Why no Gatling Lasers/Blasters/Turbolasers?

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-08-30 07:53pm

Think like an engineer: technologies are solutions to problems, not goals in and of themselves.

Rather than asking why they don't have any gatling turbolasers, ask yourself what problem a gatling turbolaser would solve. If you can't think of one, then you have your answer.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-08-30 08:19pm

AdmiralKanos wrote:Think like an engineer: technologies are solutions to problems, not goals in and of themselves.

Rather than asking why they don't have any gatling turbolasers, ask yourself what problem a gatling turbolaser would solve. If you can't think of one, then you have your answer.

Militaries define that for procurement as a Technology Push vs. Requirement Pull.

With technology you push the tech to get a good a system as possibul, with requirement pull you design to meet a set of requirements. Not surprising defence contractors in western nations have done a good job perpetuating the technology push because they get more money through it. However somtimes the resulting systems can be very good and well worth it, for example the F15 and F16 which are both still being bought after twenty five years.

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-08-30 08:41pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:Militaries define that for procurement as a Technology Push vs. Requirement Pull.

With technology you push the tech to get a good a system as possibul, with requirement pull you design to meet a set of requirements. Not surprising defence contractors in western nations have done a good job perpetuating the technology push because they get more money through it. However somtimes the resulting systems can be very good and well worth it, for example the F15 and F16 which are both still being bought after twenty five years.

True, although it can also lead to hopeless cash-sucking boondoggles, of which I'm sure you could list many examples without me having to bother looking them up.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-08-30 09:03pm

AdmiralKanos wrote: True, although it can also lead to hopeless cash-sucking boondoggles, of which I'm sure you could list many examples without me having to bother looking them up.

Yes and it quite often does. However unrealistic or excessive specifications can also do the same thing, this is where good management is important, to see to it that those specs are reduced before the program is canacled. And that if the result won't be worth while it does get killed.

Really the ultimate example of the technology push is an unsolicited bid for a weapon from the company that will build it. More often its a case of "we want a new fighter to beat everything, what can you give us" That got us the F15 and while requirements are being laid out "be the best" and they might even attach numbers to them making you think there are hard specifications involved, its still a technology push.

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2003-08-31 12:07pm

Just a point to note. The turbolasers on the Death Star in the ANH novelisation was noted to have overheated, and the crews exhausted after the first few minutes of frenzied firing.

Is there any implications to this?

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2003-08-31 12:40pm

A Gatling laser is not needed, because of the high fireing rate of conventional laser cannons. Lust look at the fire rate of the super battledroids and thier build-in weapons.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-08-31 04:33pm

Tribun wrote:A Gatling laser is not needed, because of the high fireing rate of conventional laser cannons. Lust look at the fire rate of the super battledroids and thier build-in weapons.

Actually those fire no more then a few hundred rounds per minute, same for the guns of Slave I, Single barreled conventional machine guns have achieved up to 1,200 rpm and 600-800rpm is typical. Modern gatling weapons are around 2,500-6000 rpm with one or two prototypes that have reached 10,000rpm.

Agent Fisher · Post by **Agent Fisher** » 2003-08-31 07:07pm

10000 rpm?!

now thats just a waste of ammo

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-08-31 08:13pm

PainRack wrote:Just a point to note. The turbolasers on the Death Star in the ANH novelisation was noted to have overheated, and the crews exhausted after the first few minutes of frenzied firing.

Is there any implications to this?

Yeah, a brand new vessel with an untested crew had weapons trouble. Happens all the time.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-09-01 03:50am

Agent Fisher wrote:10000 rpm?! now thats just a waste of ammo

It's what you attach to some vehicle when you don't just want to make something dead, but damn dead.

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2003-09-01 12:05pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
PainRack wrote:Just a point to note. The turbolasers on the Death Star in the ANH novelisation was noted to have overheated, and the crews exhausted after the first few minutes of frenzied firing.

Is there any implications to this?
Yeah, a brand new vessel with an untested crew had weapons trouble. Happens all the time.

The novelisation appears to indicate that its routine, as a change of crew was nearby to replace them.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2003-09-01 01:59pm

Agent Fisher wrote:10000 rpm?! now thats just a waste of ammo

Its called area sateration, my fine feathered friend. strafe an area and there is no chance of anyone walking away without a couple dozens holes in them.

Cyke · Post by **Cyke** » 2003-09-01 03:32pm

The rotation of barrels on firearms operating on the gatling gun principle has nothing to do with the cooling of the barrels, although that is a minor bonus. It's a mechanical solution to achieving repeat fire that was made obsolete with machine guns, but was revived by coupling it with electric motors.
Go find out how gatling guns work; you'll see that rotating barrels have little to no relevance whatsoever with directed energy weapons (like blasters, I suppose).

Regarding high rates of fire, as has already been pointed out, they're best for taking out small and/or fast moving targets. Hence, automatic weapons are employed for anti-infantry and anti-aircraft roles.. apparently, though, purpose-built Star Wars weapons seem to already achieve adequate rates of fire already.

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-09-01 04:05pm

PainRack wrote:
Sea Skimmer wrote:Yeah, a brand new vessel with an untested crew had weapons trouble. Happens all the time.
The novelisation appears to indicate that its routine, as a change of crew was nearby to replace them.

