Topic Actions

Topic Search

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests

Dahak vs Death Star

Fans of Colin Maclntyre and the great starship Dahak should take a minute to stop in here for discussions about one of David's best-loved series.
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Somtaaw   » Sun Jan 17, 2016 2:12 pm

Somtaaw
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1184
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:36 am
Location: Canada

Jonathan_S wrote:The Force Awakens has a scene that seems to bear on this argument. But if you guys haven't seen it yet I'll avoid saying more.



I have yet to see it. Disney has also claimed that the entirety of the pre-existing EU is totally non-canon, which also eliminates a lot of other things we could argue, because they "never happened" anymore.


If you want to PM it to me however, to avoid public spoilers, as I have little intention on actually seeing it, I might amend some of what I've said. I've done all of my debating based on pre-Disney, because those are the books that have really kept Star Wars alive and kicking long enough for the prequels, let alone Disney's reboot.
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by munroburton   » Mon Jan 18, 2016 3:59 pm

munroburton
Admiral

Posts: 2368
Joined: Sat Jun 15, 2013 10:16 am
Location: Scotland

Somtaaw wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:The Force Awakens has a scene that seems to bear on this argument. But if you guys haven't seen it yet I'll avoid saying more.



I have yet to see it. Disney has also claimed that the entirety of the pre-existing EU is totally non-canon, which also eliminates a lot of other things we could argue, because they "never happened" anymore.


If you want to PM it to me however, to avoid public spoilers, as I have little intention on actually seeing it, I might amend some of what I've said. I've done all of my debating based on pre-Disney, because those are the books that have really kept Star Wars alive and kicking long enough for the prequels, let alone Disney's reboot.


I know the scene. Definitely adds something to the "no hyperspacing inside shields" argument...

IMO, Disney's declaration that the EU was no longer valid makes sense for at least two reasons. Firstly, they no longer had to pay royalties to authors for any characters or events featured(or even mentioned) and secondly, the EU is a hell of a mess. To be fair, they'd gotten a handle on the coordination by the end, but they did it with a radical departure from hithertho established SW canon(the Yuuzhan Vong).

Nevertheless, watching VII, I couldn't help but be reminded of various EU elements. Which isn't really surprising - all those other creations have hit most of the plausible(and a few implausibles!) ideas over the decades. There isn't really much new ground to be broken.

It seems to me the voiding of the EU was really more about allowing them to pick and choose bits at will, rewriting them to work with the medium of film rather than text.

As for the topic, I've probably commented before but no way the Death Star turns faster than Dahak can hop around. Its main weapon is effectively an one-shot, which doesn't help it any. Granted, a complete hit might cause destruction, but here's the thing - if Dahak is zig zagging around, how much of the superlaser beam can actally hit Dahak before he moves out of the line of fire? What's most likely is Dahak's shields blow out and a chunk gets bitten out of his trailing edge. He's not going to sit fat and happy like Alderaan.

And then? He has options, lots and lots of them. Which is the killer - the DS was made to do exactly one thing, whilst planetoids are extremely versatile.
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Somtaaw   » Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:48 am

Somtaaw
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1184
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:36 am
Location: Canada

munroburton wrote:I know the scene. Definitely adds something to the "no hyperspacing inside shields" argument...

IMO, Disney's declaration that the EU was no longer valid makes sense for at least two reasons. Firstly, they no longer had to pay royalties to authors for any characters or events featured(or even mentioned) and secondly, the EU is a hell of a mess. To be fair, they'd gotten a handle on the coordination by the end, but they did it with a radical departure from hithertho established SW canon(the Yuuzhan Vong).


After getting the PM, yes the voiding of "no hyper inside shields" does sound to make sense, but there's an anti-void that Disney is bound by contract to not wave away.

