ISD. A serious design flaw.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-04-25 05:26am

This has bugged me for quite some time, and I've never seen it mentioned.

The HTL turrets on the ISD suffer from incredibly bad layout. Fully 50% of the main battery have painfully limited firing arcs.
As it stands, two turrets have a reasonably clear bearing forward, two aft, but four turrets are limited to broadside fire only, with appropriate 90 deg. elevation. This is a horrible waste, these are the ship's primary weapons but they're confined to WWII battleship AA weapon behavior. And why the emphasis on broadside fire?

Another thing, the total lack of ventral firing arcs for the big guns is also perplexing in the 3D medium of space. When an enemy conveniantly places himself in the line of fire, this wouldn't be a problem, but to the clever commander who brazenly attacks from underneath, a massive blind spot is presented, clear of primary battery fire.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-04-25 05:29am

An ISD can dip forward slightly to bring it's other HTL turrets into a viable firing arc.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-04-25 05:34am

Frank Hipper wrote:This has bugged me for quite some time, and I've never seen it mentioned.

It has been actually.

The HTL turrets on the ISD suffer from incredibly bad layout. Fully 50% of the main battery have painfully limited firing arcs.

It's not as huge a problem as you think. If an ISD wants to bring all it's weapons to bear, it can simply drop it's nose and bring all 64 barrels (ISD2) to bear on a target in front of it, or roll to hit a target beneath it.

As it stands, two turrets have a reasonably clear bearing forward, two aft, but four turrets are limited to broadside fire only, with appropriate 90 deg. elevation. This is a horrible waste, these are the ship's primary weapons but they're confined to WWII battleship AA weapon behavior. And why the emphasis on broadside fire?

Possibly could be the same reason for broadside fire on battleships, I don't know actually.

Another thing, the total lack of ventral firing arcs for the big guns is also perplexing in the 3D medium of space. When an enemy conveniantly places himself in the line of fire, this wouldn't be a problem, but to the clever commander who brazenly attacks from underneath, a massive blind spot is presented, clear of primary battery fire.

Maybe it's that placing all the guns on the dorsal side gives an ISD commander an incentive to keep his vulnerable hangar away from the guns of an enemy capital ship *shrug*. The temptation to engage in a battle with ventral heavy weapons would be extremely great. Just roll the ship, it's space!

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-04-25 05:38am

But forcing an opponent to to roll can be exploited in multi-ship engagements. Present a tempting target on one arc, roll your ship and expose blind spots to another opponent.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-25 05:42am

Frank Hipper wrote:This has bugged me for quite some time, and I've never seen it mentioned.

Weve easily had ten threads on it

The HTL turrets on the ISD suffer from incredibly bad layout. Fully 50% of the main battery have painfully limited firing arcs.
As it stands, two turrets have a reasonably clear bearing forward, two aft, but four turrets are limited to broadside fire only, with appropriate 90 deg. elevation.

And simply by angling down a few degrees to present the dorsal side to the target the problem is solved. This also protects the hanger bay and launching craft as they form up.

This is a horrible waste, these are the ship's primary weapons but they're confined to WWII battleship AA weapon behavior. And why the emphasis on broadside fire?

Because the ships frame can only take the massive recoil in those positions I'd expect, it also gives short power feeds to the reactors.

Another thing, the total lack of ventral firing arcs for the big guns is also perplexing in the 3D medium of space. When an enemy conveniantly places himself in the line of fire, this wouldn't be a problem, but to the clever commander who brazenly attacks from underneath, a massive blind spot is presented, clear of primary battery fire.

Actually no, a quick and simple roll can present the ships full weight of fire to bear on any target. If some guns where relocated to the dorsal side then they could only be used by exposing the hanger bay and a target would always be safe from at least some of the ships heavy guns.

It makes more sense to concentrate fire on one target, blow it to bits quickly and then roll to engage another. Splitting fire is rarely a good idea, N squared support this very strongly.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-25 05:44am

Frank Hipper wrote:But forcing an opponent to to roll can be exploited in multi-ship engagements. Present a tempting target on one arc, roll your ship and expose blind spots to another opponent.

