Go to Post We are all on a big team named FIRST - Al Skierkiewicz [more]
Home
Go Back   Chief Delphi > Other > Chit-Chat
CD-Media   CD-Spy  
portal register members calendar search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read FAQ rules

 
Reply
 
Thread Tools Rate Thread Display Modes
  #1   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 25-05-2003, 18:25
Patrick Duffy's Avatar
Patrick Duffy Patrick Duffy is offline
Registered User
#0108 (SigmaC@T)
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Ft. Lauderdale
Posts: 88
Patrick Duffy is an unknown quantity at this point
Send a message via AIM to Patrick Duffy
page 2

Technical Ramifications
The use of battle lines, ramming tactics, and balanced short-range gun/missile attacks in Star Trek leads us to the following conclusions:
Anti-ship weaponry in Star Trek is not combat-effective at ranges exceeding ~10km, because battle lines form up at those ranges and cannot employ fleet firepower concentration without encirclement (also at that range). Torpedoes and phasers can physically travel farther than that, but targeting difficulties can limit effective range even when theoretical range is very large.
Hulls, shields and structural forcefields are insufficient to nullify the effectiveness of ramming, because ramming attacks were so effective against undamaged, fully shielded Klingon warships in "Tears of the Prophets" (even when undertaken by miniscule 70m long ships). This suggests large disparities between Star Trek ships' ability to handle kinetic energy and electromagnetic energy.
Combat maneuverability of capital ships is high enough to permit Nelson-style tactics of maneuver (hence the flanking maneuvers attempted by Jem'Hadar ships), but not high enough to permit fighter plane tactics (hence their use of combat formations).
Based on the parallel use of phasers and photon torpedoes, the effective range of missiles seems to be far lower than their theoretical range. A likely explanation is that their limited AI and ECM (in addition to poor maneuverability) makes them easy to shoot down at long range, where the defenders have a lot of time to see them coming.
The use of concentrated gunnery tactics in conjunction with fighter harassment in Star Wars leads us to the following conclusions:
Anti-ship weaponry in Star Wars is combat-effective at ranges of at least several hundred kilometres based on the unimportance of battle formations, even at long visual ranges such as those seen in ROTJ. This was demonstrated when the Rebel ion cannon engaged ISD's in the Battle of Hoth, and again when the DS2 superlaser engaged Rebel cruisers in the Battle of Endor.
Weapons based on turbolaser technology dominate the battlefield in Star Wars, with scalability ranging as low as a hand blaster and as high as the awesome planet-destroying Death Star superlaser. Torpedoes are relatively unimportant, and seem to serve only as starfighter weapons.
Starfighters, by virtue of their weak armament, cannot successfully attack capital ships without capship support. There is some apocryphal literature to support the opposite notion, but it originates entirely from the notoriously propagandistic New Republic descriptions of the exaggerated exploits of Wedge Antilles and his X-wing squadron. Canon support for this notion is nonexistent, and in the Battle of ROTJ, the fighters were used merely to "finish off" ships which have already been disabled by turbolaser cannonade, such as the Imperial communications ship and the Executor (also see the novelization, in which we heard Ackbar informing his bridge crew that "if we can knock out their shields, our fighters might stand a chance against them"- a far cry from the apocryphal nonsense of fighter squadrons pummeling the shields of warships).

Industrial Capacity and Territorial Holdings

Total assets include more than one million star systems, and millions of warships including tens of thousands of standard KDY Star Destroyers. Our command craft dwarf their space stations, and our space stations are the size of small moons. We have even built artificial planets in the past.

Total assets include roughly one hundred and fifty star systems, and a few thousand small warships. Their fleets are so puny that they actually include fighters in their ship counts! Their largest starbases are less than a dozen kilometres in length.

Propulsion Technology:

Warp Drive vs Hyperdrive
Hyperdrive allows us to traverse a galaxy in hours or days. Their warp drive is so slow that they require decades to cross their galaxy.

