Andromeda Weapons Strength.

[Renewed_Valour1]

The fact is the Standard offensive missile max range is less than 2 light minutes, as Dilan comment in Belly of the beast, normal combat range is 30 Light seconds..

The range of your standard OM-5 is about 1.5 light minutes. Dylan makes no such comment about the standard combat range being 30 light seconds. We've seen Andromeda engage out to over 8 light minutes with smart missiles and extended range variants have a range of 24 light minutes. Drones are used nearly all the time so deployment of drones isn't much of an issue.

the reason Dilan closes against the Pyrians is due to the Pyrian ECM. The Plasma technology that the Pryian employ makes the normal passive sensors blind and forces the andromeda to use active tracking, which requires the Andromeda to close to at least 1/2 the range she normally engages...

The Andromeda doesn't need to close the range to use active sensors. If you think that one then you're dreaming.

All the active sensors did is reveal the Andromeda's location to the Pyrians who returned fire with AG mass packets. The AGMPs then immobilized the Andromeda while the Pyrians close down the range to engage with plasma cannons. The reason why Hunt waited so long to return fire per statements by the Tech Advisor on SlipstreamBBS is that Torchships have superior point defenses to anything the Commonwealth had. Now engaging at shorter ranges let's the missiles have more AP fuel in them allowing them to maneuver more and when they hit you have the extra fuel being added to the blast.

The point is that Dilan has stated on several occasion that the yield of these missiles are 20MT, and other fact is that the Missile tubes do propel the missile, but only to a distant where they can engage their own drive units safetly.

A logical statement since that is the damage a 1 kg missiles would cause at the slowest velocity the missiles operate at. You never count on the highest yield but rather figure for the lowest one and hope for the highest. Against targets as fast and maneuverable as Andromeda vessels you'd want your missiles to save fuel by not accelerating to full speed thus giving them more fuel to maneuver at the target.

Against flying pigs like Star Wars and Star Trek vessels you have no worries. Their ships are too slow and unwieldy for a kinetic missile moving at 90 PSL to have much trouble hitting them.

From Home fires, we know that the Andromeda is short of drones and slip fighters, and these item must require material or components that cannot be manufactured on the Andromeda.. But there appear no shortage of the standard Offensive missile, since as Dilan normal tell Rommie, " We find you a nice Asteriod belt"..

Rommie said in Home Fires that she was short of missiles too so we know she did not fully restock after "All too Human". Hunt's statement most likely meant they are only going to make enough missiles to resupply some of their magazines.

Andromeda takes a lot of battle damage and they have no shipyard to repair her. She is always damaged; Harper has said at several points that her remaining operational is a miracle. Most of the resources they mine and time they have are spent constructing replacement parts for damage control and performing damage control. Missiles are going to be a low priority on the list compared to the other priorities. The other thing is most of Hunt's time is spent rebuilding the Commonwealth. He can't do that if he spends all his time making missiles. We know from Home Fires that she most likely never had a fully loadout of missiles since "Angel Dark Demon Bright".

[Renewed_Valour1]

Yes but a small-vectored thrust job could provide course corrections, while the bulk of the thrust comes from the launcher.

The ELS tubes according to statements on the BBS eject the missiles at about 80 PSL. However since kinetic missiles can be deployed in stationary missiles fields (D-Minus 0, Una Salus Victus, & All too Human) the engines can also accelerate them to attack speed from a rest.

[omegaLancer]

Dilan did make the statement about Combat range ( which I assume is the standard or optimal range ) when he told Rommie that Bekka would state out of combat range ( and he later said around 30 light seconds) ..

This is not to say that this is the max range of the offensive payload ( which if you remember i said was over a light minutes)...

The BBS makes no offical statement of the speed of the missile being ejected from the tubes ( I have been a memeber of the Andromeda forum from the beginning and to me is the finest Sci fi serie since SW)..

As for SW vessel being pigs.. The Nietchzen used converted freighter and Star liners ( who acceleration fall in to the range of SW Ships) and cleaned the Plow of the High guard... So Speed doesnot help if the enemy is superiour in fire power and numbers...

And if you check the lastest Star war novels feature X wings ( the slowest and more pigest of the SW fighters ) making attack runs at 90 PSL...
So speed doesnot matter ..

As for the fact, by going active, you increase the Lag time for CC of combat by 2, now you must wait to the signal to reach the target and for it return to the sensor.. So it only makes sense to decrease your range to allow you to react faster....That the problem of not having FTL sensors to give you a real time view of the battle.. Like Dilan said " physics sucks..."