Episode 3, when Grievous attacked Coruscant directly, and "captured" Palpatine? He was kept in orbit because of the planetary shield, allowing forces there to engage in a bid to kill the General. Because otherwise, once Grievous pulled it off, he should have hypered right back out... unless he was unable to. And in the now discarded EU canon, Coruscant is capable of lowering small "patches" in its planetary shield, without lowering in an "all or nothing" form of protection.

And yes you're right, the EU was sort of a spaghetti ball, because alot of the initial writers had plots that had nothing to do with one another, and thus had a lot of free pass in their writing, and later writers had to either account for the older plots, or wave it away. And the Yuuzhan Vong is when I just stopped paying attention to the SW EU because it was ridiculous. But some of the classics of the EU, such as the Thrawn trilogies, Stackpoole's X-wing series, Warlord Zsinj plots, and a few others are both the highlights of the EU and generally seem to be genuinely researched and balanced.

I generally agree with Tenshi that the Sun Crusher really does boils down to a "god weapon of invulnerability" even though it was balanced out by "well other than its resonance torpedoes, it's pretty damn harmless. You can't kill it, but unless you're a solar system, it can't kill you alone either." It was written in a book which puts it into the EU and makes it fair game for inclusion to discussions like this.

munroburton wrote:-snip-
Granted, a complete hit might cause destruction, but here's the thing - if Dahak is zig zagging around, how much of the superlaser beam can actally hit Dahak before he moves out of the line of fire? What's most likely is Dahak's shields blow out and a chunk gets bitten out of his trailing edge. He's not going to sit fat and happy like Alderaan.

And then? He has options, lots and lots of them. Which is the killer - the DS was made to do exactly one thing, whilst planetoids are extremely versatile.


That's generally what I was getting at, in one of my replies how Dahak is armored, and subcompartmented from hell... compared to a planet which has absolutely nothing except raw mass and bulk. Formed and treated metals formed in a deliberate plan for strength will always be stronger than a mass of randomly created earth created by volcanic or other planetary activity.


In Episode 6, over Endor, the DSII was actively engaged Rebel capital ships but they were also more or less stationary as well, which puts them into "predictable like a planet" category.

Dahak's speed alone should keep him from getting hit period, and with his computational speed, after the first one or two shots, he'd be able to change course in the few seconds before firing and generate total misses. The only time the DS would generate a genuine hit, would be if Dahak came in fat, dumb and happy like he did in Birhat to Mother. Except whoever was commanding the DS would inevitably issue threats, putting Colin and Dahak's backs up, and the Death Star never get their "free hit on an unsuspecting foe".


As an alteration of the general base argument.... the Dark Saber project versus Dahak. Ignoring the minor issue it was being built by Hutts, and it was sabotaged from the get-go, the core idea is basically: strip away all the fat and unnecessary parts of the Death Star, and you get the superlaser, power core, and engines (both standard and hyper). It becomes much, much faster and agile, and with so much less power needs, it was probably (but not proven) to have better RoF on the superlaser. Still extremely doubtful it could match, or even be in shouting distance of Dahak's agility, but it would come far, far closer to achieving the goal of hitting him than the DS could achieve.
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:33 pm

Loren Pechtel
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1324
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:24 pm

Tenshinai wrote:
Loren Pechtel wrote:This is assuming that Dahak stays on a predictable course


Actually no. It assumes that any prolonged "fighting"(or rather trying to outmaneuver each other) will eventually have both sides going to the "same" place. Ie, outpredicting each other, most of the times, it´s not going to work, but sometimes it will, it´s a matter of being able to take advantage of the chance that provides.


I don't think prediction is a meaningful option--the ships should move entirely randomly within a defined area, impossible to predict. All that counts is maneuverability--and Dahak has vastly more of that than SW ships. He will be much farther from the "predicted" location than a SW ship. (And most SW combat occurs at ranges short enough that such random evasion isn't relevant--thus they might not even have such capability.)

By fighters supposedly going in "under the shields", and just how that is supposed to work outside of movie drama has never been explained.


