What are Turbolasers

[Isolder74]

Just a laser. The visible part is the "turbo" part and harmless. Thats why the Feds will stomp the Imperials.

Geewhiz, I agree. Obviously the word "turbolaser" comes from a turbine and a laser. The visible part is actually a diesel turbine thrown out of the window and it's harmless.

No wonder why the Feds can stomp those "turbo"-throwning Imps.

Your kidding right?

[Kuja]

please tell me that's a lame joke. I don't want to go off on you.

[pellaeons_scion]

Im no physicist, but I always thought it was a particle based weapon. I mean, in the sources it says that the turbolaser uses tibanna gas as 'ammunition'. The explanations I have read basically say that the bolt is excited energy particles ( the gas Im guessing) contained in a magnetic constraining field. So it sort of acts like cannon shell, which is a more an energy projectile than simply a laser.

Also, lasers generally cause heat and can cut right? I havent seen much cutting done in any of the films. The bolts explode when they impact something, so the magnetic constraint or whatever is broken and releases the explosive energy. It doenst just fizzile away in waste heat. Thus I reckon their must be an explosive element to the bolt, and not just a heating effect.

Ack 3am....must sleep

[Kuja]

THANK YOU PELLEON JR! See Bart? Even the newbie understands!

[His Divine Shadow]

IG-88E: Watch your blood pressure there, boy I wish HDS would arrive - it would be a great flame war

I love you too

[Slartibartfast]

Just a laser. The visible part is the "turbo" part and harmless. Thats why the Feds will stomp the Imperials.

Geewhiz, I agree. Obviously the word "turbolaser" comes from a turbine and a laser. The visible part is actually a diesel turbine thrown out of the window and it's harmless.

No wonder why the Feds can stomp those "turbo"-throwning Imps.

Your kidding right?

What do you mean? You didn't see the turbine flying?

[jegs2]

A turbolaser is a laser pointer inserted into the turbocarger on a Porsche; anyone knows that...

[Isolder74]

A turbolaser is a laser pointer inserted into the turbocarger on a Porsche; anyone knows that...

LOL that's funny

[Slartibartfast]

A turbolaser is a laser pointer inserted into the turbocarger on a Porsche; anyone knows that...

LOL that's funny

I'm surprised you didn't take it seriously.

[Patrick Ogaard]

My take on the business of turbolasers is the following (subject to revision if better information/interpretations should come up):

Turbolasers are second from the top in a four-tier hierarchy of high energy weapons commonly used in the Star Wars galaxy, a hierarchy that has a few side branches.

Standard blasters use a gaseous lasing medium (blaster gas) that is turned into high energy plasma by the lasing process. The lasing medium itself is then projected out the front of the blaster, and in most instances is further compressed, heated and accelerated by a sequential array of magnetic coils in the barrel of the weapon. The primary damaging agent of a blaster is the plasma bolt, though with some possible damage effect from the coherent light component. Small arms blasters can also be set to fire a form of expanding plasma "smoke ring" carrying a high-voltage/low-amp electrical charge which grounds out when it strikes a suitable target.

Laser cannon excite the blaster gas to substantially higher energy levels, producing a high energy x-ray laser effect. The high energies involved do eventually break down the lasing medium, and waste heat is considerable. For this reason, a portion of the lasing medium is ejected along the beam path as highly energized plasma. The plasma serves as a visual tracer, carries off a large portion of the waste heat, and rids the system of spent blaster gas. During the next firing cycle, the expelled blaster gas is replaced from the weapon's stores, bringing the lasing medium back up to proper performance levels. The primary damaging agent of a laser cannon is the x-ray laser bolt, though the plasma tracer can have considerable damage effect itself. The primary small arms application is likely the needle beamer that figured prominently in the Han Solo novels written by Brian Daley.

Turbolasers further increase the level of excitation of the blaster gas, possibly by the injection (turbo-injection? ) of antimatter. The exceptionally high energy levels of the lasing medium produce a graser effect. The energy levels in the lasing medium are so high that the entire volume of blaster gas used in a firing cycle breaks down and is ejected. The greater portion is accelerated down the beam path as a plasma tracer, with the remainder circulated along the length of the plasma accelerator barrel and ejected at low velocity from the muzzle as part of the cooling cycle.

Superlasers dispense with a large portion of the physical lasing chamber, allowing even higher energy levels of coherent light to be generated than conventional high energy weapons of the same size. Multiple high energy plasma emitters fire plasma at the focus of an electromagnetic field that acts as a virtual lasing chamber. (The potentially huge levels of waste electromagnetic energy generated by such a scheme could in part explain why the Rebel fighters attacking the first Death Star were not shown attempting to damage the firing mechanism of the DS superlaser; even the prefire sequence would likely have fried any fighter in the vicinity.)


