Turbolasers as physical shells

[The Silence and I]

I am starting by stating that I am a purist. I am not factoring the EU into this idea and I do not wish to. If this bothers you I am not forcing you to continue reading. I also wish to state that I do not particularly care for the standard, accepted theory for turbolasers, and this thread's purpose is to present my own ideas, good or bad as they may be.

I have long thought turbolaser bolts could be best described as projectiles sheathed in some manner of brightly visible energy or some material. The reason I prefer this generalized description is that it avoids pseudo magical particles required when describing turbolaser bolts as energy weapons and it neatly provides a method by which both variable turbolaser bolt velocitys and exploding turbolaser bolts may be allowed.



As I understand the evidence turbolaser bolt behavior can be summarized thusly:

• [1] Bolts are visible to the eye and come in shades of red, green and blue. Possibly violet if Geonosian fighter weapons count.
  [2] Bolts assume varied shapes. Some are unremarkable rounded rectangles in cross section, many have points on the leading end and taper toward the trailing end. Some also have bulges along their length.
  [3] Bolts of all calibers possess wildly varying propagation speeds. In general any given bolt will take 3 to 4 frames to travel to a given target, with no regard given to the distance.
  [4] Some bolts have been observed tracking targets, or moving laterally, in a way directly comparable to sweeping a beam.
  [5] Upon impact with defensive shielding some bolts will seem to fragment or splinter into many glowing shards which further break apart and disappear with a flash.
  [6] Many bolts have been observed exploding around intended targets, not usually with tremendous effect.
  [7] A few turbolaser bolts have been observed damaging unshielded asteroids just prior to visibly coming in contact.

I say this much here and now: I do not find an energy beam and tracer shot combination a satisfactory explanation of the above observations, with the exceptions of [4] and [7]. I will attempt to provide my own interpretation below.



Working with the turbolaser bolt as a projectile idea I propose the following:

A physical shell exists which carries the mechanics required to generate a powerful energy field. This energy field (probably) shares characteristics with defensive shields and is the chief method by which the shell penetrates defensive shielding and causes damage. Energy, and thus damage potential, is stored within the shell and expressed through the energy field.
Depending on the shell additional mechanics may exist, such as a means to alter the shell's trajectory and to sense a guide by which the shell is steered.

Due to the (assumed) nature of defensive shielding unprotected physical contact with an outer defensive layer ('ray' shields) results in rapid melting or vaporization of any relatively small object. Energy imparted by this shielding layer is a function of time. A second (assumed) layer of defensive shielding ('particle' or deflector shields) serves to physically repel resulting gases, liquids and residual fragments. Contact time has no effect on energy imparted by this shield layer, it applies a force over its distance and can retard a certain maximum amount of kinetic energy.



This assumed shielding system requires all projectiles either possess great speed or great shielding of their own to survive the outer layer. Observe small asteroids with low velocity relative to the Millennium Falcon vaporize on contact with the shielding. The energy required to flash vaporize such an object is greater than the kinetic energy observed (as I recall it) and is provided by the shielding system. Observe also that many known missile systems employ visible energy fields and are sometimes indistinguishable from turbolaser, laser bolts.

To deal with the outer shielding layer either go fast, go shielded or go both. Observe that slow and shielded is preferred. Bolts take 3 to 4 frames to reach any given target at any given range. This means bolts are fired slow when the operators can get away with it. If greater velocities were favored bolts would always propagate fast.



The reason has to do with the inner shield layer. The shell generates a visible energy field which protects itself from the outer shield layer, and which also aids penetration of the inner shield layer. The method by which the shell's energy field penetrates this shield layer depends on the relative strengths of the energy field and the shield, and also on contact time. A longer contact time results in a greater penetration of the shield layer and for this reason slower shell velocities are preferred. Penetrating the second shield layer in this manner is less energy costly than a brute force method and gives such an equipped shell an advantage over a purely kinetic projectile.
(It should be noted that it may be necessary to assume the shell may focus on generating one energy field or another at any given time but not both. Normally the shell focuses on protecting itself from the outer shield layer first then switches to focus on defeating the inner layer. This assumption is used to allow bolt fragmentation. Possibly bulges sometimes found along bolt lengths allow several energy field types to be generated, which gives the shell an advantage penetrating a fully angled shield.)

To defeat the second defensive shield layer either go fast or go slow and shielded. The advantage is in the second option; cracking the shield with brute kinetic energy is possible but only the remainder energy will affect the hull. Successfully disabling and so penetrating the shield allows a far greater energy remainder to affect the hull. Observe that at close ranges slow bolt speeds are observed which suggests these speeds are preferred.



To wrap this up notice that at large ranges a greater shell velocity is required if the target is capable of actively defending. A balance then is needed between scoring hits and firing potentially damaging hits. Too slow and the opponent, if maneuverable, will avoid it or, if not maneuverable, will angle shields unpredictably and cause the shell to fragment, wasting most of its energy. It is likely convention then to set the shell velocity so that there is a 1/6 second lag between firing and striking.