It might be a function of misusing a weapons system. After all, those heavy turrets were never designed to shoot down starfighters; they were designed to blow capships out of the sky.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-09-01 05:18pm

Isolder74 wrote:
Its called area sateration, my fine feathered friend. strafe an area and there is no chance of anyone walking away without a couple dozens holes in them.

Actually that wasn't the point and it would be completely unnecessary for that, strafing requires only a few thousand rpm at most if you using a small shell, it was being developed for fighter aircraft and air to air combat. You see there's this little issues where jet fighters can fly between the bullets in some cases. Meanwhile Soviet fighters like the MiG-29 and Su-27 where much tougher then the last generation and one or two 20mm hits wasn't going to bring them down. There was also the expectations that he next Soviet fighters would be supercruisers like the ATF/F22. However the project died with the fall of the Soviet Union and thus the threat of that. It also had some technical problems with the ammo feed and a few other things.

Now the US is joining Europe with the trend for a bigger but much slower firing revolver cannon with the adaptation of a 27mm weapon of JSF. Though the F22 carries the same old M61 20mm gatling, it and the F15 actually where suppose to have a 25mm gatling which can be found on USMC Harriers but it was too delayed by technical issues to make it onto the designs.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-09-01 06:09pm

We're going to 27mm for the JSF? Are we ripping off the BK-27, or designing a new one for ourselves?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-09-01 07:19pm

Howedar wrote:We're going to 27mm for the JSF? Are we ripping off the BK-27, or designing a new one for ourselves?

BK-27, its design was fairly logical since the RAF already uses it and an M61 would require much more space.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-09-01 08:13pm

Makes sense. Fires slower, but a 27mm is a lot nastier round than a 20mm.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-09-01 10:20pm

Howedar wrote:Makes sense. Fires slower, but a 27mm is a lot nastier round than a 20mm.

By far, one 27mm shell could easily down a modern jet while your going to need multipul 20mm rounds even older jets like the Flogger. Also evidently 27mm gives you the optimum shell weight to gun size ratio or something like that, while all revolver cannons fire at about the same speed.

greenmm · Post by **greenmm** » 2003-09-02 12:32pm

AdmiralKanos wrote:
PainRack wrote:
Sea Skimmer wrote:Yeah, a brand new vessel with an untested crew had weapons trouble. Happens all the time.
The novelisation appears to indicate that its routine, as a change of crew was nearby to replace them.
It might be a function of misusing a weapons system. After all, those heavy turrets were never designed to shoot down starfighters; they were designed to blow capships out of the sky.

Could be not so much a training issue as a "WTF are they doing?!" issue. They expected the Rebels to attack conventionally (i.e. use snub fighters to screen capital ships, or run if they didn't have cap ships), but the Rebels sent snub fighters against the DS1. There might have been some slight confusion as to why the Rebels would try such an "idiotic" tactic... that may have turned to alarm (not quite panic, though) when they realized they didn't have the right weapons available (their fighters apparantly not being prepped, they were delayed in getting them launched) might have made the gun crews a bit trigger-happy.

I find it very intriguing, though, that they thought to engineer their turbolasers to be capable of a much higher firing rate than would normally be needed for fleet combat. Having a reserve capacity is nice, particularly when it didn't seem to stress your onboard power systems...

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2003-09-02 12:39pm

It was not just the fighters weren't ready its that Tarkin refused to recognize that the things were any measure of a threat to his big disco ball. He refused to launch the Death Star's huge fighter compliment to engage the threat! The only fighters launched were under Vader's direct command. It seems only he(and one of Tarkin's aids) saw the attack as any form of threat!

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-09-02 12:49pm

Well, the two reasons I can think of go like this:

1) Reactor power. It's entirely possible they can't support 10,000 RPM with a potent series of shots. Given the thermal nature of TL's, it might also evaporate the barrel.

2) Shields. With a minimum needed to breach the shield, it may be the case that it's a better investment to construct a heavy gun that'll bring the shield down in one or two hits than to try and saturate it.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-09-02 03:09pm

greenmm wrote: I find it very intriguing, though, that they thought to engineer their turbolasers to be capable of a much higher firing rate than would normally be needed for fleet combat. Having a reserve capacity is nice, particularly when it didn't seem to stress your onboard power systems...

You mean just like all those automatic 16 inch guns on American battleships?

Lots of features would be nice to have on weapons but are completly impossibul.

greenmm · Post by **greenmm** » 2003-09-02 04:22pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
greenmm wrote: I find it very intriguing, though, that they thought to engineer their turbolasers to be capable of a much higher firing rate than would normally be needed for fleet combat. Having a reserve capacity is nice, particularly when it didn't seem to stress your onboard power systems...
You mean just like all those automatic 16 inch guns on American battleships? Lots of features would be nice to have on weapons but are completly impossibul.

Automatic? I'm assuming you mean in the sense that they don't have to perform all the loading procedures by hand, and use machinery to assist them. But I'd never consider them an "automatic" cannon. The 5" guns better fit that description...

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-09-02 05:39pm

greenmm wrote:
Automatic? I'm assuming you mean in the sense that they don't have to perform all the loading procedures by hand, and use machinery to assist them. But I'd never consider them an "automatic" cannon. The 5" guns better fit that description...

You are clearly immune to sarcasm even when accompanied by appropriate emoticon, you will not do well here. An automatic 16-inch gun has never been built.