Death Star Turbolasers ?

[Kurgan]

It's been so many years since I really frequented this site, but I thought for sure somebody had calculated how many turbolasers were probably on the first death star surface, based on what we saw (or some kind of official number) but now I can't find it. Can anyone help?

[Batman]

The '96 EGVV says '15,000 capital ship turbolasers' but that's a) Legends and b) also says the DS was 120km in diametre which we know doesn't work

[Kurgan]

Thanks. I hear you about the size reduction issue in official (non-Saxton) works.

I guess I was hoping for some analysis based on the movie footage we see (extrapolated), if it exists. But good to hear there was an official total. I don't personally care whether something is "legends" or not, so long as its accurate to visuals.

The reason I ask was I was thinking again about that "firepower greater than half the star fleet" line (if we assume they aren't talking about the superlaser). Another source I found claimed 60 TLs on a star destroyer, so if we assume that's the average, then there's around 125 star destroyer level ships in the galaxy-wide Imperial fleet (plus all the fighters that don't get counted in the total like in Trek).

Minimalism?

[Batman]

It was the only'official' number I could find on short notice

[Kurgan]

You're not the hero we deserve, just the one we need...

[MKSheppard]

It's been so many years since I really frequented this site, but I thought for sure somebody had calculated how many turbolasers were probably on the first death star surface, based on what we saw (or some kind of official number) but now I can't find it. Can anyone help?

https://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWdsimpfleetsize.html

Given 45,238,934,211.7m² (45238.9km²) as the surface area of the Death Star I (from Element 1), and an estimated gun density of 100 guns per km² (from Element 4), we find a total upper limit gun count of 4,523,890.

[Batman]

The 60 number comes from some RPG source or other presumably, the OT visuals consistently show 8 turrets with 2 (ISD1)/8 (ISD2) barrels each, plus the invisibly tiny trench guns.
Not sure where 'half the starfleet' comes from (though I myself have used it in the past so it's certainly widespread)-what Han actually says in ANH is 'the ENTIRE starfleet'

[Kurgan]

It's during the rebel briefing in ANH. Han is talking about how much firepower he thinks it would take to destroy Alderaan ("the entirefleet couldn't destroy the whole planet... it'd take a thousand ships with more firepower than I've ever..."). Somebody feel free to fact-check my memory there (nevermind here it is).

Thanks for the above, that's what I was thinking of! So maybe 226,000+ ships in the Imperial Starfleet, sounds a little more reasonable. And three senior citizen clone soldiers stationed on each one... *



* this was just a joke, of course!

[MKSheppard]

So maybe 226,000+ ships in the Imperial Starfleet, sounds a little more reasonable. [/i]

Try :

SUPERHEAVY CAPITAL
30+ Star Dreadnoughts (10% of SH Capital tonnage)
3,200+ Star Cruisers (20% of SH Capital Tonnage)
25,000+ Star Destroyers (70% of SH Capital Tonnage)

721,900+ Cruisers
11.1 million Destroyers
5 million Systems Craft
11.2 million mine craft
2 million transports
510,000+ Replenishment
250,000+ Repair/Forward Tenders
20.5 million yard craft

Based off some volumetrics and the 25,000 ISD figure, and historical WWII US Navy tonnage percentages.

[Kurgan]

Woops, that was my "half the starfleet" figure. So that should have been c.452,389 for the known size of the Imperial Starfleet (capital ships) at the time of ANH. Much smaller than your figure of course.

[Batman]

That's not during the rebel briefing (for which Han wasn't present). It's when they first approach the Death Star. 'Destroyed. By the Empire'.' 'The entire starfleet couldn't destroy a whole planet. It'd take a thousand starships with more firepower than I' at which point they notice the TIE fighter

[Kurgan]

Correct (although Han is present in the clip I shared). And it says nothing about whether that means with a planetary shield or just breaking any planet that size into a debris field, so the Dodonna line is a little more helpful.

[Batman]

Yup, Han WAS there (either never noticed or forgot about that). My bad.

[Mange]

The '96 EGVV says '15,000 capital ship turbolasers' but that's a) Legends and b) also says the DS was 120km in diametre which we know doesn't work

Well, according to Ralph McQuarrie's sketches, the DS was just about 155 km in diameter (specified as 96 miles in diameter with the equatorial trench being one mile in height).

[Mange]

The '96 EGVV says '15,000 capital ship turbolasers' but that's a) Legends and b) also says the DS was 120km in diametre which we know doesn't work

Well, according to Ralph McQuarrie's sketches, the DS was just about 155 km in diameter (specified as 96 miles in diameter with the equatorial trench being one mile in height).

Sorry for the DP but I misremembered and I missed the editing window. According to the McQuarrie sketch, the DS was 148 km in diameter (92 miles).