Some smaller things:

• Variations in turbolaser bolt geometry have to do with the energy field's configuration and may be intended to better penetrate stacked shields or shields which are angled a certain way at the time of firing.
• Turbolaser bolt colors can be considered part of the nature of the energy field generators. Presumably a wide range of EM frequencies are possible, but visible colors are preferred for use as tracers in ECM heavy battle environments. (I prefer to consider a shell's energy fields to be largely similar to defensive shielding fields, only with a visible emission accounting for their visibility and a non visible emission frequency accounting for the invisibility of shields)
• Maneuvering engines and rear facing sensors allow some shell models to following a pointing beam (most likely a real laser) and be made to track a moving target in an environment with too much ECM to allow on board tracking sensors, or transmitted instructions much success.
• Internal energy capacitors may explode, either intentionally or not, resulting in observed flak shots. Sudden vaporization of the shell results in a lack of debris and the explosion is tinted by the hue of its residual energy field.
• Turbolaser bolt fragmentation or splintering may result when a shell is damaged. The second defensive shield layer, (most likely) the deflector shields, may be angled according to dialog. Perhaps this may mean a layer of (physically) deflecting shield may be focused outside the normal shielding system and in the path of the bolt. If the shell is set to defend against the outer ('ray') shield and its thermal effects before focusing on defeating the physical (deflector, or 'particle') shield it may be ill equipped and the shell suffers sudden deceleration and damage passing through the angled deflector shield. The shell fragments and the energy field only remains visible because it too has mass and does not wink out of existence immediately. The poorly or unshielded fragments pass into the outer shield layer and are vaporized.
• If shields may be invisible, then perhaps a shell may generate part or all of its damaging energy field invisibly.

To conclude, I think an energy field wrapped shell can explain all turbolaser behavior I am aware of in the movies. I also believe it is more satisfactory than the energy beam explanation, although I did not go into why.

I do hope this wasn't too long or dry

[Darth Wong]

What about SPHA-T beams, superlaser beams, the lack of gravitational effects on the assumed projectile, or the existence of special "ray shields" to block turbolaser fire when you are saying that turbolasers are actually physical projectiles? What about the fragmentation upon hitting a shield? If the glowing appearance is produced by a shield generator on a projectile, what the fuck happens there? The projectile shatters into several pieces, each of which happens to have its own independent shield generator? You made no attempt to explain why the fragments of this shell would continue to glow if the glowing effect is an artificial product of this shield generator.

[The Silence and I]

Here's the fun part

What about SPHA-T beams, superlaser beams,

My fault, I completely forgot to mention I consider these to be an entirely different class of weapon, perhaps similar to a lightsaber blade which is extended indefinitely toward the target. Really I haven't given much thought towards these except that I recognize them as fundamentally different.

I do realize one of the few reasons I gave for preferring a physical shell for more standard turbolasers has to do with a need for fewer exotic particles, which comes off as dishonest now as both SPHA-T beams and superlasers require such unusual particles. I want to say now I really didn't recall these other classes of weapons when I typed that. I have other reasons to prefer normal bolt style weapons be projectiles but my post was long enough IMO.*

the lack of gravitational effects on the assumed projectile,

Easily compensated for with the same mechanics that allow course correction.

or the existence of special "ray shields" to block turbolaser fire when you are saying that turbolasers are actually physical projectiles?

As far as I know the only movie reference to a ray shield is here:

DODONNA: Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

Sounds like lasers, blasters, turbolasers and the like are stopped by ray shields, but proton torpedoes are not, ya? Well, it does...

Here's how I look at it though: why would Dodonna even have to mention this at all? An energy beam isn't going to change course and obediently follow a shaft down to the reactor... only a physical projectile can make such a maneuver. This strongly implies to me that star fighter laser cannons fire projectiles. To fit this into my idea, the ray shields covering the shaft are so powerful that starfighter cannon shells cannot survive passage--their own protective shielding is overpowered. However proton torpedoes are designed for this sort of attack and can deal with the intense ray shielding. They are also more expensive and are a far larger projectile than the laser shell.

What about the fragmentation upon hitting a shield? If the glowing appearance is produced by a shield generator on a projectile, what the fuck happens there? The projectile shatters into several pieces, each of which happens to have its own independent shield generator? You made no attempt to explain why the fragments of this shell would continue to glow if the glowing effect is an artificial product of this shield generator.

I didn't put a lot of effort into explaining this before. The idea is that the energy field does not disappear immediately after the generator ceases functioning, because it is not in fact pure energy and has mass. The shell fragments and begins to vaporize and pieces of the energy field scatter and begin to disappear around the same time. Whether or not the field sticks to the fragments is not I think important.




*I will try to quickly go over one of my bigger reasons.
Simply put, the turbolaser as an invisible beam which spends around 1/6 of a second--regardless of weapon yield--puttering around at a non damaging power output and then spikes to full power, in a fashion timed so that a visible tracer shot has by then reached the target, strikes me as silly. First, it is counter intuitive and complicated (which by itself is not condemning, it only means I don't like it) second and more importantly, it assumes the turbolaser is a lightspeed weapon (which tries very hard to look slower than light). I have a problem with that assumption because in the movies (screw the books) no body can hit shit worth a damn. The reason seems to have to do with the lag between firing and hitting, turbolaser bolts take about 1/6 of a second to reach a target--any target--and in that time many smaller craft can shift positions considerably and avoid an otherwise well aimed shot. "They're evading our turbolasers." At the ranges and relative velocities observed in every single movie bar none a lightspeed weapon would have nearly no significant lag. Such a weapon has no excuse for missing so badly against star fighters or small freighters. Possible excuses for missing a target I can think of off the top of my head:
a) lag between firing and hitting

I find this the only plausible (major) excuse for weapon miss rates in Star Wars, 1/6 of a second is plenty of time to make an unanticipated movement. But a lightspeed turbolaser cannot claim this excuse, at the ranges and relative velocities observed not even a TIE Interceptor can hope to get out of the way of a lightspeed weapon.

b) acceleration issues with tracking a nimble target with a heavy gun

This could apply at the battle over the first death star, maybe. But realistically, it should be well within budget in a future so advanced to grant point defense weapons servos with more than the needed torque and precision to track any starfighter at observed ranges. I don't accept this excuse, it is like blaming the dog for your missing homework.

c) sensor jamming interfering with targeting

This absolutely matters at long ranges and against highly nimble targets. I wish to point out neither is seen in Star Wars with the exception of the blockade run over Naboo, in which accurate firing began around 80 km IIRC. However it would be a sad day for everybody if the royal yacht had sensor jammers capable of thwarting a fleet of interlinked battleships...