[Renewed_Valour1]

Dilan did make the statement about Combat range ( which I assume is the standard or optimal range ) when he told Rommie that Bekka would state out of combat range ( and he later said around 30 light seconds) ..

I remember the statement about combat range but I don't recall anything about a 30 light second statement. I'll rewatch the episode… But in the meantime unless you provide a quote I prefer to trust my memory.

The BBS makes no offical statement of the speed of the missile being ejected from the tubes

Paul commented on it sometime ago in the Andromeda Universe Forum. I'll try to dig up the quote. Hopefully it wasn't in the messed up archives.

The Nietchzen used converted freighter and Star liners ( who acceleration fall in to the range of SW Ships) and cleaned the Plow of the High guard...

If you think that the Nietzschean used standard engines in those converted warships than you are dreaming. We know they aren't in fact. The Maru at several points have managed to dogfight against military grade fighters and patrol craft with a fair degree of success. She isn't as maneuverable or capable of accelerating as fast as them but she's not far behind. The Maru like the Falcon is a ridiculously over engined and modified plus she is a tug to start with. In "Double Helix" The Nietzschean fleet chasing the Maru was capable of overtaking her.

And if you check the lastest Star war novels feature X wings ( the slowest and more pigest of the SW fighters ) making attack runs at 90 PSL..

Funny we've never seen one hint of that in any of the movies.

[Crossover_Maniac]

As for SW vessel being pigs.. The Nietchzen used converted freighter and Star liners ( who acceleration fall in to the range of SW Ships)

ROTFLMAO!!!! According to All Systems University, CW freighters acceleration range is up to 30,000 g's. And I believe the key word is 'converted'. IOW: souped-up engines. The Maru can pull 67,000 g's easily, which is on par with Luke's proton's torpedo.

and cleaned the Plow of the High guard... So Speed doesnot help if the enemy is superiour in fire power and numbers...

You do know Andromeda universe missiles has accelerations in the million of g's and top speeds of .95c? And on top of that, the ordinance is guided.

As for the fact, by going active, you increase the Lag time for CC of combat by 2, now you must wait to the signal to reach the target and for it return to the sensor.. So it only makes sense to decrease your range to allow you to react faster....That the problem of not having FTL sensors to give you a real time view of the battle.. Like Dilan said " physics sucks..."

It sucks for the SW universe. Tell me, how useful is FTL sensors are when your turbolasers only travel at c or less. Tell me how useful are turbolaser s against a target thirty light-seconds out. All the gunner can do is guest where it will be thirty seconds in the future, shoot, and hope the pilot is dumb enough to fly right into it instead of varying his velocity acceleration to make himself a harder target to shoot. In fact, I don't see how turbolasers are effective outside a range of a few light seconds even with FTL sensors. That's why the CW uses missiles for hitting targets at ranges getter than 6 light-seconds.

[omegaLancer]

Well first of all if a target is unaware of of your present, all you need to do is use your targeting computer to predict, base on a ship speed and course, where the target ship will be when your TL bolts arrives ( As from the NH novel they call such targeting computers are called Predictor), it not hard when you have the wealth of AI ( hell the MF has 4 droid cpu just to allow Han to fly it). so the unspecting ship flys into a barrage of TL...

Second Flak.. Even after your target goes evasive ( if it survive the first barrage) you set you TL to Flak and using the same system you predict which volume of space that the enemy ship will be in and saturate that volume of space with the energy of 10,000's GT.. ( actually this attack is more effective if the light bullet theory of turbo lasers are true. Instead there would be thousand of energy bolts being created )..This work if using FTL sensors cause the positional and velocity information that being fed into the computer is real time...

With out Shields a few GT worth of radiation would seriously damage any High guard vessel ( the DSX's would be more resistant to such attacks due to Cold plasma armor)

Compare to to missiles that need to wait for targeting info to arrive and must content with a floored of ECM , jamming and defensive fire it a no brainer.. Turbolasers at any range....

[Connor MacLeod]

Conceded. However, I disagree strongly with your theory that they use some of their stated mass as fuel. It seems far more likely that one kilogram is simply the unchanging mass of the payload, with any fuel being extra. For it's yield to be 20 megatons at .9 c it would have to lose over a quarter of it's mass, and over half at .95 c. Nowhere have I seen anything suggesting that this happens.

I remember it from a pre-crash slipstreambbs discussion (the missiles were discussed quite a bit early on) - I can't find the quote, and its possible I am remembering incorrectly. What you didn't point out as the other problem of my theory is that it requires nearly 100% efficiency of a M/AM reaction, which is unlikely.

