Why is Star Wars military tech so poor?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Up until the SD series, I doubt anyone in Star Wars actually used anything but what we are calling LTL's and MTL's, prior to the Clone Wars (assuming my post that started this thread is anything close to correct) those would of likely been considered a ship's main guns. The heavies were likely only there for overkill, you hit another (non-ISD) ship once or twice and it's done.

The Trade Federation ships already had those enormous quad guns, and they were both used against fighters and against the Naboo yatch. Yet, based on their size, anyone would say they're heavy heavy turbolasers.
I don't think there is such a difference of firepower is so vast as to warrant gaps of many orders of magnitudes.
I think this is actually just made up. When you look at the Malevolence, her multiple and already massive cannons were used to shoot at Y-wings and were capable of putting up a wall of flak.

The EU entertains the idea that there's a massive difference on firepower and purpose, but it's not so obvious at all when you look at artillery sizes and the way they're used.

[Dabat]

Up until the SD series, I doubt anyone in Star Wars actually used anything but what we are calling LTL's and MTL's, prior to the Clone Wars (assuming my post that started this thread is anything close to correct) those would of likely been considered a ship's main guns. The heavies were likely only there for overkill, you hit another (non-ISD) ship once or twice and it's done.

The Trade Federation ships already had those enormous quad guns, and they were both used against fighters and against the Naboo yatch. Yet, based on their size, anyone would say they're heavy heavy turbolasers.
I don't think there is such a difference of firepower is so vast as to warrant gaps of many orders of magnitudes.
I think this is actually just made up. When you look at the Malevolence, her multiple and already massive cannons were used to shoot at Y-wings and were capable of putting up a wall of flak.

The EU entertains the idea that there's a massive difference on firepower and purpose, but it's not so obvious at all when you look at artillery sizes and the way they're used.

Assuming the blasters aren't just lasers (and making a lot of other assumptions like power distrobution and focusing arrays that for the sake of argument we are going to assume are the same.) then the difference of power should be (bore size of larger^3)/(bore size of smaller^3), assuming they act more like lasers then the power difference would be (bore size of larger^2)/(bore size of smaller^2).And while i agree with you that HTL's aren't 'Mill10nZ oF giGgat0nzes!!!11!', I could easily see the most powerful being three orders of magnitude more powerful then the smallest ship mounted guns (an example would be like the Yamato's 18 inch guns vs the rapid fire 40mm on the US's new coast guard cutters).

[Mr. Oragahn]

Up until the SD series, I doubt anyone in Star Wars actually used anything but what we are calling LTL's and MTL's, prior to the Clone Wars (assuming my post that started this thread is anything close to correct) those would of likely been considered a ship's main guns. The heavies were likely only there for overkill, you hit another (non-ISD) ship once or twice and it's done.

The Trade Federation ships already had those enormous quad guns, and they were both used against fighters and against the Naboo yatch. Yet, based on their size, anyone would say they're heavy heavy turbolasers.
I don't think there is such a difference of firepower is so vast as to warrant gaps of many orders of magnitudes.
I think this is actually just made up. When you look at the Malevolence, her multiple and already massive cannons were used to shoot at Y-wings and were capable of putting up a wall of flak.

The EU entertains the idea that there's a massive difference on firepower and purpose, but it's not so obvious at all when you look at artillery sizes and the way they're used.

Assuming the blasters aren't just lasers (and making a lot of other assumptions like power distrobution and focusing arrays that for the sake of argument we are going to assume are the same.) then the difference of power should be (bore size of larger^3)/(bore size of smaller^3), assuming they act more like lasers then the power difference would be (bore size of larger^2)/(bore size of smaller^2).And while i agree with you that HTL's aren't 'Mill10nZ oF giGgat0nzes!!!11!', I could easily see the most powerful being three orders of magnitude more powerful then the smallest ship mounted guns (an example would be like the Yamato's 18 inch guns vs the rapid fire 40mm on the US's new coast guard cutters).

The sea battleship analogies come to halt once we consider that there are turbolasers, and nothing else.
They're versatile in the range of targets they can engage, and thus it's hard to say that because a gun is bigger, it's necessarily that much more powerful.