Some smaller star fighters are nimble, Jedi star fighters for example. But while it would be difficult to hit such a ship without computer aid the lack of any hits on the Millennium Falcon during the entire Endor battle is inexcusable. Neither star fighters nor point defense weapons could scratch it, and how about the events in ESB where stardestroyers and TIEs could hardly touch it? This ship is neither tiny nor insanely maneuverable and in ESB it lacked the benefit of other large starships providing useful ECM.

Further, visuals are not affected by jamming, should I, a movie purist, assume computers from the far future cannot provide real time aiming assistance from visual light only? How do robotic star fighters aim at all if sensor jamming is so profoundly effective?

I give this excuse a fail in the situations routinely observed in the movies.

[Darth Wong]

My fault, I completely forgot to mention I consider these to be an entirely different class of weapon, perhaps similar to a lightsaber blade which is extended indefinitely toward the target. Really I haven't given much thought towards these except that I recognize them as fundamentally different.

But they establish the technology necessary for a type of turbolaser which you are dismissing.

I do realize one of the few reasons I gave for preferring a physical shell for more standard turbolasers has to do with a need for fewer exotic particles, which comes off as dishonest now as both SPHA-T beams and superlasers require such unusual particles. I want to say now I really didn't recall these other classes of weapons when I typed that. I have other reasons to prefer normal bolt style weapons be projectiles but my post was long enough IMO.*

And do you not realize that your own theory requires some sort of exotic "energy that is not normal energy" around the projectile?

the lack of gravitational effects on the assumed projectile,

Easily compensated for with the same mechanics that allow course correction.

Then why don't turbolasers act like guided missiles? You'd think that if you design these things with course correction capabilities and guidance systems, you'd make them actually try to hit stuff.

or the existence of special "ray shields" to block turbolaser fire when you are saying that turbolasers are actually physical projectiles?

As far as I know the only movie reference to a ray shield is here:

DODONNA: Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

Sounds like lasers, blasters, turbolasers and the like are stopped by ray shields, but proton torpedoes are not, ya? Well, it does...

Here's how I look at it though: why would Dodonna even have to mention this at all? An energy beam isn't going to change course and obediently follow a shaft down to the reactor... only a physical projectile can make such a maneuver.

Or someone could try attacking it from directly above, risking the defensive fire but firing at greater range with much simpler computer targeting requirements and and relying on the fact that his energy weapons can't be intercepted the way a torpedo would be.

This strongly implies to me that star fighter laser cannons fire projectiles. To fit this into my idea, the ray shields covering the shaft are so powerful that starfighter cannon shells cannot survive passage--their own protective shielding is overpowered. However proton torpedoes are designed for this sort of attack and can deal with the intense ray shielding. They are also more expensive and are a far larger projectile than the laser shell.

Occam's Razor not a big hit with you? You're adding mechanisms with no real evidence whatsoever for their existence other than your preference. There is precisely zero evidence whatsoever for turbolasers having some kind of shielding capability. There is precisely zero evidence for anyone ever having tried to develop a system to intercept turbolasers, even though that would be perfectly logical if they are in fact missiles.

What about the fragmentation upon hitting a shield? If the glowing appearance is produced by a shield generator on a projectile, what the fuck happens there? The projectile shatters into several pieces, each of which happens to have its own independent shield generator? You made no attempt to explain why the fragments of this shell would continue to glow if the glowing effect is an artificial product of this shield generator.

I didn't put a lot of effort into explaining this before. The idea is that the energy field does not disappear immediately after the generator ceases functioning, because it is not in fact pure energy and has mass. The shell fragments and begins to vaporize and pieces of the energy field scatter and begin to disappear around the same time. Whether or not the field sticks to the fragments is not I think important.

In other words, after saying that you dislike turbolasers as an energy weapon because of the need for exotic particles (despite the fact that superlasers necessitate these anyway), you go on to concoct a theory which requires some kind of exotic magic mass-energy-field goo?

*I will try to quickly go over one of my bigger reasons.
Simply put, the turbolaser as an invisible beam which spends around 1/6 of a second--regardless of weapon yield--puttering around at a non damaging power output and then spikes to full power, in a fashion timed so that a visible tracer shot has by then reached the target, strikes me as silly. First, it is counter intuitive and complicated (which by itself is not condemning, it only means I don't like it) second and more importantly, it assumes the turbolaser is a lightspeed weapon (which tries very hard to look slower than light). I have a problem with that assumption because in the movies (screw the books) no body can hit shit worth a damn.

Why don't you try taking a laser pointer out to the woods and then try picking off targets by flipping the pointer on and off, while someone is shooting paintballs at you? Note: do not drag the pointer onto target: snap-shots only.

The reason seems to have to do with the lag between firing and hitting, turbolaser bolts take about 1/6 of a second to reach a target--any target--and in that time many smaller craft can shift positions considerably and avoid an otherwise well aimed shot. "They're evading our turbolasers."

OK, that's just a steaming pile of bullshit. They can't even see the shot coming, and human reaction time is much longer than 1/6 second, never mind the ability to actually change course. Your argument relies entirely on an unnecessarily literalist interpretation of the phrase "evading our turbolasers".

At the ranges and relative velocities observed in every single movie bar none a lightspeed weapon would have nearly no significant lag. Such a weapon has no excuse for missing so badly against star fighters or small freighters. Possible excuses for missing a target I can think of off the top of my head:
a) lag between firing and hitting

I find this the only plausible (major) excuse for weapon miss rates in Star Wars, 1/6 of a second is plenty of time to make an unanticipated movement.

No it's not. By your logic, if I'm an expert marksman and I fire an M-16 at you from 200 metres away, you can evade the fucking bullet. Good luck with that, Neo.