However, AG technology appears to be some sort of "get more energy out of anything" free card in Andromeda. It can allow vessels that mass 100,000 tons to be accelerated as if they weighed a fraction of that weight, yet they still retain the KE of a 100,000 ton vessel moving at nearly .5c. Even moreso, another quote I recall from pre-crash slipstraem stated that the AG field "mass reduction" effect required only GW range power to achieve. Regardless, the probable answer is that similar principles apply to the missiles (and that only a part of the energy comes from a M/AM reaction. Some, or even most, probably comes from the AG field effect)

The opposite theory being proposed that the missiles can be higher than 20 MT at higher speeds I see as also being problematic. When OM-5s are typically discussed on the board and in the show, they are always spoken of as if they are fixed-yield. Not once to my knowledge (although I admit I can be wrong here) that the missiles are adjustable yield. If this capability existed, i would imagine it would have been mentioned.

Perhaps what the effect is is a combination of the velocity imparted by the ELS tubes with whatever acceleration the missile itself manages.

The chief advantage of the kinetic warhead is that it needs nothing other than the KE it builds up. But this is also something of a limitation, as the damage it does is tied into its velocity and acceleration, and that velocity will at the same time affect its manuverability. At light-minute ranges this might not matter as much, but if the missile has to manuver alot or needs to make a sharp turn, it has to sacrifice some velocity (and therefore damage) to improve mobility. And vice versa. And this further is compounded by its finite fuel reserves.

As Renewed VAlor posted below, Kinetic warheads can receive an initial boost of up to .8c from the launch tubes, but it can also achieve near-c speeds by its own acceleration. Combining the two may result in the "increased" yield.

[Connor MacLeod]

Against flying pigs like Star Wars and Star Trek vessels you have no worries. Their ships are too slow and unwieldy for a kinetic missile moving at 90 PSL to have much trouble hitting them.

This depends largely on the distance involved, the flight times and velocities of both the missile and target ship. If the target has a significant velocity built up that they cannot immediately change (IE they're moving in a predictable path for a fairly reasonable amount of time) then its alot harder to dodge (The Andromeda's accel is the biggest advantage when you're engaging at arget at relatavistic combat velocities.)

But if they're remaining relatively stationary, or have fairly low velocities (Say they can decelerate to a stop in a few seconds or less) accuracy can be harder. KE warheads rely on their velocity as well as mass to determine their damage. This means that their "ending" velocities are likely going to be very high, and as I said before, damage and manuverability would be inversely related. Even the high accelerations that OM's are capable of still take several seconds to decelerate from to a complete stop, and they suffer from inertia - sharp turns are obviously going to be a problem. And if the missile tries to decelerate to make a sharp turn, it obviously sacrifices some of its overall destructiveness.

Most ships of other universes have accelerations in the hundreds if not thousands of gees minimum, and most generally have reliable FTL sensors (although this isn't strictly neccesary for detection) at long distances you talik about (tens of light seconds, to say nothing of light minutes), anticipating incoming missiles may not be a problem.. and if they're prepared, they don't neccesarily need a long time to get going in a direction. And once they move, the missiles aren't likely to have enough time to react and turn to follow, and will shoot past.

This is why they fire so many - saturation fire designed to ensure at least a few hits againts a highly agile (in the Andromeda verse) target with EW and strong defenses.

[Connor MacLeod]

Funny we've never seen one hint of that in any of the movies.

Cop out. Velocities such as those would require significantly longer engagement times for an organic pilot (light seconds, likely). Shorter ranges require lower velocities/accelerations, etc. Theoretically, ships CAN engage from beyond visual range, but its generally impractical against other SW vessels. This is largely because of the close technological parity between opponents in various respects - for example, "Han Solo at Star's End" indicates that the parity between EW and sensor/targeting capabilities is so close/equal that its more reliable to rely on visual targeting (or visual sensors, which are nearly impossible to jam) to target fighters. Another potential factor in some cases may be teh coherency of a given weapon, or the travel time involved (if we're talking about missiles.) And as often mentioned, the DS at Yavin (for example) had jamming strong enough that manuverability was reduced (if your sensors are jammed it can be hard to navigate so close to something at such high speed, or if you are unlikely to get a good warning. Also, it may also physically impede mobility in some fashion - such technology exists - Intrdictors can do so indirectly - as per the Rogue Squadron "The Phantom Affair" graphic novel).