Actually, it makes sense. Shields have costs. The shield they put on the original DS was porous for this reason. They didn't consider fighters a realistic threat and thus saved by not engineering their shields to stop them. (I'm not saying it was for budgetary reasons--more likely for capability reasons. They were more interested in shields that could stand up to pounding from the rebel cruisers than fighters that could only do superficial damage--except for that exhaust port.)

No, you misunderstand. It´s not shields using particles, it´s shields protecting AGAINST particles.
It´s very poorly described on a techbasis, but essentially, it repels particles so they are unable to impact with what the shield protects.

Antimatter warheads would basically just be dispersed without any explosion at all.


No--I do understand. You're thinking of an antimatter weapon as simply delivering a chunk of antimatter. I do agree a particle screen would render such an attack basically meaningless. Nobody would bother with an antimatter beam weapon against a SW ship.

We are talking about missiles, though--missiles that have missile bodies. The missiles that Dahak fires are tens of meters long and pack a hyperdrive generator. That's a lot of mass. The warheads are only a small fraction of this. (Look at the yields to see this.) When the containment is switched off the antimatter will react with the missile itself. The antimatter does not attack the target, it's simply a source of energy.

There´s some uncertainty if you could make it work with antimatter/matter warheads(ie bringing both of their fuels with them completely), but probably, to function as they should, they probably have to be detonated at standoff range, or the result would mostly be what you might call a glancing hit, with something like >99% of the energy acting like a directed(shaped charge) warhead AWAY from the shielded craft.


You don't need to bring matter--you have the missile itself. And when it hits the DS 50% of the energy is going to be absorbed. We see the X-wings able to do damage with vastly weaker weapons. (Not that I'm at all sure there are even any shields in play at that point--I think the shield was some distance above the surface of the DS and they're attacking bare metal.) (I call the X-wing weapons vastly weaker because if they matched Dahak's antimatter warheads the X-wings would expend a substantial portion of their mass powering them even if they have total conversion power.)

Again, we know they can get through by movie drama author fiat, if we go just by techspecs, it should be nearly impossible.


The X-wings get through because the shield wasn't built to stop something like them. What I'm wondering is if a Fifth-Imperium drive does a kamikaze what's the energy release? Do they hit with relativistic energy or does the destruction of the drive drop them to low velocity?
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:38 pm

Loren Pechtel
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1324
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:24 pm

Somtaaw wrote:Prior to the Siege of Anu's base, when Colin was just about to go up with Tani, there was a brief description over how the Imperial fighters fly; and that because they were flying low, slow, and heavily stealthed they didn't need the grav field, or protective shields. But flying at maximum speeds, they need shields to protect their surfaces more.


So during the Siege of Anu's base, the returning fighters were definitely running not only their full-powered drives, but shields up, weapons hot ready to engage as soon as they got the range.

Dahak was firing capital hyper missiles, sublight parasite cruisers (like the Osiris, or others during the Siege of Earth), have their own smaller hyper missiles, and while I'm not 100% sure the fighters have hyper missiles, if they do they are smaller in turn.


Their shields were up but they were running straight--easy pickings. Dahak's missiles had enough power that shields didn't matter. I'm sure Dahak wasn't even using his good stuff--too much damage to the Earth. I'm just saying it wouldn't have been one-shot-one-kill against an evasive fighter.
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:50 pm

Loren Pechtel
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1324
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:24 pm

Somtaaw wrote:Which is why, during the many attacks on Coruscant, both in the Clone Wars (Grievous grabbing Palpatine), and the shields went up over him... he couldn't hyper back out. In actuality, planetary shields are pretty much totally impregnable. A good example, is on Hoth. Vader has a whole fleet, and the Empire didn't mess around with small fleets.... but a single planetary shield protecting the Rebel base, and he had no choice but to send ground troops. Otherwise he could have sat in orbit, and just pounded on it with his few hundred ships and forced the Rebel shield generator to burn out.


Look at the siege of Earth for a similar situation.

Beams: Totally useless. It would stop them cold.