But a lightspeed turbolaser cannot claim this excuse, at the ranges and relative velocities observed not even a TIE Interceptor can hope to get out of the way of a lightspeed weapon.

b) acceleration issues with tracking a nimble target with a heavy gun

This could apply at the battle over the first death star, maybe. But realistically, it should be well within budget in a future so advanced to grant point defense weapons servos with more than the needed torque and precision to track any starfighter at observed ranges. I don't accept this excuse, it is like blaming the dog for your missing homework.

Classic "no limits" fallacy. You must have been the star of your control systems class. Oh wait, you obviously never took it.

c) sensor jamming interfering with targeting

This absolutely matters at long ranges and against highly nimble targets. I wish to point out neither is seen in Star Wars with the exception of the blockade run over Naboo, in which accurate firing began around 80 km IIRC. However it would be a sad day for everybody if the royal yacht had sensor jammers capable of thwarting a fleet of interlinked battleships...

What "fleet of interlinked battleships?" They were trying to surround an entire planet, they were only being fired on by one of those ships, and it is not even entirely clear whether the ship was trying to destroy or disable them.

Some smaller star fighters are nimble, Jedi star fighters for example. But while it would be difficult to hit such a ship without computer aid the lack of any hits on the Millennium Falcon during the entire Endor battle is inexcusable. Neither star fighters nor point defense weapons could scratch it, and how about the events in ESB where stardestroyers and TIEs could hardly touch it? This ship is neither tiny nor insanely maneuverable and in ESB it lacked the benefit of other large starships providing useful ECM.

And you figure that a 1/6-second delay explains all of this, while no other possible explanations exist? How about the idea that ISDs were designed to do battle with other large warships, hence even their point-defense guns are quite powerful and necessarily require massive and ponderous mechanisms, so fighters are used to attack other fighters? Or is that too complicated?

Further, visuals are not affected by jamming, should I, a movie purist, assume computers from the far future cannot provide real time aiming assistance from visual light only? How do robotic star fighters aim at all if sensor jamming is so profoundly effective?

The really powerful jammers distort spacetime itself.

I give this excuse a fail in the situations routinely observed in the movies.

Based on a similar kind of "I will not really try to make it work, so I declare that it fails" mentality to the one often employed by creationists to show why evolution doesn't work.

[Deathstalker]

DODONNA: Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

Sounds like lasers, blasters, turbolasers and the like are stopped by ray shields, but proton torpedoes are not, ya? Well, it does...

Here's how I look at it though: why would Dodonna even have to mention this at all? An energy beam isn't going to change course and obediently follow a shaft down to the reactor... only a physical projectile can make such a maneuver. This strongly implies to me that star fighter laser cannons fire projectiles. To fit this into my idea, the ray shields covering the shaft are so powerful that starfighter cannon shells cannot survive passage--their own protective shielding is overpowered. However proton torpedoes are designed for this sort of attack and can deal with the intense ray shielding. They are also more expensive and are a far larger projectile than the laser shell.

If the shaft wasn't protected by a ray shield then starfighters could have flown straight to the shaft, dived directly at it and attacked it head on, with the idea of pouring fire down the shaft, with a few torps thrown if the fighter got a good lock. The fighters wouldn't have to be exposed for very long as they could pop up, dive on the port, blast away then evade. There would have been casualties, but not much more than what Red and Gold suffered fighting above the trench before the TIEs showed up. But because of said ray shield, the port had to be hit presicsly with torps, meaning a run down the trench to buy time for the targeting comp to lock up.

This is to say nothing of where the ammo for starfighter cannons are stored. Where's the ammo for the Falcon's guns stored, or a TIEs? As far as I know, all "laser" weapons are the same, just different scales, from the hand blaster to the DS gun.

[The Silence and I]

My fault, I completely forgot to mention I consider these to be an entirely different class of weapon, perhaps similar to a lightsaber blade which is extended indefinitely toward the target. Really I haven't given much thought towards these except that I recognize them as fundamentally different.

But they establish the technology necessary for a type of turbolaser which you are dismissing.

Yes, maybe. I don’t buy the energy beam turbolaser theory because of how I observe the bolts behaving, not (anymore) because of exotic particles or what have you.

I do realize one of the few reasons I gave for preferring a physical shell for more standard turbolasers has to do with a need for fewer exotic particles, which comes off as dishonest now as both SPHA-T beams and superlasers require such unusual particles. I want to say now I really didn't recall these other classes of weapons when I typed that. I have other reasons to prefer normal bolt style weapons be projectiles but my post was long enough IMO.*

And do you not realize that your own theory requires some sort of exotic "energy that is not normal energy" around the projectile?

Yes, but I consider it fundamentally related to shield technology, which is already established as weird. Anyway, see above.

the lack of gravitational effects on the assumed projectile,

Easily compensated for with the same mechanics that allow course correction.

Then why don't turbolasers act like guided missiles? You'd think that if you design these things with course correction capabilities and guidance systems, you'd make them actually try to hit stuff.

You’re not going to like the answer, but it could simply be that the guidance system is only good enough to stabilize a given course (star position tracking for example).

or the existence of special "ray shields" to block turbolaser fire when you are saying that turbolasers are actually physical projectiles?

As far as I know the only movie reference to a ray shield is here:

DODONNA: Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

Sounds like lasers, blasters, turbolasers and the like are stopped by ray shields, but proton torpedoes are not, ya? Well, it does...

Here's how I look at it though: why would Dodonna even have to mention this at all? An energy beam isn't going to change course and obediently follow a shaft down to the reactor... only a physical projectile can make such a maneuver.

Or someone could try attacking it from directly above, risking the defensive fire but firing at greater range with much simpler computer targeting requirements and and relying on the fact that his energy weapons can't be intercepted the way a torpedo would be.