The "relatavistic" engagement velocities Omegalancer refers to occur during the NJO period of novels - the Yuuzhan Vong. The Vong's technological capabilities and such are FAR more different in nature (if not different in level/parity) to NR/Imperial tech than NR/Imperial tech is to each other. Hence, the above restrictions that exist among Imperial/REbel/NR technology does not neccesarily exist.

I hope this really isn't going to devolve into a "Deny the EU because we don't see it in canon, so it doesn't exist" arguments. I really dislike those who try to take such a silly tactic (much as those who love to cry inconsistency to dismiss something they don't like in a given universe.)

[Connor MacLeod]

ROTFLMAO!!!! According to All Systems University, CW freighters acceleration range is up to 30,000 g's. And I believe the key word is 'converted'. IOW: souped-up engines. The Maru can pull 67,000 g's easily, which is on par with Luke's proton's torpedo.

Actually, the 72,000 g acceleration for protrops is conservative because: 1.) it applies to a fighter-scale warhead, and 2.) it assumes only 1 km/s velocity. Based on the targeting computer readout, its possible they were going at several km/s down that trench before firing)

Not that it matters much. The missiles would not be able to quickly catch up with an Andromeda verse ship, except in a head-on engagement. Which is probably why its good SW ships tend to emphasize beam-weapon combat.

You do know Andromeda universe missiles has accelerations in the million of g's and top speeds of .95c? And on top of that, the ordinance is guided.

Its also interceptable, susceptible to EW, and must breach the shields to do any damage to said SW vessel. And at the closing speeds of the missiles, even thousand-gee accelerations if done at the last minute can cause some missiles to overshoot, especially if they have ample warning (of course, there being hundreds, some are likely bound to get through). And of course, there is microjumping to another location.

It sucks for the SW universe. Tell me, how useful is FTL sensors are when your turbolasers only travel at c or less. Tell me how useful are turbolaser s against a target thirty light-seconds out. All the gunner can do is guest where it will be thirty seconds in the future, shoot, and hope the pilot is dumb enough to fly right into it instead of varying his velocity acceleration to make himself a harder target to shoot. In fact, I don't see how turbolasers are effective outside a range of a few light seconds even with FTL sensors. That's why the CW uses missiles for hitting targets at ranges getter than 6 light-seconds.

It helps because you get an accurate, generally real-time picture of where your opponent is, especially when a.) They do not have FTL sensors and b.) they cannot detect (or even jam) such FTL transmissions. While I dont think its even remotely possible to hit something (unless its immobilized, damaged, etc) at 30 light seconds out unless its moving at siginificant relatavistic speed ona head on course (takes time to decelerate remember, inertia and all)

Andromeda ships are restricted by a time lag issue, depending on sensors used, as well as the "lightspeed or lower" speed limit. Any data they get on their opponents (missiles, ships, drones) is by definition "old", even by a few seconds, which can be problematic when they have better tactical FTL and FTL sensing capability. Unless you can somehow deny access to that FTL capability, there's nothing preventing said opponnet from "jumping" away from the missiles, and you wouldn't even neccesarily know they were gone for a number of minutes or seconds.

This doesn't even account for interception by point defense, EW, or even simple dodging (all of which I discussed before) - which missiles are vulnerable to. The missiles have limited manuverability at such high speeds, and deceleration sacrifices damage capability (as I've discussed) and quite possibly can be vulnerable to EW more easily than a ship is (you can only cram so much sensing capability into a small package, no matter how miniaturized it is).

And of course, there's little chance that the conventional missile payload will be able to breach SW shields to begin with, even assuming perfect accuracy. They're used to taking multi gigaton impacts from energy weapons, and particle shield absorption capability is equivalent to ray shield (ref ISard's revenge - 80 VSD concussion missiles are enough to knock down a Mon Cal cruiser's shields, which leaves the MC cruiser's hull vulnerable to energy fire. Energy absorption/dissipation of ray and particle shielding would have to be similar, else taking down the shields with one kind of weapon - ie missiles - would not allow other weapons - ie turbolasers - to breach.

Dont get me wrong. Any andromeda vessel has the capability to keep out of range of anything the ISD might conceivably throw at it, but there's little it can really do to harm it at its longer ranges.

[omegaLancer]

I tend to agree with you connor on all points but one.. By performing a micro jump a SW ship could literally jump to with a few 1000 km ( actually shorter if you take into accounts the Black ship triology) of another ship.. Without FTL sensor it basically means that A CW ship would not detect the incoming ship until it emerges out of hyperspace and begins opening up with TL batteries..

