About the SW blasters and handheld weapons

[K. A. Pital]

Well, I have decided, despite my bad English, to make some notes about the Star Wars handheld weapons.
http://www.lab321.ru/~stas/hand_weapons.html

Comments are appreciated. Is there anything I should have mentioned or am I anywhere wrong?
P.S. As for the stormtrooper armor being not pierced by a blaster shot, which I mention in the notes, it's here:



The stormie armor is not that all-useless!

[His Divine Shadow]

To rip a hand of an unarmored human is much easier than that of an armoured droid, so blasters have no problems with dismembering people. Personal shielding and armour seem to be effective only to a point, and occasionaly fail against blaster fire. Blaster bolts can throw people in the air like a good Magnum 44' would. It should be noted, however, that blasters differ greatly in range and power. We have also seen Han Solo's blaster crush rocky soil in ANH.


Blasters have certainly equal or more firepower than that of modern small arms.
Infamous foolish objections:
Q: No, the blaster didn't blast anything rocky in ANH! It was dirt, just packed dirt. In the ANH SE script:
Chewbacca leads the group into a giant dirt pit that is Docking Bay 94
A: Hmm, I wonder from what time "dirt pit" became "pit which walls were made from packed dirt". Obviously the Docking Bay 94 is a dirt pit - it's full of dirt, as dirty as anything else on Tatooine. But it's gouged from rocky soil.
Docking bay ninety-four, Luke noted, was no different in appearance from a host of other grandiosely named docking bays scattered throughout Mos Eisley. It consisted mostly of an entrance rampway and an enormous pit gouged from the rocky soil.

Incorrect, while the pits are just compressed sand, the entry way we see is not compressed sand, it is something similar to concrete.
Also note the quote itself:
" It consisted mostly of an entrance rampway and an enormous pit gouged from the rocky soil."

Solo fired at the entrance rampway and it was clearly concrete or a very similar material, hence Solo shot at concrete and the power figures here I guess is around 3-5MJ

[His Divine Shadow]

A: The blaster's mechanism is all in it's name. It's not a laser, as some have assumed. It's a blaster, designed to blast things. Therefore, the blaster goes for kinetic and thermal impact, both.

A blaster is a buzzword for a large amount of different energy weapons, some blasters are lasers, some work on the principle of laser-cannons and TL's some fire projectiles that contain charged particle energy.

A blaster's kinetic impact is a complex thing. First, it produces concussive effects throwing people in the air and knocking them off their feet, crushing rocks, cutting armoured droids in halves in AOTC.

The kinetic impact is deceptive, it's actually the effect of vaporized material being ejected from the impact point, propelling people into the air.

[His Divine Shadow]

Blaster quotes:

Pg. 29: Exceptionaly powerful clone trooper blaster rifles: Max-power shot leaves a .5 m (1.6 ft) crater in any ferrocrete wall

(ref: Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections)

Pg. 301: Madine was thrown backward into the metal wall as the killing beam burned through to his heart.

(ref: Darksaber)

Pg. 23 (fold out section): heavy blaster rifle uses video gunsight display in helmet visor and has effective range of 10 kilometers (6 miles) when mounted on a tripod

(ref: Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections)

Pg. 342: Count Dooku was a fencer, following an older fighting style, one more effective against lightsabers than against projectile weapons like blasters. The Jedi on the whole had abandoned the old fighting style, considering it almost irrelevant against the enemies of the present galaxy

(ref: Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones Novellization)

Blasters are commonly reffered to as projectile weapons, indicating they fire some kind of massive projectile, couple with this following quote, it is believe that standard blasters fire a projectile with anti-gravitational properties that contains high energy plasma:

Pg. 39: Clone troopers are issued plasma guns of two types. Like all standard blaster weapons, these guns create a charged plasma bolt using a small amount of Tibanna gas.

(ref: Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary)

Pg. 20: The blaster bolt that had killed Captain Sreas had scooped out a third of his upper chest, leaving behind a cauterized concavity into which the burned edges of the hole in his blouse were fused.

(ref: Tyrant's Test)

[His Divine Shadow]

Common blasters have varying firepower, it is likely that most ordinary kill-shots are 1-3MJ in charge, the larger weapons like Clone Rifles and E-11's and heavy pistols like Han's weapon can probably reach figures higher than 10MJ on max power.

