The Falcon's Ultra Short Range Weapons

[Nathan F]

I noticed an odd thign the other day whilst re-watching ANH. When entering the Alderaan debris field, and the Falcon is chasing the TIE Fighter, Han makes mention of how it is still out of weapons range. At this time, it is obvious by on screen evidence that it is no farther than maybe, at most, a hundred meters, at the VERY most (probably along the line of 50 yards).

What's the deal?

[Illuminatus Primus]

The TIE stayed out of either quad-gun's firing arc and could only be hit by the swivel blaster which had a low range?

[Ender]

No one was in the Quad turrets, which means auto targeting. And the computers sensors were having a hell of a time cutting through all the energy and debris.

Atleast I believe that is the offical line. You'd need to ask Wayne, he was the one who smaks little bobby around on that topic.

[Dorsk 81]

The TIE stayed out of either quad-gun's firing arc and could only be hit by the swivel blaster which had a low range?

This is flawed as the Falcon could easiler have twisted on is axis and therefore brought the TIE into range.
Although, seeing as everyone was in the cockpit, it could have just been out off the lasers at the front of the Falcon. Which is what you were saying.......I think.....

[Boba Fett]

The TIE stayed out of either quad-gun's firing arc and could only be hit by the swivel blaster which had a low range?

Hmm...but the Falcon still got her Arakyd launcher, so... ...or was it installed later?

[BenRG]

I think that this is a case of visual effects limitation blight. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the TIE was supposed to be so far from the Falcon that it was out of visual range. Of course, that makes for a lousy SFX shot, so they put it at only about 500m range dead ahead.

Another example of this is the Executor not slapping a tractor beam on the Falcon in ESB. This is despite the fact the Falcon was first at point-blank range flying down the lateral trench, then at a range of perhaps 100 metres directly ahead of the larger ship. It had also been hearded directly towards the Executor by a flight of TIE Fighters for several minutes. Despite that, Piett hadn't bothered to even attempt a below-average-range tractor beam shot.

This is a common problem in all visual sci-fi realisations. Weapons range drops from several thousand kilometres (ship to surface) down to less than one kilometre with point-blank range being defined as 'out of range'. Blame the SFX guys for lack of imagination, I suppose.

[NecronLord]

Much like the Four thousand kilometers comment in ST2 it's eye candy.

[YT300000]

Maybe the quads weren't charged up yet, so only the little anti-personnel blaster could be used.

I think the warhead launchers were installed after ANH.

[Nathan F]

Problem with the lousy special effects explanation. If we don't take screen evidence as we see it, then that kind of screws over alot of the other things we get from on screen evidence. Things like the SSD size, etc., you get the idea. If we don't use it here, then why should we use it anywhere else? We can't be selective about this sort of thing, because you can't base an argument off something and then turn around and say that it doesn't apply right afterwards.

Now, as to the reasons, I am leaning towards accepting the firing range example, but, that leads to the question of, seeing as how Han was an experienced pilot, why he didn't just angle the nose down a bit and get it into the arc. Just a little point to ponder.

[Lord Poe]

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