[Connor MacLeod]

I tend to agree with you connor on all points but one.. By performing a micro jump a SW ship could literally jump to with a few 1000 km ( actually shorter if you take into accounts the Black ship triology) of another ship.. Without FTL sensor it basically means that A CW ship would not detect the incoming ship until it emerges out of hyperspace and begins opening up with TL batteries..

Maybe. The obvious problem is though that the jumping ship is to the target in question, the more difficult the jump is (and usuallymore dangeorus). A simple countermeasure to this is to get within say 15-20 light seconds of the target (far too close to microjump reliably for the most part) - this also shortens their sensor lag time and missile travel/response time, as well as remaining out of effective TL range.


Even then, if the Andromeda vessel is moving at any decent clip of speed (say 30% c) it could already be moving AWAY from any Imeprial ship, thereby opening the range again, preventing another microjump, and more likely getting a few good licks in that the Imperial ship CAN'T dodge. And besides that, they lose that "1000 km range" advantage you hoped for.




Much simpler to chose some other random point and jump towards it. Judicious use of FTL sensors as well as microjumping (and their eqvuivalents in other universes, should it be a non SW vessel) can help to even the odds a bit.

[Crossover_Maniac]

You do know Andromeda universe missiles has accelerations in the million of g's and top speeds of .95c? And on top of that, the ordinance is guided.

Its also interceptable,

Only by missiles with comparable speeds and accelerations and by a laser with a weapon systems that can pick off fist-size projectiles traveling a .9c within a few light-seconds from your ship. SW ships can't even hit the Falcon when it charged at it. Has that been a GHC and Solo tried that same stunt, he would be eating antiprotons and OM-5's offensive missiles.

susceptible to EW,

Which can be conpensated by getting closer to the other ship and using fighters with offensive missiles of their own.

and must breach the shields to do any damage to said SW vessel.

If SW ships can't take a pounding inside the Hoth asteroid fields what makes you think they can take being hit by relativistic projectiles.

And at the closing speeds of the missiles, even thousand-gee accelerations if done at the last minute can cause some missiles to overshoot, especially if they have ample warning (of course, there being hundreds, some are likely bound to get through).

You mean the same missiles that can hit something as manueverable as the Andromeda can miss the ship with only 2% of the linear acceleration and virtually no maneverability.

And of course, there is microjumping to another location.

I'll ask you the same question you asked the Trekkies about warp strafing: why haven't we seen it used in combat before?

[omegaLancer]

Micro jumping has beem done ( not on the Big screen, unless the Novel for ANH counts to for rebel starfighters to get near the deathstar) Black ship crisis, Chewie use it to get near a SSD to recues Han.. Lando did it twice, in the Dark Empire serie, one to Ambush a Command Ship in obrit of Mon Camalia during the battle for the planet, and against the Eclips to board it.

Micro jumps are common in the EU, in and out of combat...The fact that SW ship have FTL that allow then to detect Ship in hyperspace so it general does not result in a surprise attack...

[Connor MacLeod]

Only by missiles with comparable speeds and accelerations and by a laser with a weapon systems that can pick off fist-size projectiles traveling a .9c within a few light-seconds from your ship.

Depends on when its detected, how far out, and how long they track them. Given the missiles have to travel TOWARDS the enemy ship to hit, and the high speeds they travel at make rapid, sharp turns difficult. Its entirely feasible to hit an object moving more or less TOWARDS you that has

Even so, how are we assuming SW vessels can't? In SBS (and, judging by the upcoming previews for Destiny's Way) fighters are quite capable of traveling at substnatial fractions of lightspeed, if not near-c, even in combat situations. How is it the missiles and torpedoes somehow are not capable of this, even if only being launched from a near-c platform?

THe size isn't going to neccesarily be the problem - its going to be detectability by sensors (what emissions it gives off, how visible it is to active sensing, etc.) If the missile is traveling in more or less a straight line (which it has to at some point) and the destination is known, it can be predicted. This is why they launch hundreds of missiles - to hopefully insure saturation of point defense in the hopes SOME warheads get through.

And again, how is GT level damage going to harm a starship that can shrug off TT level damage (for most ships) or greater? Without your attempts to pull a "Darkstar Canon/official restructuring" tactic?

SW ships can't even hit the Falcon when it charged at it. Has that been a GHC and Solo tried that same stunt, he would be eating antiprotons and OM-5's offensive missiles.

The FAlcon in TESB was wanted by VAder alive, if oyu recall, so that he could capture Skywalker. This would obviously hamper attempts to stop the Falcon, as they would be shooting to disable or cripple it, not destroy it. Needa would not riskVader's wrath by inadvertently destroying the Falcon to save even his own skin.

