.

[Lord Revan]

As an aside, we see Venators taking off from surface landing strips in ROTS (when Yoda is heading off to Kashyyyk) so they at least have landing gear etc as well.

We saw one landed in Kashyyyk as well behind the trees so Venators can land even in on regular surface of a planet not just prepared landing strips.

[Elheru Aran]

Anyone feel like restarting the whole "hyperdrive in a gravity well" debate? That was another thing that was wrong on Jedha.

Some discussion of that here.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=167342 (mostly on the second page)

No particular conclusion was reached, but it seems fair enough to say that for whatever reason it's a very uncommon move, only done either in extremity or by hotshot pilots. Certainly trying to escape the planetary eruption of a Death Star shot is 'in extremity'...