You know, until you mentioned this I forgot the shaft faced away from the station’s surface. So much for that idea…

This strongly implies to me that star fighter laser cannons fire projectiles. To fit this into my idea, the ray shields covering the shaft are so powerful that starfighter cannon shells cannot survive passage--their own protective shielding is overpowered. However proton torpedoes are designed for this sort of attack and can deal with the intense ray shielding. They are also more expensive and are a far larger projectile than the laser shell.

Occam's Razor not a big hit with you? You're adding mechanisms with no real evidence whatsoever for their existence other than your preference. There is precisely zero evidence whatsoever for turbolasers having some kind of shielding capability. There is precisely zero evidence for anyone ever having tried to develop a system to intercept turbolasers, even though that would be perfectly logical if they are in fact missiles.

Honestly, no I don’t care for Occam’s Razor much. It does not necessarily determine the truth. However I recognize its value in debate.

I would argue that accuracy is poor enough against something as large as a star fighter that trying to intercept a turbolaser is an exercise in futility. As for the existence of shields, it is my method for explaining the often very low velocities observed in turbolaser bolts. Obviously an energy weapon cannot travel at sub c in vacuum, and it especially cannot have arbitrary velocity, so either you don’t have an energy weapon or you have one masquerading as something else. I am exploring the case where it is not an energy weapon. If I pursue that then it must be physical. The problem then is how a slow moving physical object damages a target without an apparent warhead. Since it glows the glow might be important, it could be a damaging energy field.

What about the fragmentation upon hitting a shield? If the glowing appearance is produced by a shield generator on a projectile, what the fuck happens there? The projectile shatters into several pieces, each of which happens to have its own independent shield generator? You made no attempt to explain why the fragments of this shell would continue to glow if the glowing effect is an artificial product of this shield generator.

I didn't put a lot of effort into explaining this before. The idea is that the energy field does not disappear immediately after the generator ceases functioning, because it is not in fact pure energy and has mass. The shell fragments and begins to vaporize and pieces of the energy field scatter and begin to disappear around the same time. Whether or not the field sticks to the fragments is not I think important.

In other words, after saying that you dislike turbolasers as an energy weapon because of the need for exotic particles (despite the fact that superlasers necessitate these anyway), you go on to concoct a theory which requires some kind of exotic magic mass-energy-field goo?

I wish you wouldn’t latch onto the exotic particles thing after I admitted that is no longer relevant and offered another reason. I find it dishonest.

*I will try to quickly go over one of my bigger reasons.
Simply put, the turbolaser as an invisible beam which spends around 1/6 of a second--regardless of weapon yield--puttering around at a non damaging power output and then spikes to full power, in a fashion timed so that a visible tracer shot has by then reached the target, strikes me as silly. First, it is counter intuitive and complicated (which by itself is not condemning, it only means I don't like it) second and more importantly, it assumes the turbolaser is a lightspeed weapon (which tries very hard to look slower than light). I have a problem with that assumption because in the movies (screw the books) no body can hit shit worth a damn.

Why don't you try taking a laser pointer out to the woods and then try picking off targets by flipping the pointer on and off, while someone is shooting paintballs at you? Note: do not drag the pointer onto target: snap-shots only.

Two things:
a) in this case my accuracy – assuming an ergonomic laser pointer and equal skill—will not be better than the paintball toting person’s.
b) you admit tacitly that a beam weapon has an inherent accuracy advantage over a pulse weapon.

The reason seems to have to do with the lag between firing and hitting, turbolaser bolts take about 1/6 of a second to reach a target--any target--and in that time many smaller craft can shift positions considerably and avoid an otherwise well aimed shot. "They're evading our turbolasers."

OK, that's just a steaming pile of bullshit. They can't even see the shot coming, and human reaction time is much longer than 1/6 second, never mind the ability to actually change course. Your argument relies entirely on an unnecessarily literalist interpretation of the phrase "evading our turbolasers".

I will assume this is not a deliberate straw-man and assume you misunderstood me. I apologize if the that blame rests with me.

A pilot does not actively dodge a turbolaser, but rather makes continuous small course changes in an attempt to avoid getting hit. Bob the gunner gets Stan the pilot in his sights, leads appropriately etc and fires. 1/6 of a second later his shot arrives where he expected Stan to be, but Stan had made a small random course change during that time and as a consequence Bob misses. Stan did not dodge the shot actively, but he maintained random movement and so avoided Bob’s shot. I trust you can see the difference now?

At the ranges and relative velocities observed in every single movie bar none a lightspeed weapon would have nearly no significant lag. Such a weapon has no excuse for missing so badly against star fighters or small freighters. Possible excuses for missing a target I can think of off the top of my head:
a) lag between firing and hitting

I find this the only plausible (major) excuse for weapon miss rates in Star Wars, 1/6 of a second is plenty of time to make an unanticipated movement.

No it's not. By your logic, if I'm an expert marksman and I fire an M-16 at you from 200 metres away, you can evade the fucking bullet. Good luck with that, Neo.

Does not apply to my position, see above.

But a lightspeed turbolaser cannot claim this excuse, at the ranges and relative velocities observed not even a TIE Interceptor can hope to get out of the way of a lightspeed weapon.

b) acceleration issues with tracking a nimble target with a heavy gun

This could apply at the battle over the first death star, maybe. But realistically, it should be well within budget in a future so advanced to grant point defense weapons servos with more than the needed torque and precision to track any starfighter at observed ranges. I don't accept this excuse, it is like blaming the dog for your missing homework.

Classic "no limits" fallacy. You must have been the star of your control systems class. Oh wait, you obviously never took it.