Which can be conpensated by getting closer to the other ship and using fighters with offensive missiles of their own.

And just how close is this? How powerful is SW EW relative to CW EW? Are you talking about engaging at visual distances? Bad news, since that virtually guarantees that the Imperial ship will be able to attack and destroy a CW ship if/when it connects. The CW ship will want to do as much as possible to stay OUT of energy weapons range of any Imperial vessel, since in an energy duel it is clearly going to be outmatched unless somehow draining the AP tanks on the ship can generate TT level firepower enough to breach shielding.

As for fighters, they're not really a problem either. They're much more easily tracked than the missiles, and they can be damaged/destroyed by megawatt-range PDL weapons. The poitn defense weapons on an Imperial ship would have no problems.

If SW ships can't take a pounding inside the Hoth asteroid fields what makes you think they can take being hit by relativistic projectiles.

Because the Hoth situation has been reconciled (particularily the so-called asteroid incident), and you apparently choose to ignore this fact. Anyone who has been on Mike's site for this long would know that already. If you don't know what I'm talking bout, go read up on shields on both Mike's page and Wayne's.

But in short, the variables in the Hoth Asteroid incident do not reliably or concretely contradict the defensive capabilities established for SW vessels. Its only an attempt to use a vague and unquantifiable incident to somehow support the notion that Andromeda ships can breach SW ship shields easily (unless you somehow are able to produce a concrete quantification? I'll hope if so that there is evidence to back it up )

You mean the same missiles that can hit something as manueverable as the Andromeda can miss the ship with only 2% of the linear acceleration and virtually no maneverability.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to clarify the comparsion by telling me which specific instances you are comparing to (both in SW and Andromeda). You have this distressing habit of using vague references to back up your argument.

I'll ask you the same question you asked the Trekkies about warp strafing: why haven't we seen it used in combat before?

Twice in the novel: "The Last Command" (Ex: battle at Coruscant where Thrawn deployed the cloaked interdictors)

It was used in "Rebel Stand" by the ISD "Errant Venture" as well as the Lusankya (The Venture dropped out of hyperspace in range of two YV cruisers and blew both away)

It was used in "Showdown at Centerpoint" where the Bakuran fleet did a minimum-distance hyperjump into the midst of an enemy fleet.

The Falcon did a two-light minute microjump in "Tyrant's Test" and emerged withihn kilometers (or less) of a SSD.

Those are just some examples. Microjumping is a well-established tactic, even in combat.

[Crossover_Maniac]

Only by missiles with comparable speeds and accelerations and by a laser with a weapon systems that can pick off fist-size projectiles traveling a .9c within a few light-seconds from your ship.

Depends on when its detected, how far out, and how long they track them. Given the missiles have to travel TOWARDS the enemy ship to hit, and the high speeds they travel at make rapid, sharp turns difficult. Its entirely feasible to hit an object moving more or less TOWARDS you that has

There is a big difference between hitting an X-Wing and a fist-size projectile capable of accelerations of 1000 times that of an X-Wing.

Even so, how are we assuming SW vessels can't? In SBS (and, judging by the upcoming previews for Destiny's Way) fighters are quite capable of traveling at substnatial fractions of lightspeed, if not near-c, even in combat situations. How is it the missiles and torpedoes somehow are not capable of this, even if only being launched from a near-c platform?

The value of .9c given for the offensive missiles are relative to the GHC they were fired from. They already come out of the launch tubes at .8c. The rest of the fuel is used for course corrections. Also, realize this: SW ships accelerate at a rate of 3000 g's. At that rate of acceleration, it would take 344 minutes or almost 6 hours for a change in velocity of .9c. It's impractical for SW ships to fight at the relativistic velocity relative to their targets. OTOH: GHC can accelerate to .9c in 6.22 minutes at a rate of 170,000 g's.

*** Time is given in reference to stationary observer
*** Equations for relatistic velocities found in Usenet Physics FAQ's The Relativistic Rocket page

THe size isn't going to neccesarily be the problem - its going to be detectability by sensors (what emissions it gives off, how visible it is to active sensing, etc.) If the missile is traveling in more or less a straight line (which it has to at some point)

Not necessarily. Assuming the missile's trajectory is on the x-axis, the missiles can shift their position along the z-y plane just before striking its target as a part of evasive maneuvers.

and the destination is known, it can be predicted. This is why they launch hundreds of missiles - to hopefully insure saturation of point defense in the hopes SOME warheads get through.

And again, how is GT level damage going to harm a starship that can shrug off TT level damage (for most ships) or greater? Without your attempts to pull a "Darkstar Canon/official restructuring" tactic?