Beam Weapons:

Phasers vs Turbolasers
Heavy turbolasers release many gigatons of energy per shot, while light turbolasers release dozens of megatons of energy per shot. A Star Destroyer carries more than a hundred light turbolasers and dozens of heavy turbolasers. The Death Star (a massive compound turbolaser) releases more energy than the Sun produces in over seven thousand years! We also have ion cannon technology, which they lack. Details
Their phasers appear to induce some kind of chain reaction in matter. Against shields, they seem to be tactically equivalent to lasers in the range of 30,000 TW (7 megatons per second). Against dense armour, their effectiveness is much lower, in the 1-10TW range (1 kiloton per second). A typical starship has only a handful of phaser arrays.

Torpedoes:
Photon/Quantum torpedoes vs Imperial missiles
Our missiles are not our heaviest weapons, and are mostly used for fighter combat or attacks on "soft targets", such as starships whose shields have been disabled by turbolaser fire. Therefore, most missiles are very small, low-yield devices, although there have been notable exceptions (eg. the huge and devastating Galaxy Gun missiles or the Suncrusher's quantum resonance torpedoes). Maneuverability can be superb; Luke's torpedo executed a 72,000g turn in ANH. Details
Their torpedoes are their heaviest weapons, with an upper limit of 64 megatons for photon torpedoes and roughly twice that for quantum torpedoes. In fact, some significant battles have been fought exclusively with torpedoes. They are capable of superluminal speeds when launched from a warp-driven starship, thus making them useful for long-range first-strike actions and surprise attacks. They have good acceleration and guidance systems, but limited maneuverability.

Shields
Our capital ship shields can survive direct hits from multi-megaton nuclear warheads and turbolasers. Our planetary shields are far stronger, and can withstand days or weeks of sustained fleet bombardment with multi-gigaton heavy turbolasers. Alderaan's planetary shield actually blocked the Death Star superlaser for a split-second.

Their capital ship shields can survive prolonged exposure to intense solar radiation, as well as direct hits from multi-megaton nuclear or antimatter weapons. They lack planetary shields, so they rely on orbital defense platforms and interceptors to safeguard their citizens.

Sensors
We had subspace sensors more than 25,000 years ago, during the time of Xim the Despot. We can detect cloaked ships using focus-scans or CGT sensors. Details
They have subspace sensors which can detect sublight or warp-speed ships from light years away. Ships using hyperdrive would outrace their sensor packets. They cannot detect cloaked ships without using point to point networks.

Communications
Capital ship subspace transceivers have a range of 100 light years. The Holo-Net permits real-time communication across the galaxy.
Their subspace transceivers have a range of 22 light years.

Power Generation
Star Destroyers produce as much power as a small star, and Death Star hypermatter reactors produce millions of times the power of a typical main-sequence star. Details
Their unstable matter/antimatter reactors can produce power on the order of 1E19 to 1E20 watts (similar to a tiny star). Their fusion reactors are limited to the TW range.

Special Technology
Virtually all of our most advanced engineering facilities are focused on the task of developing and refining more efficient, more durable, and more deadly methods of destroying or subjugating our enemies. The results of those efforts have been seen in projects such as the Suncrusher, World Devastators, and Galaxy Gun. This is not to say that we totally lack non-military technologies, but we focus our efforts differently than the Federation does.

They have devoted intense research efforts to the areas of health, recreation, convenience and beauty. However, they appear to have a negative attitude toward aggressive military research, so nascent technologies with potential military applications have languished. This anti-military cultural bias will only make them easier to defeat in a lightning campaign.
__________________


http://guitaristsbane.ath.cx
Go visit my site if you want.
Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Who is your favorite Star Wars villain? LBK Rules Chit-Chat 20 30-10-2009 21:14
stump the star wars god. John JediMaster Chit-Chat 15 15-03-2004 21:03
Star Wars .max files Jay W. 3D Animation and Competition 4 04-03-2003 21:30
Why doesn’t Star Trek have more droids? hotsurkit Chit-Chat 12 01-03-2003 12:21
The Ultimate Battle, Star Wars or Star Trek! Chubtoad Chit-Chat 10 17-04-2002 06:59


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:07.

The Chief Delphi Forums are sponsored by Innovation First International, Inc.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © Chief Delphi