This is what an overloading blaster can do:
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Pg. 196: Almost inaudible in the cupboard the blasters' double whine scaled upward, an insectlike warning of an explosion that would certainly destroy most of the house.
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-Children of the Jedi

[K. A. Pital]

His Divine Shadow
Thanks a lot!
Incorrect, while the pits are just compressed sand, the entry way we see is not compressed sand, it is something similar to concrete.
Yes, that is true.
The kinetic impact is deceptive, it's actually the effect of vaporized material being ejected from the impact point, propelling people into the air.
Hmm, I thought about that, too. Strangely enough, the blaster did not hit the R2 unit in ROTJ, but it went flying over all the entryway, so I think something like a concussion shockwave occurs from a blaster hit.
some blasters are lasers, some work on the principle of laser-cannons and TL's some fire projectiles that contain charged particle energy.
Where is this info from? Actually I think the blaster's modus operandi is somewhat different from that of a TL (or is it?).
than against projectile weapons like blasters.
Yes, actually it's a pretty good quote, thank you. A pity that I still don't have the AOTC nov. in original
As for other quotes, some of them I had already seen, but I don't like to refer to EU much, because I don't like the EU itself Although it always counts as a secondary source.
contains high energy plasma
Hmm, it's not the plasma that gives the blast it's color, I think... Must be something more than just plasma in a forcefield.

[His Divine Shadow]

Thanks a lot!

Be carefull with that smiely, it's hard to tell wheter you are being positive or negative, to me it indicates negative sarcasm.

Hmm, I thought about that, too. Strangely enough, the blaster did not hit the R2 unit in ROTJ, but it went flying over all the entryway, so I think something like a concussion shockwave occurs from a blaster hit.

I think thats due to shock from being connected to the interface slot when it was destroyed, maybe he was thrown back due to electric shock or something.

Where is this info from? Actually I think the blaster's modus operandi is somewhat different from that of a TL (or is it?)

It's what we've been able to come up with, look in the observing the behvaior of TL's and blasters thread.
Blasters in the movies alone exhibit a bunch of conflicting qualities, add conflicting official evidence to that and the method that leaves the least exlusion of evidence is attributing many weapon types to the term "blaster".
The Visual Dictionary seems to indicate the most common blaster is the plasma projectile model, but there are those that work on the beam model too, we see atleast two instances of these in the movies:

Tantive-IV boarding scene, a translucent bolt is shown, this must be beam type weapon since plasma would not be translucent
ROTJ, the bolt that hit luke's hand did damage before it arrive it is likely of the same kind of construct as turbolasers, but on a smaller scale.

Hmm, it's not the plasma that gives the blast it's color, I think... Must be something more than just plasma in a forcefield.

The color of the plasma is likely shielded in the energy field that contains it(the field or whatever being diffuse and not transparent), which is likely generated by a projectile in the bolt too, because they are not affected by gravity and there is no such thing as a field that holds itself together without a projector.

[K. A. Pital]

His Divine Shadow

Be carefull with that smiely, it's hard to tell wheter you are being positive or negative, to me it indicates negative sarcasm.

Positive of course, I thought it meant to say "thank you". (Uh, never mind, my English kills me).

I think thats due to shock from being connected to the interface slot when it was destroyed, maybe he was thrown back due to electric shock or something.

I checked the scene bit by bit, he's not even near to be driving, he's just flying. The only explanation is that the slot was destroyed in the very point of his connection, but that's kinda weird. Also reminds me of the stormtroopers in Docking Bay 94, they were blown off-foot just by a blast near them. That's pretty good concussion. And the stormie on the DS bridge, he was blown off not even being hit by the blaster. It presumably occurs from very quick vaporisation of material, causing the explosion and the kinetic shockwave.

this must be beam type weapon since plasma would not be translucent

Yes, that's what bothers me with "plasma" hype, it's just not quite plasma there, I think.

the bolt that hit luke's hand did damage before it arrive

Did it? I'm really interested where the TL's or blasters did pre-arriving damage, BTW, because I didn't see this in the movies, or maybe I wasn't taking the right screens?

such thing as a field that holds itself together without a projector

True. Yes, I think that it's generated by the projectile, because nothing else can do it.