Correct I never took it. I am however familiar with the concept and not clueless. I would be really interested to hear how you think it is a no limits fallacy to consider a society capable of building highly maneuverable 17 km long starships also capable of providing its point defense weapons servos adequate for the job of accurately tracking objects the size of modern jet fighters when the relative velocities are no greater than those found in modern dog fighting. I honestly do not see the stretch here, it is not as if I am talking about heavy turrets pegging strafing A-Wings.

c) sensor jamming interfering with targeting

This absolutely matters at long ranges and against highly nimble targets. I wish to point out neither is seen in Star Wars with the exception of the blockade run over Naboo, in which accurate firing began around 80 km IIRC. However it would be a sad day for everybody if the royal yacht had sensor jammers capable of thwarting a fleet of interlinked battleships...

What "fleet of interlinked battleships?" They were trying to surround an entire planet, they were only being fired on by one of those ships, and it is not even entirely clear whether the ship was trying to destroy or disable them.

The point was only this: any jamming equipment the yacht may have had should have been entirely incapable of interfering with the battleships.

Some smaller star fighters are nimble, Jedi star fighters for example. But while it would be difficult to hit such a ship without computer aid the lack of any hits on the Millennium Falcon during the entire Endor battle is inexcusable. Neither star fighters nor point defense weapons could scratch it, and how about the events in ESB where stardestroyers and TIEs could hardly touch it? This ship is neither tiny nor insanely maneuverable and in ESB it lacked the benefit of other large starships providing useful ECM.

And you figure that a 1/6-second delay explains all of this, while no other possible explanations exist? How about the idea that ISDs were designed to do battle with other large warships, hence even their point-defense guns are quite powerful and necessarily require massive and ponderous mechanisms, so fighters are used to attack other fighters? Or is that too complicated?

Mostly it’s wrong.
a) small point defense weapons most clearly exist on stardestroyers, we see their bolts and we see the guns from inside.
b) even if the fighter screen is the first line of defense against fighters (reasonable enough, just because ISDs have small guns doesn’t mean they have a lot of them) it still could barely score hits on a ship over 60 meters long.
c) a 1/6 second delay absolutely can explain this. Han cannot actively dodge weapon fire, but if every shot is taking around 1/6 of a second to arrive he has enough time to make course changes small and large and so avoid much of the fire. Just watch the movie already, so many shots zip through the space the Falcon occupied moments ago. How do you explain a lightspeed weapon behaving like this?

Further, visuals are not affected by jamming, should I, a movie purist, assume computers from the far future cannot provide real time aiming assistance from visual light only? How do robotic star fighters aim at all if sensor jamming is so profoundly effective?

The really powerful jammers distort spacetime itself.

Just curious here, but doesn’t the ANH novelization say the one thing jammers cannot fool is the MK1 Eyeball?

I give this excuse a fail in the situations routinely observed in the movies.

Based on a similar kind of "I will not really try to make it work, so I declare that it fails" mentality to the one often employed by creationists to show why evolution doesn't work.

Ooh the dreaded creationist card. Scary.

[Darth Wong]

Ah, I see you've decided to resort to "smarmy asshole" debate technique. OK, fine. Let's play it that way.

And do you not realize that your own theory requires some sort of exotic "energy that is not normal energy" around the projectile?

Yes, but I consider it fundamentally related to shield technology, which is already established as weird. Anyway, see above.

I see, so "established as weird" means "I can say it does whatever I want". Nice excuse for bullshit.

Then why don't turbolasers act like guided missiles? You'd think that if you design these things with course correction capabilities and guidance systems, you'd make them actually try to hit stuff.

You're not going to like the answer, but it could simply be that the guidance system is only good enough to stabilize a given course (star position tracking for example).

So on one hand, your argument is that turbolasers can't possibly be energy weapons because ISD PD guns miss and a super-advanced society can be presumed to have perfect targeting, and then you turn around and argue that they can't build a guidance system that can do anything better than go straight? Your argument is about as consistent as a politician's rhetoric.

You know, until you mentioned this I forgot the shaft faced away from the station's surface. So much for that idea.

So the point about the ray shields still needs to be answered, then. What's your answer?

Honestly, no I don't care for Occam's Razor much. It does not necessarily determine the truth. However I recognize its value in debate.

It is not just a debate tool, fucktard. It describes whether ideas logically follow from observations. You can use creationist debate tactics and argue that logic itself does not "necessarily determine the truth", which is a tactic I've seen far too often, but the fact remains that if you disregard Occam's Razor, you are disregarding logic. Ergo, your argument is irrational.

I would argue that accuracy is poor enough against something as large as a star fighter that trying to intercept a turbolaser is an exercise in futility.

What happened to your "super advanced sci-fi society should be able to achieve any arbitrary accuracy I want" assumption? It only comes out when convenient?

As for the existence of shields, it is my method for explaining the often very low velocities observed in turbolaser bolts. Obviously an energy weapon cannot travel at sub c in vacuum, and it especially cannot have arbitrary velocity, so either you don't have an energy weapon or you have one masquerading as something else.

You know perfectly well that the ramp-up delay is the current explanation for this. You say you don't like it, but that is no reason to say it doesn't work, especially when your own explanation for the mysterious "speed varies to produce the same propagation delay regardless of distance" argument is no better. I have never said that the current explanation is perfect, but yours appears riddled with far more holes than the current explanation.

I am exploring the case where it is not an energy weapon. If I pursue that then it must be physical. The problem then is how a slow moving physical object damages a target without an apparent warhead. Since it glows the glow might be important, it could be a damaging energy field.

What exactly is an "energy field", apart from a term you hear on sci-fi far too often? Are we talking about some kind of forcefield, like an electromagnetic or gravitational forcefield? If so, why must it glow so brightly and give away your location? It seems to me that you're just using "energy field" because you know it doesn't mean anything, so you can just make up whatever characteristics you want. Why not just say that the turbolaser bolt is entirely made up of this fantastic "energy field" goo of yours, since you have already argued that it persists, glows, and propagates in coherent pieces after the generating mechanism is destroyed?