[Kurgan]

Cool as that is, we can still note differences between the McQuarrie artwork and the finished product (like the inaccurate X-wing engines). I know a lot of stuff has been added with the video games (which in turn inspired novels or co-inspired them with RPGs), and then later still with the Disney movies, I'm more interested in just what was shown in the original film, although the background stuff is helpful for what they were thinking originally (as opposed to what was "always intended" decades later).

[vakundok]

"Gold Leader: How many guns do you think, Gold Five?
Gold Five: (over speaker) Say about twenty guns. Some on the surface, some on the towers."
And if I am not mistaken they were about 40000+ something (probably not cm) from the target.
I seem to remember that the novel said that the turrets were concentrated around the equator and the trenches.

In my opinion excluding the superlaser is wrong as it was exactly that what destroyed the planet.

[Batman]

In my opinion excluding the superlaser is wrong as it was exactly that what destroyed the planet.

For Han's outburst, yes. Dodonna's comment though was made in the context of a fighter attack, which likely wouldn't have to worry about the superlaser

[vakundok]

Well, I believe Dodonna described the battle station in general.
"The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the starfleet. ..."
1, It was two sentences later that he switched to the fighter attack idea.
2, That heavy shielding in the same sentence was passed by the fighters with a bit of shaking - so it was fairly irrelevant for the fighter attack itself albeit the reasoning for it.

[Kurgan]

So the first Death Star's surface probably wasn't completely covered in Star Destroyer sized cannons, but they were mostly around the trench?
The station was heavily shielded against a large scale attack (vs. a fleet of capital ships, say defending a planet)...

Then again, apart from the Superlaser, how should we imagine the station was intended to "fight"? Was it supposed to just crawl up to planets and blow them up, while the defensive fleet fruitlessly hammers away at the shields, and if it gets too close to the trench, get shredded by the guns?

I realize it's also able to launch all kinds of fighters, many times more than a Star Destroyer (in the movie Vader insists on launching fighters, but nowhere near what the station could actually provide in an all out battle against more than just 30 enemy craft), presumably to further harass and distract the enemy while the giant gun does its work.

[bilateralrope]

Remember that the Death Star doesn't need to eliminate the defending fleet. Just blow up the planet and then leave. Witnesses are good for letting people know that the Emperor can and will blow up planets that displease him.

The only time they would need to destroy anything other than the target planet will be if someone has an interdictor that's strong enough to stop the Death Star leaving.

[vakundok]

As per the WEG legacy, the DS1 superlaser had only one power setting and was having neither the accuracy nor the rate of fire for fleet combat.
Rouge One pretty much contradicted all of these. (OK, they missed the center of the tower by many dozen meters.)

I personally view it as:
The DS, if the enemy fleet concentration worries it at all - or just for the moral effect - fires with the superlaser killing the biggest defensive ships well outside of the range of their turbolasers.
If the enemy fleet launches a large scale last ditch attack and comes into turbolaser range, then the guns in the equitorial trench (max 40% of them, unless the enemy is stupid enough to try to encircle, in which case all of them) will massacre absuletely everything while they hopelessly (and without effect) fire at the DS shields.

Out of thin air a battery of two turrets per max 1000m seems a very conservative estimate for the equator. That is something like 500 turrets.
The surface turrets I would consider as strictly close in defense as many of them would need to fire nearly directly upwards (possible but did not seem to be designed primarily for that).
The point is that assuming the shield is proportionally stronger, even a single turbolaser, large enough to damage an enemy ship, will win the fight. Also by destroying the primary target, the enemy fleet can even be left untouched to relay the message of uselessness.

[Kurgan]

Yeah, it took a site like this to really highlight to me the value of having off axis firing of lower powered shots for fleet destruction as a feature of the DS2. I guess as a kid I thought that the Death Star wasn't finished yet, so that's all it could do (ignoring the Emperor's words as mere bravado to intimidate Luke). Now I recognize that the whole thing was much more of a setup in his scheme.


The whole low power shots for the DS1 was a Rogue One thing (there's a movie I'm constantly talking myself out of buying used... fan service is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness, and it was my "favorite" of the new series; this opinion will anger many on this forum but I don't care). I do have the original Star Wars RPG, which I'm happy to dust off... I bought it originally because the Disney canon has forced me to be more appreciative (even nostalgic) for big parts of the old EU, which I formerly had plenty of criticism for, but that's a different thread, from a different time.

[MKSheppard]

Remember that the Death Star doesn't need to eliminate the defending fleet. Just blow up the planet and then leave. Witnesses are good for letting people know that the Emperor can and will blow up planets that displease him.

Then why did they have TIE cordon sanitaire screens out in ANH to intercept people travelling to Alderaan?

[vakundok]

Then why did they have TIE cordon sanitaire screens out in ANH to intercept people travelling to Alderaan?

I think the novel was explicit that the Falcon only survived because its shields were up, which was a Solo specific procedure.

A screen of solo Ties where they are beyond each other's scan range is hard to swallow.
What about data collection? Very basic inspection of the asteroid field (propagation/density change) shadowed from the DS sensors by the field itself ...