Why is Star Wars military tech so poor?

[Mith]

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

The problem is that they should have been vaporized if they were several orders stronger than the ones that blasted them apart.=)

[Mr. Oragahn]

The point, as I was making to Leo/Vympel at SBC recently, is that those heavy turrets, when they shoot down fighters, be they Y-wings, X-wings or N-1s, don't flash vapourize them. They even fail to destroy them entirely in some case, despite a clear direct hit.
This proves beyond argument that these turrets can be dialed down that low. That's not bullshit evidence and indirect ramblings, it's straight in your face.

If that wasn't enough, we see Venators fire "unseen" cannons at enemy capital ships, essentially the Munificent-class frigates, both in ROTS and TCWS.
This being mirrored by the ISD I and II using unseen turrets to shoot at both the Tantive IV and the Millenium Falcon.

This alone, no matter what the EU may say, clearly tells us that shooting down asteroids could easily be done with cannons deemed good enough to take down the shields of ships as small as Blockade Runners, or eventually bigger ones, and yet dial them down enough not to overly vapourize ships like fighters or the Millenium Falcon.

Thus ends the idea that the asteroids in TESB were necessarily shot down by point defense laser cannons.
(And even if it was the case, it wouldn't prove that it required kilotons of energy to shoot down fighters).

[ILikeDeathNote]

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

...you're serious?

Gunnery crews never "fire because they have nothing better to do," they fire because they're trying to ensure that their superweapon doesn't get blasted like the way it did. The larger turbolaser turrets visible during the ANH trench scene may be analogous to some of the dual-purpose guns real-life navies use - they may not be terribly effective at shooting down aircraft, but they obviously don't totally suck at it.

[Praeothmin]

they may not be terribly effective at shooting down aircraft, but they obviously don't totally suck at it.

Except in SW, they do because their crews suck at it... :)

[Jedi Master Spock]

Gunnery crews never "fire because they have nothing better to do," they fire because they're trying to ensure that their superweapon doesn't get blasted like the way it did. The larger turbolaser turrets visible during the ANH trench scene may be analogous to some of the dual-purpose guns real-life navies use - they may not be terribly effective at shooting down aircraft, but they obviously don't totally suck at it.

Some of those dual-purpose guns IRL were quite good at anti-aircraft duties; others were too inaccurate, or too slow, to be effective against faster and more maneuverable aircraft. I think in most cases these problems were not realized until the designs were tested in battle.

[Mike DiCenso]

...you're serious?

Only kind of.

Gunnery crews never "fire because they have nothing better to do," they fire because they're trying to ensure that their superweapon doesn't get blasted like the way it did. The larger turbolaser turrets visible during the ANH trench scene may be analogous to some of the dual-purpose guns real-life navies use - they may not be terribly effective at shooting down aircraft, but they obviously don't totally suck at it.

Actually, the gunnery crews had no clue why the Rebels were attacking at all. It was only later on when Bast reports to Tarkin about the Death Star's weakness. If the Superlaser were really vunerable, then all the attacks would have been concentrated there. So why shoot? Probably just to do something, anything and hope for the best. The smaller AA batteries did better than the big, ponderous ones, but still over all were pretty pathetic. The only known shoot down of a Rebel starfighter is Porkins' malfunctioning X-wing.
-Mike