In other words, after saying that you dislike turbolasers as an energy weapon because of the need for exotic particles (despite the fact that superlasers necessitate these anyway), you go on to concoct a theory which requires some kind of exotic magic mass-energy-field goo?

I wish you wouldn't latch onto the exotic particles thing after I admitted that is no longer relevant and offered another reason. I find it dishonest.

How the fuck is it dishonest, asshole? Even if you no longer use it as your argument, the fact remains that you initially thought it was perfectly reasonable to denigrate a theory on the basis of requiring exotic particles at one time, yet your own theory requires something far more exotic: an "energy field" which not only persists after its generating mechanism is destroyed, but fragments into pieces that all persists, glow, and continue to propagate. At least a freaky particle is not as crazy as an "energy field" that is self-sustaining.

Why don't you try taking a laser pointer out to the woods and then try picking off targets by flipping the pointer on and off, while someone is shooting paintballs at you? Note: do not drag the pointer onto target: snap-shots only.

Two things:
a) in this case my accuracy - assuming an ergonomic laser pointer and equal skill - will not be better than the paintball toting person’s.
b) you admit tacitly that a beam weapon has an inherent accuracy advantage over a pulse weapon.

a) Red herring. The paintball toting person is not comparing his accuracy to yours. He is distracting you.
b) Red herring. This has nothing to do with the subject under discussion. If you want to change the subject to a general discussion of the virtues of beam weapons vs pulse weapons, start a new thread.

Stop being evasive and answer the point.

A pilot does not actively dodge a turbolaser, but rather makes continuous small course changes in an attempt to avoid getting hit. Bob the gunner gets Stan the pilot in his sights, leads appropriately etc and fires. 1/6 of a second later his shot arrives where he expected Stan to be, but Stan had made a small random course change during that time and as a consequence Bob misses. Stan did not dodge the shot actively, but he maintained random movement and so avoided Bob's shot. I trust you can see the difference now?

Oh, I thought you were a "movie purist". You see, in the movies, we never see the fighters making such wild course changes that a 1/6-second delay would allow the guns to miss by such a large margin, especially in the Battle of Yavin which you were quoting. So your argument has no observational support whatsoever.

No it's not. By your logic, if I'm an expert marksman and I fire an M-16 at you from 200 metres away, you can evade the fucking bullet. Good luck with that, Neo.

Does not apply to my position, see above.

Yes it does, provided the target is running around.

Correct I never took it. I am however familiar with the concept and not clueless. I would be really interested to hear how you think it is a no limits fallacy to consider a society capable of building highly maneuverable 17 km long starships also capable of providing its point defense weapons servos adequate for the job of accurately tracking objects the size of modern jet fighters when the relative velocities are no greater than those found in modern dog fighting. I honestly do not see the stretch here, it is not as if I am talking about heavy turrets pegging strafing A-Wings.

What part of large yields do you not get, exactly? Even their so-called "point-defense guns" (a description taken from the EU which also says they have 6 megaton yield, despite your "movie purist" self-description) were probably meant to dice with small warships, not fighters. Consider the fact that apart from these "point defense guns", an ISD's only apparent armament is the huge topside turrets which are definitely very slow to rotate. If all it has is monster guns and pinprick guns, it will have a serious gap in its armament. Those "point defense" guns are in the middle, which means their mechanisms must be fairly large, much larger than a fighter's guns. And that, in turn, means that they cannot rotate at any arbitrary speed while maintaining accuracy. Simply saying "advanced sci-fi, rar" does not resolve this problem.

The point was only this: any jamming equipment the yacht may have had should have been entirely incapable of interfering with the battleships.

Why?

Mostly it's wrong.
a) small point defense weapons most clearly exist on stardestroyers, we see their bolts and we see the guns from inside.

We have never seen a point-defense gun from the inside of an ISD. We don't know how big it is.

b) even if the fighter screen is the first line of defense against fighters (reasonable enough, just because ISDs have small guns doesn't mean they have a lot of them) it still could barely score hits on a ship over 60 meters long.

Which 60 metre long ship are you talking about? The Falcon is nowhere near 60 metres long, and if you're talking about the yacht, they hit it early.

c) a 1/6 second delay absolutely can explain this. Han cannot actively dodge weapon fire, but if every shot is taking around 1/6 of a second to arrive he has enough time to make course changes small and large and so avoid much of the fire.

(sigh) the fact that a soldier has trouble shooting people at 200 metres is due to the limitations of his accuracy, not the fact that the bullet takes more than 1/6 second to get there. People just don't move that fast or unpredictably.

Just watch the movie already, so many shots zip through the space the Falcon occupied moments ago. How do you explain a lightspeed weapon behaving like this?

The gun isn't precisely pointed the right way. Duh. Do you have any argument that does not require perfect targeting accuracy on the part of the guns?

The really powerful jammers distort spacetime itself.

Just curious here, but doesn't the ANH novelization say the one thing jammers cannot fool is the MK1 Eyeball?

I don't recall, but that doesn't mean spacetime distortions will have no effect on targeting accuracy. It only means that you can visually get a pretty good idea where your target is and what kind of target it is, despite jamming. Remember that one of the functions of real-life radar jamming is to obscure what kind of target you're looking at, and also to obscure the existence of other targets near the craft with the jammer. It doesn't actually make the ship with the jammer invisible or un-targetable (in fact, you can identify his location by simply triangulating on the jamming signals).

I give this excuse a fail in the situations routinely observed in the movies.

Based on a similar kind of "I will not really try to make it work, so I declare that it fails" mentality to the one often employed by creationists to show why evolution doesn't work.

Ooh the dreaded creationist card. Scary.

You can be as smarmy as you like, but the accusation is correct. Your logic relies on two central pillars of creationist thought:

1) Occam's Razor is not important.
2) If I can't make an idea work myself, despite not making much of an effort to do so, then the idea "fails" and my alternate idea must be right.