How sad you're using guilt by association in order to discredit me instead of actually trying to debate, but that won't help you. From the :

The offensive missiles of the Andromeda are 1 kilogram projectiles traveling at 90% of the speed of light or 270 million meters per second. The kinetic energy of these missiles are 8.36E16 joules or 19.91 megatons. The momentum of the missiles are 6.19E8 kg*m/s .
Now, some people of this list will say this proves CW ships are ineffective against SW ships' shields and would be slaughtered in a conventional battle in comparison with heavy turbolasers. However, if you look carefully, you'll it's not so clear cut.

Before going any further, I suggest reading Mike Wong's shield commentary in the technology section of his page . Now, in the shield commentary, Mike Wong made calculations on how much force was applied to shields during a collision with an asteroid 70 meters in diameter with a density of iron traveling at 1000 meters per second with a momentum of 1.25E12 kg*m/s. This is over 2000 times the momentum of the Andromeda's missiles, but don't count out the CW forces just yet. There are two reasons why:

1). According to the shield commentary, in a scene in ROTJ, a Rebel fighter slamming in the bridge of an ISD and disintegrated at a distance of 10 meters from the surface of the ISD bridge, given a width of ten meters between the shields and the surface of the ISD's. This gives the asteroid 0.02 seconds to stop. The lower limit of force needed to stop the asteroid was 6.25E13 Newtons and more if the asteroid was stopped in less of a duration but the force would have a shorter interval of time. Now, let's look and see how much force would be needed to stop a CW kinetic kill offensive missile. In order to calculate the constant acceleration to decelerate an object at relativistic velocities, the equation of t=(2*x/a)^0.5 can not be used since time and distances of an object at relativistic speed changes from the point of view of a stationary observer. The calculations used are

t=[(d/c)^2+2*d/a]^0.5 and v=at/[1+(at/c)^2]^0.5

from Usenet Physics FAQ's The Relativistic Rocket page where t is the time from the observation of the stationary observer (the Imperial Star Destroyer), d is the distance of the acceleration which is 10 meters, c is the speed of light. The acceleration worked itself to be 1.16E16 meters per second to the stationary observer. And with a mass of one kilogram, the force needed to stop the projectile is 1.16E16 Newtons. This is 187 times the force generated by the Hoth asteroid in calculation given in Mike Wong's shield commentary and larger than any of the Hoth asteroids. If the Hoth asteroids were able to sustain damage to the ISD's, it's not that hard to image the damage that the kinetic kill missiles could do. However, some of you may say, the ISD's survived at least 3 days of asteroid bombardment and still survived. The Andromeda would have to pound on the ISD a while before even collapsing its shields. That's assuming the firing rate of the offesive missiles were the same as the average asteroid collision rate. The forty ELS missile lauchings each has a firing rate of 8 missiles per second. That's a maximum rate of fire of 320 missiles per second. The Hoth asteroid collision rate doesn't even come close. Plus top with the fact that each one will generate at least 200 times more force than the average Hoth asteroid, the ISD wouldn't last longer than a few minutes. That is if the shields hold.

2). Let's look a little deeper than momentum transfers. Take a .22 caliber bullet, and a human fist. Believe it or not, a human fist has more momentum than a .22 caliber bullet. If anyone ever shot one from a rifle, they know there is very little recoil. This is an indication of the low momentum of the bullet (conservation of momentum or Newton's 3 rd Law). There is more force generated by a person hitting you in the shoulder. Now, in the light that there is less momentum in a .22 caliber bullet fired from a rifle than a human throwing a punch, which you'd rather have if you only had two choices: Mike Tyson hitting you in the head or a head shot from a .22 caliber rifle? Obviously, as bad as it going to hurt, you'd rather take one to the head from Mike than from the bullet. This has to do with shear stress or the amount of force generated per unit area. Not only does the bullet has higher deceleration than the human fist, but all of the force is concentrated on a cross-section of .245 cm^2 as opposed to a cross section of 38.7 cm^2 for a human fist that is approximately 1.5 X 4 sq. in. (3.81X10.16 cm^2). Now, let's go back to the Hoth asteroids. Let's take an asteroid that is roughly cube-shaped, 70 meters on the side, and with a density of 7000 kg/m^3, and the same acceleration as the asteroid in the previous example given by Mike Wong, which is 1.2E14 Newtons of force. Next, we divide this number by the cross-section of the asteroid striking the shields, which is 4900 m^2, and assume it's hitting the ship at a right angle of its surface. The sheer stress is 24.5 GPa. Let's assume also the kinetic-kill missile is cube-shaped (more likely, it would be bullet shaped, for the sake of simplication, we're going with cube-shaped) and also with a density of 7000 kg/m^3. The volume of the missile would be 1/7000 m^3 or 1.43E-4 m^3. Cube rooting this number, the dimension of the missile would only be 5.23 cm on the side. The shear stress of the missile would be 8.12E10 GPa. This is over 3 billion times higher than the shear stress produced by the asteroid given in the example. Given the fact that the ISD's took damage from the Hoth asteroids, the EPS missiles will make hundreds of fist-size holes in the ISD's per second from one side of the ship to the other, leaving a trail of super-heated plasma from impacting with the hull, air, personnel, etc. and cooking alive anyone unfortunate enough to be near the trail made by the missiles. Those that are further away will be hit by energetic particles traveling at relativistic speeds and sterilizing the ship with radiation. Within a minute, an ISD would be swissed cheesed, internally heated, and radiated by relativistic projectiles.