The most common side treks in weapons technology are disruptors and ion weapons.

Disruptors are simply a form of supercharged blaster, firing a plasma beam of extended duration instead of the short plasma pulse of a blaster. Disruptors are reasonably common (and grossly overpowered) small arms, though short on range and ammunition, and commonly banned where the authorities care about collateral damage.

Ion weapons, typified by the ion cannon used by and against starships, are essentially blasters designed to fire plasma bolts specifically formulated to disrupt shields and disable electronic systems. Should they strike an inadequately shielded target, the effects can be ... unpleasant.

[Isolder74]

the best idea and desription so far

[Connor MacLeod]

Another factor is the range.. In Behind the magic Turbolaser and DS superlaser have stated ranges in the light minutes not light seconds.

BTM makes no such claim. All ranges in BTM are measured in "space units" as borrowed from WEG. Comparison of TLs to Superlasers have placed them in the millions of km range. The actual range is pulled from the SWTJ, which rtes the DS1 TL as having a range of 47,060,000 km. Comparing TLs to superlasers gives the TLs a range around 36 million km or so.

[Connor MacLeod]

The problem is, if you're going to go by "official" definitions of blaster/TL nature, its a bit more nebulous. Most novels/WEG sources seem to favor a massless/coherent light definition (some actually treat them as lasers, some appear not to) and actually refer to them as TLs and lasers. The EGW&T and SWTJ refer to blasters as a laser/particle weapon (although they don't specify if the particles are massive or massless... )

The SWVD and the AOTC VD both seem to favor the plasma-based interpretation, but refer solely to hand weapons (inferring only that capital scale weapons are plasmas also.) Novelizations hint that capital-scale plasma weaponsa re used (Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight) but neither ever says so concretely.

Darth Maul, Shadow Hunter and Star by Star referred to blaster weapons as "particle beams" (the latter source goign so far as to calling them "supercharged" particle beams.)

The logical explanation seems that blaster technology encompasses several different forms of directed energy weapon, rather than being all one uniform type. I'm not sure if they're neccesarily "hybrid" (hybrid weapons sound cool, but have a nasty problem. if you're coupling photons with particles, the photons are going to be hitting said particles, imparting energy to them, and causing them to scatter in random directions. This causes the beam itself to start scattering/spreading.. which is a Bad Thing). Capital weapons seem to favor the massless beam weapons most, whereas plasma/particle beam weapons sem to be common around hand weapons. But there are also "massless" beam personal weapons, and probably some damaging capital weapons also.

[omegaLancer]

There is a second possibility, that a TL is actually a particle beam using a very light ( like a neutrino) particle. In the case of the Neutrino is appears to travel at C ( the different is so small that only recentily we suspect that it contains mass)..

It believed that Photons can be transform to Axions (A theorical particle yet to be detected) ( which have mass, less than 1/1000 EV, and are electrically neutral particles), A beam of such particles would have the advantage of traveling very close to the speed of light and being more damaging than a beam of photons. And unlike Photon's SUSY counterpart the Photino, it would interact with matter..

[ClaysGhost]

Standard blasters use a gaseous lasing medium (blaster gas) that is turned into high energy plasma by the lasing process. The lasing medium itself is then projected out the front of the blaster, and in most instances is further compressed, heated and accelerated by a sequential array of magnetic coils in the barrel of the weapon. The primary damaging agent of a blaster is the plasma bolt, though with some possible damage effect from the coherent light component. Small arms blasters can also be set to fire a form of expanding plasma "smoke ring" carrying a high-voltage/low-amp electrical charge which grounds out when it strikes a suitable target.

Plasma cools and expands very rapidly. Also, how would you tell the difference between a pure plasma weapon and your laser + plasma weapon? Aren't you multiplying mechanisms without cause?

Turbolasers further increase the level of excitation of the blaster gas, possibly by the injection (turbo-injection? ) of antimatter. The exceptionally high energy levels of the lasing medium produce a graser effect. The energy levels in the lasing medium are so high that the entire volume of blaster gas used in a firing cycle breaks down and is ejected. The greater portion is accelerated down the beam path as a plasma tracer, with the remainder circulated along the length of the plasma accelerator barrel and ejected at low velocity from the muzzle as part of the cooling cycle.

Again, this has all the problems of plasma, but in addition there are green turbolasers. Plasma, which emits EMR with a black-body spectrum, does not glow green. It's also really hard to believe that gamma radiation would be produced by a lasing plasma. Gamma rays are produced either by nuclear processes or synchrotron processes.
The "waste" also seems to have more effect on targets than is reasonable. For instance, there's a Falcon shot available somewhere on this site where the energy of a TL bolt is derived from the angular momentum transferred to the Falcon. The Falcon exhibits no reaction until the visible part of the bolt arrives. If there is a laser beam impinging on the Falcon before the bolt arrives, it certainly doesn't make itself apparent in either the Falcon's motion or resulting damage.

