StarDestroyer.Net BBS

You could put a bunch of 8" guns on a battleship instead of arming it with 16" guns, but the armor penetration and range would doom that ship against combat with normally-armed battlewagons.

Similarly, Dr. Saxton has SW shields as 'threshold'-type shields, so a large number of less powerful hits may well be less useful than a few very powerful ones.

Are Turbolasers fed their "ammo" or charge by the main reactor of an ISD, or do they have their own subsystem of power generation?

phongn wrote:Similarly, Dr. Saxton has SW shields as 'threshold'-type shields, so a large number of less powerful hits may well be less useful than a few very powerful ones.

I've noticed that this also severely undercuts the WEG model of countless relatively small batteries on capital ships.

NeoGoomba wrote:Are Turbolasers fed their "ammo" or charge by the main reactor of an ISD, or do they have their own subsystem of power generation?

They have their own power generators, but I have no idea if they're primary or backup systems.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:I've noticed that this also severely undercuts the WEG model of countless relatively small batteries on capital ships.

Yes, though the many small batteries can be used for other things besides combat with other major combatants.

phongn wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:I've noticed that this also severely undercuts the WEG model of countless relatively small batteries on capital ships.

Yes, though the many small batteries can be used for other things besides combat with other major combatants.

There's still concentrated fire of a sufficient number of smaller batteries, if nothing else. I would be at a loss to figure out how the Executor's shields got knocked down by Rebel starships (lacking those massive turrets that ISDs have) if concentrated fire were worthless.

phongn wrote:

NeoGoomba wrote:Are Turbolasers fed their "ammo" or charge by the main reactor of an ISD, or do they have their own subsystem of power generation?

They have their own power generators, but I have no idea if they're primary or backup systems.

Probably a combination of supplementary systems and redundancy/backups. IIRC the EGW&T the MTLS on an ISD are powered by a combination of capacitors as well as their own back up "turbines"/generators. I would assume the capacitors draw power directly from the reactors.

This might be employed as well to allow the bulk of a Star Destroyer's power to be diverted for other purposes (maintaining shields, propulsion, or possibly powering the heavier primary guns.)

phongn wrote:You could put a bunch of 8" guns on a battleship instead of arming it with 16" guns, but the armor penetration and range would doom that ship against combat with normally-armed battlewagons.

Similarly, Dr. Saxton has SW shields as 'threshold'-type shields, so a large number of less powerful hits may well be less useful than a few very powerful ones.

However, two guns of power X could still inflict the same damage on shields as one gun of power 2X, if fired at the same time. This is not true on battleship weapons.

Howedar wrote:

phongn wrote:You could put a bunch of 8" guns on a battleship instead of arming it with 16" guns, but the armor penetration and range would doom that ship against combat with normally-armed battlewagons.

Similarly, Dr. Saxton has SW shields as 'threshold'-type shields, so a large number of less powerful hits may well be less useful than a few very powerful ones.

However, two guns of power X could still inflict the same damage on shields as one gun of power 2X, if fired at the same time. This is not true on battleship weapons.

It is doubtful that two guns of power X would be the same size as one gun of power 2X. There appear to be considerable economies of scale that kick in when you scale up SW technologies, as exemplified by the power to volume ratio of the Death Star superlaser. Even after correcting for its enormous size, it is still volumetrically much more efficient than smaller designs.

Simple geometric comparisons would confirm this fact, even if we use the entire volume of the Death Star rather than simply its superlaser.

On the other hand, more power means more recoil, and that limits the maneuverability of your turrets. A really big ass gun isn't gonna do you much good if you can't track the target. Then again, the MC-80 Liberty was hit by the DS2's superlaser in ROTJ, so maybe I'm just full of shit.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:On the other hand, more power means more recoil, and that limits the maneuverability of your turrets. A really big ass gun isn't gonna do you much good if you can't track the target. Then again, the MC-80 Liberty was hit by the DS2's superlaser in ROTJ, so maybe I'm just full of shit.

In fact, AFAIK, the DS superlaser is a fixed gun, with no mechanical traverse. It seems to aim itself by manipulating the 8 beams. I guess it is kind of like a phased array radar - the emission power and timings of the various tibutary beams steer it electronically, thus the limitations of conventional mechanical traverse systems are minimized or eliminated (they probably have other weaknesses though, or we'd see heavy turrets using this "electronic" steering.)

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:There's always the option of designing the HTL to be a continuous-beam weapon. Think 'Son of Death Star and Slicer Beam' of such horrific power that nothing short of a fully-shielded Executor can hope to offer anything more than token resistance to it! Then just mount the thing to an ISD and walk the beam across the massed Feddy fleet...

That wouldn't be a pretty sight...well, if you were a Trekkie.