Missiles: A tiny percent chance that one would get lucky. Reducing Earth that way wasn't feasible.

Thus they resorted to throwing rocks to overload the shield and drive it back to expose the defense stations it was protecting. Since Hoth didn't have a shield over the whole planet they landed ground troops rather than throw an asteroid.

Note, though, that ship-to-ship they still threw missiles because a few would get through--and a lot more than against Earth because planetary defenses could be much more comprehensive than anything you could put on a ship.

Note, also, that just because the shields keep you from hypering out doesn't mean they are 100% perfect coverage. If you have a 1% chance of getting through you don't take that unless staying is certain death. You do fire missiles at such long odds, though.
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Tenshinai   » Sun Jan 24, 2016 5:24 pm

Tenshinai
Admiral

Posts: 2893
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:34 pm
Location: Sweden

Somtaaw wrote:You are giving FAR too much credit to their shields, strictly from movies. Period.


Eh? Actually i´m mostly discounting the movies for being exactly that, fiction.
I´m going by the official tech that´s been written up.

Somtaaw wrote:and yet in every single battle both movies and every EU book in existance.... missiles that are barely faster than fighter are not only never shot down by anti-missile, but are non-hyper in nature.


Well duh... If what i said is true, then obviously yes that would be the result. Which was kinda part of my point.

Somtaaw wrote:Provide proof that according to Star Wars lore, hyper weapons were experimented with and discarded as "obsolete"


Problem is i no longer have the books. And looking online is definitely not good enough.
I THINK, the one i´m looking for is Arakyd Industries next generation of the Huntmaster missile. Maybe. It´s the only one i can find online that rings any bells at least.

Somtaaw wrote:Facts that prove you wrong:
1) Planetoids are larger than the Death Star, Death Star takes somewhere between an hour and several (unlisted) hours to orbit a single gas giant. Your average Empire or Imperium planetoid is going to sling around that same gas giant in a matter of minutes.


Eh, how does that prove me wrong in any way at all?

I already noted that "engines" was THE area where the Dahak is vastly superior.

Somtaaw wrote:The Achuultani called in from the Siege of Earth, and wanted to tell you that they do it.


*sigh*

Don´t you see the obvious flaw in your thinking?

You assume, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that shields used by SW-verse and Dahak-verse function the same way.

Somtaaw wrote:They also do not have any form of hyper-mines, such as the Imperium, nor most other forms of 'hyper' related weapons. Once in hyper, ships are more or less untouchable, and have exactly ZERO offensive capability. And short of forcing the ship by the above mentioned mass shadow ships, you are incapable of engaging (or detecting) ships that are in hyper, from normal space.


That is not completely correct.

Ships are not "untouchable" in hyper, just totally unrealistic to hit.
Detecting from hyper or in hyper is possible, not easy.

Somtaaw wrote:You have yet to actually provide any proof, so basically we're supposed to take your word on everything.


Well, online sources are crappy, so unless i find something better, why don´t look yourself.

Well i did find one thing mentioned at least:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Micromine
antimatter used to make warheads so small that they can "leak" through particle shields.

Somtaaw wrote:Do you just not understand what the gravitonic's actually do? or are you intentionally misunderstanding, just to cause trouble?


Do YOU understand gravitonic physics? What i said was perfectly true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_black_hole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_of ... lack_holes
"According to the LSAG, even if micro black holes were produced by the LHC and were stable, they would be unable to accrete matter in a manner dangerous for the Earth. They would also have been produced by cosmic rays and have stopped in neutron stars and white dwarfs, and the stability of these astronomical bodies means that they cannot be dangerous"

Then you may as well go on and read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

If after you read those you haven´t realised why i replied as i did, well go read them again, because you apparently missed a few very blatantly obvious facts.

I understand extremely well what gravitonic weaponry is about, as it effectively concerns the same area of space manipulation as that which i have gone over when working out how to use gravity for FTL.