The Empire however out number and out gunned its opponents by a wide margin throughout much of the Imperator production run. In any case, the quick destruction of one hostile and then the engagement of another is preferable to the slower destruction of several hostiles at once. For that, having the full main battery able to bear on a single target is highly useful. Throw half the turrets on the bottom and you cant do that.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-04-25 05:46am

Sea Skimmer wrote:Weve easily had ten threads on it

And somehow, I've missed them. Oh well....

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-04-25 05:52am

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Frank Hipper wrote:But forcing an opponent to to roll can be exploited in multi-ship engagements. Present a tempting target on one arc, roll your ship and expose blind spots to another opponent.
The Empire however out number and out gunned its opponents by a wide margin throughout much of the Imperator production run. In any case, the quick destruction of one hostile and then the engagement of another is preferable to the slower destruction of several hostiles at once. For that, having the full main battery able to bear on a single target is highly useful. Throw half the turrets on the bottom and you cant do that.

Splitting them into two groups of four turrets directly underneath their current placement would double forward and aft firepower without resorting to having to manouver the ship, and provide cover for that, as well.
And the framing should be as strong, or easily modified, to provide a structural basis for this, too. And it's in the neighborhood for routing power feeds.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-25 05:59am

Frank Hipper wrote:Splitting them into two groups of four turrets directly underneath their current placement would double forward and aft firepower without resorting to having to manouver the ship, and provide cover for that, as well.

So what, the maneuver is still necessary to protect the hanger, only now if its done you lose half the guns. And on the broadside all weapons can now only engage within a narrow band. That will leave the ship rolling far more attempting to bring them all to bear, if its even possibul. Against more nimble targets I doubt it would be.

Sorry, but placing all the guns together makes employing them against one target far easier. You cant get around that. You also cant get around the advantage of quickly disabling or destroying individual targets engaging you.

Sokar · Post by **Sokar** » 2003-04-25 06:10am

From everything Ive seen SW Fleet engagements tend to fall into the classic wet navy 'Line of Battle' style formations where broadside firepower is maximised. Just my thoughts

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-04-25 06:12am

Sea Skimmer wrote:Sorry, but placing all the guns together makes employing them against one target far easier. You cant get around that. You also cant get around the advantage of quickly disabling or destroying individual targets engaging you.

I guess my problem comes from comparing them to historical ship design, where a level playing field was assumed from the get-go.

Being forced into manouvering your ship still seems like throwing away initiative in order to bring your weapons to bear, though.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-25 06:30am

Frank Hipper wrote:
Being forced into manouvering your ship still seems like throwing away initiative in order to bring your weapons to bear, though.

Until we started chucking missiles around warships also needed to maneuver to present there guns as well, they also generally needed to steam in straight lines to have accurate fire. Most of the time any maneuver for an ISD to present weapons would be a simple roll, which doesn't cost you the ability to maneuver in other ways.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-04-25 06:44am

Sea Skimmer wrote: Most of the time any maneuver for an ISD to present weapons would be a simple roll, which doesn't cost you the ability to maneuver in other ways.

But what's to stop your opponent from manouvering with you to avoid your fire?

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2003-04-25 07:27am

Frank Hipper wrote:
Sea Skimmer wrote: Most of the time any maneuver for an ISD to present weapons would be a simple roll, which doesn't cost you the ability to maneuver in other ways.
But what's to stop your opponent from manouvering with you to avoid your fire?

They would have to accelerate, turn AND roll, while all you have to do is roll

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-04-25 09:45am

What about heavily armed escort ships?? Wouldn't they be able to compensate for this somehow??

JodoForce · Post by **JodoForce** » 2003-04-25 10:19am

I would have to agree on this one...

The only way you can engage in all directions without manoeuvring is by spreading your guns evenly all over the place, and how are you going to concentrate fire on one target then?