Now obviously some turrets are too massive and slow to swivel to act as good antifighter batteries, but big guns were used nonetheless, so the other factor is probably how far down the biggest batteries of a ship can be dialed.
For example, the batteries on a TF ship in TPM were capable of hitting fighters and small cruisers only at long ranges, by spitting a barrage of fire with low powered shots, at high rates of fire, if you count all pieces firing together (it makes a considerable concentration of bolts).
It doesn't mean that there was a trade off, since we've seen Venators main guns capable of firing at max power intensively. Now, you could say that there is such a trade off, since those batteries were never used against starfighters.

[Dabat]

The Trade Federation ships already had those enormous quad guns, and they were both used against fighters and against the Naboo yatch. Yet, based on their size, anyone would say they're heavy heavy turbolasers.
I don't think there is such a difference of firepower is so vast as to warrant gaps of many orders of magnitudes.
I think this is actually just made up. When you look at the Malevolence, her multiple and already massive cannons were used to shoot at Y-wings and were capable of putting up a wall of flak.

The EU entertains the idea that there's a massive difference on firepower and purpose, but it's not so obvious at all when you look at artillery sizes and the way they're used.

Assuming the blasters aren't just lasers (and making a lot of other assumptions like power distrobution and focusing arrays that for the sake of argument we are going to assume are the same.) then the difference of power should be (bore size of larger^3)/(bore size of smaller^3), assuming they act more like lasers then the power difference would be (bore size of larger^2)/(bore size of smaller^2).And while i agree with you that HTL's aren't 'Mill10nZ oF giGgat0nzes!!!11!', I could easily see the most powerful being three orders of magnitude more powerful then the smallest ship mounted guns (an example would be like the Yamato's 18 inch guns vs the rapid fire 40mm on the US's new coast guard cutters).

The sea battleship analogies come to halt once we consider that there are turbolasers, and nothing else.
They're versatile in the range of targets they can engage, and thus it's hard to say that because a gun is bigger, it's necessarily that much more powerful.

Now obviously some turrets are too massive and slow to swivel to act as good antifighter batteries, but big guns were used nonetheless, so the other factor is probably how far down the biggest batteries of a ship can be dialed.
For example, the batteries on a TF ship in TPM were capable of hitting fighters and small cruisers only at long ranges, by spitting a barrage of fire with low powered shots, at high rates of fire, if you count all pieces firing together (it makes a considerable concentration of bolts).
It doesn't mean that there was a trade off, since we've seen Venators main guns capable of firing at max power intensively. Now, you could say that there is such a trade off, since those batteries were never used against starfighters.

I never said the power couldn't be scaled down on any model, I was meaning the max power that could be put out of the gun and used the navel guns as a real world analogy. And just because a turret looks like another, and even with the same amount of power flowing through them, doesn't mean that the guns have the same function, or even the same capabilities for that matter.

hough I have to ask, what do you mean by 'these are turbolasers and nothing else'. Assuming the same power assemblages and focusing arrays then their max power is still limited by bore size (bolt width, whatever you want to call it). A pure laser works slightly diffrently, but not so much that it does not work with the battleship gun analogy.

[Mike DiCenso]

The whole battleship in space concept just is silly when you think about it. I mean the ISD is not a bad basic concept at first glance, the wedge shape, engine placement, along with the hanger bay placement are all reasonable enough. But the large terraced superstructure with a conning tower (with the bridge in it no less), and the big heavy guns flanking on the dorsal hull ala a sea going battleship is just silly. Were there guns of similar caliber mirrored on the ship's underside, I could maybe except it, and no conning tower, it would actually be a more reasonable design.

With other sci-fi designs, like the nBSG Galactica, or the classic Constitution class Enterprise, they have adequate weapons coverage in most arcs around the vessel. However, out of all the designs, only the nBSG battlestars have a bridge buried deep inside the hull.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

With other sci-fi designs, like the nBSG Galactica, or the classic Constitution class Enterprise, they have adequate weapons coverage in most arcs around the vessel. However, out of all the designs, only the nBSG battlestars have a bridge buried deep inside the hull.
-Mike

So do Wraith ships.

[Mike DiCenso]

The Wraith ships aren't regularly featured spaceships in the Stargate franchise, are they?
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

The Wraith ships aren't regularly featured spaceships in the Stargate franchise, are they?
-Mike

They have been the most featured ships in Stargate Atlantis after the Tau'ri (Earth) ships. Asuran cruisers seem to have a buried bridge as well, contrary to Aurora-class ships and their Asuran copycats, but have been seen even less than Traverler's cruisers, another ship type in SGA to have the bridge located somewhere inside.