Somtaaw wrote:Except for the totally minor point, that you ignore at all that Imperial fighters in Dahak are shielded, and have to rely on their shields for max-speed runs. You know, the kind of run they all started doing when Anu started screaming for them to RTB.... and those hyper missiles blew them away despite being shielded. Because they were CAPITAL hyper missiles, not just the hyper missiles coming from 80 megaton parasite cruisers, or the piddly little missiles their own fighters can launch.


Why would i ignore something that does not exist?
You keep assuming that just because both universes calls it "shields", that it is the exact same thing, it is NOT.

Somtaaw wrote:Which is totally why they have to destroy asteroids in ESB, or why Vader had to clear the belt simply so he could receive transmissions from their holonet right?


Where did you get that from?

Vader´s ship LEFT the asteroid field to get a CLEAR transmission. Can´t go chat with a tetchy emperor with static interfering.

And star destroyers are "small" enough that if they get hit by enough big, high kinetic energy rocks, it will wear down the shields, and they´re also "small" enough that their shields can "leak", the bigger and more energetic the "projectile" the more likely.

The DS however is big enough that with shields fully functional, you could crash and SSD into it at full speed and it still wouldn´t leak through, even if shields would deplete a bit.

Somtaaw wrote:Meanwhile, planetoids would have just slammed right through the asteroids, because their shields actually work.


Again a problem with movie vs how the tech is stated to work.

Somtaaw wrote:Which is why, during the many attacks on Coruscant, both in the Clone Wars (Grievous grabbing Palpatine), and the shields went up over him... he couldn't hyper back out. In actuality, planetary shields are pretty much totally impregnable. A good example, is on Hoth. Vader has a whole fleet, and the Empire didn't mess around with small fleets.... but a single planetary shield protecting the Rebel base, and he had no choice but to send ground troops. Otherwise he could have sat in orbit, and just pounded on it with his few hundred ships and forced the Rebel shield generator to burn out.


Well finally...

That´s the point, that the shield of the DS effectively is like a planetary shield.
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Tenshinai   » Sun Jan 24, 2016 6:00 pm

Tenshinai
Admiral

Posts: 2893
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:34 pm
Location: Sweden

munroburton wrote:
As for the topic, I've probably commented before but no way the Death Star turns faster than Dahak can hop around. Its main weapon is effectively an one-shot, which doesn't help it any. Granted, a complete hit might cause destruction, but here's the thing - if Dahak is zig zagging around, how much of the superlaser beam can actally hit Dahak before he moves out of the line of fire? What's most likely is Dahak's shields blow out and a chunk gets bitten out of his trailing edge. He's not going to sit fat and happy like Alderaan.

And then? He has options, lots and lots of them. Which is the killer - the DS was made to do exactly one thing, whilst planetoids are extremely versatile.


While i sort of agree, please DO remember that the DS has enough regular heavy weaponry to turn just about anything less than a planet into complete junk.
And that the so called "turbolasers" depend heavily on raw firepower rather than anything else.

However, if a Dahak gets hit by the superlaser, that´s game over. You need to start looking at how energy transfer works in various materials, look at what the supergun does to a planet, ANY size solid planet, and then think about what kind of energy delivery that requires.

And then how that kind of energy delivery would act against a constructed planetoid.

The effect is actually worse, and in part because normally, you WANT armour that can transfer energy taken as damage, against normalsized weapons, that is a GOOD thing, as that negates huge amounts of the damage that would otherwise happen.

With the supergun, it becomes the other way around, the armour actually helps propagate the energy even better, and make destruction even more energetic, as the overload is too extreme for energy transfer and dissipation to be able to handle it at all.
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Tenshinai   » Sun Jan 24, 2016 6:01 pm

Tenshinai
Admiral

Posts: 2893
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:34 pm
Location: Sweden

Loren Pechtel wrote:I don't think prediction is a meaningful option--the ships should move entirely randomly within a defined area, impossible to predict.