To protect your underside all you need is stronger shields and armour on that arc so that it can take the pounding long enough for the ISD to finish off the ship on the other side, turn around and rip the ship on this side... but the ISD would probably be presenting its business side towards the side with heavier incoming fire, unless the ISDs are outnumbered so that the objective is to to pick off a few stray ships and then run...

Engaging targets that can fly circles around ur battleship is a job for starfighters, anyway.

vakundok · Post by **vakundok** » 2003-04-25 11:06am

A captain positions correctly his ISD (nose down). Does he have to watch upwards to see the enemy? It would be very uncomfortable.
I think the flaw is that the ISD canot use all of its main guns when full speed is required.

Kerneth · Post by **Kerneth** » 2003-04-25 11:33am

The captain may not be able to "see" his enemy out the bridge windows but he's still got sensor readouts which give more and better information than the human eye ever could, especially at the distances involved in space combat. And, realistically, I'd think that having the bridge windows angled AWAY from incoming enemy fire would be rather an advantage, since I don't think the transparisteel viewports are as heavily-armored as the starship's hull!

Keep in mind also that the ISD's heavy turbolaser batteries are designed to target big, slow-moving capital ships, not small vessels that could easily manuever to stay out of their firing arc. Using HTLs on a Corellian Corvette or Gunship would be massive overkill!

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2003-04-25 11:41am

Kerneth wrote:The captain may not be able to "see" his enemy out the bridge windows but he's still got sensor readouts which give more and better information than the human eye ever could, especially at the distances involved in space combat.

I guess the captain views the battle as a holographic projection. Should give good overview.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-04-25 01:01pm

If an ISD's main guns were superfiring, that would solve a lot of problems right there.

vakundok · Post by **vakundok** » 2003-04-25 02:31pm

Terran naval battleships were usually able to point 30-50% of their main guns to rear. I imagined a ship as large as a mon cal cruiser to be able to do this and the following situation:
-Phase 1: Long range usual battle. The ISD lowers the noise. It outguns the opposing ship.
-Phase 2: The cruiser turns around and starts to retreat at full speed. (We saw that even ships as large as the Home One can turn quite quickly.)

In my opinion the imperial captain has two possibilities:
-Does not follow the cruiser. Morally he looses the battle.
-Follows the cruiser. The ISD looses 75 percent of its main gun. It is possible that 30-50% of the main guns of the cruiser will outgun the 25% of that of the ISD.

I may be wrong, but it seems (to me) that the ISD will possibly loose this theoretical situation only because the main weapon arrangement.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-04-25 02:34pm

Frank Hipper wrote:But forcing an opponent to to roll can be exploited in multi-ship engagements. Present a tempting target on one arc, roll your ship and expose blind spots to another opponent.

In massive fleet engagements, the range is going to be in thousands of kilometers. If rolling simply presents you to another target, you're either surrounded or in such close quarters you're fucked regardless.

Placing heavy weapons on the ventral face is a horrid idea.

Both the soft hangar and main reactor bulb are exposed on the ventral face. Placing valuable firepower on a part of your ship you should never be facing the enemy with is downright wasteful and stupid.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-04-25 03:48pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Both the soft hangar and main reactor bulb are exposed on the ventral face. Placing valuable firepower on a part of your ship you should never be facing the enemy with is downright wasteful and stupid.

Covering a massive Achilles' heel is stupid?

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2003-04-25 03:58pm

Frank Hipper wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:Both the soft hangar and main reactor bulb are exposed on the ventral face. Placing valuable firepower on a part of your ship you should never be facing the enemy with is downright wasteful and stupid.
Covering a massive Achilles' heel is stupid?

Yes it is, because the ventral side should never face an enemy capship.
If it does, the ISD's in deep shit anyway and might as well rotate to get out of it.

SWPIGWANG · Post by **SWPIGWANG** » 2003-04-25 04:13pm

Like HH, it is all about rolling

Concentration of firepower = The best way to go, haven't RTS taught you ppl that already?

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ISD. A serious design flaw.

ISD. A serious design flaw.

Re: ISD. A serious design flaw.

Re: ISD. A serious design flaw.