I do have some corrections. Most of the radiation induced will be in the direction of the offensive missiles and the air will not have time to heat too much. However, there will be a shockwave from the sudden ram compression of air and any compartment the OM-5 flies through will suffer explosive compression.

SW ships can't even hit the Falcon when it charged at it. Has that been a GHC and Solo tried that same stunt, he would be eating antiprotons and OM-5's offensive missiles.

The FAlcon in TESB was wanted by VAder alive, if oyu recall, so that he could capture Skywalker. This would obviously hamper attempts to stop the Falcon, as they would be shooting to disable or cripple it, not destroy it. Needa would not riskVader's wrath by inadvertently destroying the Falcon to save even his own skin.

Which can be conpensated by getting closer to the other ship and using fighters with offensive missiles of their own.

And just how close is this? How powerful is SW EW relative to CW EW? Are you talking about engaging at visual distances? Bad news, since that virtually guarantees that the Imperial ship will be able to attack and destroy a CW ship if/when it connects. The CW ship will want to do as much as possible to stay OUT of energy weapons range of any Imperial vessel, since in an energy duel it is clearly going to be outmatched unless somehow draining the AP tanks on the ship can generate TT level firepower enough to breach shielding.

1). CW ships are maneuverable enough to evade the HTL fire and can take the LTL fire long enough to unload all of its missiles

2). The Shrike and Centaur fighters carry 6 offensive missiles each. The can easily evade enemy fire and deliver their payload hitting the ISD's sensors and HTL batteries.

As for fighters, they're not really a problem either. They're much more easily tracked than the missiles, and they can be damaged/destroyed by megawatt-range PDL weapons. The poitn defense weapons on an Imperial ship would have no problems.

SW LTL can barely keep up with the Falcon which can pull a measly few thousand g's as opposed to fighters that can pull up to 700,000 g's. And I don't care if they weren't trying to kill Solo, they were still trying to hit it. This is in light of the fact that turbolaser power can be adjusted.

If SW ships can't take a pounding inside the Hoth asteroid fields what makes you think they can take being hit by relativistic projectiles.

Because the Hoth situation has been reconciled (particularily the so-called asteroid incident), and you apparently choose to ignore this fact. Anyone who has been on Mike's site for this long would know that already. If you don't know what I'm talking bout, go read up on shields on both Mike's page and Wayne's.

I did read Mike's commentary. He showed how low energy-high momentum projectiles can do more damage than high energy-low momentum projectiles (like massless particles).

But in short, the variables in the Hoth Asteroid incident do not reliably or concretely contradict the defensive capabilities established for SW vessels. Its only an attempt to use a vague and unquantifiable incident to somehow support the notion that Andromeda ships can breach SW ship shields easily (unless you somehow are able to produce a concrete quantification? I'll hope if so that there is evidence to back it up )

You mean the same missiles that can hit something as manueverable as the Andromeda can miss the ship with only 2% of the linear acceleration and virtually no maneverability.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to clarify the comparsion by telling me which specific instances you are comparing to (both in SW and Andromeda). You have this distressing habit of using vague references to back up your argument.

From All Systems University glossary K-O:

KILO G: A unit of ship acceleration in space. 1 Kilo G is 98,100 meters per second squared, or approximately 1000 times Earth gravity. Cargo ships accelerate at 3-30 Kilo G; Warships accelerate at 45-170 Kilo G, fighters at 100-700 Kilo G, defensive missiles at 6000-9000 Kilo G and offensive missiles at 2600-4200 Kilo G.