Only Wraith ships have no shields.

[Mith]

Well, the point of Star Wars that I can understand having poor warmachines comes from a mixture of things.

The first is that the Old Republic when it first entered the war had little to no understanding of war. If I recall, they'd had been at peace for what, a thousand years? Before you go any further, just think about that gap. Most people seem to forget about that one simple thing. If we were to say that Earth was the same, that would mean that there was no war since 1009. Assuming that combat methods didn't stop until a hundred years later, that would push it to about 1109. To give you an idea of the combat ideas that would be held; we'd still be using castles and keeps. In a way, this is what has happened to Star Wars, whose technology is already stagnant to begin with, even during times of conflict.

I think that their technology and designes also come from a sense of tradition. Look at the AT series. The Clone Wars variant is like a beetle in its designs, while the Imperial version is much larger and more elphant in style. However, both of these designs are in fact, remarkably similar; they follow the idea of a legged moving machine with heavy armor and heavy firepower. The only difference is intent. The former was a true dedicated (if flawed) war machine that was designed for actual combat. The later, while clearly more durable, is designed to intimidate enemies and this is simply seen from its massive design flaws. Or if you desire, take the Venator and the Class I ISD. The later's designs fix only a few flaws in the former one and adds more guns/barrels.

But I've gone over all of this before in my own thread. Anyhow, to point out another thing, the size of the turret may not in fact, just equel to simple terms of greater firepower. The Clone Wars has shown us this. It may also be due to other simpler reasons. Larger turrets probably have the advantage of longer ranges or greater rates of refire. It doesn't have to purely come down to the idea of bigger = higher firepower, although I would be one to generally accept that it does.

However, thus far, I have yet to seen any major difference between the weapons. The Death Star's weapons were said to be aimed at taking down massive warships...yet they were able to take out fighters. People claimed that these yields were dialed down, but the same thing happens in Malevolence, and Cloak of Shadow where we see heavy turrets targeting and trying to destroy small manuverable targets.

[Mike DiCenso]

In a way, this is what has happened to Star Wars, whose technology is already stagnant to begin with, even during times of conflict.

Well, in fairness, the technology development was not totally static. If we can believe the information given in the EU Death Star novel, the hypermatter reactor is a fairly new power generation technology, but does not scale down for ships the size of star destroyers.

However, thus far, I have yet to seen any major difference between the weapons. The Death Star's weapons were said to be aimed at taking down massive warships...yet they were able to take out fighters. People claimed that these yields were dialed down, but the same thing happens in Malevolence, and Cloak of Shadow where we see heavy turrets targeting and trying to destroy small manuverable targets.

There are differences of note. The smaller, more agile guns, like the small AA crewed TL batteries seen on the Death Star, or the small gun the ISD Devastator was using to pick off the Tantive escape pods with are very different, at least from a size and configuration standpoint than the larger 4 and 8-barrel turrets, such as those seen lined up along either side of the dorsal superstructure.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

There are differences of note. The smaller, more agile guns, like the small AA crewed TL batteries seen on the Death Star, or the small gun the ISD Devastator was using to pick off the Tantive escape pods with are very different, at least from a size and configuration standpoint than the larger 4 and 8-barrel turrets, such as those seen lined up along either side of the dorsal superstructure.

Although we do see those big 2 guns turrets firing at the fighters as well...

[Mike DiCenso]

When do we see that? In RoTJ we only see the heavy TLs firing once, and that is in an exchange between a Mon Calmari cruiser and an ISD, with the ISD going boom.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

I'm talking about the Twin turrets on the Death Star in ANH...

[Airlocke_Jedi_Knight]

Oooooooh, burn!

[Mike DiCenso]

I'm talking about the Twin turrets on the Death Star in ANH...

Okay, I ment in terms of the capital ships that we've been discussing, such as the Ventators, ISDs and so on, which do have a variety of gun turrets of their own. With the particular Death Star example you cite, I think that's more of the gunnery crews just firing cause they had nothing better to do, and they got really lucky on that one occasion with Porkins' X-wing malfunction.
-Mike