No. In warfare there is always the possibility to predict an opponent.
You simply cannot just flit around at complete random, because then you would never have a chance to know where to shoot at yourself even(unless of course the enemy was completely stationary).

Loren Pechtel wrote:All that counts is maneuverability--and Dahak has vastly more of that than SW ships. He will be much farther from the "predicted" location than a SW ship. (And most SW combat occurs at ranges short enough that such random evasion isn't relevant--thus they might not even have such capability.)


On combat range, that´s another problematic point, as it has been "movie-ised" to be visible and dramatic, not "realistic". Depending on what sources you look at, max ranges for common antiship weaponry varies greatly.
At it´s best stated ranges, the DS should have somewhat/slightly less range than Dahak´s shorterranged weaponry, while the supergun is pretty much in range if it hits(ie, it´s range is unlimited, but practical range is drastically less so).

But overall yes, as i´ve already noted, Dahak has a massive mobility advantage, and a clear size advantage as well, it´s just going to have one hell of a troublesome time punching through DS shields with anything.

Effectively, the most likely outcome is that Dahak wins or scores a "draw" after neither sides manages to damage the other, and Dahak has the option of withdrawing, while it is a bit unclear if the DS can do that.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Actually, it makes sense. Shields have costs. The shield they put on the original DS was porous for this reason. They didn't consider fighters a realistic threat and thus saved by not engineering their shields to stop them. (I'm not saying it was for budgetary reasons--more likely for capability reasons. They were more interested in shields that could stand up to pounding from the rebel cruisers than fighters that could only do superficial damage--except for that exhaust port.)


Yeah, that works in theory up until you look at how fighterlaunched missile weapons then would also have no trouble at all getting through, and it´s clearly stated elsewhere(and indirectly in the movie as well) that the DS is pretty much impervious to that kind of attack.

Loren Pechtel wrote:No--I do understand. You're thinking of an antimatter weapon as simply delivering a chunk of antimatter. I do agree a particle screen would render such an attack basically meaningless. Nobody would bother with an antimatter beam weapon against a SW ship.

We are talking about missiles, though--missiles that have missile bodies. The missiles that Dahak fires are tens of meters long and pack a hyperdrive generator. That's a lot of mass. The warheads are only a small fraction of this. (Look at the yields to see this.) When the containment is switched off the antimatter will react with the missile itself. The antimatter does not attack the target, it's simply a source of energy.


Nope, you still miss the point. Warheads work in a certain way, no way around that.
In regards to antimatter, the particle shields interfere with the very reaction that is meant to cause the explosion.

Hence why i stated that you would effectively get an antimatter version of a directed charge warhead, and it would automatically get redirected OUTwards, meaning that if you have an antimatter warhead exploding right on the shields, >99% of the energy is blasted outwards, while the shields will absorb the rest without much trouble. If you try to have them pierce the shields, the deflector shields will effectively crush the missile and either have them do the above explosion, or even negate the warhead completely.

So, best chance is actually to have antimatter warheads to explode just outside the shields, so that the blast effect is still pointed at the target, as then the shields will have to absorb the vast majority of the blast instead of just a miniscule minority. Of course, stand-off range reduces the total effect on the target from the warhead, and achieving "perfect range" is never easy.

Loren Pechtel wrote:You don't need to bring matter--you have the missile itself.


No, bad bad bad idea. If you do that, mmm, it´s like putting a keg of blackpowder in a modern ATGM and call it a great antitank weapon because of the huuuuge warhead. You might get a big bang from it, but it´s going to be utterly useless to destroy tanks with.

The antimatter is going to react with nearby matter, and the SHAPE of the resulting explosion will depend completely on where each and every matter and antimatter particle is when AM containment is dropped.

You want the shape to be such that as much as possible of the blast is direct at the target, otherwise you are going to end up dissipating at least 65-90% of the total energy AWAY from the target, just due to the warhead shaping.

There is absolutely NO WAY you will get an effectively shaped explosion from just having the AM react with their delivery vehicle.