Superlasers dispense with a large portion of the physical lasing chamber, allowing even higher energy levels of coherent light to be generated than conventional high energy weapons of the same size. Multiple high energy plasma emitters fire plasma at the focus of an electromagnetic field that acts as a virtual lasing chamber. (The potentially huge levels of waste electromagnetic energy generated by such a scheme could in part explain why the Rebel fighters attacking the first Death Star were not shown attempting to damage the firing mechanism of the DS superlaser; even the prefire sequence would likely have fried any fighter in the vicinity.)

This electromagnetic focussing lacks any means for feedback. How do you expect lasing to occur without it? (in conventional lasers of today, mirrors at either end serve this purpose).

Ion weapons, typified by the ion cannon used by and against starships, are essentially blasters designed to fire plasma bolts specifically formulated to disrupt shields and disable electronic systems. Should they strike an inadequately shielded target, the effects can be ... unpleasant.

Why doesn't the ion cannon bolt appear to affect the atmosphere as it passes through it (the shot showing the Hoth cannon firing). Why don't they just use an X-ray laser?

[Phinfan]

Alright, check it out. Admittedly I have not read all the posts, but I HAVE read the turbolaser article on michael's site, and I don't believe I've seen an argument for the strongest point against the turbolaser being an actual laser. Namely: recoil. In every instance we see of a turbolaser firing (To my recollection, anyway...feel free to shoot me down on this...) The barrel, which appears to be segmented or some kind of gas-charged kinetic absorbtion device, performs a noticable lurch backward, indicating there is FORCE (hehe) with respect to the "Projectile......" your thoughts on this?

[His Divine Shadow]

Plasma cools and expands very rapidly. Also, how would you tell the difference between a pure plasma weapon and your laser + plasma weapon? Aren't you multiplying mechanisms without cause?

Well if a forcefield is utilized, it would do neither, or atleast hold said process off for a while.

[ClaysGhost]

Well if a forcefield is utilized, it would do neither, or atleast hold said process off for a while.

It wouldn't prevent cooling by radiation (I may have said this to you before) at all, and such cooling is very powerful. That's apart from the undesirability of forcefields.

[ClaysGhost]

Alright, check it out. Admittedly I have not read all the posts, but I HAVE read the turbolaser article on michael's site, and I don't believe I've seen an argument for the strongest point against the turbolaser being an actual laser. Namely: recoil. In every instance we see of a turbolaser firing (To my recollection, anyway...feel free to shoot me down on this...) The barrel, which appears to be segmented or some kind of gas-charged kinetic absorbtion device, performs a noticable lurch backward, indicating there is FORCE (hehe) with respect to the "Projectile......" your thoughts on this?

A laser "bolt" carrying 10kT of energy would also carry about 140,000 kg m/s of momentum. I guess that would lead to some amount of recoil.

[Connor MacLeod]

Aside from the problem of creating a forcefield "bottle" that remains stable for more than a fraction of a second (Mag b ottles wouldn't outside of confinement coils).

[Isolder74]

Why not? You kick anything hard enough, it'll respond, laser or not. The magnetic lens stuff mentioned earlier (not by you, I hasten to add) is not very likely. Light does not bend in magnetic fields. You simply need a physical lens that absorbs little of the beam energy, or an equivalent mirror. The mirror is probably more likely, although at sufficiently high frequencies (X-ray and gamma) virtually nothing will help.

Light does bend in a magnetic field. This is because light is a form of ELECTROMAGNETIC Energy. According to Maxfield's Theorom light can be bent by magnetic field cause all E-M energy contains both a E field and a B(Magnetic) Field at 90 Degrees. BTW they use magnets to point X-Rays at you at the hospitol. A suffichentally large Electric field can also bend light this one principle on how a Deflector shield works.

[Connor MacLeod]

ERmm..what? Photons are neutral. To bend in a magnetic field, something must have a charge, even a tiny one. To my memory, photons do not.

[Neko_Oni]

In my physics textbook (4th Ed Paul A. Tipler). It states:
Force Electromagnetic
Acts On Electric Charge
Particles Experiencing Electrically Charged

And although light is a combination of electric and magnetic fields, it doesn't actually have any charge. Hence no deflection.

[Connor MacLeod]

In my physics textbook (4th Ed Paul A. Tipler). It states:
Force Electromagnetic
Acts On Electric Charge
Particles Experiencing Electrically Charged

And although light is a combination of electric and magnetic fields, it doesn't actually have any charge. Hence no deflection.

I thought thats what I just said

[Neko_Oni]

Connor MacLeod wrote:

I thought thats what I just said

Yeah I know just reinforcing your point, that's all.