[AidanMcfay]

Besides all that has been stated, if Turbolasers were in fact projectile based, would we not see ammo casings comming out of the Turbolasers on the Death Star(In A New Hope we see bits and pieces of soldiers sitting in chairs firing large weapons). Even if the Turbolasers were infact Caseless, would we not see some sort of large feeder into the weapons?

[Darth Wong]

You could make a better argument for some varieties of hand blaster being projectile weapons than the big shipboard weapons, although the lack of gravity drop is still a serious problem.

[Vympel]

You could make a better argument for some varieties of hand blaster being projectile weapons than the big shipboard weapons, although the lack of gravity drop is still a serious problem.

Several times hand blaster bolts are somewhat transparent, which also makes an actual solid projectile pretty hard to fit.

[AidanMcfay]

I remember reading some crap saying that the Bowcaster Chebacca used had solid bolts it shot, but if that were true, where are the "bolts" stored?

[Deathstalker]

I remember reading some crap saying that the Bowcaster Chebacca used had solid bolts it shot, but if that were true, where are the "bolts" stored?

Bowcasters are blasters like everything else, they just look different. The whole need Wookie strength to cock it is a brainbug, as the two times (that I know of) of a bowcaster being fired, it had the same rate of fire as a conventional blaster. Example one is in ROTJ when Chewbacca fires on the fleeing biker scouts, and two or three shots are fired in rapid succession, far to fast for there to be a recocking action. Second example is in ROTS where a wookie is firing a repeating bowcaster from a tailgunner position on a wookie helicopter.

[AidanMcfay]

I remember reading some crap saying that the Bowcaster Chebacca used had solid bolts it shot, but if that were true, where are the "bolts" stored?

Bowcasters are blasters like everything else, they just look different. The whole need Wookie strength to cock it is a brainbug, as the two times (that I know of) of a bowcaster being fired, it had the same rate of fire as a conventional blaster. Example one is in ROTJ when Chewbacca fires on the fleeing biker scouts, and two or three shots are fired in rapid succession, far to fast for there to be a recocking action. Second example is in ROTS where a wookie is firing a repeating bowcaster from a tailgunner position on a wookie helicopter.

I know, i just happened to remember the bullshit being tossed around about it in the past.

[Deathstalker]

I think WEG had mentioned it in the RPG to explain why it was a crossbow, that the "string" was needed to load an "energy shell" IIRC. They got overly technical when they could have just said it is a cultural design, and functions like any other blaster.

[K. A. Pital]

Several times hand blaster bolts are somewhat transparent, which also makes an actual solid projectile pretty hard to fit.

Indeed. However they always fly at sublight and sometimes reflect. If they are not projectiles of some kind, what are they? AOTC nov. says blasters are projectile weapons.

[FTeik]

Could the weapon be used like a real cross-bow (if the user gets a wire and projectiles) if necessary and otherwise function like a blaster?

TLs as projectile-weapons doesn't work. There is no way to change the yield, ships would have to bother with lots of different calibers for different purposes, the weapons couldn't be feed by the reactors, ect., ect.. Even without gravitational drag or funny shield-interactions TLs being projectile-weapons is highly unlikely.

However the Empire does use projectile-weapons on the DS (ANH-novel) and it might also use them on its capital ships (although they are nowhere mentioned).

[Teleros]

AOTC nov. says blasters are projectile weapons.

Do we get any other support for this though? It didn't look it from the films for example...

[AidanMcfay]

Several times hand blaster bolts are somewhat transparent, which also makes an actual solid projectile pretty hard to fit.

Indeed. However they always fly at sublight and sometimes reflect. If they are not projectiles of some kind, what are they? AOTC nov. says blasters are projectile weapons.

Ammo. The rifles have no clips. The ammount of shots we see fly out of a single trooper's rifle is staggering, and yet we do not see clips of ammo.

Because they fly at sublight speed = Solid object why?

[K. A. Pital]

The ammount of shots we see fly out of a single trooper's rifle is staggering, and yet we do not see clips of ammo.

So? SW is known to store denser matter than we can even think of. And if those projectiles are stored at a high density and then fired and superheated... hmm.

[Teleros]

There are still all the problems DW mentioned though...

[AidanMcfay]

The ammount of shots we see fly out of a single trooper's rifle is staggering, and yet we do not see clips of ammo.

So? SW is known to store denser matter than we can even think of. And if those projectiles are stored at a high density and then fired and superheated... hmm.

Sorry, but there is no evidence to support this claim from what we see in the movies. It seems your comming up with something just to support your claim.

[K. A. Pital]

What is the solution to blaster problems? They don't move at C as some beam weapons do; they constantly move below C.

They don't "trace" after the gun movement (something large laser guns do, E IV the TIE and E V the snowspeeder).

Not that I think they're physical shells like bullets, but there are examples of projectile weapons like that, and even larger... the AT-TE guns, for example, or the AAT guns to speak only from the moive... we see clearly how the superheated gold-glowing projectiles break down against the shield in fiery sparks of heated material.

[AidanMcfay]

AOTC nov. says blasters are projectile weapons.

Do we get any other support for this though? It didn't look it from the films for example...

Not that I've ever read in any book, comic, or seen in any movie. I do not even recall it being stated in the AOTC novel, but it seems to me this statement is contradicted by the film, seeing as I said before, no ammo clips or anything protruding on the rifles.

[Teleros]

What is the solution to blaster problems? They don't move at C as some beam weapons do; they constantly move below C.

The (invisible) damaging portion of the shot moves at C, the tracer moves below C, as DW & Saxton are saying.

They don't "trace" after the gun movement (something large laser guns do, E IV the TIE and E V the snowspeeder).

They wouldn't with the above method.

[Batman]

What does he mean with 'trace after the gun movement' anyway?