Delivering the AM right into the target and using the target mass as reaction mass, that´s actually one of the optimal solutions, as that greatly reduces the size needed of the missiles(this is the trick the SW "micro mines" use to be made small enough to slip through shielding(together with having their own not normal shields doubling as containment)), but this wont work as any regular warhead large enough to be useful is going to go *splat* against the shields.

In theory, it might be possible to do some kind of two-stage warhead using tech like the SW micromines, but trying to actively deliver those through the shields is rather unlikely to work well.

Loren Pechtel wrote:And when it hits the DS 50% of the energy is going to be absorbed.


No, nowhere even remotely close to that much.
Even with a perfect hit from a wellshaped warhead are you likely to achieve 50% efficiency. And what you suggested would be a BADLY shaped one. Expect maybe 10-15% effect.

Loren Pechtel wrote:What I'm wondering is if a Fifth-Imperium drive does a kamikaze what's the energy release? Do they hit with relativistic energy or does the destruction of the drive drop them to low velocity?


That´s one of the wildcards. Dahak MAY be able to use parasite warships or drones as a suicide squad, letting them impact at VERY high speed.
They would at least deplete the shields, but beyond that? Open question.
I think the shields should stop them, but i´m much less inclined to say whether, or if, how much damage can be forced to leak through.
Top
Re: Dahak vs Death Star
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Mon Jan 25, 2016 4:08 pm

Loren Pechtel
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1324
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:24 pm

Tenshinai wrote:
Loren Pechtel wrote:I don't think prediction is a meaningful option--the ships should move entirely randomly within a defined area, impossible to predict.


No. In warfare there is always the possibility to predict an opponent.
You simply cannot just flit around at complete random, because then you would never have a chance to know where to shoot at yourself even(unless of course the enemy was completely stationary).


Both sides flit around. We see that in the Honorverse--unless you're shooting at a moron or a fixed target there's no point in a ballistic attack.

On combat range, that´s another problematic point, as it has been "movie-ised" to be visible and dramatic, not "realistic". Depending on what sources you look at, max ranges for common antiship weaponry varies greatly.
At it´s best stated ranges, the DS should have somewhat/slightly less range than Dahak´s shorterranged weaponry, while the supergun is pretty much in range if it hits(ie, it´s range is unlimited, but practical range is drastically less so).


Maybe the books portray a different universe. I'm going on the movies.

Yeah, that works in theory up until you look at how fighterlaunched missile weapons then would also have no trouble at all getting through, and it´s clearly stated elsewhere(and indirectly in the movie as well) that the DS is pretty much impervious to that kind of attack.


You're assuming they have fighter-launched missiles that can carry a big enough bang. The fact remains the shield is porous.

Furthermore, I'm looking at A New Hope as I write this--and we see that while the surface of the ship is apparently undamaged by hits weapons on it are another matter--they're most definitely vulnerable. Either that's just because they didn't want to worry about showing damage or it means there's a shield that the turrets must be outside of. In either case it means the DS's weapons are vulnerable. Dahak can mission-kill the DS even if he can't get to the core.

Hence why i stated that you would effectively get an antimatter version of a directed charge warhead, and it would automatically get redirected OUTwards, meaning that if you have an antimatter warhead exploding right on the shields, >99% of the energy is blasted outwards, while the shields will absorb the rest without much trouble. If you try to have them pierce the shields, the deflector shields will effectively crush the missile and either have them do the above explosion, or even negate the warhead completely.


And why should we think a shaped antimatter charge is even possible?

That´s one of the wildcards. Dahak MAY be able to use parasite warships or drones as a suicide squad, letting them impact at VERY high speed.
They would at least deplete the shields, but beyond that? Open question.
I think the shields should stop them, but i´m much less inclined to say whether, or if, how much damage can be forced to leak through.


If it works at all it should kill the DS. His parasites can operate at speeds that carry as much kinetic energy as antimatter and that most certainly is directed inward.
Top

Return to Dahak